Pints With Aquinas - A Critique of Feminism w/ Dr Abigail Favale

Episode Date: May 12, 2022

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Hey, welcome to pints with Aquinas. Thank you so much for listening. If you'd like pints with Aquinas and want to support us, you can do that in one of two ways by supporting us on locals or Patreon. If you go to pints with Aquinas.com slash give it'll let you know there what you get in return. Thanks. We love I have this theory have lots of theories. Some of them are good. Some of them are worthless. And that is that introductions to podcasts like like hey today I will be speaking with Abigail Favalle to podcasts what intros to movies were back in the 90s. Remember you'd sit there for like five minutes like what the hell is happening? Why am I it's been five minutes and there's names still on the screen whereas today it doesn't do that. Yeah.

Same thing I think. Okay. So don't introduce. No, I'm not going to introduce you. Cheers, sloucher. Cheers. Cheers. This is so precious. Adorable. It's adorbs. It is funny because no man has ever said that.

And I. But it's so cute. I would feel uncomfortable if Neil did that. Oh my gosh, it's so beautiful. I wouldn't judge you. Much. It's very, I'm sorry. It's very beautiful.

It is very cute, though. Yeah. And these were made by someone I said in a Steubenville. And so I'm actually going to set up a time to go and do some pottery there with my daughter, not with me. I'm not into that kind of crap. Don't you worry about me making cute little, little cups anyway. But it's right beside your massive pints with a coin as

best true so you're a manly you tattoos since I last saw you yes Joan of Arc yes and this is Joan st. Joan of Arc on my arm it's from January feminist hairdo I love her hairdo would you mind angling a little more so we can go angling show the camera oh I'm? To show the camera? Oh, I'm sorry. Look at that, that's lovely. I'm trying to forget that there's a camera right now. Is that the first one you got?

Cause I see you got a Jerusalem cross. Yes, I got a Jerusalem cross in Jerusalem at that place, that Razook tattooist in the old city. Okay, it's amazing. So if you ever go there, you need it. There are these tattoo artists in the old city in Jerusalem who have been, they're Coptic Christians I believe, and they've been tattooing Christian pilgrims for like 700 years. And they have these old wooden stamps because how you used to tattoo people is you would

have a wooden stamp that would make the pattern on your hand and then you would needle that in. So this is from one of those super old stamps. Wow, that is the place to get a tattoo. Is that the first one you got? No, I actually have a St. Brigid's cross on my arm from Ireland. That was my first tattoo. Then I got this one. It says Fiat Miki. What does that mean? That all... That will be done? Who said that? Mary Fiat?

Good job. Yeah. Fiat Miki. Yeah, so it's the first part of Mary's response to the angel, because I, oh my gosh. Told you I'm not a trad, I just wanted to be one. Matt, you got your tattoo behind the CVS, right? Yes, that's right. This was from a guy called Duncan. He lived in a trash can, not a trash can, a dumpster. And anyway, I bought him some rollers and he did that.

That's nice. I like it. Yeah. I actually got that on 25th of March back. I did my concert. The incarnation after I did the preparation of consecration. I was in Ireland. I think the only reason I tell people I regret getting it is just because the only thing

cooler than getting a tattoo is regretting you got a tattoo. No one's that cool. Everyone always makes excuses for why their tattoo means a lot to them. But I think like, no, this is crap. I wish it wasn't there. That's, that's cutting edge. You're so cool, Matt. I'm on the cusp of something really great. You're really cool. But no, tell me about this wooden stamp thing. Like, how different was it from a regular tattoo? Not that different. I mean, but what's, so my husband actually got one of St. Michael on his chest and that one was cool because the,

the stamps that actually have this one's pretty, you know, there's nothing like super crazy about it. I like that a lot. I love how simple that is. The stamps there, the art is very unique. So, I mean, I can show you a picture of it, but anyway, it's really cool. Razook R-A-Z-Z-O-U-K, I think is the tattooist.

Did that one kill on your arm? That's huge. No. My sister has a huge Mary tattoo right here. And it's seven stories. Oh, this one did. This one took six hours, maybe? Oh my gosh. And by the end, it's weird because it's not, it's not like super sharp acute pain,

but the length of having basically, your body kind of kicks into this like kind of high alert mode. Like I had this really intense somatic response and just kind of, and I felt sick the next day. You were to last that, like that response was gone for six hours, right? Probably. Yeah, like that was hard. But yeah, small tattoos are are no big deal.

They're easy. But I don't think I'll ever get another big one. I was like, that is beautiful. That was intense. Yeah. Have you got the bug? You just going to keep doing it now? I don't know. Honestly, after this one, I was like. I was like, I feel like that it was intense enough that I was like, I don't think I should do it again. No, would you? It's cool not to you should not do it.

I think not getting a tattoo is the new getting a tattoo. If I want to be like something small, I'm not sure. But that's how it starts. Getting the small one. Yeah, Bob Lesniewski I've had on my show, Righteous B. You ever heard of this fella? He made this table. Oh, my God. That's everywhere. These are new planks of wood that he beat up to don't they look old and cool? They do. Yeah. my gosh. He has tats everywhere. These are new planks of wood that he beat up too. Don't they look old and cool?

They do, yeah. Distressed. He has it everywhere. That's super cool. Yeah. Yes, well, I got this because for two reasons. So last June, a dear friend of mine and coworker died suddenly.

His name was Javier Gracia. And we worked together and he died in like this freak kind of surfing accident. I don't know, but it was, he was only 34. And just like, yeah, yeah. Even though, anyway, it's a crazy story, but and I spoke at his funeral. I gave a eulogy at his funeral

and I had the weirdest experience like that day. I mean, I'd just been kind of a wreck, like crying all the time. And I was really nervous about being able to even speak at all. Like, how am I gonna be able to talk? And during his funeral though, like I felt like it's, this like injection of strength from the Holy Spirit like I've never experienced.

It was like I have never felt the truth and power of the resurrection that intensely. I was just like pumped. Like I just felt like I was at his funeral and he was a Christian, he was an Anglican, very devout. And so the liturgy was all about the resurrection and I was just like, this is a good death. And so that strength, I knew at the time when I was experiencing it, I was like, this is a gift. And this is a kind of conviction

I might never actually feel in this way again. So I need to hold onto the memory of it, right? And so I still remember the memory of it really strongly. And I was chatting with a former student of mine, actually, who became Catholic, Richard. I'm gonna do a shout out to Richard. Actually, he listens to you. Richard is so precious. He sounds great.

Yeah. And anyway, so Richard told me, we were, I think we were like having a beer after he had flown down for Dr. Garcia's funeral. And he was like, he kind of sits like this, like he's really intense and he's like, Dr. Favali, he's like, he kind of sits like this, like he's really intense and he's like, Dr. Favoli, he's like, you need to stay strong. And he's like, you need to get a picture of Joan of Arc,

print it out and just put it in your office and stare at it every day. And I was like, okay. And so I did. And it was this image which is taken from like a 1920, and like it's an actual art image. And so I did. And then the longer I looked at it, I was like, that, I guess the expression she has,

it's this like, just this solid confidence, but also peace. You know, she's not like, she's not confrontational, but she is just like, she is just grounded and fearless. And then that fall in October, so this would have been last fall, I had my first brush with cancel culture, which I'm happy to tell you about that story. Because I actually never talked about it publicly.

I would love to hear about it. Anyway, that was such a harrowing experience that afterward, but I think I had been like, through that experience, I felt like I began to to really rely on Jones intercession And so then I decided to just get thing tattooed on me. Yeah now for those who unaware you were a Protestant Correct. What kind of Protestant had become Catholic give us the give us the somewhat shorter version because we've done a whole other podcast Sure, you can check out. Yeah, it was called the mad fragile Such a bad name for a show.

So I'm really glad we went back with points to the coin. It's cool. Your name has a nice kind of- Matt Frad? Double dental stop. Alliteration. Matt Frad. And has good-

Waved it in the Christophernics show. Right? It has good- That was a joke. Assonance. You know what assonance means? What is it? Assonance.

It's like vowel rhyme. Sounds like an insult. I know. You have really good assonance in your name. it? Assonance, it's like vowel rhyme. Sounds like an insult, assonance. I know, you have really good assonance in your name. Thanks, man. Matt Fradd, because of the A sounds, the double A sounds. What's another example of assonance? Like anything, any word that rhymes in a like cool school, you know, I mean, that actually rhymes,

it's got consonants and assonance, but like Matt Fradd, it's the a-a, that's it, that's assonance. Anyway, so anyway, point is, you were on the show and we went over your beautiful story. Yeah, so I was raised an evangelical Protestant, pretty middle of the road evangelical, focused on the family, James Dobson, kind of upbringing.

And my parents were adult converts, but by the time they had us, so I grew up in this Christian home, you know, got saved when I was three. And we also lived in the Western United States pretty much on the Mormon belt. So I kind of grew up in like an evangelical bubble inside a Mormon bubble.

And then I went to college at a Christian college, George Fox, where I currently still work at least for a couple more, George Fox, where I currently still work at least for a couple more, a couple months, but I'm moving, I'm moving to have an exciting new job, but I don't know that I want to share what it is yet. But anyway, so I went to college at George Fox and that's where I first encountered feminism, because I know we're going to talk about this. first encountered feminism, because I know we're going to talk about this. And then I got super into it. And it kind of super, super into feminism. And then to the point where I like it kind of became my religion. And by the time I graduated and went on to graduate school in gender theory and feminist studies. I had really kind of adopted,

not even necessarily consciously, but almost by osmosis, just because that's all I was reading and studying, I kind of adopted this pretty postmodern feminist worldview. And then that wasn't a very fulfilling or life-giving worldview ultimately. And then toward the end of my 20s, I became a mother for the first time. That rocked some of my feminist beliefs.

And I also was having a spiritual crisis. And then I really suddenly became Catholic at the age of 29 or 30, yeah. And did your husband become Catholic with you around the same time? Nope. No. No, no, no. My husband also grew up in, I would say he comes

from a little more fundamentalist Protestant upbringing than I did. And he then parted ways of Christianity in graduate school, not in graduate school when he was an undergrad. And then, so he's been on this like, you know, kind of slow and gradual journey back to faith. kind of slow and gradual journey back to faith. And he joined the church in 2020, actually, during COVID, when like no one was around,

which is a very Michael thing to do. No one's at mass, okay, this is the moment. And now he's just trying to figure out what that is. I think he's still trying to figure out like, like, is there room for me in the Catholic Church? So he's still working out what that means for him. Yeah. There's a lot of people I chat with who are converting and are afraid because their spouse

hasn't yet converted. What was that like for you? It was tough. It was tough, I think, because, well, it was a huge transition because we had also just become parents. So before we had kids and when I was just a very nominal pseudo Christian and he was a, you know, just a very intellectually honest atheist, we had, you know, there was no, the fact that he was an atheist and a skeptic and I was sort of this like loosey goosey, like everything's a metaphor,

yay, kind of Christian. But there, because I didn't actually practice my faith, there wasn't any tension. It's so funny when we were going, actually when we were in this phase, I remember Michael read this book that was like, how to have a successful interfaith marriage or whatever. And basically the guy's thesis was, as long as the religious spouse isn't that serious about their faith it'll be fine. To Michael's credit he recognized like well that's BS you know I I don't want you know he doesn't want me to just phone it in so he he rolled with the punches really well so but yeah it was really hard it was I felt very alone.

Was he still an atheist when you converted? Yeah. Wow, so what was his, I gotta get him on the show. What was his transition? I know, right, right. Like how did he? You know, it's still happening in a way. Was Peterson his gateway drug?

No, no, no, no, no, actually. No, nothing like him? So, I don't know. That's okay. I feel like, I'm totally fine telling my story. That's I'm totally fine telling my story. I feel like a little shyer about telling Michael's, especially because he's an intensely private person. So, but I think in a nutshell, his journey has been much less about intellectual arguments as it has been about facing some of the, the, the kind of trauma in his upbringing that's been all wrapped up in Christianity. So that's

hard. So anyway, but yeah, so when I became Catholic, he was an atheist. And so I just kind of went to Mass by myself. We had one kid, he was an infant. So, you know, again, like because we could sort of like do our own thing, there wasn't a lot of direct conflict except when it, you know, but then there's the whole like NFP thing with her Catholics, right? So one of the first things that I did when I started RCIA was get off the pill because I'd just been on the pill for, I don't know, most of my adulthood. I think I was put on it at the age of 16.

And I was actually relieved. I think honestly it felt good to have permission not to be on contraception anymore, which is so funny, because I had this deep ambivalence about it, but then as this feminist, I felt like I couldn't voice that or recognize it in myself. But that, that, of course, is it creates a, it was disruptive to the rhythm of our relationship in a way.

And so that, you know, navigating that was tricky. And then once we had more kids and they begin to ask questions, you know, it's like, the more, yeah, I think parenting is what, I don't know, raised a lot of questions for us to wrestle with. But ultimately, it's really strengthened our relationship. It's crazy that you went from feminist Christian seeing everything as a metaphor to Catholicism very quickly, as you said.

It was crazy. Was there like one straw that had to fall that just did it or? So there was like this. So when I was in my. And if you could just face like this way, right into the mic. Sorry. So the spinny chairs. I know.

I need to get one. You know what I should do is I should have that one bolted into the ground. I feel like I just had. Yeah, I need to be like strapped to the table. It's sort of like what they do in police interrogations where they bolt down the chair of the person they're questioning. Anyway, I forgot. Oh yeah, why did I become Catholic? That's crazy. Like why not choose a more less patriarchal. Oh yeah, totally. Like I should have been an Episcopalian. Yeah. Right. Like that would have fit. There would have been like this neat list. That'd been great. But that's not what happened. So. The only way I can explain it is divine grace. You know, it was just one of those kind of weird Damascus sort of things. But basically, at that time in my life, I was having

I was having these crises, right? So I became a mother and that really just upended my worldview in a way, not that I immediately became an anti-feminist, but it rattled enough of my kind of dogmatic feminist beliefs that gave me some critical distance. So there was, I had my defenses down,

I guess you might say. And then also at the same time, I was really starting to feel just burnt out spiritually because I'd basically created this version of Christianity for myself that ticked all the boxes like, oh, you know, I don't like this part of it. So I don't really like the sin in hell. That's so negative.

Like, let's just, you know, and like, yeah, maybe Jesus was like born from a virgin and resurrected, right, that's such a beautiful story and metaphor to live within, blah, you know, but the kind of Christianity that I had created for myself was not anything that could provide real conversion. Because I pretty much stopped believing in a God who actually speaks to us, who breaks into our world.

I had kind of reduced God to this metaphor of explaining ultimate reality that is essentially unknowable. But then a God that doesn't speak to you, is not really one that's worthy of worship or you can't entrust yourself to that God, right? So I essentially cut myself off from divine grace unknowingly, right?

It's not like I made that conscious decision. But I was teaching in a Christian school and I'd been in this kind of like, you know, everything is metaphorical kind of Christianity. And that creates a lot of cognitive dissonance. And so I had this moment of like, I gotta figure this out. Either I need to be honest and quit my job because

I'm not actually, yeah. I'm not really a Christian. Like I just need to stop playing games. Or I need to get serious about this, right? So I was kind of like wavering on that. And I had this moment. So it was because it was tied to my employment, I had this moment where I was like,

well maybe if I worked for like a Catholic school, that would be fine, because they don't like really expect you to believe things, you know. So I should apply to like, you know, I know, right. So I'd applied to a couple of jobs at a Catholic universities. But then I had this moment at my desk where apply to like, you know, I know, right? So I'd applied to a couple of jobs at Catholic universities.

But then I had this moment at my desk where I was like, look, I can't just uproot my family because I'm having an existential crisis. So I like email, right then I emailed the two positions I had put my name in the ring for and withdrew my application. And then I just sat there and then I had this like thought that came into my head like this, like from outside, you know, I don't know if you've ever had

these experiences, but I've had very clear experiences where suddenly I have a thought that I'm thinking, but it's not from me. And this was one of those slots. And it was, you don't have to be, you don't have to work at a Catholic university to be part of the Catholic church. And I thought that thought, I received that thought. And then right there, I just Googled the local parish, which I'd never attended, which was two blocks away from my house. And I called it up, and amazingly someone answered, right?

That's a miracle right then. And it was this like 70 year old nun named Sister Juanita. And I said something really cagey like, well, I think I might be possibly considering the option of maybe becoming Catholic or something. And she's like, come to the church. So I did, like I went to the church that day and she met with me and she was like,

so why do you wanna become Catholic? And I had expected myself again to be much more like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I have not agreed to become anything, just checking it out. But instead I just started talking like the Eucharist and there was all this like kind of pent up longing that I think I had been ignoring or kind of suppressing for many years

because of my dogmatic feminism. Because as an undergraduate, I had started worshiping at an Anglican church and felt this real kind of attraction to Catholicism, but because of the male priesthood, I was like, no, no, that's a deal breaker for me. So I think once my dogmatic feminism was rattled enough that, you know, it's kind of like armor, right?

I had this like feminist armor on, and then that had kind of softened, and then God was able to reach me, and so then I became Catholic not having resolved all of my feminist objections. So I was still, I mean, I had stopped using contraception, so I was on board with that. I was on board with abortion,

because honestly, even as a feminist, I think I had always felt a deep, I had never really been a true believer on the pro-abortion thing. But the thing that was the hardest for me, second hardest was the male priesthood. The hardest one though was actually gay marriage, because I was very progressive at the time,

very much a like mentor to LGBT students on campus. And so the marriage and sexuality thing, that was what I really wrestled with. But I became Catholic kind of like, eh, suspending my doubts a bit. And then for the first two years of becoming Catholic, that's when I was like, all right, I need to really understand why the church teaches

what she does. And I thought that I probably would not agree with it at that point, but I was like, you know, I at least owe her the courtesy of hearing her out, right? And so then I spent probably two years reading deeply and praying, like that was the different thing because I began to pray that God would mold my heart and I would begin to pray that I would mold my heart.

And I would begin to pray that I would see things as he sees them. Like, Domine Ud Fideum, like, oh Lord, let me see. That prayer of the blind man. Thank you for translating that. Yeah, thank you. Well, you know, you showed your cards earlier, the like, fake trad. I was just gonna nod sagely,

but I did appreciate the translation. Wow, that's beautiful. Did people around you, were they shocked? Oh, yes. What was that like? Yeah, to their credit, right? I mean, I went from being this like, you know, uber progressive, like, you know, rainbow flag waving, like, rah rah feminist, to like a Catholic, like really rapidly, you know.

Were there some people who didn't even know about the change until it had happened? Yeah, yeah. I think, so my family was fine because they were like, oh, okay, Catholics believe in Jesus, like that's great, you know, in fact. And my mom's actually now become Catholic. Praise God. So my Christian relatives were fine with it. Um, so some of my colleagues, it's interesting. I got the most pushback on the abortion thing. So, um,

like I remember actually a colleague who was Quaker, which is funny to me, right? Cause Quakers are all about nonviolence. And I remember her saying to me, um, so are you going to become like pro life now? You know, that was like the, it was, it was almost like, Oh are you gonna become like pro-life now? You know, that was like, it was almost like, oh, you can be Catholic, that's fine, but like as long as you're not pro-life, right? And then I had a Catholic colleague who said a similar thing where she,

I actually went to her when I was in this moment of kind of angst and I was like, I was like so many of my beliefs about everything are changing, this is so disorienting, and she's like, oh, like what? And I was like, well, like, you know, abortion, is so disorienting." And she's like, oh, like what? And I was like, well, like, you know, abortion, like being pro-life.

And she's like, like all the way pro-life, you know? She could tell she was like. Be pro-life, but not as spaz about it. Yeah, like not excessively pro-life. Just like, so yeah, I, I, yeah. And did you find yourself having to kind of like, maybe curb what you actually felt

about abortion in front of your colleagues because you didn't want them to? I mean, I wasn't like, you know, confrontational about it, but I don't. I think because I spent a decade. Speaking a lot of bullshit and writing a lot of bullshit, like I I will be honest about what I believe, you know, I'm not gonna hide what I believe, even if it ruffles some feathers or, you know, again, I'm not gonna be like aggressive or confrontational about it.

But so, no, I mean, I would be honest. And the gay marriage thing was also, like I remember being once in a faculty meeting where, because actually the university has a stance that supports the idea of traditional marriage. But a lot of people kind of descend from that, and I used to. And then when I just sort of said that,

well, I actually agree with that statement now, you know, I think people were like, what? One one one guy actually kind of like turned his back on me. It was weird. It was like this like I reject you, you know, kind of like a Klingon rejection like Star Trek style. Kudos to everyone who gets that reference, by way. You did. You kind of snorted. Did you get this? Yeah. Yes, Neil. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. Discommodation. It was like anyway.

Sorry. I'm like a Star Trek nerd also. Oh, that's awesome. I love it. I want to be a Star Trek nerd if that helps. That's my daughter. Avala is super into it. You might be earlier. Every time I've showed her, she really liked it. She's so terrific. You'll meet us and she might even show up during the interview. Okay, cool. But yeah.

Okay. And so this you were still at the Protestant College. Yeah. So they were okay with you having become Catholic. Yeah, they were fine. Actually, I've had I've had a really wonderful time. It's been much easier to be it's an evangelical Quaker school, which is a fun kind of niche, but it's been much easier to be there as a devout Catholic than an angsty post evangelical,

who I guess isn't even sure what she believes. So I've had, yeah. And I've had, you know, and most people rolled with the punches pretty well. They were like, okay, I guess this is, you know, Abby's always been a little bit out there with what she believes. And now it's just kind of Catholic-y stuff, so, okay.

Did you have students who would look to you to defend their feminist leanings? And how did those relationships change, as your opinions did? Yeah, actually the most, the most kind of aggressive hate mail I've ever received is from a former student who found out that I became Catholic. And this was actually years later. And you know, he wrote me this like really abusive, awful message on Facebook that was

like at four in the morning or something. You know, it was one of those things where I read it and was like, oh wow, he's in a really not in a good place in his life that you would like go out of your way to write someone such an abusive thing in the middle of the night. And prior to this, you had friendly relationships with this kid? Yeah. And then he just exploded. Yeah, I mean, I had talked to him a couple of years because he'd graduated yeah, he had been one of the LGBT students that I had kind of mentored and so it was the gay issue thing

It wasn't over feminism. It was Yeah, I think it's the abortion and gay marriage have been much more Like people who support those things are were much more Skeptical or even disapproving or even just like full on like rejecting once I became Catholic, yeah. But for the most part, it's been fine. Yeah, wow.

And yeah. What's wrong with feminism? Let me take a drink a Lot of things so it's it's funny because You know I write I write about feminism and gender from a Catholic perspective. That's that's kind of my my jam women's issues, etc and I get critiques from both That's kind of my jam, women's issues, et cetera. And I get critiques from both the right and the left

for different things. But what both of them agree on is that I'm a radical feminist, which is so funny, it cracks me up because the people who don't like me from the left. Think you're a radical feminist? Think I'm a radical feminist because I think women are female, right? Which is now, that's all it takes to make you a radical feminist.

And then people on the kind of far right think I'm a radical feminist just because sometimes I'll use the label feminist and I haven't become an outright anti-feminist. And, you know, I think it's OK for women to be educated and work outside the home. So it's funny that I'm called a radical feminist for things. I'm like actually a really boring person. I'm a mother of four. I don't really have any interesting hobbies.

I'm into Star Trek. I love Star Trek. I like to read and hang out with my husband. I was married at the age of 22. I'm a Catholic. It's just so funny that because of the beliefs I hold I think it's a sign of how polarized our culture has become in a way.

But all I have to say, even though my detractors call me a radical feminist, most of the time when I'm writing about feminism, I'm actually critiquing it. So if I am a feminist, I'm very much a dissident one or a problematic one or a heretical one. I like to call myself a heretical feminist because I'm a Catholic first. So anything, any way that I approach feminist issues is going to be from a Catholic worldview

rather than from, I would say, the implicit worldview of most versions of feminism. So there's lots that's wrong with feminism. So I'm trying to think where to begin. One tricky thing about talking about feminism is that there are so many different forms of feminism, and there are different historical kind of waves of feminism. So feminism tends to be a little bit,

oh, what's the word, like when you, what's the word when like an organism that kind of like latches onto another organism? Oh, like symbiotic? Symbiotic kind of, yeah, yeah. Parasitic? Parasitic, okay. So depending on which

whether you want to choose a more negative or positive light but I think feminism tends to be parasitic on other forms of philosophy right so you have you have liberal feminism that's going to very much take for granted the kind of liberal premises of what a human person is and what an ideal society is right or you have Marxist feminism that's going to very much take those of liberal premises of what a human person is and what an ideal society is, right? Or you have Marxist feminism that's going to very much take those because feminism has never had a lot of content to it. Why is it even a thing?

So maybe this is wonderful when I interview academics because you've thought and written about this forever. So I guess I'm trying to get like an umbrella like, you know, bird's eye view of it before we go into it. Like, why is it even a thing? Why is feminism a thing? Okay, so I'll just give you like a little historical tour. Yeah. So the term feminism first originated

at the end of the 19th century. And so the first wave of feminism, as it's usually called, especially when we're talking about America, was very much focused on earning the vote for women, and also addressing legal inequalities. For example, women not being able to inherit property, women not having any kind of custodial rights

over their children whatsoever, women not serving on juries and women not being able to vote, that sort of thing. And so there was not in first in first wave feminism generally a an attempt to like overthrow the system. It was like, no, we like this system. We like this liberal system that America has. We just want to be active participants in it.

We want the legal protections that men have extended to women. And first wave feminism actually grew out of the temperance movement in America, the attempt to ban alcohol. And that's the first issue that women organized politically around because there was such ramp and alcoholism at that

time and it was just horrible. And so of course like that, then that means there's domestic abuse and, and, and that was actually super like Christian Protestant, right? Like those, so those were kind of the first wave feminists. So they weren't by and large, they were not, they were not pro-abortion. They were not pro birth control. They, they thought the best way to regulate births was male chastity,

men being able to regulate themselves better. So that was first wave feminism. And then it pretty much just like, disbanded as soon as women got the vote in 1920. And that's why they talk about different waves because there was really a long period between the early 20th century and then the mid 20th century

when you got second wave feminism and the women's liberation movement. What yes or what defined that how come second wave feminism was how do you distinguish that from first wave? Okay so second wave feminism was much was much more focused on it became much more embroiled in the abortion rights movement right so actually I think one of I think one of the most brilliant things and diabolical things that the abortion, the pro-abortion, like narrow national abortion rights league people, which was predominantly like all male-led

before second wave feminism. So their kind of brilliant diabolical strategy was to win over the feminists, which they did in the second wave feminism. And so second wave feminism was much more influenced by, I would say, more kind of Marxist socialist kind of philosophies that was like, let's actually disrupt the liberal order.

This isn't good. And then also that's when feminism became really aligned with the pro-abortion movement and then contraception and abortion basically became like the most important things for second wave feminists. I mean, it makes sense according to their ideology, because if you wish to have the same opportunities as men, then you're going to have to do something about reproducing. And that, and if you look at like social, like, like Marxism, for example, um, let's

see, like for example, in Simone de Beauvoir's book, The Second Sex, her like solution to sexism is basically a Marxist revolution where you have child, the burden of childcare and rearing is basically handed off to the state. God have mercy. And men and women become these like interchangeable worker brothers. Yeah, I mean it's funny like the second, yeah. That is what it looks like.

Right, and so that's, if you think about that kind of influencing how feminism developed in that second wave, it makes sense that basically the solution to women's oppression, like women, femaleness was basically scapegoated for women's oppression. So in order for women to be truly liberated, they have to essentially be free from fame, femaleness. That means free from the possibility of pregnancy. And then should a pregnancy occur, women need to be able to walk away from it just like a man can.

Right. How horrible to say that we're feminists, which means we have to do away with what's feminine. Yeah. Well, that's one of the things. That's one of the critiques I make about feminism is that there's actually this implicit male or this implicit masculine bias within it because the ideal to which women are held is implicitly male, right?

It's implicitly about, I think also part of the problem is that the subject or the view of the person in liberalism is the autonomous subject that's not interdependent, this kind of man is an island sort of idea. And I think the phenomenon of pregnancy really is incompatible with that. And you see that all the time just in the rhetoric

and the abortion debates, right? Because the rhetoric is all about focusing on like the autonomy of women or like my body, my choice. Well, the difficulty, the tricky part of pregnancy is that there's two bodies and there's in one body, right? So Our our kind of autonomous rights based Language does not actually accommodate the reality of pregnancy very well. Um Anyway, so yes, I I think that that's one of the central ironies about of feminism is that it actually has

It um has adopted an ideology that I think actually came from Margaret Sanger in her in her kind of pro-abort pro- actually she wasn't pro-abortion interestingly but her pro-birth control policies because like so when Margaret Sanger she actually didn't like first wave feminism because she thought they didn't take it far enough. And when she first started her work in the early 20th century, she was very eugenicist and very pro birth control. And when she first started her work, her eugenicist views were very socially accepted, but her birth control views were very like against what society thought. And by the time she kind of finished that work, like by the 1950s when the birth control pill

was being developed, America had had like a complete 180 turn on and had become really accepting of birth control. And Sanger is explicit in her writings about scapegoating the female body for all of society's problems, like poverty, even tyranny, you know, it's like,

well, tyrants, it's still women's fault because they gave birth to them, right? You know, and so she just thought, if we can just kind of like stop women from having babies, then that will solve everything. And I think that American feminism has like deeply imbibed that lie. I remember once, I was in Houston, Texas, sitting outside of a pub and I was having a

conversation with this homeless bloke. And we may have been talking for about 25 minutes. And around the 25 minute mark, it only just then occurred to me that he was totally drunk. And that then caused me to be like, okay, okay, maybe this guy wasn't making any sense at all. This whole time I was giving him the benefit of the doubt. In my experience, listening to those on the left has been like that, right? So I'm having people tell me about feminism, and maybe this was 10 years ago. I'm like, all right, okay, yeah, yeah, okay, fair enough. Yeah, that makes sense. I'm having people tell me about whatever else.

And now I'm like, oh, God Yeah, that makes sense. I'm having people tell me about whatever else and now I'm like, oh god You were hammered or maybe it's a it's causing me to kind of like question All of that stuff that I've been taking in Not just the crazy crazy stuff at the end if that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, right Okay, so I guess that makes sense, right? Because if there's a weird analogy,, but like- No, I get it, right? If you're- It's like when you talk to pro-abortion people and they'll say whatever, different things before they get to the, it's okay to kill your children. You're like, uh-huh, I'm tracking, I'm tracking.

Oh, wow, yeah, that's evil. And that then causes you to go back and question the premises they had set up to get to that point. So let me see if I can round this thought out. Second Vatican Council, I believe it was, there's this great line in one of the documents that says, when God is forgotten, the creature itself becomes unintelligible, right? So, I now live, you now live in a society that doesn't know what a man is, doesn't know what a

woman is, doesn't know what marriage is, doesn't know really what sex is for, if there is even any end to the sexual act. And so now that I see the insanity, it's causing me to question things that maybe I've accepted up until this point. I'm okay going one way or the other, but it's like, okay, why have I been listening to the world about what's right and wrong, when maybe I could be reading to the early church fathers or what the early Christians say? So you know, I'll be honest, like while you even said about like women's right to vote, I just thought, well, maybe women shouldn't vote.

Like maybe it was a good thing that the head of a household should vote on behalf of the family that he presumably loved. Now I'm not going all the way there. I'm not making the case that I think women shouldn't vote. But do you see what I mean when I'm just like beginning to now re-examine these things? Because I don't know, like maybe we need to like cut off feminism at the very tip.

Or is that? You mean the root? The root, the root. Yes, right, the root, yeah. Well see, the problem is like feminist, feminism doesn't really have its own root. That's what I mean when I say it's parasitic on other kinds of philosophies.

I see. So, you know, you'll have some forms of feminism that take a liberal view of reality. You have some that take a Marxist view of reality, some that take a radically postmodern view of reality. So that's where you have to look, because the roots are actually kind of different in a way. But I guess one, I have a few thoughts on what you've said.

One, I think it's good to always ask questions and to question like, oh, here's something I've assumed to be true forever. Is it actually true? I think that's great. But also, I guess I have kind of a Aquinas approach to feminism in the way that I'm like, I'm interested in, okay, what is true here, if anything?

Like what is potentially compatible with a Christian understanding of reality? Maybe there's nothing, but maybe there's something, right? And I think Aquinas' approach is kind of generous and not afraid kind of approach to other things like pagan philosophy or Muslim philosophy, and how he would use some of those tools or resources to, but always from this like solidly Christian perspective. So he wasn't gonna say, oh, you know. He wasn't concerned who said it.

He was concerned whether or not it was true. Exactly. I like that. That's excellent. Because you could imagine the quote unquote trads of Aquinas's day being like, well, I'm so sorry. Like, if you're going to be drawing from that kind of pagan. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. But he was also very respectful. And you could make the argument, well, OK, but when you look at Judaism or even Aristotelian paganism or even Islam, like there's a lot more overlap in those Venn diagrams in terms of there's a creator and the world is intelligible to us and reality exists, blah, blah, blah, which I think is totally true. But that's where I think you kind of need to begin. So I guess I think that kind of generosity

toward other philosophical systems is just a good general approach as a Catholic, whether it's feminism or whether it's Islam or Buddhism or whatever. But not getting, I think what's essential though in engaging with feminism is paying attention to what the animating worldview is behind it. Because that's where you're going to see things go kind of haywire a little bit.

And because feminism is, doesn't have a lot of content to it, it has, has never had a good metaphysics. And that's actually why we're in this strange place that we are now culturally, where you have self-professed feminists making the argument that men can just declare themselves women and then they're women. So I still, even when I say that out loud, I'm still like, is this happening? Like, is this happening? Like, yes, it is. I'm radical because I, yeah.

So if I sat across at the table from a feminist who was, you know, belaboring the ways in which women have been oppressed throughout history and felt herself a part of this group, and then I, in all sincerity, went, I'm a woman. I guess I would just now share in her plight. I would love for you to do that. Can you arrange that?

I will. Yeah, because it's, yeah. It is just insane. That's the word to use. It's just not logical. It's stupid. That's correct. It's not logical.

Yeah. So I think that, I think there are a couple of reasons that feminism has succumbed to this. One, because feminism has all, well since the second wave, I would say that feminism has succumbed to this. One, because feminism has all, well since the second wave, I would say, feminism has had an ambivalent relationship to even the category woman, right? Because feminist thought tends to be very anti-essentialist.

So very anti the idea that there are kind of fixed natures of men and women or that men and women are essentially different, right? Feminism by and large tends to say no those sorts of differences are primarily socially constructed and They're constructed in a way that oppresses women. This is where the Marxism comes in. Yeah. Yeah, so that's exactly so that's their their main argument and But then it becomes then there's this kind of weird

like snake eating its own tail thing where you're basically arguing that, well, women don't really exist. And we need to fight for them. Yeah, exactly, like women, like even the category of women is primarily a social construct, but yet, I'm in a movement that's supposed to be defending women. Right? So there's this kind of tension there where,

so the way out of that tension has traditionally been just like a nominalist position, which is, okay, well we can use, we use the word woman, or we use the category woman in this kind of nominal way, but we're not pointing to something essential. It's, but nonetheless, it's a category that has, that has an effect on women who are read into that category, blah, blah, blah. Right? So because feminism has primarily seen women from anomalous perspective rather than an embodied perspective that's really rooted in this kind of concrete,

material reality that's not just socially constructed, then I think it lends itself to because yeah, if if woman is just a social construct, then why can't a male inhabit it? Right? Yeah. Which is pretty much the argument of of kind of trans affirming feminists. Yeah. Yeah, I guess I'm trying to find a way to understand feminism so that I can interact with it. And I suppose like, you know, we're always going to be trying to understand the role of woman in society, or we'll be talking about that. And in as much as you want the good of women, I suppose you could call that feminism, having to do with her good in society and how she

relates to the world, maybe. Could that be a way of understanding feminism before it gets weird? Yes. Although, I guess I would even... Because the word seems so bogged down with BS right now that I'm just like, just shoot it. Shoot the word and stop claiming to be a feminist. I think that's a reasonable position to take.

So I'm not a kind of person, okay, let me back up. When I first became Catholic, I did not know whether I still wanted to have any kind of connection to the label feminist. Like I think actually when I did my last interview with you, maybe you even did ask me about this, I don't remember, but if you had asked me at that time, do you still identify as a feminist? I probably would have said, I don't know, or maybe even know. And I think the reason in the last couple of years that I've come around to seeing it

as a helpful term in some instances are kind of two main reasons. One actually is the unnaming of women in our society, right? I mean, I kind of feel like I was like hanging up my bowling shoes, you know, like, oh well, feminism, I'm kind of all over that. And then suddenly I'm like, oh wait, now I can't even say that a woman is female? Like, okay, no, okay, yeah, I I guess we actually maybe for the first time ever really need a feminist movement because we've lost our minds like anyway

so that's one reason that I'm I think listening now to The accounts of what a woman even is and how much those are influenced by Basically porn, you know, like that's one thing where I'm like, okay, we need to have some kind of much those are influenced by basically porn. You know, like that's one thing where I'm like, okay, we need to have some kind of response to this. Like this is actually going to really harm women and children. And so that's one thing.

The second thing is there are a lot of young, like young women are gonna encounter feminism and, you know, certainly if they certainly if they go really out and engage with the world at all. Whatever that means. Well, they're just gonna- I still don't know what feminism means. Well, they're gonna encounter it

in these kind of hashtag, tweet on social media. Fair enough, yeah. However they define it. They're gonna encounter it in college classrooms. It's just gonna kinda like sneak in everywhere. And so I think it's also important to have an articulation of a thoroughly Catholic version of feminism that, again,

if feminism is always parasitic on an underlying worldview, to have a version of feminism that is firmly grows out of a Catholic worldview, I think there should be an articulation of that in order to not lose women to only secular forms of feminism. Yeah, and so do you think that's a better idea than say trying to create another word

that defines the thing you're trying to do? I remember hearing a priest after the United States pretended that men could marry men. I remember a priest in a homily saying, you know, maybe we should just kind of abandon the word marriage and refer to it as holy matrimony, you know, the making of a mother. And I don't know if that's practical or helpful, but I saw the logic in it. And I just think when people hear feminist today, what they think is Liz Warren screaming incoherently about why mothers should be able to pay people

to kill their children. And it's like, God, who wants to associate with that? And sometimes I think a word is so bogged down that it's best to abandon it. Like- I've been wondering the same thing about gender. Well, yeah, I'd love to hear about that, but my thought would be the word gay, right?

Like the word gay, I don't use that in the old sense anymore Sometimes we'll be reading poetry and the word gay meaning joyful comes up and sometimes I'll just like change the word as I read It to my kids because I feel like okay This is a symbol that has really been so bastardized that it's lost its meaning Maybe the same thing is true with a Confederate flag, you know, whatever you might mean by the Confederate flag Here's what many people come to think it Means so you know what we might have to just let this one go Is is there something analogous there with the word feminism?

Yeah, I I I guess I use it strategically like if I'm If I'm in a context where it is not helpful at all. I'm not gonna use it So I don't this isn't like a hill I want to die on like I'm not gonna do this weird feminist thing where I'm in a context where it is not helpful at all, I'm not going to use it. So I don't, this isn't like a hill I want to die on. Like I'm not going to do this weird feminist thing where I'm like, Matt, do you believe men and women have equal dignity? And you're like, yes. And I'm like, then you're a feminist.

You know, I'm not going to play that game. Because I don't, but I do think there is value because I've seen fruit from it. Like I've seen fruit from it. Like I've seen fruit from especially young women encountering like a very thorough sort of Catholic JP2 new feminist kind of stuff that is very fruitful in their lives, right? So yeah.

Even the sort of, the reasoning the church offers to ditch your contraception pills and why this is an empowering, beautiful thing, right? Right. That would be maybe an example of the beauty you've seen in people's lives. Yeah. And I also think there's, I think there are, so there are certain parts of society where

feminism still has some social capital in a positive way. And so I think for those people in those audiences to encounter a feminism that's an expression of a Catholic worldview is valuable. And I do think there's also danger in just this like overreaction to the other side that's like, yeah. What is the etymology of feminism? What does that word mean etymologically? Do you mind looking at that?

Like what is ism? What's an ism? I know like ology is the study of, right? But I wonder what feminism means. Cause I'm still trying to understand what it is we mean by it. And that's why I was trying to formulate something earlier where it's like, well, if it's just like talking about

and the role of women in society, like if that's what feminism means, and then you have certain ideas about how that conversation should take place, then okay, fair enough. So it says, just for ism, I can look up feminism after this, but it says ism is just a word forming suffix

where you take a noun and imply a practice or system or doctrine around it. Yeah, so a system or a doctrine around just the thought of women. Yeah, because I think it was originally maybe a German word. Like they would call, you know, kind of the the suffragettes, the feminists or something like that. I just had this horrible thought that our mics were muted.

We're good, aren't we? Yeah, yeah, good. I did a podcast earlier and I muted both these mics. I just had this terrifying, this is the beauty of doing live streams. Yeah, so that's I guess that's what I'm trying to figure out. You know, if I can understand feminism in a really broad way, then I'm open to talking about it in that way. Here, let me see.

Here's another thing that I was thinking as you were talking. So Edith Stein's work has helped me think through this as well. So her essays on women, which I highly recommend. So she's super interesting Catholic saint. Her saint name is St. Teresa Beneditta of the cross, Jewish convert, German, killed in Auschwitz, also a philosopher, Carmelite. She's amazing, she's one of my,

if I get another giant tattoo it'll be me this time. Anyway, so she talks about, like when she does this kind of brilliant reading of Genesis, she was also a big influence on John Paul II in his understanding of men and women. So she writes about three orders where there's the original order depicted in Genesis 1 and 2, and the fallen order that we really see depicted in Genesis 3, and then the redemptive order that's opened by Christ and His grace. And so one of the things she writes about the fallen order, she picks up on Genesis,

I want to say it's 316, I'm not sure, but it's a part of God's response to the woman where he says, you know, your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you. Right? says, your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you. So Edith Stein talks about how one of the ways that sin manifests in our world is trying to disrupt the communion and harmony and love between men and women. And one of the ways that it does that is by relationships of domination,

so the kind of libido dominandi that we have. And that one way that it manifests is in relationships of domination. And as long as we, and one, sometimes that is men dominating women. And I don't think you, I don't know, maybe I do need to make the argument that historically speaking, like, men dominating women has been a feature of almost all human cultures, right? Is that a huge argument to make the argument that historically speaking, like men dominating women has been

a feature of almost all human cultures, right? Is that a huge argument to make or is that? Oh, I'd have to hear it. But without totalizing it. What I liked what you did there is you just said there have been some women, there have been some men who have dominated some women. So even if you like lower the bar for your argument, it'll be easy to argue for, I think. Like, has there been times in history ever where men have dominated women through... And if that is the case, which clearly it is, I think of the grave sin of pornography or sex trafficking and things like this. So that's one thing I think in our own culture, if I look at where that kind of, that sexual domination still exists and is thriving, it would be in pornography and sex trafficking and the hypersexualization of women. I also

think that we have in our culture, in some forms of feminism, have reversed that domination. So now they want to see men or women dominating men, right? Which we do see. Yeah, exactly. So the way I look at it now- Maybe in a physical way, but in a wives being just nagging and bitchy and all of these things. So- Is that too intense? No, no, no. I was just trying to remember what I was talking about. Sorry, I got you off- No, no, it's totally fine. So I think, and this is something, so when John Paul II says, we need a new feminism,

what he says that the rest of that sentence is basically, we need a new form of feminism that doesn't simply replicate modes of male domination. So in that, he's actually kind of suddenly critiquing feminism, right? Okay, well, there's these, you know, feminism exists, but it has primarily just mimicked modes of male domination and is still primarily occupied with power and dominance and control. feminism exists, but it has primarily just mimicked modes of male domination and is still primarily occupied with power and dominance and control. And so I guess what I've learned from Edith Stein

is that one feature of the fallen world, one effect of sin, is that there's always this temptation to corrupt the relationship between men and women into one of domination. Sometimes that's men dominating women, sometimes it's women wanting to dominate men in response. And so I think there always needs to be some kind of attention to, okay,

in our particular cultural historical moment, how is that domination manifesting and how can we respond to it and try to correct it? So obvious, so clear to me. Now whether you want to call that Catholic feminism, that's totally your choice. But when I talk about Catholic feminism, that's what I'm talking about. Yeah. Like how can we name and try to correct the dynamics of domination in our culture between men and women in a way that, um,

enters more redemptive grace-filled kind of order. That's really beautiful. I like that a lot. Yeah, and we do have to be careful of the pendulum swing. Like, I feel like ever since showing up in America, I was just like wondering why it felt like mainstream media was intent on making me a racist. And I knew I wasn't, and I know I'm not, but it just felt like it was weird stepping into America and feeling that and then it's just been escalated, right?

So you kind of just kind of get the sense that if you're white, you are a racist kind of thing. And you're like, well, I know that's not true. So maybe racism just doesn't exist, you know? In fact, maybe, you know, and you just keep spiraling, right? It's like, it's like your gas, it's just like your both sides are gaslighting each other and maybe even trying to show their allegiance to their particular tribe.

Exactly. You know, so you think you're against feminism? Well, I don't think a woman should ever speak ever. Not even a single word. Right. You know, she should only know sign language. OK, nobody is saying that. But you see what I mean, where it's like we kind of keep triggering each other. And in order to show how how faithful you are to the cause, you say things that are increasingly inflammatory perhaps

and then you get people cheering because you're the true believer here on this side. So I, you know. Yeah, I know, I think you're, I mean, when you talk about that, it makes me think of how, one thing that drives me kind of crazy in our culture is how, I don't know, women who have really internalized this idea

that women are always the victims, they, the bar of what constitutes oppression keeps getting lower and lower and lower. And it's like, oh my gosh, you've, you know, you've said I look nice in the blouse I'm wearing. Like that is a microaggression and I my gosh, you've said I look nice in the blouse I'm wearing. That is a microaggression and I'm super, you know, so I have like zero patience with that kind of garbage.

Like I hate that kind of garbage. That said, I do think that there are forces in society that are actively dehumanizing to women. And, you know, I think it varies from culture to culture. And I think, again, the one that I see most prominently in America would be the pornification of our culture. And then also, I think, actually, the pro-abortion movement. Um, so I would... And that's what's interesting

is that one of those is kind of a form of, like, male domination of women, and then the other one is almost a form of, like like female domination of women in a sense that the pro-abortion thing really comes from feminism itself. But I would see an authentically Catholic feminism being a voice that speaks out against both of those things as real harms and evils in our culture.

So that's another reason why I think there is some value in having a Catholic response to those things. Now I'm fine with calling it feminism. I'm not gonna like, and that's not the battle I wanna fight. That's not the hill I'm gonna die on. But I do think there's something, I think Catholicism has something so beautiful and true to say about women. And I want that to be heard.

And I'm fine to use labels or not use labels in order to make that be heard. I guess that's kind of where I am. Yeah. You and I were speaking before the show and we were saying how very often it feels like Catholics online are all saying the same thing or fighting the same battles or responding to the same errors. You know, like, who's talking about Catholic social teaching? You know, who's pointing out that social justice is a Catholic word? And I was saying to you, and I'm sure you agree that the reason you have so many Catholics online speaking out against sodomy and these sorts of things is because that is, it seems to be the thing that's at the front that's, you know, that's being shoved down our kids' throats, you know, through Disney or through whatever. And so therefore we're speaking out against it.

Yes, social justice is, oh sorry, I didn't want to say that. No, that's okay. It's just we need to, we need to have a holistic, you know, like look at the catechism. It doesn't just have like paragraphs on sexuality has paragraphs on all sorts of things. And so it's really important that we have different people or maybe phrase it differently. It's okay that we have different Catholics interested in different things. I think like if I started speaking out against pornography and someone said, how are you speaking out against pornography when abortion is clearly a bigger issue? It's like, well, yeah, it is.

But do we all have to be equally incensed and spending the same amount of words on a particular issue? It's good to see different people addressing different things anyway. I think that's totally true. I mean, I'm not gonna sit here and say that the way I talk about feminism and gender

is the only way that it should be talked about from a Catholic perspective. I don't think that. But nonetheless, I do think, hopefully, by the grace of God, hopefully, the way that I do write and think about these things and talk about these things will help the gospel be heard in our culture to those who need to hear it, you know, in a certain way. I mentioned earlier how I've been going earlier and earlier in Christian history just to sort of try to better understand what the scriptures mean. And something I've got these developing

thoughts on would be where St. Paul says that husbands are the head of the household, basically. You know, husbands love your brides as Christ of the church, wives should submit to their husbands. husbands love your brides as Christ of the church, you know, wives should submit to their husbands. And I think, you know, for too long, we've just explained away that passage. Even with people I really respect and love, they'll very quickly apologize for it by saying, well, yes, but submit means to put yourself under the mission of. And so really, who has it harder here? You know, men are being called to die, not really kind of addressing it. And I have to say, like, I'm kind of ashamed that I haven't really.

Been more. I can see the way that the culture's influence has affected the way I allow St. Paul to say what he means. And I was reading St. John Chrysostom on this topic, and I would highly recommend that people read his homily on Ephesians five because it's beautiful. It is beautiful. Yeah, you know, because we often look at these verses like turn the other cheek and then you get a homily about what that doesn't mean.

Don't be a doormat. Christ isn't saying this. And you're like, well, but he must have meant something. What is that thing? So I'd love your take on that, on just Ephesians five. I love Ephesians five. I totally agree. Actually, one of my pet peeves is when Ephesians five,

you know, 21 through whatever comes up in the lectionary. And there's like an option to like cut out the part about wives and just. Yeah. Yeah. It's like in brackets, you know, because sometimes it's longer. Whoops. Sorry. I didn't mean to be. a part about wives and just, yeah. Yeah, it's like in brackets, you know, cause sometimes it's longer, whoops. So sorry. I didn't mean to be, I did a microaggression. I just, yeah, anyway. Sorry, animated.

Yeah, there's a, you can bracket the, and it, I get super annoyed whenever they do that, which is, you know, that's something that maybe people, maybe some of your listeners who think like I'm a radical feminist, I might surprise them, but it's true. Because I think the whole passage of Ephesians five is so, is so rich and so beautiful. And you need the whole thing. You can't just like, you shouldn't lop off the part about husbands either. But you shouldn't lop off the part about says about wives, because it's about fundamentally the union between them, a union in which there is difference

and a certain kind of order. And those things are good, and I'm fully on board with those things. But it's funny, you mentioned John Chrysostom's homily, and in the homily actually, he says that God has entrusted to women the presidency of the household. Do you remember that part? I don't, no. Yeah.

So when earlier when you talked about headship, so Ephesians five says that the husband is the head of the wife, it doesn't say the husband is the head of the household. And that's because head means something very particular there, it means like source and this kind of gift of generosity. And I think the way you have to understand headship

between husband and wife is the way you have to understand the way it's an image of how the father is the head of the son in the Trinity. That's the source of headship, right? So this is something that you get some kind of crazy interpretations on the Protestant side from this because there are some Protestant understandings of the Trinity that do see this strict hierarchical order

in term, between father, son, and then they read that onto gender roles. But the Catholic thought is much different. So headship in the Catholic understanding, it really is about radical generosity. Like that's what it means to be, the head is to be this source of life, this gift that is life giving and that is continual.

But also the father-son relationship, there's no sense in which one is primary and one is secondary, right? Because the son's eternally begotten from the father. So it's like the father, the fatherness and the sonship within the Trinity are eternal, they're co-eternal, right? And so that I think is also a way in which we should see the headship

between the husband and wife as being like the, not one where one is primary and one is secondary or one is like over and one is under but rather there is this difference that enables generosity and love that mirrors that kind of generosity and love that is intrinsic to the Godhead. So that like I think that's kind of the starting place that we're not primarily actually talking about, you know, household tasks. Like it's something that's being discussed there is profound, is so much more profoundly theological,

I think. And it does have, it does affect how we live that out. It does affect practical things, but it's not first and foremost about those practical things, right? And so I think there's, I guess a more technical way to put it would be there is order and difference in the Catholic understanding of headship, but not subordinationism, right? So there's not, we don't, Catholicism doesn't have a subordinationist reading of the Trinity where the, where, you know, the father, the son is subordinate to the father or secondary to the father.

And so headship is not a sub, it's not about being subordinate, right? I think sometimes also we, we tend to, I don't know, we, I think in our, in our Western culture in general, or maybe just even a lot of human cultures, it's't know, I think in our Western culture in general, or maybe just even a lot of human cultures, it's easy to kind of bring in all this baggage about the body, you know, as if like the head is somehow immediately better than the body.

But the fact is like, if you have a head without a body and a body without a head, like you've got a dead person either way, you know, it's not as if, like they both need each other. There's this mutual need, and the body gives life to the head just as the head gives life to the body. So There's this mutual need and the body gives life to the head just as the head gives life to the body. So there's this interdependence, there's this mutuality,

but there's also a difference. There's also a sense in which the husband is an image of the bridegroom who is the kind of life-giving source, the external principle in the way that we transmit the species. And we image that in a very beautiful way. And that's what I'm most interested in. I love sacramental Catholic theology

and the kind of meaning and dignity that that gives to sexual difference and how wonderful it is to think about, just because I'm female, I'm this icon of the bride. I'm this like living icon of of Mary of all these kind of feminine aspects of reality, you know, and men are these icons of the like the generativity of the father. And I don't know. Yeah. So also in thanks thanks for that correction too, it doesn't say that husbands are the head of the household.

Yeah, thanks for saying that. Although I'm not actually threatened by that idea. No, no, I think- It might even say it elsewhere in scripture, I'm not sure. However we understand it, I think my wife would want that of me, but we can get to that. But you know, Chris System also says that,

what does it mean for a wife to submit to her husband? She shouldn't stubbornly contradict her husband and she shouldn't seek to be the head. So I think that's great. I mean, but that's what's interesting in that entire epistle is that's like the most thing that would maybe upset people today. Yeah, the rest is very much. I mean, there's this one line from him close to the beginning where he says to men, and what are you to do if your wife belittles you and mocks you in public? What then? You love her. You know, you do your duty like it's a really beautiful document. But he also points out that the family isn't a democracy, there is an order there. So how do we reconcile that without kind of evacuating that verse and that thought of the fathers

such that it's how we might say it today is unrecognizable to them? Because I don't wanna do that. Like if I had to choose John Chrysostom and Aquinas and Augustine, I'm gonna go with them. I'd rather be wrong with them than right with some modern day theological author. So because everything you just said there, I agree with.

But maybe it feels a little too theological because. But I'm also with you when you say, as soon as we start talking about the specific roles people do, then it just feels weird. It's just like you're not taking into account the particular personality and temperament of the individuals. Like some women are much more just sort of quiet and submissive. Some men are more quiet and submissive and not in a way that we would say is impugning their femininity or masculinity.

And so this idea that men and women are exactly the same, right, and they have exact same temperaments. And now we can sort of come up with a very that men and women are exactly the same, right? And they have exact same temperaments and now we can sort of come up with a very specific list on what they can and cannot do. It just seems unhelpful at best. Yeah, I think it's, there's always a, I almost wanna say a human tendency, but I don't know,

maybe it's even a Western tendency. I don't know if that's accurate or even American tendency to like want, not that you're American. Maybe, I don't know about Australians's accurate or even American tendency to like want not that you're American. Maybe I don't know about us. Close enough. I mean, we're so influenced by. We want rules like we want we want clear lines and clear boundaries. We want, you know, OK, tell me exactly what I'm allowed to do. And sometimes rules are great. So we need some rules.

But I think there are times when the church gives us. So we need some rules. But I think there are times when the church gives us, you know, principles to live within. But then there's also a sense in which you have to kind of discern how that might actually be lived out in a particular marriage. One thing I one thing I've been thinking recently, and this whole topic, by the way, is something I'm still very much thinking about and wanting to better understand my own kind of heart and head about. So this is kind of me thinking out loud. But one thing I've been thinking about in terms of what part of the masculine genius might be is helping each person in the family

develop their own gifts and personhood as much as possible. And that requires actually like discerning the individual, like this giftedness, right? You have four kids, I've got four kids too, and I'm sure we can both see how sexual difference plays out, you know, in in our kids, but at the same time I've got three sons, one daughter. And all of my sons, there's this certain kind of like, boy, energy they've got. But they're also very different.

Like, all three of them have like, completely different personalities. One's like, super choleric. One's melancholic. One's sanguine. I mean, they're very different, right? And so when I think about trying to help them fully grow, it's a matter of kind of discerning, like an

attention to their unique personhood, even as I'm wanting to them to develop a very healthy sense of their own masculinity and a very positive sense of their own maleness and a sense that their body is a gift, you know, all those sorts of things I want my children to learn. So I think that part of maybe the headship is if we think about it primarily as this kind of generosity and this gift that is life-giving and kind of is about how do you cultivate the kind of full personhood

of your wife and your children, right? And that's not, I can't give you a list of rules right now about how you're gonna do that now, right? Like you're gonna have to figure that out and be attentive. And sure, there are some, I mean, there are some boundaries, right, there are some rules, you know, like don't commit adultery, you know, like don't teach your kids the complete moral relativism,

you know what I mean, all that sort of stuff. But when it comes to like, you know, who's gonna take out the trash most days. Right. Like, you know. This has never been a conversation that my wife and I have had. It's just been this mutual service.

Yeah, you just do it. And the thing is, if it is, I mean, there are, my husband and I have a similar kind of like, you know, you just kind of do what needs to be done, but there are ways in which like, he does all the yard work. Like I never, I don't think I've ever mowed a lawn, you know. I just don't, you know, in our marriage, I don't do that. And it's not, I don't think that's bad. I also don't think I should like prescribe that as some kind of rule that husbands should mow lawns, wives should not mow lawns.

It reminds me of what Christ said to the Pharisees, that you load up these burdens that you yourself don't even carry. And so when you start making these very explicit demands upon people and then you say to them, you're not really womanly or manly unless you do them, it's like, it's so unhelpful. I think Ephesians 5 works really well. It's like an exhortation to the husband

and to the wife individually. But like, I think that when people hear it, they think of it's like an exhortation to the husband and to the wife individually. But I think that when people hear it, they think of it as like, I'm hearing this as a husband is what I can prescribe my wife to do for me. I'm like, as the wife, you know, what I have to expect from a man. Versus I think that if you listen to your part of that, it all makes sense, because it's like,

you know, you need to be in service. Yeah, that's a great point. Rather than like, you know. Yeah, see what it says about you? And the other one says, see what it says about you? It's like, you should do so-and-so chore, because you're supposed to be in service. Yeah, that's a great point. Rather than like, you know. Yeah, see what it says about you? And the other one says, see what it says about you? It's like, you should do so and so chore because you're supposed to be, it's like, that's just the, like, like you were saying,

that's the like domination kind of dialectic community. Yeah, yeah, it's this mutual love. I wanna share three, I've shared this in a previous episode, I don't know if you've heard it or not, but there's kind of these three ways in which men and women relate that sort of, to me, sort of are prophetic or point to the fact that men ought to be the head and that women wish them to be. All right.

And those three things would be the embrace. So like I hold my wife, I don't want to be held by my wife unless I've experienced some sort of trauma. Generally speaking, if I imagine myself with my wife, I'm giving the embrace, she's receiving it. And I think if you were to say to her, you know, when you think of me, I don't think she would imagine embracing me. It's being embraced. Now that doesn't a hard and fast thing, but I think it is something that most people would relate to. You can tell me if you disagree in a second. The second thing is the proposal, right? Like it's not right that a woman should propose

to her fiance or soon to be fiance or boyfriend. I, as the head, want to initiate that strength. I wanna offer that strength. And I think most women, unless they're drunk, would say, well, yeah, like I'd like to be proposed to. They might still say that even if they're drunk. Okay, even if they're drunk. But in that relationship, there is a receptivity, right?

The woman is receiving the embrace, the woman's receiving the proposal, and there's a desire for that. And in both the, and then finally, it's the sexual act, right, that a man has to literally rise to the occasion and to lead his bride into a state of receptivity and she wishes to receive that strength. Okay. In those three instances, looking at it from the best possible light, right? There's no sort of aggression or rape or manipulation.

There's a desire to receive the strength that's well intended from the man who wants to love her well. But I think what happens is when and again, I want to give you a chance to respond to that. But I think what happens is if you've been hurt by men, then I think you understandably begin to look sceptically at any of these things because of your past experiences. But so I would say that I would say that those three things like point to this thing in the man is the initiator, the woman is the receiver. And I think we see that in headship and submissiveness. Right. I'll stop there. What do you think about that?

No, that's really interesting. Yeah, I guess I I think those are all. What worries you about it? Because to me, that seems quite obvious. And maybe I shouldn't be so confident in what I just shared. I guess I think that and you you did include the possibility for this in your answer, like even when you said, well, unless he's experienced trauma or something that he does want to be held. And I'm like, yeah, well, men do experience trauma, you know, and that if there are times when a husband is just having a breakdown,

and his wife envelops him in her arms, that's beautiful and that's good, right? So I guess I think that sometimes, sometimes the discussions about headship that I hear in Christian circles don't take the reality of sin and woundedness seriously enough sometimes. Even the argument you hear that, well, women shouldn't have these legal rights because the man is the head of the household, should just have them for the household.

That's okay, but what if he is an alcoholic abuser who's terrible? You know, like, should a woman never in that extreme situation have any kind of legal recourse to protect herself or her children? Right? So I think, but then again, then there's the, then there's the other extreme, which is maybe the kind of bad feminist extreme, which would be every relationship between men and women is like that. And men, you know, a man is always an abuser and a woman, you know, so I think, I think you need,

you need one that doesn't just idolize or idealize the relationship where women might not need, in fact, protection sometimes for men, but then you also don't want to go to the other extreme where it's vilifies men, right? So I think that what you described as, like I see what you described as, as men, right? So I think that what you described as, like I see what you described as like more of that kind of redemptive order between men and women, right?

Where the kind of male initiation and generosity and self gift is an action of grace and love and is freely received by the woman. And she also then gives herself back, right? I think that's very beautiful. I also think that it can become distorted through sin. You know, I do think that, I think that Satan really hates women.

I think he hates women, and he hates Mary. I think he hates the life-giving capacities that women have. And I think he's always, and he hates the love that men and women can have with one another. And so he's always trying to get in there and distort and twist. And so I think we also need to be a little bit just aware, not be too confident in our abilities to resist that sin that can come in, you know, but to be more kind of humble and vigilant about it and always aware that I can only really, I don't know, men can love women well or can best love women well when they are like plugged into

the sacraments, you know, and when they're letting God love their wife through them, rather than, you know, kind of seeing themselves in the place of God, I guess. Amen. Yeah. No, I love how you put that, because in any Christian, if you were to say to them, do you think sin exists? Yes.

Okay. Do you think sin distorts human relationships or can distort them? Yes. OK, do you think sin distorts human relationships or can distort them? Yes. Do you think that sin can distort the way a man relates to his wife? Well, it's like there's this reluctance to go there. And I think that is the pushback we might be seeing against this very loud feminism where men just felt like, God, I just got to shut up, you know, because if I don't shut up, I get like yelled at or slapped or you hear men say awful things like, happy wife, happy life. I hate that saying that makes women sound seem like petulant little girls who you have to placate or else they're going to become nagging. Now, you could also think of that

in a more playful sense. I understand that. Happy wife, happy life. Still, I don't know. I think this reaction we're seeing from men is in response to feeling like we've been shut up for so long and that we really cannot speak against that. And I think you're right. We just have to be careful that we're looking at this from a holistic point of view. I don't think there's anything that would stop a woman or a man from saying,

look at the ways sin distorts away. A wife should submit to her husband. And let's address that and even address that maybe in isolation so that it gets addressed. And then let's look at the way in which, you know, sin distorts the way husbands relate to their wives. And let's address that even in isolation. But it's this balanced conversation that I really want to start seeing happening because.

Mm hmm. Yeah. Like, for example, I was watching this video the other day on Ascension Presents about sex not being a bandaid. And the two people who gave this talk were beautiful people who are holy and intelligent and good. And I'm sure their marriage is beautiful, but it was very much about men. Like, don't you understand? Like, she's been home breastfeeding all day, like she doesn't want to have sex with you. I was so disgusted. I thought, well, maybe she should just suck it up and have sex with her husband. And the husband should of course appreciate where she's been all day with a baby or whatever. The point was when I watched the video, I agreed with all the points, but

it was very much like wagging the finger at men while patting women on the head and saying you're just misunderstood. Now, maybe there's a sense in which that's appropriate because men are being called to be the initiators of the love and the responsibility might fall on them in a way that's disproportionate to women since they are the head. But it's that one-sided conversation that keeps being had that bothers me. I don't know if you've noticed it or if you think I'm exaggerating. No, I do think it's, I think the conversations are one-sided, right? I mean, I think our culture right now, our discourse as a culture pulls toward extremes

and polarizations. And so it's very hard to have- And nuance. A nuanced conversation about this stuff, for sure. And I think there's always this temptation to, and I think again, this is part of the fall, that any discussion about men and women turns into this like pissing contest, you know,

like who has more- Men will definitely wear that. Who's ahead. Because they have penises. Sorry, that's correct. That's true, that's correct. You wrote pissing contest, I had to go the whole way. That's true.

Good going. Yeah, so I think resisting that too, because I think the reality is that there, I think there also needs to be an attention, even though I've been arguing somewhat that like, we should have some kind of authentic Catholic feminism. I also think that we should be paying attention

to what the masculine genius looks like and talking about that and having a positive vision of masculinity from a Catholic perspective because I think there's not a lot of representation of that in our culture. I think there's a lot of, yeah, I just, I think masculinity is kind of demonized in our culture in a way that is not healthy.

And actually, I, this is like totally getting into another discussion. I don't know if we want to go there, but the more and more I study the gender issue and the trans issue and hear all these stories about why young men and women, you know, want to identify as the opposite sex and sterilize themselves. I think one thing I hear in some of these stories is, like, for example, I recently read a first-person account of a young man who had transitioned and has now, you know,

de-transitioned. And he said that, you know, he was just kind of a pretty sensitive guy and that growing up, all he ever heard was that white men are the worst, white men are the villains, white men do everything wrong. And he was just, he was carrying so much guilt in his own identity about that. So he was like, Oh, I don't want to be that. I don't want to be a white man. Like, you know, I wanna get out of this. And then a lot, and a common theme I hear in young women's stories who have transitioned and then de-transitioned is like when they entered puberty

and began to sexually develop, they got all this kind of unwanted male attention. They were exposed to pornography for the first time and saw like, oh wait, that's what it means to be a woman, to be like sexually dominated and abused. I don't want to be a woman. I don't want that. I'd rather be a man. Right. So you have these young people who are essentially in a, in this state of unconscious revolt against the very, I guess, I don't know, like diabolical narratives we have about what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman. I don't know, like diabolical narratives we have about what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman.

And more than ever, we need this robust response, I think, from a Catholic perspective to correct that for women, but also for men. Because I don't think our culture has ever been more confused about what it means to be a man or means to be a woman than now. And if anybody can set the conversation right, it's the church, which Christ established since he knows what men and women are. Yeah. And if anybody can set the conversation right, it's the church, which Christ established since he knows what men and women are. Yeah. I sent you this clip from Jordan Peterson, which I just loved. Yeah. I remember that thing he did was a Cathy Newman on the BBC,

that famous interview that he did. That's the one that made him famous. Yeah. I actually felt so sorry for her. I just felt like, man, she really bless her. Why do you hate women, Matt? Was that? Why do you hate women? Tell me again. So it sounds like what you're saying. Bless her. But why are you racist?

One of the things. When did you stop being racist? One of the things that he said to her was like, don't you want a strong man? Or something to that effect. And he said by strong, he means competent, not tyrannical. Tyrannical is a form of whatever being cowardly or whatever. But I love that word competence because and then another talk, he says, like, don't you want your spouse? Do you want someone to contend with?

That's what he said. And I don't know. I think sometimes when I listen to the conversation on the right, some men might be like, not really. You know, like I just and he said, what do you want your wife just to sprinkle rose petals in front of you and patch you on the head and tell you're an amazing person? Like, surely that would get boring and exhausting after a week. Well, maybe after three months, maybe after a year. Don't you want someone who's on the side of who you can be and not just the side of who you are? Yes, like that's what I want. And my wife is that she's

powerful. And by powerful, I don't mean bitchy, nagging, feminazi, all that. I mean, just competent. And she believes in me. And if I start doing lazy, boyish, idiotic, sinful things, she's not going to stand back and say, well, I better be submissive. No,ic, sinful things, she's not going to stand back and say, well, I better be submissive. No, because she loves me, she's going to fight me in that, in the appropriate sense that I mean that, right? But I just love that line. Like, you're dating somebody right now.

Does that resonate with you? Like, don't you want someone to contend with? Yeah, I mean, all of this just seems to me, it's like, like Ephesians 5, it's like, when I think of these things not as like prescriptions for the way that I should like, I mean, all of this just seems to me, it's like Ephesians 5, it's like, when I think of these things not as like prescriptions for the way that I should like, you know, expect things from, you know, the girl I'm dating or from like, you know, women in society in general, and rather I just think about like exhortations for me.

It's like, don't I want to be a strong man? Don't I want to seek after this person? Yes, I do. Like anything, and I see myself like, you know, in times like being lazy or something like that, it's like, it's me falling short of not necessarily some masculine ideal or something that I'm put up to because I'm a man.

It's just like, well, don't I wanna be the best that I can? You know, isn't, don't I love this person? Don't I wanna go after this person? So, you know, it's kind of just like, yes, I do want that. And that's, I guess, just a kind of identity that feels very personal and not societal and not constructed in any kind of way. It's just like a seeking out rather than an expectation.

That's really what it comes down to, I think, is when I hear all these things as something calling me to seek out rather than something to expect from other people. It all makes sense. And it all seems right and good. Everything about like, yeah, any kind of, you know, manhood or womanhood. If it's an expectation on me, it makes sense. If it's something I'm allowed to put on other people, then it just seems selfish and it feels selfish. What do you think? I know, I think you're right. I mean, I just, it's, that seems like a very Christian approach, a Christian way of thinking, right? Where you're, you're always much more conscious of your own sin than, you know, it's the whole like speck in your own eye, log in the other person's eye, right? that way, even the next time I hear Ephesians five being read, like listening to the part that talks about

what I'm called to do, instead of kind of thinking about like what a man is supposed to do for me. Again, I think there's even just, that's like a subtle way in which now we're seeing the twisting, right? The, like in the story of Genesis, like the first, the first consequence of sin is that Adam, the man and the woman, like, first of all, like the first consequence of sin is that, you know, Adam, the man and the woman, like first of all, they hide from one another. But then they also quickly do this blame shifting thing, quickly like, oh, well, you did this

and you did this, right? So immediately, as soon as we have sin in the mix, both men and women have this temptation to become the accuser, you know, and to focus more on how what's powerful language. Yeah. I mean, that's what Satan's called in Revelation chapter 12, verse 10, the accuser. And we become that. Oh, man, love. I want to let people know. Awkward transition ad read about hello. And you use Hello. I love Hello actually. This is a totally genuine. I'm not getting paid at all for this. I should be, but I'm not. I should get a kickback, but no, I use it every day. Do you? Yep. So yeah, I really recommend people either. If you want to grow in

your prayer life, go to hello.com slash Matt Fradd. There's a link in the description below. When you sign up there, you get three months for free. So you can actually try it for three months, cancel on the last day of the last month if you don't like it, but I use it, my wife uses it. They just started, just today, did you see that they're doing story of a soul? No, I didn't see that. So this beautiful Canadian, she sounds, none,

is reading the story of a soul over 21 days. That's awesome. And yeah, one of the things they have here is you can see how many people are currently doing that. Yeah, day one, chapter one. And so over the next 21 days, my wife is listening to this. So cool. With my daughter for homeschooling. How cool is that? But yeah, this is 13,638.

Yeah. Currently going through this. It's amazing. Yeah. They have examination of conscience every night. You could do that. Yeah. So I, you know, I really am a big fan of hello Hello, H a L L o w dot com slash Matt Fred. Hello dot com slash Matt Fred. They have sleep stories it's you know, there's a lot of kind of New age II sort of Buddhist type leaning apps out there and maybe they you know

Sell themselves as secular, like mindfulness stuff, but they often lead into these erroneous ways of thinking. Halo is not only going to not do that because it's solidly Catholic, but it's honestly a much superior app to any kind of prayer and meditation app out there that I've seen. Amazing music too. Yes. There's the chant, like the Harpaday. Catholic lo-fi. Did you notice that?

Yes, I did notice that. Did you notice my stuff? Yeah, it was super cool. So you can go listen to my Catholic lo-fi on their channel too. Yeah, no, it's really good. But this is, I especially think if you have a very hectic life and you have a hard time getting prayer

as part of your routine, that's, this has helped me. Like getting ready in the morning, I listen to the daily mass readings as I'm getting ready. That's like- And then I fall asleep to one of the sleep meditations. Scott Hahn's got a great voice though, doesn't he? You know what's funny though?

When I know people, I can't like- I know. When, like the song of songs. I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. No, it's so funny. I was like, ooh, song of songs. And I was like, oh, but it's Matt. Oh, it's Matt.

That's kind of weird. Like I know you. I know what you mean. I know it's very intimate, right? Because you're in bed and you're listening to someone whisper to you. It's like the next time I saw Scott Hart, I like turned around and went the other way. All right. I got to play one of these sleep stories. OK, these guys are going to get a lot.

They're getting a lot out of this ad read. They are. So they better, you know, make me happy. All right. Mark Hart is a good friend of mine. He's the vice president of Life Teen. Listen to his voice. It's glorious. He reads And welcome to tonight's Bible story My name is Mark Hart and I'll be reading a collection of readings from the beginning of the book of Ecclesiastes. Let's just do this You've got such a beautiful voice. Yeah, so anyway big fan hello.com slash Matt Fred

Anyway, I was thinking if it'd be okay with you if we took a quick break and then came back and smashed it some more. Let's smash it. Cheers. Thanks. So I'm pretty sure we figured this out last time, but we're the same age. Eighty three babies. Yes. Nineteen eighty three. Amazing. Have you had this experience where you meet maybe another woman and she's from she's born eighty three. Like, oh, my God, I'm that old. Have you had that experience?

No, it happens to me, though, like I got maam'd yesterday when I was walking around the Franciscan campus. Yeah. I was like, hey, where's the bookstore? You know, I was like, I was like, I feel like a college student. You know, he's like, oh, it's closed right now, ma'am. And I was like, oh, OK. He was precious. But yeah, those are the moments. You're calling him precious. Yeah, it's true. No, but I've had that experience where I'll meet someone

and I find out they're exactly my age. I'm like, oh, my gosh, am I that old? And then I think they're probably thinking the same thing about me. Age is a weird thing. It just sort of creeps up on you. You're like, OK, I'm no longer young. Like the other day, somebody introduced me to their college students who go here. And I said as I left, all right, well, nice to meet you girls. Oh, my God, I just call them girls.

I'm really old. Oh, I need to I need to tell people about Exodus 90. And then I promise we'll get into the thing. I don't use Exodus 90, so I can't help out. Exodus 90 is a sexist program that doesn't allow women to join their ascetical thing. Is that true? Yeah, we can't join it. Well, there you go. It's kind of cool.

Exodus 90 and dot com slash Matt. Check them out. Is that true? Yeah, when we can't join it. Well, there you go. It's kind of cool. Exodus90.com. Check them out. It's an aesthetical program for men where for the course of 90 days, you become way cooler than you currently are. Maybe. Maybe not. Just saying. It's a possibility.

You read the book of Exodus with a group of guys over the course of 90 days. You give up alcohol. You give up snacks between meals. You pray for an hour a day. You give up unnecessary internet use. You take cold showers. It's as awful as it sounds, but you'll be better because of it. So go to Exodus90.com slash Matt to learn more about it.

They also have an amazing app. And they're doing a lot of great work for men. No, I have a lot of respect for them because a lot of women had been hounding them. Like, where's Exodus 90 for women? And like, we just don't feel cool to that. And I just love that. That's totally legit. I love it because they could have made a ton of money from doing that.

And they just decided this is what we feel called to. It's OK. We're trying to make men be cool. I feel like our culture needs to hear that like sex segregated spaces are OK. It's OK for men to have a thing that they do that's just for men. And it's OK for women to have a thing that they do that's's just for women. That's not inherently oppressive. You know, when I went to Israel, I remember going, we were staying on the Sea of Galilee and there were some beaches there at the hotel we were playing in.

We were staying in their beaches. And I remember my husband and I walked over to the beach and I was like, oh, and there was like an Israeli man and his son playing. And then, you know, he turns to me and I was like, oh, and there was like an Israeli man and his son playing and and then you know he turns to me and he's like, oh, by the way, this is the man's beach, the woman's beach is over there. And I was like, oh, oh, I had no idea. Then there were signs I just had. Where was this? This was in Israel. Oh, wow. And so then I was like, oh, okay. So I just said, see you later to Michael. And then I kind of went around this bluff to where the

the woman's beach was. and it was really cool and Like the whole I don't know there was something about There there was something freeing about actually just being able to swim where there are only other women there and It's funny because some of we were I was on a trip with students I remember some of my students being like I hate this, you know, and I was like, this is great this is a gift. It's sort of like, you know, I've heard of people who go to old boys schools

or old girls schools, that it's schools, old girls schools. It takes out that element of like trying to impress the boys or trying to impress the girls. And you can just like relax a little. Yeah, it is. That's kind of like that. It must be cool to be around a bunch of other women

who aren't worried about whether they're impressing or not impressing or whatever. Yeah, exactly. like it was. Yeah. Anyway. So Exodus 90 is fine, I guess. Yeah. Click the link below. That's the point. So I want to share this with you. I want to see how much I can say until I've crossed the line. So we did this like apologetics conference with like a virtual pack,

apologies conference. And I just chose all these people who thought were great apologists. And then a bunch of snarky people were like, oh, I noticed there's no women. Oh, apologies, conference. And I just chose all these people who thought were great apologists. And then a bunch of snarky people were like, oh, I noticed there's no women. Oh, I remember this. Here's what I wanted to say. And it was a joke, but almost not. I wanted to write back.

Who would make the cookies? If we have women doing that, who's going to make the cookie? I mean, we can't, you understand? And just do it really seriously. But no, in the serious answer was like, I don't know a lot of great women apologists. Like I can think of, I'm sure you're great. I should have you on to speak about seriously. But no, in the serious answer was like, I don't know a lot of great women apologists.

Like I can think of, I'm sure you're great. I should have you on to speak about feminism, but like Stephanie Gray does a great job on like abortion. And I'm sure I could find some others, but like they're not prominent and like isn't, maybe that's okay. Like do I have to like have token women in here and token black and Asian and Hispanic people?

Or is it okay if I just choose the people who I think would be best? But what did you think? Well, I mean, I'm kind of wondering if there's something about apologetics as it kind of the vibe it currently has that's a little bit. But it's combative. It's more masculine in that sense. I think men like arguing. It's not just the combative thing, but it also kind of seems a little bit more like, I don't know what's the right word, kind of very kind of prime, like very rationalist in a way that's like,

we're just gonna make arguments and, whereas I don't know, I guess maybe women like to communicate in a little more of an incarnation way. We're agreeing, I'm saying the same thing as that. Yeah, so I'm just wondering if maybe- think a politics does appeal to me. Yeah, like yeah, maybe it's maybe that's okay. Oh Yeah, cuz I was like, oh my god Like if I could just think of one woman who'd be terrific and speaking on the papacy It's not like I'd be like, no, she's a woman or I'd be like, well internally I didn't want to take her cuz she's got

Ovaries, I don't know if you knew that. It's so ridiculous. Because I don't even know that I would think of myself as an apologist per se, right? You know, I'm a writer and I make arguments certainly. But I don't know. So those people can sod off or make cookies and send them in if they're women.

That's a joke, is it? All right, hey, I got a question for you. I think it's really important that we try to speak in a way that people would hear us. It's like a self Plattitudinous platter. Wait, you just said that right after you you were like being super sexist. Yeah exactly But I think we should really I think women should bake cookies. You know what I'm saying ladies But I'm joking obviously when I say that hopefully people understand. It's a joke But yeah, no like we should speak in a way like if you if you're a woman and you want to tell men like, hey, could you do a better job at like stepping up

and loving the family like you want to kind of appeal to them in a way that they can hear it. So my question for you is what would Abigail Favale today say to Abigail Favalle back in her feminist days If you could sit across from her having a cup of coffee and you had some time like how would you what would you say? That she would actually Hear it That that's a good question because I'm not totally sure What I would have been able to hear I

Think once you become an ideologue, it becomes very hard, even like the best possible argument can sometimes just be hard to hear. So for example, when I, so one of my former students, his name's Stephen Kenyon, shout out to Father Stephen, he's now a priest. And when I, so I remember like before I was even

on the road to Catholicism, but he was, he had already converted. I remember having debates with him about, especially the priesthood, like why can't women be ordained? You know, and Stephen's super smart. He's also super compassionate and very, very articulate and could give the best possible arguments pretty much for anything. So he was giving me like the best possible arguments pretty much for anything.

So he was giving me like the best possible arguments. But I was just, I had such an emotional resistance to hearing them that it wasn't like, I wasn't able to actually hear them because I was unwilling to question my position. So that's kind of a caveat I would give that I'm not sure that I would be able to hear the kinds of things I'm saying now,

because now I make similar arguments that Stephen was making then, right? I don't know. So that's, I'm not quite sure what I would say. But I guess one thing that, I guess I would want to talk to her about some of the ironies within feminism, because I think even when I was a feminist,

I still, I remember actually even saying this sometimes in graduate school, like I'm a closet essentialist, because I have always been very comfortable with and have liked the idea that men and women are different. And I don't, that's actually why I was interested in feminism in the first place, because I was like, there's something different

about being a woman, and I wanna know what's good about that, and I want to discover the deeper meaning to that. And so I'm, and I actually, I remember when I was in graduate school, doing a master's in gender theory, this would have been in like 2007, eight, something like that.

So this was, this was way before like the, the trans phenomenon really swept through. But I remember I lived in the UK at the time I was in grad school in Scotland and watching some kind of BBC special on kids who had transitioned. And I remember watching this special, it was about a little boy

who had, whose parents had now agreed to raise him as a girl. And what struck me then was like how, I mean, his room, it looked like like a Pepto-Bismol bottle had exploded. I mean, it was just everything was so hyper feminine. And it seemed to be all about the kind of, there was something very consumerist about it, like the toys he liked, the clothes he liked. Everything was about kind of these very stereotypical Everything was about kind of these very stereotypical kind of objects and like that's what made him a girl. And I remember, so even then when I was in my kind of like

post-modern and very secular place, I was like, that doesn't make you a girl. You know, like liking pink doesn't make you a girl and kind of having this suspicion and skepticism about that. So I think I would like to, I would want to, I would, I would want to reach those common values about like being a woman is a good thing. So isn't it kind of ironic that women are told that

they have to disrupt their healthy physiology with artificial chemicals to function in society? Like, isn't that not kind of suck for women? You know, I think I would, you know, use, or is abortion really that good for women? You know, I think, I think my younger self, I think I would have wanted to give her more permission. Like it's okay to be against abortion as a feminist.

Because, you know, I just kind of, you know. I wonder if questions like, you know, what do you think of feminists who just happen to be against abortion. Questions like that are really helpful. One question I've always heard Trent ask when he's dialoguing with atheists especially those who aren't really listening they do seem in the in the hooks of an ideology. of an ideology is you'll say, what's the best argument for theism out of all the bad ones? And why does it fail? Because that question quickly exposes whether or not you've even bothered to do your homework. Very often the atheist, not always, they're very smart, very thoughtful atheists, but very often the atheist will say, well, they're just all bad. I mean, you're basically asking for an argument for Santa Claus. They're all stupid. Well, okay.

People have been thinking about these questions for thousands of years. They're very sophisticated philosophers out there who so they're not all equally bad. You know, you just haven't done your homework. And I wonder if a question similar to that, to someone who would claim to be a feminist, like. Maybe something like what is. to be a feminist, like maybe something like what is. The least offensive view you think a feminist can hold, like to your you know, you're a feminist,

someone else is a feminist. What can they affirm that you deny or deny that you affirm and you still be on the same team? Like what are the what are the topics we terminus can disagree on? And OK, so why is it OK that she disagree with that? That sort of thing? I wonder. Yeah, yeah. Yes. That makes sense. Yeah, it totally makes sense.

And I'm trying to think what else I would. Yeah, because I'm thinking of I'm trying. I'm cutting you off. Sorry. I didn't have anything. OK. You bail me out. Yeah, no, because I'm thinking of myself I'm trying, I don't, I'm cutting you off. Sorry. I didn't have anything. Okay. You bailed me out. Yeah, no, cause I'm thinking of myself, you know, like little agnostic slash atheist 16 year old. Like I think a question like that is why are you so confident that God doesn't exist? Maybe you're right, but, but what, what, why, why think that? And I think I would

have said something about science without knowing what I meant and hoping you wouldn't ask me to define the term, but it would have rattled me a little bit, even think I would have said something about science without knowing what I meant and hoping you wouldn't ask me to define the term, but it would have rattled me a little bit, even though I would have walked out, perhaps seeming unscathed, not that we're trying to scape people, but we're trying to arrive at truth. Yeah.

I mean, in some ways that's why I maybe have a little bit of skepticism about apologetics per se, at least kind of the form it tends to take, because, and this is kind of a critique that Charles Taylor, who wrote A Secular Age, that he makes about. Fantastic, I love that guy. Yeah, so he talks about how modern apologetics

is very deeply modern in the sense that it's basically trying to kind of argue for a position from outside. Like, let's say this represents like a Christian understanding of reality, and you're like trying to stand outside of it to make these arguments for it. Whereas I think at least the way I like to approach it is to instead to just articulate what it looks like actually inside, to basically say this is what reality

looks like from a Catholic understanding and you kind of have to enter into it to see it and then that's, you know, I'm not going to try to convince you to enter into it, but like I'm going to describe the beauty and the truth that's found within it as much as I can. Have you familiar with Jonathan Pagiot? Oh yeah, a little bit. I think that's kind of what he does really well. Yeah, that reminds me of a Chesterton quote.

It's the idea of the church is like a cathedral. You look from without and the stained glass windows aren't illuminated. They just kind of look weird. It's this big stone building and then you go inside and you can understand it. I mean, I do think a lot. There are people for whom the apologetics approach is really helpful, you know. But I think I've also heard this idea, which I think there's something to it that oftentimes when people change their beliefs, it's not primarily about,

like they later might give reasons for changing their beliefs. Like they might later say, well, here's why I'm an atheist, here are my reasons. But those reasons are almost always kind of found after the fact that there's something more, I guess, like personal that probably happened in the heart. And then later we kind of find ways to justify our decision. Absolutely. My experience. Yeah, I think that's my yeah, that's my experience too. I was chatting

with Alex Plato, Dr. Alex Plato. He was on the show recently. His mother-in-law is a philosopher. And she gave this great analogy about how like, like, did she say that like truth is ultimately communicable or not that we can't know what's true or that objective true doesn't exist, but that Christianity is sort of like when you teach a kid to ride a bike, you there's no specific sentence or series of sentences that you can give to a child that he then understands, that he then gets on the bike and rides it perfectly. He has to give himself over to the experience of riding the bike.

Christianity is kind of like that. It's like you have to actually give yourself over to it. And it's not something that can kind of be communicated to you prior to that point, I don't think. At least the experience of it. The circles back to the idea of receptivity, right? Because I think in order for an argument to be persuasive, the person hearing it has to be in a position of receptivity prior to hearing the argument. I don't think an argument can make you receptive. I think it's God's grace really that can make us receptive

or an encounter, like having a profound encounter with a person or with Christ or with something unnameable. I think in my own life, I was made receptive by having some of my ideological beliefs shaken up a bit, you know, and that was primarily because I become a mother. I'd had this really intense experience, this really intense encounter with, you know, this life I had with this unborn child and then the proc, like just the intense process of pregnancy and childbirth and how much that changed me. And it's that what made me receptive to, you know, later after I become Catholic and I was like, okay, I do want to understand what the church teaches about sexuality.

I was reading, like I said before, but I was also praying to be receptive. I was in this receptive posture, right? And this kind of, in a way, loops back to the conversation we were having earlier, which is about headship. And I think one little postscript I want to add to that conversation is that we also have to remember that in relation to God, even male human beings are feminine. They should be in that receptive position, right? So even as a man, you know, has to understand his kind of masculine headship.

He's not the initiator in regards to God. Yeah, he's both in a marriage, he's the bridegroom in an image of Christ in that marriage, but then when it comes to the relationship between Christ and the church, he is bride, right? So there's a way, and I think that relates to how I said, well, what about, you know, so then what about when a man feels, you know, broken or traumatized and wants to be kind of enveloped by his wife? Like that's okay too, because he is in a sense, there's a bridaliness to his, you know, an experience thing that love through his wife from God is also still something beautiful.

So I guess I would want to add that as an addendum to the conversation about headship that like men remember, like you are the head, yes, you have spiritual headship, but you are also the bride, right? So you also have a head, I guess that's it. You are a head, but you also have spiritual headship, but you are also the bride. Right. So you also have a head. I guess that's you. You are ahead, but you also have a head. And so that's good. Yeah.

Yeah. Which is why our blessed mother reveals to us how to be human, most especially. Yes. Yeah, man, she's so beautiful. I love her so much. Cool. We have some questions from the good folks over on locals and Patreon. So let's get to some of these. Oh man alive. Let's see here.

This question comes from Teresa. Hi, I've always been a bit of a tomboy personality wise. I love makeup and jewelry and feminine things, but struggle with feeling a bit out of place when theology of the body topics like the feminine genius center around a naturally nurturing caretaker type woman as contrasted with a less emotional doer type man. I've always related more to the latter and I don't know what the church would say about a woman who say doesn't naturally desire to be a mother or is naturally very focused on the external Tool order, but can you help Clara? It's beautiful. Thank you so much for such a lovely question. Yeah

Oh, I love it and I I relate to that Yeah, my wife would too. I just learned how to curl my hair at like the age of 38 It does look good. Actually I actually was thinking that at some point. I didn't say it in case it was sexist, but you know, I thought it looked great. Yeah. You curl it away from the face.

This is what I learned. I was like, oh, my gosh, I've been doing the bo peep thing. You know, anyway, you go. So I feel I feel like I'm in this weird phase where I'm kind of, you know, doing some of the weird fem like learning how to paint my nails and stuff.

My nails aren't painted right now. So I think that conversations about the masculine genius and the feminine genius, I think, need to also take into account the individual. Right. So I think this is again, I'm pulling from Edith Stein. There's the level of the human, which men and women fully share in humanity. So the full range of human virtues, for example,

or capabilities in terms of rationality, all that kind of stuff, both men and women share fully in humanness. Then there's this level of sexual difference where there are differences between the sexes generally speaking. And if you're talking on the aggregate, you know, about certain personality traits or tastes or dispositions, then it often looks like a bimodal kind of graph, right?

So sorry, sorry, Mike. So you might have like a very, you know, most women are here, most men are here, but then you also have like some men who are over here and over here. So when it comes to the individual level, that's the third level, then an individual woman's femininity might look more analogous to some typical masculinity. But the point is it's still femininity.

And that's something I think is really important. I get this from John Paul II. He never uses the term masculine and feminine, except in relation to masculine to male persons and feminine to female persons. Because it is the body that characterizes the act that makes it feminine or masculine. So masculinity is a male body acting and being in the world

and femininity is a female body acting and being in the world and femininity is a female body acting and being in the world. So I think we need to resist thinking of masculinity and femininity as these like free-floating kind of archetypes that I'm like, you know, oh, I'm doing something feminine or I'm doing something masculine. No, like I am feminine. And so whatever I'm doing is feminine.

So, and I also think some aspects of the feminine genius that you here talked about, like an attention to the person and like the women, because of our procreative potential, we have this like special interest or investment in the dignity of the human person. Like that's like this kind of special wisdom or charism, I think, that women should lean into.

But it's something that needs to be cultivated. It's not just something we have. Like the feminine genius isn't just, it's like a virtue, right? It kind of has to be habituated. We might have certain proclivities or tendencies as women or our embodied experiences might open certain kinds of wisdom, but that still has to be kind of cultivated

in a way. So you might not really like babies, whatever. That's okay. Maybe the way you're gonna nurture is, you know, you're going to nurture old people who are dying, or maybe your nurturing is going to look kind of different. Also, I think men can be nurturing. That's why I don't like this.

Men are nurturing, women are nurturing, men are just like super strong or whatever. It's like, no, both men and women are nurturing and strong. They just embody that differently, right? So I almost think that we should think about masculinity and femininity more in terms of an icon, rather than in terms of like a list of characteristics. Like if you think of a typical icon of say St. Joseph,

and a typical icon of Mary, both of them are usually tenderly embracing the child Jesus in some way. Oftentimes when Joseph is kind of holding Jesus out and he's like, la la, you know, and then Mary might be kind of like cuddling Jesus toward her or something. So maybe there's something, there's a subtle difference in that. But nonetheless, both of them are being nurturing in that gesture, right? They're also both being protective. They're both, so it's not like they're these diet, they're not these opposites, but one is a woman,

one is a man, and one is masculine, and one is feminine. Right, so it's this embodied expression of who we are. So I think anytime we're going to like abstract lists of traits, then we're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, like this has to be grounded in embodiment. That is a really great answer. Thank you so much for it. Because I imagine maybe this person, Teresa, or other women,

maybe feel like kind of really afraid to become a mother because they just don't have a natural affection towards children. But what was your experience of that? I mean, did you have that experience prior or did you always like babies? I was afraid of babies and I was afraid of children. Like I didn't know how to talk to them.

And when I would try to talk to children, it was always super awkward because I just didn't really know. And now I love talking with kids because I'm around kids all the time so I know how to talk to them. And I'm like such, I love talking with kids because I you know, I'm around kids all the time So I know how to talk to them and I'm like such I Love babies so much like there's a baby in the room. I'm the person that's like Like I just get all googly I just love it and no I wasn't that way before I had

So maybe they had kids not to be afraid of that not to be afraid. I think my wife was was similar She yeah, I mean, she's such a great mom and she got such a lovely affection. But I like what you said there about sort of like. Virtues that need to be practiced, maybe. Yeah, yeah. And I think that something that something I have really had to practice that doesn't come naturally to me is gentleness. So that's something I have a I have a very strong devotion to Mary and I've done the consecration several times.

And every time I go through the consecration, I feel like there's a certain attribute that she's asking me to kind of accept as a gift and really cultivate. And over the last couple of years, gentleness, especially with my children, that's been one that I've just really tried to lean into because I think

I'm like kind of a, I have a kind of a choleric personality. Like I'm a little bit, I'm a little bit kind of intense or I have, I have two modes basically on or off. I'm either like, let's do this, let's do this, like, or I'm like taking a nap. And so, so it's been good to have to kind of cultivate gentleness because I feel like it's something that I've been. That's been done in me rather than this natural attribute I have. That's beautiful and feminine in a sense in the of the reception receiving this gift here. Mitchell Godfrey says what does false feminism offer that appeals to women? And how do you peel back the deception to show that leftist feminism,

by which he means false feminism, does not lead to fulfillment? That's a great question. So what is what is it? We're talking about feminism and we're talking about feminism not being good. What is it that's appealing to women? Yeah. And how do we show that it doesn't actually lead to female fulfillment? Right. First of all, I would say I like this question because in general, I think, you know, I think I get this from Augustine. Like, no, there's every desire has a holy side to it, right?

There's always like a longing for something good, even if that longing becomes misdirected and takes you astray. And so something I try to pay attention to when writing about gender or feminism, even if I'm say, hardly disagreeing with a particular perspective, I also want to pay attention to the desires that might draw someone to adopt that perspective and like what's good about those and what's actually not being fulfilled by that false system. So I like the question a lot. For me, the thing that drew me to feminism was a desire to have my dignity

as a woman specifically affirmed. And I think for a variety of reasons that had not really happened in my upbringing. So I had also internalized a lot of shame just because of some experiences I had. And I felt as though I had lost my worth completely. And I was desperately seeking that. And so feminism at first seemed to provide that. But ultimately, ironically, where I found the best account of that dignity is within Catholicism.

But it's that same desire. I mean, that same desire that took me into feminism arguably is the desire that brought me into Catholicism, too. That's great. Thank you. Vic says, my daughter is just over a year old and currently our only child. Any advice for her dad who grew up in a house of boys, how to raise a strong Catholic woman? Oh, I love this question. Well, I think, first of all, I feel like I want to laugh when people

ask me for parenting advice, because I'm just like, let me tell you, I'm in the trenches with you people. Like, you know, I guess something that I, I try to do with my kids is to really affirm embodiment is a good thing. And the body is a gift. Because I think that's something our culture has lost touch with. And especially in conversations around gender. And even in some of these distorted narratives, like we've been talking about, about maleness

and femaleness. And so just having a sense of like, you know, for my boys, like I'm a boy and that's a good thing. And I'm a girl and that's a good thing. Like those are both good and beautiful things. But then also allowing them a range of, you know, a healthy range of freedom when it comes to pursuing things that they like. I mean, this goes back to being attentive

to the unique humanity, the unique personhood of each child. And this is something I've actually learned from, shout out to my, my soul sister, best friend in the world, Lindsay, Chahunterides, who's the best mother in the world. And so this is what something she does so well. She has seven kids and all of them are just super interesting, unique people. And she is so attentive to their uniqueness and draws that out in them in a way that I've learned so much from. So I try to pay attention to who my child is

rather than having some kind of like cookie cutter expectation that I'm imposing on them. So I think for, especially for girls, it's good to hear, it's good to hear things like, not only you're beautiful, like girls should hear that. But also, you're really funny, you're really creative, you're smart, and you're so beautiful. Like, I really like you.

You know, things like that kind of holistic affirmation. I love that, yeah. So, but yeah, let her like what she likes. Same with boys, you know, don't freak out if you have a little boy who likes Frozen and My Little Ponies. That just means he really loves beauty. And that's something that can be cultivated. That's something good. Yeah.

You know? Yeah, that's great. Thank you. Matthew Kehoe, who is a very attractive patron, because all of my patrons and supporters are very attractive, says, do you know, And this is a good question, I think. Do you know of any first wave feminists who still use the label feminist? Like what they consider themselves a feminist? I mean, they're dead. All right. Next question.

Wait, no, I want to know what the question is. Like, well, it's a good point, right? So he's saying, like, OK, so do you know anybody who adopts what was fought for in first wave feminism, but stop there? Yes. Well, even today, like people who aren't old, but maybe they're like they're looking into the claims of first wave feminism went, yes. Yeah. But no to everything else. I'm a feminist. Yes, actually.

There. So one person who I'd really recommend her work, her name is Erica Bakiaki. She just wrote an amazing book. Great name, by the way. Oh yeah, I know, I love saying it. Erica Bakiaki. So she's a lawyer. She is a Catholic, brilliant, and she wrote a book called, I think it's called The Rights of Women. Now I feel so bad that I'm plugging your book and I don't.

Yeah, look up Erika Bakiaki. It's good luck spent on that. Don't tell him how to do it. B.A. C.K. I.O. C.H.I. Notre Dame Press. I think it's called The Rights of Woman, but it's basically a history. It starts from Mary Wollstonecraft, who was way like pre first wave feminism, so pre-feminist and kind of traces that, but she makes this,

she basically says that the values in first wave feminism, especially almost in this Aristotelian kind of virtue mode are, should be kind of reclaimed in our time. You got it exactly right, it's the rights of women. Boom, still got it. Yeah, so's the rights of women. Boom. Still got it. Yeah. So she's great.

Plot for her. Very good. Okay. Patrick Blonsky says, in a symbolic context, the feminine is usually associated with a question and the masculine in the answer, usually portrayed with a damsel in distress and the hero where the hero has to answer the call of the feminine, giving meaning to the masculine. It seems in the modern day as a man, there is no call to action.

Do men have to take on the role of the feminine to try to call them back into that role? What's a good way for man to find meaning without the feminine call? Does that make sense? I don't know. All right. So if I could sum up what I think he's trying to say is like when we when we read these, we watch these movies and read these stories, there's sometimes the damsel in distress. The man sacrifices his well-being in some capacity in order to save her. Right. Right. Right. Right.

I get west. Yeah. What do you think about that? I guess, right? Right, right, right. The quest. The quest call. What do you think about that, I guess, first of all? I don't know, I mean, I guess I've never... I mean, the damsel in distress thing that really comes out of the romance, kind of Arthurian romance narratives and the courtly love narratives in the Middle Ages.

And so in some ways, I like to think about this even in an older way than that, in terms of just sacramental Christian theology. So I would have to think about it more in terms of the woman being the question and the man being the answer, because in the way we were talking about headship earlier, you could almost make the opposite argument where like,

because the question seems to be the initiating force. And then the response is interesting, you know? So I guess I'm trying to like map out how that works. So I'm not gonna be giving a very satisfying answer. But ultimately, I think what calls us to quest and to action is divine action, right? So in that way, I think the quest that we're called on is maybe ultimately a calling from God.

And maybe you don't need a woman to do that for you. I don't know if I'm answering the question. No, I think you are. I think to bring it down from the whole damsel and distress thing and just kind of bring it down into everyday life, there is a fear that a lot of men have when you're in an airplane and this girl has got no upper body strength, is trying desperately to fit her suitcase into the thing and clearly can't. There's a fear on the part of man that I'm going to get tried or reprimanded if I offer to help,

because I think men want to help. They really do. They want to offer their strength and they want their strength to be received and blessed. Yes. Okay, that's, I think that's helpful. I get annoyed by our culture's amnesia about the reality of sexual dimorphism and this idea that somehow, oh, men aren't really stronger than women. I think absolutely they are. And that kind of strength is a good thing that also must be stewarded in a good way, right?

Cause it's also a force that can potentially be corrupted. So using that strength to help and protect is a good thing. You can open the door for me, please if I'm struggling with a suitcase, help me out. Like that's not gonna offend me. And I think, I really don't think there's any reason women should be offended by things like that. And it's, so I'm not, I'm not.

What would your suggestion be to men? Should men just sort of, I guess risk it. Like risk the woman being offended. Just say, can I give you a hand? Yeah. And then if she's like, yeah, then he like, good luck. When you say actually, I'm a woman. I'm just one woman trying to help

another sister out. Yeah, just like, can I give you a hand? I'm like, yeah, open doors. It's fine. Yeah, that's stupid. You know, I've been thinking of trying to be offended by it.

It's not stupid to open doors. Right. I've been trying to develop this thought lately about how pornography destroys everything. And, you know, because what's interesting about pornography is that it's the best possible teacher in that you're climaxing to a lie. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. OK. And so that burns itself deep into your brain. Yeah. And

I think the frustration, let's just pick on, not pick on, but focus on men for a moment, the frustration men might feel in marriage is you're supposed to be different to the way you are because I've been taught that you are. And it would remind me, like, if you actually thought that you could open up a bottle of wine with your watch, right? And you thought that's what the watch is. The watch is a wine bottle opener. You'd get really frickin frustrated with it because it's not working. It's not doing the thing I thought it should do.

And I think that we cannot underestimate how deeply pornography lies to us about what women are, how they ought to act, how they ought to react, that when you get into a sexual relationship and you've been educated, which is the wrong way of putting it since education means to lead forth, it's really burrowing us deeper into Plato's cave. forth, it's really burrowing us deeper into Plato's cave. That's the frustration that one feels, like one doesn't realize just how deeply one has been lied to. It's not a matter of intellectually acknowledging that pornography is evil. That's not enough to do away with these profound lies. In fact, I remember when I first watched my wife breastfeed my son, it was in that moment that I realized just how

demonic pornography was. Pornography became completely unthinkable to me in that moment. I saw the lie for what it was in a fresh, powerful way. What do you think? Oh my gosh, I can't agree more with everything you just said. In fact, I think that pornography is one of one of the things that's driving a lot of the gender confusion in our time, because if you if you take gender away from the body. And so what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman are just these

kind of free floating constructs. Well, what's shaping that construct? And it's more than anything else, it's pornography. And this is actually really explicit in some writing from trans-identified men. They'll write about how there's a whole genre called sissy porn that's actually this hypnotic style of porn that basically gets men to imagine themselves as women being sexually dominated, and that that actually can create gender dysphoria. And there are, like if you just read a lot of the writings

from these trans identified men, they'll say like, to be female is like essentially to be, I don't know if I can swear on your, to be- You can do what you'd like. Yeah, like to be female is to be fucked. Like that's what it means to be female. And so, you know, it doesn't matter if you have a vagina,

as long as you have a hole. And it's just like, I mean, I'm serious. I'm like, this is in their memoirs. Like if you, it's really explicit. And in a lot of the first person accounts I've heard, especially from male people who've transitioned or de-transitioned, like a porn addiction is a big part of it because it just,

it almost becomes like you think a woman is a sexual object and then you want to be that sexual object. Yeah, no, that's right. And I don't know. I want to do more research on that. But I'm also like, how do you do research on porn? Yeah, well, you've come to the right person. Yeah, I know. I was like, you talked a lot about that. Yeah. Yeah.

That's kind of why I moved away from it because it got so exhausting. It's so dark. Yeah. Yeah. Like I spent like two or three years researching for that book. I know why I moved away from it because it's so dark. It got so exhausting. So dark. I know. Yeah. Like I spent like two or three years researching for that book. One of the research was out there and was easily accessible because I knew the right people. So I didn't have to dig maybe as deeply as it seems that I had to. But yeah. Yeah.

I mean, one thing that it seems to be something we now know is that our sexual tastes aren't immutable. Yeah. sexual tastes aren't immutable. Yeah. And that depending on what we consume depend, you know, can affect what we then desire. Yeah. Yeah. And what I like, what a such an insulting reductionist view of women like a woman is someone who likes pink and wants to be, you know, dominated. That's what a woman is. Like, are you kidding? I'm supposed to get on. That's what a woman is. Are you kidding?

I'm supposed to get on board with that to be open minded. Are you kidding me? This is despicable. That's that's why I I, you know, took down my feminist bowling shoes. I was like, come back off. Hmm. Yeah. Alex says, what do you think is the proper way for a husband to treat his wife regarding family decision making, especially when they disagree?

So this is a there's a good question here, right? Because we're told that that women should submit to their husbands and husbands should love their wives as Christ loves the church. If we're going to listen to Chris system, we're going to say that that the family is not a democracy, that there is a head here. Now I'll just speak from my own point of view and then get you to kind of answer this

because it's very difficult, I think, to answer this theoretically. Maybe it's not, I don't know. But like, I can think of very, maybe there's been one, I don't know, I've been married like 15, 16 years where we've actually come to like a there is no resolution unless you just take my opinion, even though you feel very strongly. There hasn't been one, I don't think. Certainly we've fought and argued, but I really want to know what my wife has to say.

And very often she's more intuitive than I am, almost always. And she's never led me astray. Now that doesn't mean I just sort of take her opinion and throw my own away. And there are probably times where I've said, no, this, this is what we're doing. But it's been, but in those times I've sensed this sort of like this receptivity in her to want to know like, what do we do here? But it's been mutual. Yeah, I mean, I've had the same experience. I can't really think of a time that... I mean, usually if there's a more complex issue, I mean, very often when it comes to big decisions,

my husband and I will just have conversations, like multiple conversations about it, because I genuinely want to know what he thinks. And- And he presumably wants to know what you think. And usually through that process, we can, we get on the same page. And so I can't think of like a single time

where it's become just like, you know. This is kind of a funny example, but we're preparing to make like a cross country move in the next, I don't know, month. So we've been having this ongoing discussion about like, which hellish way of moving cross country with four small children and two cats and a dog should we pick, right? Like, which is, which will, which is the least worst option, right? And we had very different instincts about what that would be. And

we kind of went around, you know, kind of back and forth. And then just the other day I was like, okay, I was like, can we just, I was like, let's sit down. We've got to make a decision because the deadline's looming here. And then we just kind of talked through it, you know, and I was like, I just, I really want to know what you think. And, you know, and eventually we kind of came to an understanding and then we both felt good

about the decision and then we made it. So it wasn't, but neither person was like dominating it. Cause I think we just both really wanted to, yeah, it's much more, it feels much more like a dance. Now there have been times, right, cause we've talked about, my husband and I have been in very different faith circumstances in our marriage. And I think there was a time when I was being,

I don't know, more controlling, and it took me a while to realize that, where I kind of wanted to facilitate his conversion, where I'd be like, oh, read this book, or I'd be praying on these novenas, you know, just constantly, because like I wanted it on my timeline. And it took me a while to realize that like,

oh, I just need to get out of the way and I need to give him total freedom. And so in a way that's kind of like, I needed to learn to just sort of submit to his, he's gonna make his own decisions about his religious practice and faith, and that's not something I need to curate from behind the scenes.

So in a way, that was kind of me learning to submit to him, but at the same time, I take seriously my role in forming the faith of my kids. So there were times where I think I had to step into that role because my husband wasn't in that place. And it was lonely, like it didn't feel good, you know? And then there were times, and then when my husband started say like leading the prayer before dinner,

I was like thrilled about that. Like that felt good and that felt right. Not because, yeah, I just, there's something beautiful about that. And I think, speaking of theology of the body, I mean, there is something in male physiology that carries an air of authority. And babies see this immediately, right? Like all of my kids have gone through a phase as infants where like anytime they hear a man's voice, they just burst out crying.

My daughter, Avala, used to cry when a man would look at her. Yes, exactly. I had a good friend who wanted to hold my daughter, but had to wear sunglasses for her not to cry. Yes, exactly. Right. And that's because like men are bigger, they're stronger, they're more intimidating, their voices are like more powerful and deep. And I think if we were more in tune with kind of our primal instincts, we would realize how important that is and how much that matters, right? And so if you have the person in the home who kind of embodies

that kind of authority physically and who's not using that authority in a way that's directing the family toward faith, then that can really undermine that. And that creates a void that it's hard for a woman to fill. Of course, not everyone's in ideal circumstances, and many women try to fill that role all the time, but it's not the ideal. So, you know, and I don't think it's...

It's funny, I feel a little bit like, oh no, people I don't think it's... It's funny, like, I feel a little bit like, oh, no, people are going to be mad, because I just sort of made this essentialist argument. But I think it's just true. I think we're so detached from embodiment in our culture that we don't realize how much those things really matter and how much those even subtly shape our perception.

And how much, I mean, if you think about the physiology of the father and that kind of strength and power and authority that physiology conveys, if that's used abusively, like how devastating that is, but also if that's used protectively, like how much security that provides for young children and how important that is. So I think that kind of strength is so important and beautiful when it is creating this sense of security in the family and not control, but safety and freedom.

I love it, yeah. I've had to say to one of my children as they've gotten older, one of my sons, what did you just say to my wife? So powerful. Wow. Oh, yeah. Yeah. This is my wife. And that's not going to happen ever again, is it?

No, Dad. Right. Good. You know, it's funny, like when I've had like that one brush with cancel culture, I had. Yeah. What's what happened? Oh, yeah. Yeah. OK. So I'll tell you. So I I was invited to Hope College in Michigan last fall, and I was invited by the St. Benedict Institute, which is this wonderfully vibrant Catholic Institute there, even though it's a Protestant college.

So they're just amazing people. I couldn't speak more positively about them, but I was speaking about gender, and I guess some students, you know, like, Googled me and found out that I think women are female. And then the LGBT group on campus sent an email to the entire student body, which they shouldn't have had the authority to do, that basically said, you know, I'm a bigot, I'm transphobic, I'm homophobic, and the St. Benedict Institute is transphobic for inviting me,

and this is unsafe, and blah, blah, blah. So it just, by the time I arrived, the campus was already in this like state, you know? And then they put up like defamatory posters about me. A few of them waited until I came out of the building after my talk to just kind of follow me in the dark and shout things at me for a while. And of course, all the ones who followed me were being cool to have right then. Yeah. Is a male to protect you. Right. Yeah. Well, so here's what I was going to say.

Well, also I did, by the way, I was like walking with this sort of little like Catholic entourage, you know, and one of them was like a priest in a full cassock and so I felt. But it was it was like it was intense and very difficult to go through. But I tell this story to say, like when I called my husband about it, like all I wanted from him was to be like kind of mad and like protected and be like,

how dare they do that to my wife? You know, like I wanted that kind of validation from him, like a very particular kind of validation. Like, you know, I told my girlfriends and they were all just like, oh my gosh, you know, but what I wanted from my husband in that moment was like him to kind of get a little like, what'd you say to my wife? You know, like his chest. Yeah, I wanted that. And I think that's fine. You know, he's the only person that can really provide that for me, you know.

Yeah. Hmm. Gosh, man, I love being a dad so much. that for me, you know. Hmm. Gosh, man, I love being a dad so much. I got a friend who lives, well, he used to live in Steubenville and he's got, I think, like nine daughters, like no son's nine daughters. And I just want to throw this idea out there to any men of daughters. So for every daughter, he's bought a different gun. And on that gun, he has carved or had carved the name of that daughter.

And that's the gun that he cleans. So cool. That's the gun he cleans when the boyfriend comes over. And that's the gun he gifts to the husband. Isn't that nice? When he marries her, you know, like that. It's funny. It's like Americans are stereotypical.

But I love it. What I love is like she's yours to protect now. It's beautiful. No, that is a cool symbol. I kind of want a gun with my name on it. I'm not going to lie. They said they sell all sorts of

guns. I'm actually a really good sharpshooter. Yeah. Isn't that funny? No. But then I'm not sexist. What do you. That's really funny. And it worked. People are pissing themselves right now. Maria Marotti says, What do you think is the biggest lie that feminism That feminism is teaching our girls. Oh, there's so many to choose from. And it depends on... that having a female body is a bad thing. That's it. Because that covers all of them. That covers the women aren't female thing. That covers the bad thing. That's it, because that covers all of them. That covers the women aren't female thing. That covers the abortion thing.

That's the lie. That's the kind of the biggest distortion of feminism is that we're oppressed. Women are oppressed by their own bodies. That's the biggest lie. Life, probably not his real name says historically female dominated professions like education seem to more readily embrace the postmodern theories, CRT, gender, sexuality, nursing and health care

at large resisted this trend for a while. But our profession has seen the pendulum swing significantly towards the postmodern in the last few years. We criticize these philosophies, but what are we doing? What can we do to change this tide and prepare unradicalized nurses, teachers, et cetera? How can we prepare women and men for that matter to resist radical ideologies that are present in our higher education environments?

It's a real problem. You know what, before I had kids, and even early on having kids, I thought, you know, I'm gonna send my kids to public school, I went to public school, it's fine. You know, I don't want them to be in these sort of bubbles. But I have to say, you could not pay me now to send my kids to public school.

And that's because these ideologies are so prominent, and they're being targeted at younger and younger kids. And so I think making a very intentional choice about how you educate your kids, and not to put them in some kind of weird bunker or something where you're like, oh, we shouldn't engage with the world. But I think,

I think where, I think choose your schools wisely. And I don't know why I was like staring at the camera almost the whole time I was, I didn't even realize it, but I'm like, choose, okay. And same with college, you know, don't, try to find a college where your kids at least have the option, you know, that at least it's on offer, you know. I think those those kinds of decisions are incredibly important because it is it's true. I mean, that's how because it is it's true. I mean, that's how.

That's how these these ideas, I think, enter the broader culture. I mean, there's also just social media in general, but I think when people are trained professionally, then then that shapes the professions in a certain way. So it's tough. I know I talk about Stephenville quite a bit on this show, and I'm just really not trying to get people to move here, but. Move here now, but there are lots of really great Catholic communities across this country or whatever country you live in.

I'm sure there's some. So finding a place like that and embedding your little family is a really beautiful thing, because what I find is like my children, we've got like five houses on the same street of really great families. And none of them are that bunker mentality that you talk about. But they are good, solid families who pray with their children. And what I find is that my kids are being evangelized by other kids on the streets in ways that I keep discovering, you know? Here's an example. We were at this little fundraiser for a particular Montessori school,

and my son's friend was confronted with this young girl who was into wicker, and he started arguing with her, you know? And then my son came up to me and told me how great it was and how Chris smashed her, like in this debate, you know? Smash, oh, okay, you know, so destroyed her right rhetorically in this is of course in this debate. So, you know, the point is it's still in a way appealing to his pride and ego. But like kids like teenagers are infallible anyway. So but to have him well, they think they are.

So to have him on the side of like he had the better arguments, like that's that, you know, just another example. My son went and played D&D because he's cool the other day. And I walked over there and Deacon Mike Welker, who also teaches economics at the school, Dr. Deacon Mike Welker said, All right, boys, when we pray a Divine Mercy Chapel before we begin and all I saw them with my own eyes. I went, yep. And they all just jumped up and we all prayed the Divine Mercy Chaplet. Like, right.

So there are places that you can go, because it seems to me that like a right. A family in secular society is like finding a child lost in the woods. It won't last long unless it finds help. And I think post covid world, finding it's maybe easier for a lot of people to work remotely, finding a good community is not a bad idea. Yeah, I would agree with that. I would agree with that.

And again, not in a way that, you know, where you sequester yourself from the world, but in a way that you create a vibrant community so that you can actually meaningfully engage with the world and not just simply get lost. Honestly, that's what I love about Steubenville. It's not like we bought a ton of land and then just started buying houses and maybe that's OK to do that. I'm not criticizing that. But like it's just like this Catholic community that's emerged from this run downtown where you encounter homelessness, like you can encounter prostitutes. You do hear about meth busts that took place on streets, maybe next to mine.

You know, and you're you're creating Catholic community here. Like over the summer, there's going to be about five Shakespeare's in the park, you know, and all sorts of people show up and bring beer. And it's like we're trying to. Yeah. Yeah. All right. It's beautiful. All right. Let's see what we got here. Armstead says, What are the issues, current and ongoing, of a Christian woman in the 21st century? Her views of sainthood, of the Catholic and apostolic church and who is are her favorite saints and why?

However, you want to attack that. I mean, I can only speak for one woman of the 21st century. That'd be me. That's right. I've got lots of issues. So I'll skip that one. Saints, I mean, Joan. I've got a little Joan chaplet that I've been like 20 years. How does that chaplet work?

I have no idea. I just use Hail Mary's on it. I don't know that it has a specific name. My friend Lindsay gave it to me. And obviously I have it. But Edith Stein, I mean, I think she's someone I've discovered more recently and I want to understand her thought more. But she's, yeah, she is wonderful. There is an Edith Stein scholar who lives directly across from me.

If you want to go and meet him. Yeah, Or yeah, I'd love to be connected with. Yeah, I'll be connected. Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah, she's beautiful. I love her. And in her, she was the secretary for Hustle, right? So phenomenologist. But in one of her papers, tried to sort of reconcile Thomism and phenomenology in a Socratic back and forth

between I believe it was Husserl, maybe not, and Aquinas. Yeah, super interesting, right? And I haven't had a chance to read more of her philosophical works yet. What she has to say about empathy is fascinating. He read much about that? You're familiar with it though, right? What she has to say.

The reason I'm asking so intently like this is I'm terrified that I've got the wrong person. But Edith Stein wrote about empathy. Won't you look that up while I continue? Well, you're not going to I'm not going to. I've only read her essays on women. Well, you might not, but a thousand people in the YouTube comments section are going to trip over themselves, correcting me. But what she had to say was when she had this kind of weird idea that

I experience your jubilation. I don't see you make a sort of deduction that you are jubilant and then wonder what it would be like to feel that and then feel it. But it's something kind of more mystical than that. Like, I feel your pain. I feel your jubilation. Wow. And this seems to be somewhat bad out over the last decade or two in modern neuroscience with the idea of mirror neurons Yeah, that we experience what we see

So like the classic example is if you're at a cricket match or whatever and a fella gets hit in the genitals All the men who are watching this will buckle, you know As if the same thing had happened to them. And this what makes pornography in addition to all the other evils so insidious, because you might say to yourself, I know how to distinguish between fantasy and reality. But the fact is you actually don't because you believe that you're experiencing in what you're viewing and there's not really this way of differentiating it at a deep level. I got that right, didn't I?

Stein, empathy? Yeah, Edith Stein. Yes. Congratulations. Thank you. Jacob says, if we have friends and family that are very new age feminists, what is the best way to engage discussion with them and draw them to question their beliefs without creating animosity and drama? I feel like we may have addressed this. Yeah, a little bit.

I mean, yeah, I think just asking questions, getting a sense of what their what common values might be. I mean, when I engage, especially with people who I know who are feminists, I try to make, first of all, don't all, you don't have to make arguments with someone. But like if you're in a conversation where that seems to make sense, don't force it. I try, I try to make some of my critiques of feminism centered on pro-woman values and approaches so that, so that they get a little confused. You know, kind of like, that doesn't compute, right? You're critiquing some things like abortion. Like you're saying abortion is bad

because it's actually bad for women, right? So, but I don't know. I think I really support more of a relationship building approach, asking careful questions. And then if you're asked to share your perspective, then trying to share it in a way that engages with something you think that they might also value. I think that's good. That's kind of my advice. As opposed to just being like a fly by. Yeah, like. Argue.

Yeah. Yeah, I've heard Jason Everett say this. I think it's spot on. He says we should take a holistic interest in people's lives. We shouldn't just be interested in what we think is wrong about them, because who's interested in listening to somebody who's only interested in what's wrong about them? Yeah. It's like the Mormons at the door. They might be lovely fellows,

but you just know right away that they're interested in what they think is wrong about you and they would like to change it. And so you're not that interested in talking to them because it's going to be exhausting. It's not going to go anywhere anyway. Yeah. You know. Yeah. So tell us about this new book of yours. Oh, yeah. Can you put a link to this below, Neil? What's it called and what's it about?

It's called The Genesis of Gender, a Christian Theory, and it's coming out from Ignatius. It should actually already be out, but the printing company that Ignatius uses was hijacked with some like Russian spyware in one of their computers. And so it delayed the printing. But now it's supposed to be out on May 30th, which is St. Jones feast day.

So- Was that planned? What did that just happen? No, that's just, you know, jokes on you, Satan. Yeah. So this book is, it critiques what I call the gender paradigm, which is basically what a lot of people

call gender ideology. And so I draw on my own background in gender studies and feminist studies to articulate. So the genesis is kind of a double meaning because I articulate the genesis or the history of how the concept of gender developed and how it has come to mean what it currently means, which is basically nothing or slash anything you want. So I give that genesis of that development. And then I also compare that gender paradigm

to the genesis paradigm or the Catholic understanding of reality and show kind of how those are fundamentally incompatible. And I, yeah, so that's basically the book. But if you're looking for a Christian or Catholic perspective on everything that's happening gender-wise in our culture and how to better understand the kind of philosophical

and historical background of that, and how to articulate why it doesn't mesh with Catholicism, especially articulating that in positive terms. So not just saying this is bad, but also saying here's the Catholic view and here's why it's good, then you might like it. And you can order it, you can pre-order it on the Ignatius website.

Last I checked, it was on sale. It's also available on Amazon for the time being. We'll see. But actually, Ignatius, just one of my editors told me that it's the number one new release in gender and sexuality in religious studies. So like a very kind of niche thing. But apparently it's beating out a book called The Trans Talmud.

So anyway, I had the number one bestselling book in pornography studies. There you go. And I was beating Janet Jameson and all these other porn performers. Yes, exactly. Now I don't know where it is. But man, are you gonna do an audio book? I don't know. Did you does Ignatius do that or? Well, what happened with me was some audio book company reached out to me having seen the success of the book on Amazon and asked if they could get in touch with The publisher. Ah, I don't know how that worked cool. They got some English bloke to read it.

Oh, yeah, I would love for an English person to read it. He sounds way smarter than me. Yeah, definitely. You know, he's just great. Well, not definitely. The genesis of gender. Genesis of what? The genesis of gender.

But you know what's funny is this. Let me see if I can find this. If you go and find the porn myth on Audible and you listen to the sample, it plays not my writing, but the person who wrote the forward. But if anyone wanted to just listen, they would think that I can't find it. I think I've already bought it, so it doesn't let me play it. They would think it's just me.

But it basically is this guy like. I had no idea what Paul was doing to me and all these like seedy details about what I suppose that it wasn't me. I mean, I've done seedy stuff, but that wasn't me. But that's fine. And in my recent

book on happiness, which I can give you a copy so you can not read it unless you want to. But there are much better books. But anyway, that book, I read that. I read that for audio book. Oh, cool. Yeah. That was a real fun experience actually. Yeah. I'd love to do an audio book if I mean, I assume someone will ask me to at some point if my book sells.

Now your other book into the deep, is that what it's called? Yes. That was terrific. I remember when I got a copy of that, being like really impressed with your ability to write beautifully. It was captivating. It wasn't, you know, it was like you must have been a major major in English or something. We'll have a PhD in English. Yeah. So. Yeah. Yeah. You're a very good writer.

Thank you. Thank you. Yes, I try. I try to pay attention to the craft as well as the content. So yeah, the memoir, I wrote a book on my conversion memoir, which actually when I was writing that, the audience I had in mind was my younger self. So pretty much the answer to that question is, what I would tell her is everything in that book.

And it's called, "'Into the Deep' an Unlikely Catholic Conversion." And it's called Into the Deep and Unlikely Catholic Conversion. And it's also available on Amazon or from Whitfinstock, the publisher. Yeah. Has it been weird kind of coming more into the public eye as you've been writing these books? Do you have a blog that you? No, I don't have a blog. I write when I have time. I'm hoping in my new position

that I'm gonna be taking on this summer that I'll have more time to write more frequently because right now I'm just, there's not a lot of time. Do you love to write? I love it, I do. I find it like arduous. Like the process of it is arduous. Yeah, I do too.

But that's my, like I'm a writer at heart. I would much rather be, you know, and not in front of a camera, but like in my office by myself. Like, but it's like giving birth. Like writing is just like, it's arduous, but then like when you've produced something, it's amazing. But then the difference is once I've like given birth to a book, like I never want to look at it again.

Yeah. That's the difference because now that I have to, cause I actually finished writing the Genesis of Gender over a year ago. And so now I'm doing some book promo stuff like tomorrow. I'm going to D.C. to give a talk on it. And I'm like, wait, what was it about? Like, I don't know. I guess I need to, like, read it on the plane again, you know, because it's been a while. But well, I'm the same. I wrote that book, How to Be Happy St.

Thomas's Secret to a Good Life, and it was originally under contract with Ignatius. And so I sent them the manuscript when it was done and they said, well, here's a ton of stuff like you're gonna have to change if we're gonna publish this. And I went, no, I don't want to. So they allowed me to get out of the contract and I went to Emmaus Road and I'm like, here's my book.

Look at me and listen carefully. I'm not gonna write anything else. If you wanna edit the crap out of it, literally, that's not literally, I guess metaphorically still, but if you wanna edit that out, that's fine. Take it through as many reviews as you want, I'm not adding anything. And at one point they wrote back,

I was wondering if you could just like fit it, no, no, that was the deal. So no, but it's exactly why you just get so exhausted. Yeah, it is like an all consuming kind of process. Like it's immersive, so. Well, it sounds obvious and maybe is, but I think what's so difficult about writing as opposed to speaking is it's,

you have to clarify those jumbled thoughts that you have and make them clear. And when you and I are doing this, it's okay that they're jumbled. And in fact, that's part of the appeal. People like hearing people think things through, but what's kind of so arduous for me in writing is how do I say this thing that I want to say clearly? But then it makes you a better speaker too, I think, because

you've wrestled with these concepts. Yeah, I'm still like, I guess I feel like when I do speaking events, first of all, I'm super anxious. I usually try to kind of more or less like write out what I want to say, because I just get nervous. I'm not, I'm not as much of an extemporaneous speaker. I mean, I can do it, but it's like it's out of my comfort zone. Which is funny because you're very relatable and this is great. Yeah, you're very quick. I like I like being on panels when it's like I'm a solo kind of lecturer.

That's probably my least favorite. The best advice I ever got on speaking came from Christopher Fannik back in the day, like back in the day, like 12, 13 years ago. He said, just go up there and be big, goofy you. Like, don't try to sound like somebody. Don't don't, you know, because I think most people who are giving talks or whatever, they you begin by imitating what you appreciate, which makes sense. But yeah, go up there and be big goofy you that really helped actually. Well, first of all, ouch, but second of all, okay. Yeah. We can't end now. We've got another three hour mark, are we? See three and six seconds.. Ah that was amazing! I knew that.

I have no concept of time. Do you know that movie? No, is it good? I felt like if you're born in 1983 you would... it's like a reference I love. He's like I have no concept of time. What's it from? So I married an axe murderer, Mike Meyers. I love the name and I've heard of it but I haven't watched it. Is it worth watching? It's very fun. I'm trying to get back into TV and back into movies. I love the name and I've heard of it, but I haven't watched it. Is it worth watching? It's very fun. I'm trying to get back into TV and back into movies. I'm too ADD to enjoy a whole movie. I get bored really quickly.

Yeah. I mean, the last time I watched this was on videotape, so it's been a while, but it's very fun. What I find I do is I try to relive kind of nostalgic moments from my teenage years, thinking they'll give me the same experience of being kind of consumed, you know, and just like in it, but then it doesn't happen. No, it doesn't. I'm such a geek now. I was reading like Aquinas's commentary

on Aristotle's Nick and Mickey and ethics last night. And I'm like, this is it. This is like when I played NBA Jam when I was 14. Yeah, I was at a bar by myself drinking an IPA and reading a journal article on subordinationism on Headship by Margaret McCarthy, which is really good. You should interview her. She's a professor at the JP2 Institute.

She's a vocal anti-feminist, although pretty much everything she writes on I agree with. But she's just real sharp. You guys would have fun. Yeah, that'd be great. But do you ever into video games as a kid? No, but actually as an adult. That's when I, yeah, in graduate school,

I started playing. I would be like working on my dissertation, and then I would spend a day in my robe playing Skyrim and eating candy. Oh, that's fantastic. What's Skyrim? No, I guess at this time it wasn't Skyrim. It was the one before that Elder Scrolls Oblivion. Sky, what's it called?

Skyrim is the later one. Rim, yes. Is that the one where you transport all over the place? It's like an art way. That should be an easy yes or no. It's like a Lord of the Rings-ish kind of like, you know then I don't know. You know, I just, I like those, I like games where you shoot things. Ah, nice.

I find that relaxing. My husband likes to play things like Civ, you know? And I'm like. Yeah, what's Civ? Civilization, you know? And I'm like, that sounds so stressful. Like you're trying, it's like, you're pretending, you're this like world administrator,

and you're like having to deal with resource management. I'm like, oh my gosh. just want to shoot people in the face Yeah, I want to lurk around from a distance and shoot people So my favorite kind of games are point-and-click adventure games where you kind of like find clues and make your way through a series Of things. Okay. You just mentioned revisiting teenage things. I'm finding them boring. How are you finding that one that you're playing now? actually, ah This is fascinating case. There's a game and it's called the Pandora Directive. This may have came out back in 1997, six, some time like that. And it was the great,

one of the greatest things that ever happened to me, including marriage. No, it wasn't at all, but it was really great and I loved it so much. And this is one of these games where you're kind of walking away around a map and it's. So I I thought, well, I'll try that again. And I actually have been really enjoying it. So I've been enjoying this game. And then I go online and I realize it's also a book and they base the game. But they actually wrote it in conjunction with the game being made.

This is probably so boring to you. My wife's like, OK, honey, please talk about baptism again. Anything. It's okay. I'm socialized to pretend to be interested. Okay, well, here we go. Three more hours. So I wrote, so I, so I, so this movie, this, this video game is actual footage of a person walking around. So it's a real person. It's not just a pixel. Um, so I wrote to the guy who wrote the book and I, he's basically, he's sending me a copy of the book with a signature of this guy who was in the video game. I was just like, so what's crazy is like, I now have a bigger platform than this guy. That's weird.

That's weird. That's like, I could probably get him on my show. Whereas like he was a God to me when I was 16. Have you ever played Half-Life? Half-Life, yes. What is that? Half-Life 2. I've played those, yeah. That's like my favorite game ever. What is Half-Life?

It's first person, sort of. It's an old first person. It's first person, but it's like, it's really interesting. You have to do these kind of like 3D puzzles to get through things. And there's also some shooting, but it's an interesting story.

It's one of those, there was always supposed to be like a Half-Life 3, but it never came out. And I'm sad about it. But once I had kids, I like, yeah, I don't think I've played since then, but I don't have as much time. But that's all I'm gonna do in retirement,

is just play games. I think everyone, once a month for an entire day, should just stay in their robe and play video games. Just allow yourself. And I would eat like this like cake, this like pre-packaged cake that I got from Tesco's, you know, in the UK, in the grocery store.

It was fun, it was great. Yeah, you do that with frequency, it stops being good. Yeah, exactly. But occasionally. What's funny is like when I, well, it's not that funny, but when I got COVID, did you have COVID? Did you lose your smell?

No, I didn't have any of the classic COVID symptoms. I love that you're disappointed. No fever, no loss of smell, no cough. I just had, I felt awful and I had debilitating fatigue for like over two weeks. It was horrible. I don't know why, it doesn't matter. What were you gonna say when you had COVID?

When I had COVID, yeah, no. But laying in bed all day, is not fun when you're sick, turns out. I know. Because like all I want to do is to be left alone when you've got four kids. Yes. I should be left alone. And I just want to watch the entire

series of Breaking Bad again. Yeah. All right. So good. But when you're tired and sick, it just hurts to lay down. Yeah, totally. So if it's sunny out, it's like tortured. Anyway, thank you so much for flying out. Did you fly from? I flew from Oregon where I live.

You did. God bless you. Thank you for doing that. Yeah, no, it was great. Cool. Thanks a lot. Yeah, thanks Matt.