Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 387 | What’s a Woman? Culture’s Confused; Christianity Is Clear

Episode Date: March 17, 2021

Today is "Women Wednesday"! (Why? Because we said so.) We'll be talking about a few news stories about women, as well as discussing the biblical idea of womanhood. Was the Grammy performance we saw from Cardi B empowering to women? There's also the drama surrounding Tucker Carlson and women in the military. We get it, and we agree, women are awesome. But maybe, just maybe, there are some jobs more suited for men. --- Today's Sponsors: Annie's Kit Clubs is celebrating National Crafting Month with a special 50% off a creative, fun, & hands-on way to help take your mind off life's stress and aggravation. Go to AnniesKitClubs.com/ALLIE & save 50% off your first kit! Bambee can help you change HR from your biggest liability to your biggest strength! Go to Bambee.com/ALLIE right now to schedule your FREE HR audit! --- Past Episode Mentioned: Ep 335: Understanding the Biblical Telos of Gender https://apple.co/3rDzpdV --- Show Links: Washington Examiner: "Of Course the National Education Association Sparked Dr. Seuss's Cancellation" https://washex.am/2NqDl2z Duke Law: "Comparing Athletic Performances The Best Elite Women to Boys and Men" https://bit.ly/3tz4jV0 CBS: "Women in Combat at Disadvantage, Marine Corps Study Shows" https://cbsn.ws/3vAWRL6 The New York Times: "Where Fitness Is the Job, Army Struggles to Be a Fair Boss With Female Troops" https://nyti.ms/3rX6Fg1 The Federalist: "Who Are the Rich, White Men Institutionalizing Transgender Ideology?" https://bit.ly/3twy8py Nike Ad: "The Toughest Athletes" https://bit.ly/3qXVXoe --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Hey guys, welcome to relatable, happy Wednesday. Today is I've officially decided and declared woman Wednesday. We've been talking about this episode all week. I've been preparing for it. I'm super excited about it. We are going to talk about women, what women are, what we aren't, why we matter, the unfair standards that sometimes we are held to, the right standards that God holds us to how the world is always going to redefine what a woman is, repress true womanhood, even in the name of empowerment, but how the Bible, how Christianity uniquely provides value, provides us identity, provides refuge that we can cling to, that we can run to, and all of the craziness that is surrounding how the world approaches and defines womanhood.

So we are going to weave some recent stories. into this conversation. We're going to talk about the Cardi B performance at the Grammys. We are also going to talk about women in the military and Tucker Carlson's drama that has unfolded over the past week in regards to that. We're going to talk about boys who identify as girls playing girls' sports, what this actually means for girls' sports. We're going to talk about the very real factual differences between boys and girls, men, and women. that justify sex segregated spaces, why this is important. And then what we as Christians, how we as the church, can continue to be the place where

women run to from the chaos and confusion that characterizes the world. I think this issue deserves clarity because, as we've already established, there are so many competing voices, competing images, competing messages telling us what it really means to be a woman. You've got one form of feminism or something that calls itself feminism, which says that empowerment means, quote, owning your sexuality, the way that Cardi B and Megan the Stallion did in the song Wop and how they represented this kind of empowerment in their performance at the Grammys. I've read the lyrics to the song. I saw about eight seconds of the performance at the Grammys on Twitter. And I get the gist. I got it. These are women.

who are pushing the limits on sexuality and self-objectification in order to get attention and to make a profit. I really don't think for them it's much deeper than that. I don't actually think that they're intending to make some kind of social statement on feminism or owning your sexuality or girl power or anything like that. I think it is literally what can we get away with? How can how can we push the limits, push the boundaries and make ourselves money? I mean, Cardi B was She was a stripper before she became a rapper. She has talked openly about how when she was a stripper, she would drug guys and then she would rob them of their money, guys that she was having sex with. I mean, she is someone, it seems, who has no problem with glorifying and making light of exploitation and objectification.

So it shouldn't surprise us that she's willing to push the limits in her lyrics and performances for money. I think that she would probably admit as much. And like I said, I don't think that she's trying to make a point. I think that she is no different than most performers in this way. I think most performers are just thinking about their own bottom line. But whether she wants to or not, because she has so much influence, because she has so much popularity, her songs and her brand do represent something culturally significant, something that is actually worth examining and looking at,

especially when we're talking about what it means to be feminine, what it means to be a woman. They do tell us something about what we tolerate as a society, what we value, and what we are willing to celebrate. And I'm going to do a tangent here. And this might not seem like it has anything to do with womanhood. We're about to talk about the Dr. Seuss thing again. But I think it's important to kind of explain a statement that I and a lot of other people have made in comparing Dr. Seuss. and our cancellation, yes, cancellation of Dr. Seuss with the glorification of Wop and Cardi B.

And I'll bring it back to the conversation about womanhood and I'll tie it all together. But I want to make something clear after I tweeted that a society that is sensitive to 80-year-old children's books, but desensitized to porn is a society that is degenerating. It is disintegrating, not actually progressing. And a lot of you agreed with that. of you did, most of you did, but I also got some pushback. I also got people that were very angry about this. Someone messaged me and said as like a Christian mom, you're so stupid. Like she literally was like, you're so stupid and off base. I'm appalled at this comparison. And I said, I'm appalled

by your ability, your inability to have a conversation without slinging ad hominemes. And she said, wow, and blocked me. So that's the kind of productive conversation that sometimes, times happen surrounding these statements that some people see is controversial. But I 100% stand by that statement. But lest I be accused of a category error, let me explain what is meant by that. And I'm not the only person that has made that kind of statement in comparison over the past week or so. I understand that Wop, the song, and Dr. Seusser technically intended for different audiences. The former is for adults. And yes, unfortunately teenagers, the latter is intended for. for children. But the point I and others are making isn't about what we show our kids or what's

beneficial for kids, even though, of course, that's important, but rather what we decide as a society is intolerable and what is not. So there are people trying to minimize this whole Dr. Seuss controversy saying, oh, Dr. Seuss is not being canceled. He's not being canceled. This is a fake controversy. It's just his estate catching up with the Times, deciding that they're no longer going to publish these six books with racist depiction. and then stop trying to pretend like this is something bigger than it actually is. But it's not just that. It's also the National Education Association, the largest teachers union in the country,

deciding after two decades to dissociate from Dr. Seuss or dissociate Dr. Seuss from the Child Literacy Program, read across America, the author that has done more to advance childhood literacy worldwide than any other single author by far, Read Across America Day was on Dr. Seuss's birthday for two decades, was celebrated as such by every presidential administration, including Barack Obama, as who said in 2015, that pretty much all you need to know can be found in Dr. Seuss books. And yet, this year, for the first time in decades, the president did not mention Dr. Seuss in his address on Read Across America Day. And here is a report by the Washington Examiner,

looking at what's behind this change. Quote, the NEA, that's the National Education Association, the largest teachers union in America, partnered with Dr. Seuss Enterprises on Read Across America Day from 1997 to 2019. But that year, the Conscious Kid Library and the University of California, San Diego, produced a study on Dr. Seuss's books

and found that too few of his human characters were people of color, and their portrayal did not pass muster. Now, the union has, has published a recommended reading list, and I'm sure I don't have to tell you who's on it. What is on the list? For starters, there's when Aidan became a brother about a girl who transitions to use that vocabulary into being a boy, and Stella brings the family about two gay men and their

daughter. So the NIA appears to have pressured the Dr. Seuss estate to stop publishing these books even while they are promoting other books that many people find offensive and many people find morally wrong. They are a left-wing union, as are all teachers' unions, in support of every left-wing policy that you can possibly think of, including abortion. They have an entire LGBTQ reading list, rife with stories about little boys and little girls who decide to switch genders. So apparently, we think that it's healthy for kids to learn that they can switch genders before puberty, and it's not healthy for them to read an author who wrote some books that have outdated stereotypes.

And we haven't even thought about the psychological damage and the confusion this is going to cause children, the physical toll that puberty blockers takes on a child in a teen's body. And we're certain, though, that particular or that seeing an Asian person using chopsticks is going to be so traumatizing to culture and to kids that we can no longer celebrate the author who drew them 80 years ago. I don't think that we realize how big and how significant a step it is to cease not the promotion, but also the publication of books that have been widely regarded as classics for decades because of offensive imagery. It's not a question of whether or not the imagery is actually offensive or whether or not people are justified and being offended by them. I can't say what

should or should not offend an Asian person reading this book or a black person reading a book in which they see offensive imagery or depictions that make them uncomfortable. The question is also not whether the estate can cease publication. They can. They have the right to do that. The question is if they should cease publication. And if we actually benefit from seeing and learning from things that are outdated and offensive more than we do if we pretend that they never existed.

It's the pretending that these things never existed that worries anyone. who has studied cultural revolutions of the past, the book burning, the throwing out of the old and the outdated in place of the new, the justification of limiting the scope of knowledge a populace has access to by claiming it's for the progress of society. That's old stuff. We've seen that before. We saw it in China in the 20th century. We saw that in Germany. We saw it in the USSR. And just because today in America, it's under the guides of anti-racism does not mean that it's healthy. We do not have to cease the publication of popular books to prove that we don't tolerate racism as a society. That's what a repressive, regressive regime does, not free societies who are

tough enough to combat ideas and images that no longer match our values. If you think about Huck Finn, Little House on the Prairie, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Kill a Mockingbird, Gone with the Wind, these are all classic books that we have also heard are problematic because of racist descriptions of black people Native Americans. But until recently, we were able to draw lessons from these books and from the moment in time that they represent. And now the Dr. Seuss controversy absolutely beckons the question of whether or not we are going to be willing to tolerate outmoded tropes and words and depictions to be able to learn something from them and work around them to pull the meat from the bone or not. I think society or I think history tells us that society is a lot stronger when we're able to do that,

when we're able to tolerate offense and learn from it and talk about it rather than shove it down an Orwellian memory hole and pretend that it no longer exists. Again, that is dystopian. That is regressive. It's not healthy, especially alongside actively promoting and celebrating gender confusion and sexuality among kids. You cannot tell me that this is a picture of progress. It is not. I'm telling you, this does not end well. This does not end where the well-meaning social justice Christians think it will with more tolerance and love and acceptance. It just doesn't. What happens, the history of left-wing cultural revolutions and dystopia novels tell us is that an increasingly narrow standard of acceptability is applied to everything. It's not that the moral standard is actually being raised in our society right now.

It's that it's being changed. It's that it's being redefined into something new. Remember, in Brave New World, if you read Brave New World with us in our Women's Book Club with Ali Stucky on Facebook, when Mustafa Mond is asked why in the new world people are not allowed to read Shakespeare, he answers, because it's old. That's the chief reason. We have any use for old things here. in Mao's Cultural Revolution in China, you're probably so tired of hearing me say this if you listen to the podcast regularly.

The four olds, old culture, old ideas, et cetera, were exchanged for the four news violently, by the way. People paid for this exchange with their blood. The hope in these left-wing revolutions was to start at year zero to erase all that's old in the name of progress and start anew. except it's never about progress and it's always about power. You will learn this. Unfortunately, we're all going to learn this. As Hannah Arendt writes, the most radical revolutionary becomes a conservative the day after the revolution.

I'm telling you, this shift of values, this shift of culture that is currently occurring of what is tolerable and what is not is not good. It doesn't lead us to a good place. And that shift includes the toleration and the celebration of Cardi B's performance. at the Grammys. And you can see how this absolutely ties into the conversation about ceasing the publication of Dr. Seuss books. It's what we are offended by and what we're not. It's not about children's books or simply what we allow our children to see. It's also about what we as an entire society deem offensive and inoffensive, worth celebrating and worth integrating and doing away with.

So we celebrate Drag Queen Story Hour, Gender Reassignment for children who don't know how to tie their shoes. We celebrate all forms of perversion, all forms of sexual deviancy, all forms of objectification. We regard a movie like cuties with nuance, but are unable to offer the same sophisticated analysis when it comes to the potential artistic benefit of Dr. Seuss books. We uplift Cardi B as a powerful woman. We're willing to allow a pornographic routine to play out on our screens. We say, it's okay, it's empowering, it's just autonomy, it's just ownership. we refuse to admit any toxicity.

This kind of obscenity may add to our culture, including to our kids' minds, but we're absolutely sure that 80-year-old Dr. Seuss books are too much. They're too much for us to handle. We are desensitized to the things that should shock and disgust us, and we are hypersensitive to the things that we may actually be able to tolerate and learn from. And that is why I think it is a totally fair comparison.

And it's a totally fair contrast to look at the reactions to these two things, not because they're the same or technically in the same subcategory, but they do fall under the same larger worldview categories of morality and culture. And here's where we loop it back into this conversation about womanhood and what this means. Feminism has long declared to be against the objectification of women. And they celebrate someone like Hardy B and her performance because they say that this is her taking back her sexuality. This is her owning her body. But the reality is, is that self-objectification is still objectification. Because we have arbitrarily decided that

consent and autonomy are the only moral standards worth valuing, we are forced to regard a stripper or a prostitute or a porn star or performers like Cardi B as people that are worth praising as a behavior that is worth praising. But what if consent and autonomy and ownership are not the only moral standards? What if decency? What if self-control? What if respectfulness and dignity and gasp, chastity are also virtues that we should regard highly? Self-objectification is still objectification. And if progress means viewing women not as objects, but as humans with value than any form of objectification, whether it's self-imposed or inflicted by someone else, is not advancing the cause of female dignity. Feminists say that they fought so hard for women

to be seen as something other than just a tool for men. And now for what? For women to make themselves tools of men themselves? That's what these kinds of performances do. You're telling me that you buy. You actually buy the idea that Cardi B and Meg in the Stalding. are quote, taking back their sexuality by dressing and dancing and talking exactly the way that perverted men want them to. That's how you're saying, screw the patriarchy. Yeah, all the pervy men that you say that you're sticking it to are really excited about this form of resistance. That's not independent. That's not liberating. You can say all you want to that this is ownership of her sexuality. the truth is, men still watch this and see them as objects, and it helps them see other women as objects, too.

All pornography does, by the way, it doesn't matter if the porn star loves what she does and is having a great old time. The guy watching her on the screen is still objectifying her. And you cannot tell me that that creates a culture of greater respect for women where our dignity and humanity are more highly regarded where we are viewed as empowered. I just don't buy it. But this is what postmodernism does. this philosophy of moral relativism, it makes hearts of stone and brains of mush, as we've said many times on this podcast. And you know who are always the victims of postmodernism of this kind of moral relativism, which always leads to moral depravity, children, the elderly,

and women, always the most vulnerable. And just to note, Cardi B apparently thinks autonomy and consent and owning her sexuality and ownership of her body or empowering when it comes to flaunting her own sexuality, but she didn't think those things were important when she was drugging and robbing guys several years ago. I just think that that's interesting. And by the way, admitting that wasn't enough for her cancellation. She had a campaign interview with Joe Biden to talk policy after admitting that. So are you starting to get the picture? Are you starting to get the picture that these people that paint themselves as are exemplars that paint themselves as people that we should be admiring and worshiping are not people that we should be taking moral cues from,

that the people in charge that the so-called elites aren't the people that we need to be looking to decide what's right and what's wrong, that as women, we cannot be and should not be defined by a culture who has no idea what empowerment looks like, and more than that, cannot even define what a woman is. And that's going to transition us into the next part of this as we talk about how culture is not just integrating women, objectifying women, even in the name of empowerment and self-objectification, how society is saying that it's advancing the cause of women, but it's actually regressing the cause of women. We're also going to look at this redefining of what it means to be a woman and how this further hurts women. So you guys know, since Biden's executive order expanded Title IX in order that all public institutions must allow boys to identify. as girls to compete in girls' sports and intergirls spaces.

There have been a few pieces of legislation in various states aimed at protecting girls' sports saying that sports should be segregated based on sex, not so-called gender identity. And you guys have probably seen the videos going around of parents testifying representing the ACLU before these state legislatures saying that it's a myth that trans girls, a.k. boys, have any advantage over biological girls in sports. and that this is exclusionary, this is discriminatory, this is ruining the lives of these transgender kids. They have given their anecdotes of what their kids have gone through playing sports with opposite sex and why that is so difficult for them and why they should be able to play

sports with other kids according to their gender identity rather than according to sex. And it's true that there may be few differences in boys and girls before puberty, but the fact is boys and girls are different. They only become more different as they age. Scientifically, boys have a higher aerobic and anaerobic capacity than girls. They have more muscle mass. They have greater bone density. Their brains compartmentalize and focus differently.

their aggression and threat assessment levels are different. And actually babies in the womb form differently. They mature differently. They grow differently. Their brains start to function differently while they are still in utero. I think it's amazing. I've talked about this before that actually like a mom's milk for the baby is different. It has different components in it according to whether or not she is having a boy or a girl.

because boys and girls, even from conception, even from life in the womb, are different. There is a very interesting study by Duke University that's comparing athletic performances of the best elite women in track to boys and men. And this just so clearly with data shows the innate differences between boys and girls, between boys and men and women. It's just undeniable. And this is the kind of stuff that we actually have to look at when we're making these decisions about whether or not

someone who was born a boy and has been, and has all the components of being a boy, it has boy chromosomes should be competing against girls. We shouldn't be looking to the anecdotes that I know pull on our heartstrings. And I know we're being told by parents who really love their kids, but we have to look at the data.

So let's take a look at this study that shows so blatantly the differences between the two genders. So this is a quote from the study. If you know sports, you know this beyond a reasonable doubt. There is an average of 10 to 12 percent performance gap between elite males and elite females. The gap is smaller between elite females and non-elite males, but it is still insurmountable. And that is ultimately what matters. So even elite female track stars will be beat in their events by non-elite men. And as we will see, actually, high school boys are still faster than Olympic champions.

The Duke University researchers report that in 2017, Tori Bowies, Tori Bowie, if you don't know, is an Olympic champion in the 100 meter dash. She's a three-time Olympic medalist. She holds a lifetime record in 100 meter dash that was beaten by men and boys over. 15,000 times. And boys is defined by boys under the age of 18. So again, probably high schoolers. The same is true for Allison Felix. She's another Olympic champion. Her 400 meter dash record was beaten over 15,000 times by men and boys in 2017. So men and boys, that means all kinds of men and boys. We're not even just talking about the most advanced athletes. They were able to beat the times, 15,000 times of these Olympic female track stars. So they compared the track star

in this study, or they compared the track times for a variety of events of the world's best and fastest women to the times of the fastest boys under the age of 18. Every single category, I'll put the, I'll put the, if you're watching on YouTube, I'll put the table up. Every single category, 100 meters, 400 meters, high jump, triple jump, the world's fastest adult women were beaten by what would be high school boys. The times of the fastest high school boys, according to this study, were faster than the times of female Olympic athletes. And then when you compare the fastest women to the fastest men, so we're talking grow men, the time gaps just get way bigger. So for every single women's record for a track event, there are often hundreds of under 18 boys who beat that record and hundreds, if not thousands of grown men who beat that record.

There is not a track event out there where women beat the men. It's not even all that close. So here's what the story concludes, or the study concludes rather. Quote, this differential isn't the result of boys and men having a male identity, more resources, better training, or superiors. superior discipline. It's because they have an androgyized body. The results make clear that sex determines win-share. Female athletes, here defined as athletes with ovaries instead of testes and testosterone levels capable of being produced by the female non-indrogenized body, are not competitive for the win against males. Here to find as athletes with testes and testosterone levels

in the male range. The lowest end of the male range is three times higher than the highest end of the female range. Consistent with females far lower testosterone levels, the female range is also very narrow while the male range is broad. So tell me how you think that might play out in sports that involve the same muscles and the same endurance as running or pole vaulting, which is virtually every sport. It does not work out in favor of girls. I promise you that. Someone on Instagram asked me of examples of girls who are traumatized by biological boys competing against the sports and if we can't find enough of those stories, then we need to listen to the transgender kids and their parents who say that they're traumatized and we need to decide in favor of those

transgender kids. And so I guess the point is that we have to compare and contrast tales of perceived trauma to make a decision that had been already decided for all of human history because the obviousness of science isn't enough. And by the way, yes, I do think it's traumatizing for a girl to compete against boys and to share private spaces with boys. I do think that that's traumatizing. A 2015 Marine Corps study found, according to CBS News, quotes, the results are in. And for those arguing women should be able to perform all of the same combat jobs as the men, the news is discouraging. So this is a Marine Corps study that was trying to decide if women can be held to the same fitness standards as men or if they can meet the same thing.

fitness standards as men, the fitness standards that are necessary for combat. And this study from 2015 showed that, no, women cannot keep up with men when they're expected to reach the same fitness standards, which of course, they should be. So this is what the article goes on to say. It was as close to war as you could get. An unprecedented scientific study, men and women enlisted Marines side by side for months of simulated battle. Throughout, researchers watched and recorded their performance to help determine what impact women would have on combat. Even then, the women realized they were at a disadvantage. It's not that we can't carry weight.

We can carry the weight. It's the pace, especially when we match up with the males. You're looking at our size, and we have males that are almost six foot, that are almost six foot with longer strides, and it's hard to catch up with them, keep up with them. Corporal Janelle Lopez said, that is what the results show. This article goes on to say in almost every area, the all-me. male units performed significantly better than those with both men and women Marines. The men were, quote, faster in each tactical movement had better accuracy and were quicker. They registered more hits on target and had a noticeable difference in their performance of

overcoming obstacles and evacuating casualties. The Marines commissioned the study after then-defense secretary Leon Panetta in 2013, ordered the military to open all combat jobs to women. So we're talking about some of the strong. and the toughest women in the world, alongside some of the strongest men in the world, and they could not keep up. And we're not just talking about endurance and running. We're also talking about hitting targets. I mean, we're talking about the kinds of things that have to be mastered in order to be an effective Marine. It doesn't mean that these women are not awesome.

It just means that they're women and that men and women are not the same. And the Army, apparently is also realizing this, according to the New York Times. For 99% of Americans, this question will never come up in a job interview. Can you hang from a bar and tuck your legs to your chest? It has, however, become a central issue for the Army where fitness levels of recruits have come under greater scrutiny over the past two decades, precisely the same time that women have been seeking entry into elite combat units in advancement and leadership roles. Now, the Army is racing to approve significant changes to its legendary physical fitness test, the first revision since 1980, which will include offering soldiers an alternative to the leg tuck, a flashpoint for women,

especially those who have given birth. Well, at least we are acknowledging that it's women who give birth. At the same time, the new version of the test, which is required twice a year, does away with separate scoring curves based on gender and age. In its earliest rollout among 14,000 soldiers, 65% of women failed the new test, while 10% of men did. The new 120-minute task, known as the Army Combat Fitness Test, features six events that cover speed, endurance, and strength. The standards to pass are identical for men and women and for all ages. A soldier must achieve 360 points out of a maximum 600 to pass and greater scores have historically greatly increased chances for promotion. So, just to clarify, the Army created,

a new fitness test from the one that they had been using since 1980. They did away with any kind of different standards for men or for women or for age. They wanted the test to better match the demands of combat, but they are now finding that women are having a hard time passing it. So they're changing this new test to try to better accommodate what women can do, including creating another option for the leg tuck. But here's the question. Does combat require that kind of strength or not? If a woman is missing core strength because she just had a baby, obviously, I totally understand that. But does that make her less capable of meeting the demands of battle? And if so, should that not be disqualifying?

I say it should be. Because the military is not a social experiment. It's not about unconditional inclusion. It's about lethality, period. So if male or female can meet the fitness standards that are required to be as lethal as possible in combat, okay. If they can't, then they should not be there. And if that means that a greater number of women can't be in combat than men, then that is okay. Equity is not a priority for an effective military.

Lethality is. That does not mean that women don't have amazing things to bring to the table, especially in non-combat-related roles. But again, women and men are different. We have different strengths. We have different bodies. We're not interchangeable. God made us this way.

We are not made to be the same. we are meant to compliment one another, not compete physically with one another. The ACLU is also pushing, speaking of the military, for women to be forced to sign up for the draft in the same way that men have to because they claim that this is discrimination against men. First of all, I don't think that we should have a draft, but do I think that women should be forced to sign up for it? No, I don't because, again, men and women are different. We shouldn't have young women fighting our battles.

They aren't the same as young men. And we have to be comfortable with making that argument that at one point was so obvious to everyone and now is being exchanged for this kind of nonsensical egalitarianism that says that men and women are interchangeable. Like we have to look at the science. We have to look at the data. We have to look at what has been obvious forever. No, we don't want young women being drafted to fight our battles for us.

And again, I'm against the draft in general. but do I think it's different for men and for women? Yes, because men and women are not interchangeable. They are different. Tucker Carlson, he got in some hot water last week because he said the Biden administration and our military are focused on pregnancy-friendly flight suits while China is focused on building the world's largest Navy and are creating programs to make their men supposedly more manly. And Tucker Carlson got blasted for this by military officials on social media, which I think made totally. inappropriate and embarrassing videos. All that truly smacks of fascism. He is a private citizen offering his perspective and military entities come after him publicly for that. I mean, way to prove his point, that some people in our military seem to be focused on the wrong things, that they are prioritizing this kind of performative activism being social justice advocates, equity advocates, when that's not

what actually defends our freedoms. That doesn't mean that I'm not. I'm not. so thankful and so proud of all the men and women who have sacrificed and do sacrifice. I could not do what you do. And I am so thankful. But yes, when we assess our threats, namely China and Iran and we see that we're focused completely or that they are focused completely on dominance and lethality and we're focused on how we can better include pregnant women in our military. As a pregnant woman, I say that's an okay reason for us to question and be concerned. pregnant women, as you guys know that I believe, are incredible. We do something that men never could.

I appreciate the roles that they have in the military outside of combat. But Tucker's point was legitimate. Our priorities and our focus do not speak to that of a nation serious about properly staying the threats our foreign enemies pose. Men and women are different. We do different things. We bring different things to the table. is okay. That doesn't make women any less than. It makes us awesome. We have got to stop pretending

that making the genders interchangeable or pretending they're the same is somehow empowering. It's not. I love anything that promotes the uniqueness and the special beauty and capabilities of women. And there is this Nike ad that I want to show you guys that I think does that really well. All right. So I want to play you just a short part of this Nike advertisement that celebrates pregnant athletes. Can you be an athlete? You, pregnant. That depends.

What is an athlete? Someone who moves? Sounds like you. Someone who gets it done, no matter what. You do that. So, can you be an athlete? If you aren't, no one is. I love it.

I loved that ad. I thought that it was, if you want to talk about real empowerment, I thought that that was a very empowering ad. And if you are listening to this rather than watching, then you need to go on YouTube to get the full effect of it. Now, I understand Nike is 100% guilty of performative activism. Their supply chains are made in Chinese slave labor while they pretend to be advocates of social and racial justice via Colin Kaepernick here.

I know. I don't typically support Nike at all. And they apparently do not support their pregnant athletes. And so this can also be seen as hypocrisy. However, aside from all of that, I did appreciate this ad as a standalone thing. Women are women and women are incredible. Now, you do not have to give birth to be a woman. Not giving birth doesn't make you any less of a woman, but it is this amazing power that women have that men do not have that we should absolutely admire. We should absolutely celebrate. Women house a human, a human being in our bodies for nine plus months, nourishing him or her with our own nutrients, and during all of the aches and pains and sometimes the complications of pregnancy, and then give birth to that human being. And what can be

the happiest and simultaneously the most traumatizing experience of our lives? Many of us then nourish those babies with our bodies for several months or even years. And how amazing is God that he gave women. only women that capability. This push to erase this as a specifically female superpower that we have seen in activist circles and across social media is so insanely degrading. The push to call breastfeeding, chest feeding, that doesn't even make any sense, by the way, or to say pregnant person or gestate or to shy away from calling female anatomy what it is is just another form of misogyny. only this time it's coming from progressives rather than the patriarchy.

And there's actually a very interesting article on this by an environmental activist that has been researching the money behind the transgender activist groups for a long time. Her name is Jennifer Baleck, and she wrote an article for the federalist talking about how most of the money behind the push to normalize gender fluidity and gender identity actually comes ironically from rich white men. So here's what the article says. She said, I found exceedingly rich white men with enormous cultural influence are funding the transgender lobby and various transgender organizations. These include, but are not limited to, Jennifer Pritzker, a male who identifies as transgender,

George Soros, of course. Let me just pause for a second. I'm going to say the same thing about George Soros that I said about, what's his name, Bill Gates a few weeks ago. If you don't want to be the center of so many conspiracy theories, stop being sketchy. Stop being sketchy. Like Bill Gates, stop buying all the farmland in America. Like, stop acting like you're an expert on things that you're not an expert on. Stop trying to have your hand in everything. Same thing with George Soros. People accuse those on the right, especially, of starting conspiracy theories about these two people. But the truth is, is that they are behind so much. They're behind so many progressive causes, especially George Soros. He and his organizations fund.

a large number of pro-crime, pro-quote, social justice district attorneys in this country, that's easily researchable, easily findable. So if you don't want to be the center of conspiracy theories, then you should stop being sketchy and doing sketchy things. That's just an aside about George Soros. Martine Rothblatt, also a male who identifies as transgender and transhuman. Tim Gill, who is a man, Drummond Pike, Warren and Peter Buffett, John. Stryker, also men, Mark Bonham, also men.

A lot of these are actually gay men. And Rick Weiland, he's a deceased gay man whose philanthropy is still LGBT-oriented. Most of these billionaires fund the transgender lobby and organizations through their own organizations, including corporations. These funders often go through anonymous funding organizations such as Tides Foundation, founded and operated by Pike. Tides Foundation creates a legal firewall and tax shops. for foundations and funds political campaigns, often using legally dubious tactics.

These men and others, including pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. government, are sending millions of dollars to LGBT causes. Overall reported global spending on LGBT is now estimated at $424 million. From 2003 to 2013, reported funding for transgender issues increased more than eightfold. growing threefold, the increase of LGBTQ funding overall, which quadrupled from 2003 to 2012, this huge spike in funding happened at the same time transgenderism began gaining traction in American culture. Amazing. Thinking about the millions and millions of dollars used on propaganda and the unfortunate and very harmful procedures that we are seeing pushed on kids and adolescents, they're literally people starving. There were people destitute in the. the world. But this, of course, is how we spend our money, but we are told that it's not the left. That's the problem that it's actually the people who have no institutional backing and no institutional power of conservative Christians. It's really amazing. And remember, this concept of gender

identity is something that is separate than sex was established by another influential man in the 1960s by the name of Dr. John Money, who, as we've talked about, as it turns out, was actually just a pedophile apologist. He was a weirdo who experimented his theories on twin boys whom he made performed sex acts on each other as he and other doctors watched, and the two boys both later committed suicide. So if feminists are truly concerned about the dominance of the white male, y'all have been duped by their latest project, which is pushing the normalization of transgenderism, especially among youth. Now, there are people who struggle with their gender that do have gender dysphoria, that deserve all the compassion in the world,

that is not, however, account for the huge contagion we are seeing, especially among young girls, who later come to regret their decision to transition. And all of this is a push in so many different ways to erase or diminish or redefine the female experience in female body and true identity. And it's just the devil doing the work that he has done since the Garden of Eden to target women. To try to say that being a woman is actually more complex than chromosomes and anatomy is therefore up and is therefore up to whomever, whoever wants to declare themselves a woman is to

erase the significance of our chromosomes and our anatomy, which are exactly the things that allow us to do, the things that men can't do, to be that which men can't be. These things are why we need abuse shelters that are exclusive to women, prisons that are exclusive to women, bathrooms, locker rooms, sports teams that are exclusive to women and girls. We are, as women, disproportionately the victims of stalking, of domestic abuse, of rape, and we always will be because we are in general physically weaker than men. We need sex-based protection. We need sex-specific spaces because men and women are not the same. We are smaller and we are weaker and we are less aggressive and less able to defend ourselves in general.

And no, that is not internalized misogyny. That is science. It's also why the second of by the way, is so important. I love this quote by Nancy Piercy in her book, Love Thy Body, that I know that I reference all the time. She says, quote, to protect women's rights, we must be able to say what a woman is. If postmodernism is correct that the body itself is just a social construct, then it becomes impossible to argue for rights based on the sheer fact of being female. We cannot legally protect a category of people that we cannot identify, if we cannot identify, that category. What's interesting as well is that we just don't see as much eagerness going

in the other direction, meaning we don't seem to be having a whole lot of conversations about the importance of girls who identify as boys being included on the boys' track or soccer or football teams. So why don't we see those parents testifying the state legislatures for the ACLU? There aren't many stories of women who identify as men fighting to be incarcerated with the male prison population instead of the female population. but we see a lot going the other direction. Why do we seem to mostly be talking about biological men wanting to enter women's and girls spaces and not the other way around?

Or even women who identify as men remaining in women's spaces, like giving birth, for example. But we are rarely talking about women who identify as men needing to enter exclusively male spaces. Could it be just a reaffirmation of what we already know that men and women for the thousandth time are different and men and men and women for the thousandth time are different? and men have the potential to be threatening in a way toward women that women don't toward men? I think probably so. I think probably so.

Men are amazing at being men. They're terrible at being women. Women are amazing at being women. We are terrible at being men. Women in general are better nurturers. We're better caretakers. We're better multitaskers. We're more likely to desire to be home with our kids for these reasons.

We tend to be more empathetic, more emotional. And I would say if your first reaction is to scoff at that or to be offended by that or to see these attributes as negative, then maybe you need to reckon with why you demean these qualities instead of uplift them, why you view them as inferior when they're not. Men and women are different. And we've got to own that. That's a Genesis 1 issue. A Genesis 1 reality for Christians.

There's no gray area there. That doesn't mean that we lack compassion or care for those who are confused about their gender or who have disorders that amount to something like, intersects, but it does mean that we cling to God's gracious clarity that he lays out so specifically through special revelation in scripture and in general revelation in science. And I want to reiterate that phrase, gracious clarity. So 1 Corinthians 1433 says this, for God is not a God of confusion, but a God of peace. And all of this is so very confusing. But God gives us clarity. in this particular subject. He gives us clarity in so much. He gives us a clear picture of what it means to be male and female, both in the Bible and in our bodies. I mentioned Nancy Piercy just a few

seconds ago, and I've talked about this before, how in her book, she talks about how the early church was a refuge for women from the surrounding culture that objectified them, that used and abused them, that saw them as sources of pleasure as property to be owned or subjugated, rather than to be cared for. So when women in Corinth heard a line like this from Paul, quote, for the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. That was a radical in comforting change.

The idea that men are not their own either, but that in a Christian marriage, a man and a woman's bodies belong to God as temples of the Holy Spirit and also to each other, that a woman has rights over her husband's body, just as he has particular rights over hers, was a completely counter-cultural idea. It still is. And then Christians in Ephesus and Colossi were told that wives aren't just to respect their husbands, but husbands must also love their wives, as we talked about on yesterday's episode, to care for them, to cherish them, to protect them the same way that Christ did for his church, which means sacrificially and selflessly. That's not at all what they saw in the outside world. That's not what we see in most of the world today. What an amazing refuge.

That is still, all of that is still a radical message, a radical idea, the caring for women, the elevating of women, the dignity of women. In most of the non-Western world today, the message of Christianity, the message that Christianity has in particular for women is still radical. And even outside of marriage, Paul tells the church in Corinth that singleness can be good and that it allows you to devote all of your time and attention to the Lord rather than to an earthly family. This was not an option for a lot of people, then especially women at this time, their value was tied to their husband or their master, and Paul is rooting his command, his commendation in the understanding of what the creation account tells us that women were created

with inherent value as image bears of God. Nancy Piercy says this in Love Thy Body. Some of the early martyrs were women who rejected suitors or arranged marriages in favor of remaining single, an option that was not tolerated by the surrounding culture. So God through Paul made clear that women, while we do not have the same roles in the church or the family, we have equal value. We are to be cared for. We are to be cherished. And even as we care for our husband and our children and or our communities.

So who are the people also that we are told in the New Testament to particularly care for? Widows and orphans. That means women and children who are being cared for by no one. James 127 tells us this, religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world. So God cares so much for the most vulnerable. and women are apparently included in that category, especially widowed women. We are distinct from men both in who we are and what we need and what our roles are,

and we should thank God for loving us that much that he would make that clear. Let's think about how Jesus speaks to and cares for the bleeding woman, the woman caught in adultery, the woman of the night who washed his feet, the woman at the well, all people who would have been ignored by the social and religious elites at the time. He paid attention to them. And also the apostles who recorded these stories saw fit to include them. John says this in John 2125. Now, there are also many other things that Jesus did.

Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. So that means that the apostles, inspired by the Holy Spirit, saw the stories of Jesus' interactions with women as worth including, as remarkable, as significant. This was not feminism. This is not Jesus being a feminist. This was the God of the universe manifesting what kind of love and care for women should have always, should have always been, should have always looked like, and should always currently and in the future look like. There is no other organization, no other entity, no other institution, no other belief system that can give women what Christianity alone gives them.

Yes, there has been oppression and sexual abuse and all kinds of victimization and horrifying treatment of women under the guise of Christianity. That is absolutely true. But that is not Christ. That is not the true church. That is not God's word. Anyone who says Christianity is inherently degrading toward women do not know God. They don't know scripture.

They want God to be this radical socialist pro-abortion feminist who's on board with gender fluidity and promiscuity. And he's not that. He's not. Or more mildly, maybe they want God to be this radical egalitarian who believes men and women should have the same roles in everything. And he's clearly not that either. But he is the good creator who made us, who knows us, who loves us, whose ways are so much better than ours, whose thoughts are so much higher than our thoughts. So when he gives us commands against, for example, sexual immorality,

telling us that our bodies are dwelling places for the Holy Spirit and are therefore sacred, as 1 Corinthians 619 says. He does so because he loves us and he knows what's best for us. He tells us what gender is or what marriage should look like when he says that we should live and dress and act in a way that glorifies him and makes much of him rather than of ourselves that protects both our bodies and our hearts. It's not repression or oppression. It is because of his incredible incomprehensible love for us.

He knows what's best for us. The empowerment he gives us. is real. It's the opposite of self-objectification, the kinds that we see posing as a cheap version of confidence and autonomy today. The love that he gives us is real. It is so much better and deeper than the less promulgated by our culture. The assurance and the clarity. The hope and the way of life that he gives us is better. A life obedient to him, either glorifying him, single or glorifying him as a joyful, service-minded wife and mom. This is better than the confusion and the chaos that we see in the world. So, church, we must continue to be the refuge for women. When women are pregnant

and in crisis, let us be the first place that they go. When women are abused, may they seek shelter with us. When women are erased or degraded or targeted, may women come to us to tell them who they are, why they matter, why they're here. When women need forgiveness, when they need a new path, let us be the first ones to show her where to go. When they need protection from predatory men when they need to be remembered that they, when they need to be reminded that they are unique as women. Let the church be a place of clarity for them. Let us celebrate the uniqueness of women. Not because of women's history month, not because feminists tell us to, but because we love God and therefore we love his creation. Men, no matter what society tells you, we need you. We do.

We need protectors. We need defenders. We need you speaking up about the things that you might hear people telling you are only women's issues, abortion, men infiltrating women's spaces. These are human issues, and we need your voice. We need your boldness. We need your care. We need you on the front lines. We need you to stand in our stead. Now is not the time for you to be scared or to use feminism as your excuse for complacency. Women need strong men. Society needs strong, responsible, compassionate, brave men are sorely needed, especially by women. For those, of us who are moms, we have a privilege, whether we are raising daughters or whether we are raising sons because the world needs strong Christians who know the truth and can love God with

all their heart, mind, soul, and strength and love their neighbor as themselves. And we as women get the privilege of bringing that next generation into the future, whether as moms or as caretakers or as sunny school teachers or as teachers, whatever role God has placed. us in, we get the responsibility and the privilege of doing that. All right, that's all I've got for today. I will see you guys back here tomorrow.