FREE PREVIEW: Rebecca Traister Postgame Analysis

in the culture War there are no winners just podcasters only a few are willing to risk their lives in the face of some of the dumbest ideas to have ever captured human civilization every week we Megan and Sarah hater humbly accept this mission to bring you conversations that are equal parts stunning Brave and morally inequivalent did we say that one already maybe okay I think that's an evergreen doesn't matter if we said it um we definitely morally uh I struggled over that word inequivalent unequivocal yeah we're more unequivocal and inequivalent do not not mean the same things but I think you and I are morally uh not equals because I think you're probably more moral than I am but in a immoral way yeah deep I agree yeah um so yeah so we're going to talk about our recent visit with Rebecca Traer um and we're going to touch on some other things as well but uh how are you doing Rebecca Traer um very accomplished journalist author feminist writer um paid us a visit which I was really glad that she that she came yeah yeah yeah it was it was nice to have her she's obviously a very smart woman um and I've actually read two of her three books MH and um I went and picked up um uh the one that was relevant to our conversation about single women all the single ladies all the single ladies and I mean that book is packed with Statistics and data and like every I mean every page has so much information on it it and that was it's quite impressive actually and I I listened to a podcast um that she was on and she talked about how long it took her to write that book um like five years or something like it was like it was a feat and I I believe it you know I I as I was reading through that book it definitely felt like there was a lot of information that she just wanted to convey um I do of course disagree with like maybe all of it like much of it and I wonder if it's um you know because it's not a data problem she has data but it's also perspective and what we're assuming from the start um and I held back in our conversation and I hope everybody noticed I hope you noticed because I I was that was very brave of me it was it was big of me uh because I definitely there was a lot that she that she you know um shot out there and I wanted to disagree with every single point point but then I thought you know I'm not going to punish somebody who was gracious enough to come on my podcast by torturing her the whole time aru it's hard to know what to do yeah right we we didn't we wouldn't want to turn it into a debate right um but at the same time I don't I don't like it that you had to hold back I don't know maybe if we had had more time I mean you know she gave us she was you know I didn't want to keep her more than an hour she she did stay longer than she is doing us a favor it's one of those I don't know what to do because she's doing us a favor she's coming on our podcast that has you know like all 10 listeners and they're amazing and I we love you guys but uh you're just not big enough to Warrant a a guest appearance by a lot of people so when they're doing they're really just doing us a favor and it's really nice of them it would be totally different if it was um you know a debate sponsored by somebody else like Barry Weiss has a debate with me and tobec a tracer well I'm going to you know right bring the guns but it's a totally different situation I know isn't it it's really hard to know what to do I've actually been sometimes criticized on my other podcast for bringing people in and not pushing back enough yeah you I'm kind of like well like there especially if it's a big get like I'm not gonna you know bring somebody in and then punish them exactly like beat them up on the show yeah for um yeah I think you have to walk a line I I think this is hard also for people who are not who don't listen to who don't actually produce their own podcast to understand like the power dynamics kind of happening in the back end you can't have people on and just punish them and if you do that then no one's going to come on your podcast again um right right you have to yeah I thought it was I thought we pushed back we did push back but it wasn't like I I didn't say anything I I that wasn't true but I also just didn't say a bunch of things that could have I think derail the conversation very early on and then she wouldn't have gotten any she wouldn't have gotten past the first point that she made because I would have just right you I think that I remember listening to like a Sam Harris conversation with Jordan Peterson a long time ago and it was it got it got stuck on the on one point I think it got stuck on like um what it truth is or something like that and they never and they never they they never left and they were just arguing about it for like 40 minutes and I remember people listening to it hated it I liked it I loved it that was great for me but for everybody else it was like just move on just move on you know right um yeah well I thought you know I had a lot of thoughts about the conversation and I was thinking a lot about how being a journalist and being like a writer or a cultural critic it's a different job than being a a social scientist or like even a philosopher um and you know the the job is to kind of look at what's going on in the culture right now and apply some kind of larger analysis using historical um precedent and data and you know you do have a historical perspective but you are ultimately talking about what's going on now like if you are a magazine writer and it's good to be a magazine writer right like if you are a writer you want to be a magazine writer not a newspaper writer usually because that's where you can really like write longer pieces and there's like a sense of style and it's just a more satisfying experience artistically um even intellectually so I think that the job of you know Rebecca's job and this is my job too and it was has been my job for a long time is to sort of like you know look at a phenomenon and then put a particular spin on it that is that is relevant to the current moment so I think that when she's a lot of what she's talking about applies to the last several decades um and your perspective would would go much farther back so I think it may in in some ways it may just kind of be like a a clash of of missions so maybe we should go through and and if there's a couple points you can you can uh debate with her now that she's not here I mean's what is so it's been so shitty to I'll represent her I'll repes I'll I'll be her okay so I think that's interesting what you said the difference in missions because I I don't know what my mission I'm I'm an actual activist you know what I mean like not not an activist anymore but that's what I actually did you know and I think it was very confusing to me the role of like what you're describing as this magazine writer because to me sometimes they acted like activists and they were dishonest um in a way that you know really is not it's NE it's never really forgivable but it's something that you can see an activist do because they're so so Mission oriented ented goal oriented like I just have to win no matter what and so this is the kind of thing that made me disgusted this is the kind of thing that made me hate activism um and then to see writers engaging in that kind of similar like myopic worldview um really made me sick and uh you know I I guess this is why I struggle with calling myself a writer even if that's what I that's the closest thing to a job description at the moment because I don't know what that means you know it's like is it is that is that still activist but lying about it yeah it's you know this podcast space it's so interesting because it's like a hybrid between these two things I mean you have like the kind of people sort of social scientists you can bring in like some hardcore evos pych person I don't mean a [ __ ] evoy person I mean a real one um and then you can also bring in like people with a more creative I don't I don't want to say I don't I I'm wary of saying creative in the context of Journalism so let me revise that a little bit but you know you you could you could bring in somebody to kind of like tell the tell the hard truths in like just raw terms and then you could bring in somebody whose job it is to kind of put it in a framework that is that is interesting and relevant but like it's only you know the podcast space has like melded these two things and I think we're sort of trying to figure out how to metabolize it still not not we personally but just the this the creators in this space but I wonder if you can do that job well without having a a very broad understanding of like human Affairs that I I I feel as if many cultural commentators simply don't have I mean they are talking about what you were saying like the past couple of decades and they're framing everything from the perspective of you know working women in the past couple of decades even with you know I think Rebecca tries to pull it back and well I mean she she does pull it back um in her book all the single lady she like goes back um to like 19 like early 1900s I mean I forget maybe maybe further back than that but she tries to really paint a broad picture of working women but I think that you actually have to go broader than that you know like even that is a modern world that is a world in which we started decoupling uh you know manual labor like like physicality from what you can do from the work itself um and we started developing all these professions that women could really take apart in equally but beyond that we also started we we have this Prosperity that allowed us to you think about life without children you we didn't need 10 of them to survive many of them were surviving anyway and then we needed fewer and fewer to help us get by and maybe none at all we maybe we didn't you don't even need to have kids and you can have a retirement and survive so the things were like there was a fundamental like you know the tectonic plates or whatever like uh of of culture were are shifting and those aspects of culture it is just simply not being addressed if you are looking if you're not looking further than you know the last century or even two centuries it has to be it has to be broader than that do you know what I mean like is that am I asking for too much and that no one can do this or do this I I I mean I also think that we have to talk about like the biological aspects like the fact is that people are the biological reality is that it's better to have kids younger than older um you know I was just reading something uh who was it the um there was a famous quote um from uh oh my gosh it's like one of the it may even be like one of the sort of early the Greek philosophers that you know the ideal age for a lady to get get married is uh is 18 and a man is uh the way that was phrased was like three you know 30 and seven basically 37 and 18 was uh yes this was some um no oh God no this goes like way way way back and like to cancel him I know well I think this person is dead I mean it's literally somebody like you can cancel people Aristotle or something but it you know and the idea too was like that the that the that the maturity level was about even at 18 and 37 and um also like the decline that men would uh somehow they would somehow they would decline at the same time I I I don't even know what the rationality that's wishful thinking I feel like with a lot of these older like middle- AG men they're like actually I met the exact no you're not I think it it was it was alucino that said it right alucino he's like 92 and he just you were saying Aristotle you thought maybe it was Aristotle and it turns out it was alucino whatever potato potato anyway so but uh I I do feel yeah like we are now having to like reckon with the way that we have disrupted nature and biological processes through through contraception and various kinds of Technologies everything from embryo freezing to artificial wombs and that's very very it's all changed so much I mean so much of the the the landscape that has shifted um but but but that landscape contributed to why things were the way they were back in the bad old days and I don't see enough of a recognition or even maybe even like an understanding of that in uh the the feminist spaces I would say even even the more intellectual feminist spaces I feel like that's missing um when I see a historical analysis it's some garbage like nonsense about how we used to be you know matriarchal or much more egalitarian even if not matriarchal and uh you know the Industrial Revolution or or maybe they go further and then they say do the uh uh really was when we uh became sedentary before you know when we were hunter gatherers things were much more egalitarian and then we um got into horiculture and everything shifted I don't think that's accurate I don't think they know that that's accurate or not accurate I don't think it matters to them that it's a it it it it orts with what we know about history and it's also prehistory is a very difficult thing to know anything about I would wouldn't be surprised if in a hundred years everything we thought we knew about prehistory was actually wrong because a lot of what we're doing is interpreting there's no there is no writing so we're interpreting based on a like a you know a vas and and burial sites and locations and we're presuming that if you're located here it means you're powerful or not powerful or or whatever and and and these are all assumptions that we're making from our own cultural context it's very hard to get this to get this right it's very hard to know anything about prehistory that is truly you know uh something you can stand on and base a worldview on come on like absurd really but it was it was Aristotle by the way it was it I just looked it up yeah Aristotle Aristotle said it repeated it 18 and 35 that's what he said so um okay well my apologies turns out um toad if we can get him on where did alino come from because maybe quing okay yeah no alucino has done him one better alucino just had a a child uh yeah um I've got thoughts about that that's disgusting that's disgusting okay we can't talk about it it's gross well um anyway so okay I think that just like the in the the I the intellect ual um honestly um I don't want to say childishness but there there's there's just a lack of significant thought put into a lot of how we ended up where we ended up why the the quote unquote patriarchy was a thing um this is why I have a frustration with that term feminist and why I feel very alienated from it and I don't really I mean I don't really want to put a lot labels on myself anymore period because I do think that that is something that impacts you intellectually whether you want it to or not even if you're a very objective person um and you're somebody who likes you know uh is very good a dispassionate rationalizing of things but it's um but really when when you put a label now you have a team you put a label on yourself you can't help but be bias towards them so for that reason I don't want to call myself a feminist but then there's an additional reason that even if that wasn't the case I don't know if it applies to me I don't know what that word means anymore there's like you know you will say feminism means this or it meant something in my day you know people in the comments were talking about it I was looking at it um just a few minutes ago uh there was like a discussion in uh one of our on the substack about what a feminist is and what it means and um you know it means a lot of things to a lot of people but at that point it's kind of a useless label like I'm not sure I'm not sure what the purpose is of applying a label that means so many different things to so many different people and it's hard to it's hard really for me to pinpoint one particular thing and say this this right here this is true feminism you know uh I know I mean yes my definition was uh deemed quaint uh I think somebody said that maybe it was you that said that um I get that I I guess that uh I guess yeah I mean I guess I still use it because you know there was a period you know everyone was using the word feminist in the 70s and into a lot of the 80s but then there was a big period in the early 2000s where it was verboten like PE women were not using that term and women who were very clearly benefiting from all the work of second W feminism you know absolutely just unequivocally the beneficiaries of all of that stuff were refusing to use the word because they were just sort of chalking it up to an aesthetic like I don't have hairy armpits and I am not a man hater therefore I'm not a feminist so I guess I always wanted to just keep using the word because I wanted to like you know make a statement that you don't have to be that way like it's a it's just very clear but yeah I mean I I get it it you know ultimately it doesn't really matter it's a semantic issue like it doesn't it doesn't matter I don't think it just doesn't but but but I think the reason I continue to have a problem with it is because I'm not he