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We are Alyssa and Bri, two sisters who believe God wants more for women than we've been taught. Join us as we dive into the intersection of faith and feminism, learning together as we go.
To the We Are More Pod cast. My name is Alyssa. And my
Speaker 2:name is Bree. We're two sisters passionate about all things faith and feminism. We believe
Speaker 1:that Jesus trusted, respected, and encouraged women to teach and preach his word. And apparently, that's controversial. Get comfy. Hello, and welcome to episode something something. 70 something?
Speaker 1:Hard to say.
Speaker 2:Nineteen seventy something. I knew that was coming out of your mouth. You said 70 something. It's like the title of the song. I was in Nashville, Tennessee one time at a bar that had all of the bars down there have live music.
Speaker 2:And we asked the guy to play nineteen seventy something, which is like a classic country song Oh, yeah. That this guy should know. He did not know it. That makes me sad. So like, everybody else in the bar sang along with it and like helped him out.
Speaker 2:It was bizarre. I'm like, we're in Nashville.
Speaker 1:You don't know this song? Get out. I mean, I don't think we can call it classic country, but it's like classic early two thousands country. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. This is
Speaker 1:a really exciting intro. Sometimes I do think we should plan these, and yet we don't. We don't.
Speaker 2:And here we And honestly, what I was gonna say before I started out with nineteen seventy something is that I wish they just got a little clip of what we actually do before we start recording, which is like What's that from? High school musical. That's it.
Speaker 1:We do stupidness. And you'd think it would be like, oh, they're, like, warming up. They're prepping. No. We do it because we're stupid.
Speaker 2:And I like listening to different noises through
Speaker 1:the microphone into my ears, quite literally. So one of our cats is on the bed right now with us as we record in our professional studio setting.
Speaker 2:Yes. Professional. We're professional women.
Speaker 1:Yes. And Brie had her microphone up to the cat's neck because she was purring. And I wanted to hear it.
Speaker 2:It was very ASMR. It was.
Speaker 1:It was very calming, very soothing.
Speaker 2:And sometimes I could do this. I was gonna do more than that, but I didn't wanna hurt your ears.
Speaker 1:That was pleasant. Yeah. Relaxing. Maybe we should have pauses. When we have, like, a really serious episode, just do, like, little breaks in between.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You can make bizarre noises.
Speaker 2:And this is our ASMR break. Did you like that? Stop that.
Speaker 1:I know I hate when you do that. See, this is the kind of stuff that normally I have to cut out of the episode, guys.
Speaker 2:But we're keeping it in this time. Today it's here. For your hearing pleasure?
Speaker 1:No. That made me uncomfortable.
Speaker 2:I was gonna say viewing pleasure.
Speaker 1:But they're not viewing us. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Cause this is a podcast. This is a podcast.
Speaker 1:Although that has we say that all the time, and it has less and less meaning as every single podcast is on YouTube.
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 1:I find it really upsetting.
Speaker 2:I know. But we're elusive and mysterious. And That's why. You don't know what we look like.
Speaker 1:Here's why. Here's why we don't record ourselves on a camera. Because normally, we
Speaker 2:look like absolute crap. We look like absolute crap, which is fine. We're allowed to be crappy. But I don't that's a lot of work and a lot of effort. We'd have
Speaker 1:to set up the camera. We're sitting on
Speaker 2:a bed right now. I'm sitting on a bed. There's a cat between us. I'm drinking wine. Alyssa has a White
Speaker 1:Claw. Professional.
Speaker 2:And I've had about enough of today. So now you get to listen
Speaker 1:to us talk for another fifty minutes. Aren't you excited? Lucky you. So this week, are talking about Mary Shelley. And if you listen the last couple of weeks, we've been kind of previewing things because we are professional ladies, and we had a plan.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And we have followed through. And we have followed through. So proud. So proud.
Speaker 2:Do you like my cut being? Yeah. It was beautiful. Is that more ASMR? No.
Speaker 2:I just wanted to feel like I contributed.
Speaker 1:You did. And you did a great job. Thank you. So we're gonna talk through Mary Shelley's life just a little bit. And then also Frankenstein, which certainly was not her only work Mhmm.
Speaker 1:But was definitely her most famous work.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And go through a little bit of that as we launch into Halloween because spooky spooky. Boo. Your contributions today,
Speaker 2:spot on top notch. So let's talk a
Speaker 1:little bit about Mary Shelley and her life if you're not familiar with her because she's actually really interesting. So Mary Shelley was born in a really unique family.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:So she was the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin. Now Mary, her mother, was a feminist author and kind of advocate.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Which for the time was wild.
Speaker 2:I mean, you have feminism throughout time. Mhmm. But she was very educated. Mhmm. A feminist.
Speaker 1:She was unique. She was loud about it too. Mhmm. She wrote a book called A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. And so that's hard to hide.
Speaker 1:You
Speaker 2:know? And
Speaker 1:then William Godwin, her father was a philosopher and also an atheist. Mhmm. Which again, at the time like, now, okay, you you meet atheists all the time.
Speaker 2:That's not odd. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But he was very vocal about it as well. And that would have created a very unique and kind of alienating way to grow up for Mary Shelley. I think unique in that so much of religion is
Speaker 2:oppressive to women, specifically in this time. Right? So women can't particularly have jobs or they can't vote and they yada yada yada. You know? But how would an atheist viewpoint Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Affect her growing up? Now I know that he was an atheist, but he was kind of traditional in his roles. But it's just an interesting thing to think about.
Speaker 1:It would have been a really different way
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:For her to to live and grow up. And the concepts that she would have grown up with Mhmm. Would have been unique to her in this time. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I do believe her mom died in childbirth. Mhmm. So I don't know how much of her mom influenced her growing up.
Speaker 1:Right. So Mary then went on to Mary? Percy Shelley, who was a poet and writer. Very famous. And it was quite controversial at the time because Percy was married when him and Mary Shelley met.
Speaker 1:She wouldn't have been Mary Shelley at the time.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:But when they met and she was 16. Mhmm. And he was married and had a child and his wife was pregnant. And he ended up leaving his wife to be with Mary Shelley. And they kind of, like, ran off, did a whole, like, European tour or whatever.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And he was exiled from his family, his very wealthy family. So they lived with a lot of poverty throughout their entire marriage. Mhmm. And that's kind of an interesting point that we wanted to make about Mary Shelley is that she's not perfect as we talk about her through
Speaker 2:this. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Women oftentimes, in order to talk about them, they almost have Brie and I just talked about this. Like, they have to be wholly good. Like, fully good in order for us to use them as an example or whatever. And yet with men, we're we allow them to be a little more nuanced.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Or like I was saying earlier, we love a bad boy. Mhmm. And we'll accept bad behavior because we find it attractive sometimes. But we don't give the same to women.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And so we're not saying that, like, this was some bad behavior. Like and I really don't know, you know, the power dynamics and things like that that were going on here, whether she was pushed into this situation. I couldn't tell you that.
Speaker 2:I do know that she was 16. Now, of the time, that was kind of like a normal age. But thinking of myself at 16, I was a child, and my brain was not fully developed, and I was stupid. But they also ran away with her sister.
Speaker 1:Took her Stepsister, I think. Yeah. They
Speaker 2:took her sister with them, and they ran away altogether. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:So she had an interesting life. It was a unique life. She actually outlived Percy Shelley by quite a bit Mhmm. And dedicated kind of the last part of her life to preserving his memory, which is interesting.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:But let's jump off of her life a little bit and talk about her story. The story of Frankenstein is super unique and super kind of weird. So her and her husband, Mary and her husband Percy, and her stepsister And Lord Byron. Lord Byron. Yes.
Speaker 1:Who very famous poet. Kind of a wild personality.
Speaker 2:I think all four of them together, because they kind of ran off to this old Gothic castle. Mhmm. It was in, like, a summer where it was super cold. The climate was weird. It was stormy all the time.
Speaker 2:And they're locked up
Speaker 1:in this essentially old, like, manor or castle.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And I would assume they're starting to lose their mind a little bit. Oh, yeah. Because they only have
Speaker 1:the four of them. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And they're locked up in this castle, and they're kind of like outcasts of society because of their choices that they've made. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And so they're there, and they're like, what do we do? Because you can't turn on Netflix. You can't order DoorDash.
Speaker 2:And you can only murder so many people there. There's only four of them to begin with.
Speaker 1:It'll be noticed pretty quick, pretty quickly. So Lord Byron suggests a game, like a contest. He said because they were all kind of writers.
Speaker 2:Poets, writers. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so he's like, let's all come up with scary stories, pretty much. And for the first few days, Mary Shelley could not come up with anything. Every time at breakfast and they're all sharing their stories and whatever. And she's super embarrassed. She's like, I can't I I got nothing.
Speaker 1:I am out. And I believe up to this point, she I don't know if she was published prior to this. But she's only 19.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:So it's been a couple years since her and Percy Shelley have been together. But she's still very young.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And so then one morning she gets up and she's like, hey, guys, I had a dream.
Speaker 2:I have a dream.
Speaker 1:But a much spookier one than that. Sing it spooky.
Speaker 2:A spooky dream. That's grandma Mia.
Speaker 1:Does anybody know? And so she starts to tell this story, the story of Frankenstein. And if you are completely unfamiliar with it, I'm really not gonna give you
Speaker 2:a summary because I will say, like, growing up, I knew because I never read Frankenstein. I know that he's like a pieced together monster, but I didn't know the actual story Mhmm. Of Frankenstein. And I did try to listen to the audiobook yesterday. I did not make it very far because it is a classic.
Speaker 2:And the language is ye old. But
Speaker 1:the really basics of the story, if we're just, like, breaking it down to the most simple, just so you can follow along. Essentially, story starts and ends with letters.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And there's this team on a boat, and they are headed to the Antarctic, I believe. North Pole.
Speaker 2:The North A quest to the North Pole.
Speaker 1:And they get there, and they find this man just like roaming around. Mhmm. Turns out it's Victor Frankenstein, and he is chasing after his monster. Mhmm. And then we jump back into Victor Frankenstein's story.
Speaker 1:And there's like a story within a story within a story. It's very complex the way that she built it. And so Victor Frankenstein tells his story of how he decided he wanted to create life all on his own. He put together all these body parts, like dead body parts, and then shocked them with electricity. Because the world at this time is fascinated by the newness of electricity and what it can do.
Speaker 1:And he creates this monster. And basically, the moment that this thing comes to life, he's like, woah, bad plan. My bad. Should not have done. And he immediately rejects it.
Speaker 1:Like, kicks it out, says, see you, bye. So the monster, who never really gets a name, is sent out into the world to figure this out himself.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And then you launch into the monster's story. Mhmm. And the monster went to like, kinda was living in the forest, observing a family, learned language, learned lifestyle, learned compassion, whatever, trying to figure out life. Mhmm. Then he approaches the family that he's been observing, and they see him as a monster.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. They chase him off. I believe he kills them. And then he seeks out Victor Frankenstein. He's like, I'm gonna take my revenge on Victor Frankenstein.
Speaker 2:He finds Because he gave me life, abandoned me, and now I'm a monster.
Speaker 1:Right. And so he finds he ends up finding Victor Frankenstein and telling him off, whatever, telling him he's super lonely and absolutely demanding that doctor Frankenstein creates a female monster for him because he's lonely, I guess. Mhmm. And at first, Victor Frankenstein refuses, ends up finally saying yes because he's, you know, his life is being threatened.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And then when he starts to create the female monster, he's like, no no no no. I'm not doing this again. Stops, destroys her. And the monster, Frankenstein's monster, this heart there's a lot of monster here. I'm getting a little confused.
Speaker 1:But the monster then threatens he basically says, I'll be with you on your wedding night. I will kill whoever whoever you marry.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:So obviously, Victor Frankenstein goes back and immediately gets married. Clearly, that's what we're gonna do.
Speaker 2:Obviously.
Speaker 1:And the monster goes and kills his wife. And then you kind of jump back into the letters. And Victor Frankenstein dies on the boat Mhmm. That's rescuing him. And then the mon they find the monster, and the monsters monster's like, oh, I'm I'm so upset with all the things that I've done.
Speaker 1:It was horrible. My poor creator, blah blah blah. And then kind of, like, runs off into the Arctic, and that's the end.
Speaker 2:He says that he's gonna essentially burn himself Mhmm. To end his life, but you don't actually see that happen. Right. So he just walks off.
Speaker 1:Could be Roman. If you've ever visited the North Pole, keep an eye out. Yeah. So that's the basics of kind of the story, just so you have, I don't know, an idea as we move forward of what that looks like if you haven't read it or aren't super familiar with it.
Speaker 2:And of the time, super terrifying. Oh, yeah. Because you're coming from a very religious Mhmm. Place where God is creating life. And now all of a sudden, you have this scientist Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Man, specifically, creating another human life Mhmm. Without God Mhmm. With science. And without women. And without women.
Speaker 1:All on his own. Mhmm. Now, the first couple of years that this was published, remember she's 19. And Percy Shelley, her husband, said, you know what? Don't put your name on that.
Speaker 1:Because if you put your name on it, they're probably not gonna publish it. You're a woman. You know, whatever. So she didn't put her name on it. He wrote the foreword for the book, and everyone assumed that he wrote it.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:It's very, popular. He got all the credit. And then about three years later, they republished it under her name. Now I'm not sure what the circumstances were there that they chose. It wasn't Percy being like, oh, I'm a magnanimous human, and I'll let you take credit for your own work.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. But they did eventually a publisher published it under her name so people knew that it was her. So I think one of the really interesting facets of this is the idea, like Brie said, of creating life without God, without women, and then rejecting that life.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Choosing not to nurture that life. Because Doctor. Frankenstein essentially gives it no chance. He's like, oh, scary monster. See you, bye.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And so you have this, like, parallel to now where men are wanting this power, the power of of life. Of life. Of your life. Of my life. Of controlling the whole situation.
Speaker 1:And yet not wanting to nurture anything. Mhmm. Not wanting to take the time to not that you should ever give someone absolute power at all. But if you expect absolute power, you should certainly be, like, nurturing
Speaker 2:that. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And so you see right in this book that that's what's happening.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And the dangers of that, too. Like, for example, tying it back into today, we're demanding life at any cost. But once that life happens, then what? Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Are we going to feed that life? Mhmm. Are Are we gonna protect that life? Are we gonna teach that life good morals and values? Or are we just going to say, best of luck, kid.
Speaker 2:You're on your own.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Because what happens then? Right. Well, clearly not so not so good.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. I think we made this argument a couple weeks ago about the the pro life movement in The United States. And that you can't really say you're pro life if you're not looking after those people Right? And exactly this, where what happens then? What happens when you create life and set it free?
Speaker 1:Well, it it learns how to live in a society that doesn't want it.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:That person, that child, that whatever, if you're not choosing to to take care of it or to find someone who will take care of it or to put in place the systems that will care for it, now suddenly they're gonna they're gonna observe whoever they choose to observe. And that could be someone great. That could be someone terrible. You don't know. They're dealing with hunger.
Speaker 1:They're dealing with lack of medication.
Speaker 2:And look at from a Christian perspective, look at how God created life. He set up everything first Mhmm. So that that life could thrive. Mhmm. He put Adam and Eve in companionship in the garden, gave them food, gave them everything that they needed, including free will.
Speaker 2:And then from there, once they had all the information, once he nurtured their life, then they went and made their own decisions. But there was enough there to sustain their lives. And even when they turned away, he didn't turn his back on them. Right. He still continued to care and be there for them.
Speaker 2:We're not doing that today. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:I think this book is such a great example of exactly what's going on today. What happens when when you take on all this responsibility? You say, I'm gonna play god. Mhmm. But I don't actually want any of the responsibilities.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna create it, and I'm gonna push it out into the world. I'm gonna ignore the consequences of my own actions.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Also, just like the idea of piecing together someone's entire being with little pieces of other people. Super, super creepy to Like, I'm gonna take your leg. What life has that leg left? Like, did it have electrolysis?
Speaker 2:And the other one didn't? What's gonna happen there? Who knows? That's where my mind goes. That's frightening.
Speaker 2:Where were these hands? I don't wanna know. Have
Speaker 1:you heard about the books that they have at Harvard that are bound in human skin? Yeah. I watched a whole video on that. Do you know they have age spots?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's super creepy. You and I have watched the same videos on it. Or people who have had, not like skin transplants, but what would you call that?
Speaker 2:Skin grafting. And it maybe came from an area of the body where it had different types of hair. And now you have a patch of your arm Mhmm. That's growing weird hair. That's bizarre.
Speaker 1:I can say that from personal experience, not with skin grafting, but with surgery, that that's like a real thing. It's super weird. Another thing that we wanted to talk about was just kind of the irresponsibility of the men in this story and how they use women. Mhmm. Now, this book is almost completely focused on men.
Speaker 1:There's very few women in the story. The women that are in the story are kind of, like,
Speaker 2:trashed. Like, at the beginning, the guy is writing to his sister. Mhmm. I think Susanna or something like that. And then there's Elizabeth, who was Victor Frankenstein's wife, and then she got murdered.
Speaker 1:She was his wife for the day. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Or the monsters would be wife Mhmm. Pieced together from little bits of people and then
Speaker 1:not given life. Right. Which is really interesting from a female author Mhmm. To see no no three-dimensional women as part of the story. But I really think that was kind of the point.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Because she had all this feminist background. Yeah. She would have put women in the story if she wanted to. And there are many other of her works that do focus on the real life experience of women.
Speaker 1:So what was the point of having no women here? Mhmm. And I think it's to show men using the women in their lives.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Using and abusing.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So you see initially, like, the monster saying to Victor Frankenstein, I want you to create a woman for me because I'm lonely. Mhmm. I want you to create a partner for me because I am lonely. And you see that paralleled today in this male loneliness epidemic.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And the nice guy vibe. Yes. I'm a nice guy. I'm lonely. Therefore, I am owed all of these things.
Speaker 1:I'm owed a partner. I am owed a submissive wife. I am owed someone that's gonna do my laundry.
Speaker 2:Or think about this from, like, the dating perspective too. You'll go out on a date with a guy, say that he happens to pay. Mhmm. Now he feels owed your body. Right.
Speaker 2:Or your mind. Right. Or something else from you. When he's absolutely owed nothing. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Maybe I'll give you $20. I'll pay for myself.
Speaker 1:Right. And I think you can see that that she's really making that point of he wants a partner. He's not willing to actually go out and no. I mean, okay. He's a monster.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. I'm not sure what his dating prospects are.
Speaker 2:But You never know. There's a pot for every lid. I stand by that.
Speaker 1:And so instead of going out and trying to find someone that matches his personality, instead of taking that time to know someone to whatever and again, monster. So take this with, you know it's a comparison. Instead of doing that, he says, create for me the perfect person.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And as Christians force that person Yes. To be with me too. She's not given an option.
Speaker 1:Right. And as Christians, don't we so often do that? Mhmm. We pray to God, particularly men, God, give me this type of wife. God, give me a submissive wife.
Speaker 1:God, give me a wife who only sings Christian music. God, give me a wife who cooks really well or whatever. Mhmm. Create for me exactly what I've asked for.
Speaker 2:Which is an interesting idea when you flip the script for a woman. What women are told is don't do this because your future husband might not like it. Mhmm. Don't kiss anybody else because you don't wanna take that away from your future husband. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:So change yourself. Whereas men are like, this is what I want.
Speaker 1:Here's a
Speaker 2:checklist of what I want. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And we in a way, the church is creating us to be in a way, the church is Victor Frankenstein. Like, they are creating a bunch of women to be exactly what all of these men want. Mhmm. They are raising us in such a way, putting different pieces of different people together
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:To be the perfect match for this man that they also created. Yeah. Not that god came down and said, like, okay, I want you to be this way, but that the church said, I want you to be this way. Mhmm. And so that's the monster and, you know, feeling owed a partner, feeling owed a woman, feeling owed not being lonely.
Speaker 1:You're really not owed not being lonely. Mhmm. It is on you as a person, man or woman, to go out and create the community that you want.
Speaker 2:Our grandma always quotes this verse that she quote quoted to herself when she was in church. If you want essentially, it says, if you want to have friends, you must first show yourself friendly. Mhmm. I forget what the verse is. I think that is.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But that's true. Even like, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 1:I know we're talking
Speaker 2:about Frankenstein. But even though he's a monster, relate that back to yourself. Mhmm. You first have to be a friendly person. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:You're not owed anybody else. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And if you want a partner, instead of saying, God, create for me this perfect person, maybe look internally and say, okay, if if I want a partner who's a partner, who loves me, who cares for me, who will live this life journey with me, then you need to be the kind of person that they're looking for too. That is compassionate. That is kind. That is whatever. Whatever you're looking for, you should also be.
Speaker 1:So if you're looking for a submissive partner, you also need to be a submissive partner. Which is, in fact, what the bible calls for us is to submit to one another Mhmm. In love. So whatever you are looking for, be that person as well. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Instead of going to your creator and saying, make me the perfect person. And might I just
Speaker 2:say, actually be that kind of person. Don't put a facade on. Because I so often find with like dating, people can tell you whatever they want. And then once you get married or something, they all of a sudden are a different person. Believe them the first time.
Speaker 2:I was dating this guy for a little while, and he I was like, what are you looking for? And he, right off the bat, told me, I want to be the head of my household. I want a submissive wife. And I was I lost it on him. I was like, well, I don't believe that.
Speaker 2:Here's x y z. Why you believe that this is not what God wants for me, for you, for anybody. And he's like, no, no, no. I totally agree with you. I totally agree that it's a partnership.
Speaker 2:And I this isn't what you heard was not what I meant. But I believed him the first time. Mhmm. And I said, see you.
Speaker 1:Bye. Well, that's you're right. People will change to be who you want them to be, to mold themselves. And then ten years down the road, five years down the road, one year down the road
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Now the real them is is there. Mhmm. Because they don't have to pretend anymore just to get you to sign the marriage contract.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Something else that I noticed in Frankenstein was because he was lonely and abandoned, then he felt justification in rage and murder. Mhmm. We do see that a lot in men. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And I
Speaker 2:think that's why Mary Shelley wrote specifically about men. Like, this is why the monster is also a man. Mhmm. Because we tell men that because you're lonely, that justifies you being angry. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Because you're a man, that justifies rage. And that's
Speaker 1:okay. Well, you see online just absolutely constantly. You guys you guys have seen this. Where men will go off on, like, how they'll be nice to a woman for a minute. And the moment she's like, you know what?
Speaker 1:I'm really not interested. She can be fully polite. And now he's calling her names. He is telling her how horrible she is. Blah blah blah.
Speaker 1:Because she's rejected him.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And we so often, with this story, we've made Frankenstein's monster into a sympathetic character.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And I don't really think there's a sympathetic character here. It's learned behavior.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Everything that he is, he learned from viewing other people.
Speaker 1:Right? Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Anger. Rage. Needing some kind of partner. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And when you turn him into the sympathetic character, you're like, oh, well, but it's understandable. It's understandable. That's you're right. That's what we do in society Mhmm. Is we turn these men into sympathetic characters because, oh, well, they had a hard life.
Speaker 1:Or, oh, well, he's lonely. And so, you know, this is just him acting out. Whatever.
Speaker 2:Here's the reasons why he is the way he is.
Speaker 1:Exactly. Stop giving justification for bad behavior. Mhmm. Frankenstein's monster killed a bunch
Speaker 2:of people.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's not good. Also, I mean, like, just within the story itself, Frankenstein's monster knew what it was like to be rejected by society, knew what it was like to live a very difficult life, and yet wanted to have doctor Frankenstein create someone else like him.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:True. Who also would be a social outcast. Who also would be lonely. Mhmm. Make yourself better before you bring someone else down.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:The other female character the other main female character in this story is doctor Frankenstein's very short lived wife. Essentially
Speaker 2:Elizabeth.
Speaker 1:Essentially, he goes immediately from his monster threatening his future bride to, like, time to get married.
Speaker 2:Yep. Even though I know Mhmm. It's not gonna end well for her. Mhmm. I need to not be lonely for a second.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Like, absolute disregard. And and I believe that it says, like, she was his childhood sweetheart or something like that. And so you have a history with this person. Not that it's ever okay anyway to put someone's life in danger.
Speaker 1:But he has a history with this person. He's supposed to have cared for this person.
Speaker 2:He was told Mhmm.
Speaker 1:On your wedding night, I will be with you. And I I'm a kill your wife. Like, that's what's gonna happen here. Right? Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And yet, in total disregard for her life and her well-being, chose himself.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Isn't it sad if you love someone, you're supposed to let them go? Which basically means, like, if you love someone, you want what's best for them. Mhmm. Even if it hurts you a little bit.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Well, that didn't really work out for her.
Speaker 1:This story is a whole book full of not wanting to live with the consequences of your own actions.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Doctor Frankenstein created this monster and didn't wanna live with the consequences of that. So immediately sent him out into the world, whatever. Thought he was fine for a little while. And then when that monster came back and here are the consequences of my actions, he says, no. No.
Speaker 1:No. Get away again.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And then tries to not live with the consequences of his actions and gets married. And oh, hey, here's the consequences of my actions. Like, it's just a story of trying to run from from the choices you've made.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And manifested into a monster. Mhmm. I like that visual.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. You can't always run from the choices you've made. Instead of running from them, you say, hold on. Let me stop here. And let me work on myself.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna consider the other humans around me
Speaker 2:or consider my choices here. He could have turned around and been like, you know what? Here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna teach you how to speak. I'm gonna teach you love and compassion.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna teach you how to care for yourself. Because I created this mess. But instead, he was just like, nope. Actually, I'm terrified. See you, bye.
Speaker 1:Peace out. And I think I just think that's so interesting that she chose to focus only on men here. And that the problems are the same then as they are now.
Speaker 2:And I also find it interesting that women aren't afforded that same luxury. Mhmm. Men often have the choice of saying, see you, bye. Mhmm. Because they are not physically birthing these kids.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Right? Women don't have that option. Especially now. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:So that's just interesting to think about too. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, and and it would have been the same in Mary Shelley's time.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Right. So if we look at this from, like, a religious perspective, because that's sometimes what we do here. Not all the time. Occasionally. Sometimes what we do.
Speaker 2:Every other Thursday.
Speaker 1:We can compare this to God. So because at the time, we've got a very religious time period. Right? The the world in which this is coming out is very religious. And this is very not religious.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. I mean, it's a reflection of her upbringing, too. Her mom, a radical feminist. Her dad,
Speaker 1:an atheist. Right. And so you've got this idea of creation without God. Mhmm. So it's kind of like spitting on the church a little bit in a way.
Speaker 1:And we don't really I don't think we see it that way necessarily anymore. But at the time, they probably would have. It would have been very insulting insulting to to a a religious religious community. Community. And And so so if you take that idea of creation now let's juxtapose it against God and God's creation.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. So you've got doctor Frankenstein. Creates. Doesn't know what to do with it. Doesn't wanna have anything to do with it.
Speaker 1:And he's human. He's flawed. He's created a flawed creation. And then there's God. And God created something perfect.
Speaker 1:Right? When creation was created, it was perfect. Mhmm. The world was perfect. The animals were perfect.
Speaker 1:The humans were perfect. Everything was perfect.
Speaker 2:The fruit was perfect, probably.
Speaker 1:And he looked at it and said, this is good. And then he held on to it. He kept coming back and saying, I love you. I care about you. Even when they screwed up.
Speaker 1:Even when Adam and Eve, at the same time, screwed up. Mhmm. He said, I still love you. I still care about you. You have stories all through the Bible.
Speaker 1:All through today. Like, we can pull that string all the way into 2025. And God still cares about us. He still works with us. He still nurtures us and wants us to live good lives.
Speaker 1:He wants good things for his children. And it's this whole example of what if. What would the
Speaker 2:world look like if humans got their grubby
Speaker 1:hands on it? Yeah. If God didn't create and then care. Mhmm. And let's look at the world today.
Speaker 1:We have a lot of people not just creating human life, but creating systems of oppression. Mhmm. Creating systems surrounding the life that exists, surrounding the people and humans that exist today that oppress and hurt other humans globally. We have this worldwide as a problem. When humans get involved in deciding I should get to decide your health care.
Speaker 1:I should get to decide your retirement. I should get to decide all of your finances forever and ever. We don't do it very well. Because
Speaker 2:we're humans and we're flawed. But I think it's so easy to say this is what's best for me. Mhmm. And I don't care about everybody else. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:But that's the thing is, as Christians, we are called to care for everybody else. Wouldn't do that to us. We're supposed to be Jesus' hands and feet on earth. Right. Jesus wouldn't do this.
Speaker 2:There's a worship song that says, I think it's called He Waited for Me. Mhmm. And I really like it. It's where it basically says, I'm out here doing my old thing. I turned away from you, God.
Speaker 2:And I'm going to figure it out by myself. Mhmm. But God waited for you there. And he's there when you need him. And every time you turn around, he's gonna be there.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Whereas Victor Frankenstein created his life and ran the other direction.
Speaker 1:And who are we supposed to be? Mhmm. Not even looking at, like, you know, babies or anything like that. But looking at other human beings that are in our sphere.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Who are we supposed to be? Are we supposed to be the person that looks at them and says, you don't look like me.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:You scare me. Or or any of these things. Like, we see this in our world all over the place, in the news and everything. You don't look like me. I've been told you're a threat.
Speaker 1:I've been told you're scary.
Speaker 2:And this is throughout history, right? Even back to Bible times, they were doing that. You don't look like me. I'm scared of you. I'm not gonna care for
Speaker 1:you. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:But Jesus never did. Right.
Speaker 1:And we're looking at a world that is trying to rip away basic human decency
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:From anyone that doesn't look like the people in power.
Speaker 2:Or who doesn't have the same amount of money or wealth as them.
Speaker 1:And we're justifying it through the church. Mhmm. Through the church, we're saying, okay, this is good. This is what God would have wanted. Jesus would have voted this way.
Speaker 1:And yet I don't see that reflected in the Bible at all. What I see reflected in the Bible is Jesus caring for his creation. Is Jesus standing in the gap when when no one else wanted to. When no one else wanted to fight for the people who looked different. Think about the the guy who
Speaker 2:had leprosy in the Bible. Was seen as a monster, a pariah. People didn't wanna come near him or touch him. Jesus approached that man. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And said, I love you. I care for you. You're not a monster. Go be healed. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And how much more impactful is that on that man's life than saying, no, no, no. You you are a social pariah. You scare me. Go away. And when our calling is to spread the good news of Jesus.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. How much more impactful is it to feed people in Jesus' name Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Than oppress them in Jesus' name? Right. Or think of the woman another example. The woman with the bleeding disorder Mhmm. That came and touched Jesus' robes.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And he turned to her and talked to her and told her because of her faith, she'd be healed. Mhmm. Now the background of that story is very rich and interesting because the bleeding disorder that she had would have been some kind of like feminine issue. So Mhmm. Like a period issue.
Speaker 2:A lady business. Yeah. I mean, know people like that now. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And yet because of the way that the Jewish culture was structured, women were Unclean. During their periods and for a time afterwards. And so because she was constantly bleeding, she was constantly unclean. She had no one could touch her. No one could go near her.
Speaker 1:She also was a monster. Mhmm. And yet Jesus went to her. She didn't have the money to pay for health care.
Speaker 2:Or how about Lazarus? Literally dead. Quite literally dead. Literally dead. And Jesus was like, hang on.
Speaker 2:I got this. Come back.
Speaker 1:The Bible is just full of these stories of compassion Mhmm. Of care, of who we are supposed to be. Mhmm. And I don't wanna take I never wanna take my beliefs and throw them at everyone else. But Christian people throughout the world, I'm speaking to you directly.
Speaker 1:Now, I hope that the rest of the world is compassionate too. But I'm speaking to Christian people. Hello. How are you? God called you to care for the foreigner.
Speaker 1:God called you to care for the impoverished. That is what is being asked of you. You can say no, it's not. But when you go have a conversation with God after you die, did you love God and did you love others? That is what will be asked of you.
Speaker 1:I truly believe that's it. That's the question. Did you love God? Did you love others? On equal footing.
Speaker 2:Without conditions. Not just any others. Not just, oh, I loved the people in my church. Mhmm. Not just, I loved my cul de sac.
Speaker 2:Not just, I loved just my little corner of the world. No. You are called to love the whole world. To radically love the whole world.
Speaker 1:To show a level of compassion that would be looked at and be like, okay. That's a lot. Like, okay. Maybe too much compassion.
Speaker 2:She she loves it a little bit too much.
Speaker 1:That's what that's what you're being asked to do. So when you see the world around us that is just hating people, that is kicking people out of our country because because they look different.
Speaker 2:And slapping God's name on it. You are gonna have to answer to
Speaker 1:that. Mhmm. You are gonna have to answer to God for these things. Are you ready to? Are you ready to defend to your creator?
Speaker 1:Here's why I didn't think I needed to love others.
Speaker 2:And keep in mind, I know we've said this before, but think of the person that you hate the most Mhmm. In this world. The person that you despise. Jesus died on the cross for them. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Jesus loves them. As much as he loves you.
Speaker 2:And I'm thinking of a couple of people that hate.
Speaker 1:Aren't we always the one?
Speaker 2:And that's uncomfortable to think about.
Speaker 1:It is. Because there's some big hate.
Speaker 2:Or there's some big wrongs out there in this world. Jesus loves radically. God loves radically. Beyond any wrong that you could do on this earth, he loves you. And he would prefer that you be in heaven with him.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Shouldn't we be a little bit the same?
Speaker 1:Mhmm. When society looks at others and deems them monsters for whatever reason Way
Speaker 2:to tie that back in. Love it.
Speaker 1:I know. I was really working hard. When they do that, it rips apart the fabric of society.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:It rips apart what is supposed to be a world of of immigrants.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Because we're not just know, The United States, Wong, has been a country of immigrants.
Speaker 2:This land is your land. This land is my land.
Speaker 1:Did you wanna sing the rest?
Speaker 2:No. But I think the as we have such a global world, the world as a whole
Speaker 1:is full of people who don't look like you and made up freaking rules. And made up freaking rules. That too. And when we look at each other and because we look a little different, because we believe a little different, because we have different, I don't know, body parts. We say you're a monster or you're not worth as much as I am.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Just like doctor Frankenstein said to his monster, you're not worth my time. You're not worth my compassion. When we say that to others, a, we are certainly not being Christians.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:We are certainly not representing God. But we are also creating a society for the future, for our children, for our friends, for our nieces and nephews, anyone in your life that looks a lot worse. That is violent. That is scary.
Speaker 2:We're the monsters.
Speaker 1:There you go. There we go. Not you and I, we're lovely. Sometimes. Every other Thursday.
Speaker 1:And I think, you know, like Brie said, this book can be a little bit hard to get through because it is old English.
Speaker 2:It's classic. Yeah. It's no Pride and Prejudice, I'll tell you
Speaker 1:that much. But Mary Shelley did such an incredible job of creating this bizarre situation that she's giving all of these, like, little messages through.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:She's she's sending the world a message that applies not just to her world, but all the way to now.
Speaker 2:And that's why something like this is a classic. Mhmm. This is why it's lasted for years and years and years and will continue to be
Speaker 1:popular forevermore. One of the interesting things too that we talked about so Mary Shelley said that she got the idea for this from a dream. She basically woke up one morning when they were having this contest, she had a dream. And she told them all this story, whatever. And that's the story that kind of you know, it's it it is an interesting story.
Speaker 1:Like, oh, we had this writing competition, and I had a dream, and whatever. What a
Speaker 2:terrible dream.
Speaker 1:It it would have been you had a dream. But it's such an interesting idea for women of like I mean, I I have a writing degree. Okay? Like, I know what it takes even just to write a short novel, a short paper, things like that. It's a lot of work.
Speaker 1:And she's either writing it by hand or she's got a typewriter. I'm not really sure.
Speaker 2:Specifically to, like, creative writing. Mhmm. That is a whole other level of your brain to to pull
Speaker 1:the story out of yourself. So it's not just a dream. Mhmm. She had to sit down and she had to work out the whole plot, the storyline. There's a story within a story within a story, so you've got to build that out.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Probably an insane amount of work went into this story. It wasn't a dream. And yet because women never really get full credit for what they do, because she, as a woman, could not take full credit for this. Oh, I had a dream and and that's how it happened.
Speaker 1:No, she worked for this.
Speaker 2:Women are so often told to downplay their success and their brilliance. Mhmm. Because they don't wanna seem like a, I was gonna say it.
Speaker 1:You could, mom will cry. A witch with a b.
Speaker 2:They they can't be as tough as the men because they have to navigate their way through all of these men. When really we should just say, holy cow. She was very smart. Mhmm. 19 years old.
Speaker 1:Can you imagine?
Speaker 2:You're right. This wasn't just a dream. There was a lot of work that went into this story. Hours and hours. And you're right.
Speaker 2:She didn't have a typewriter. This is eighteen hundreds when were typewriters created?
Speaker 1:Girl, I
Speaker 2:don't know. I didn't do that research. I'm thinking of Bridgerton. Okay? They had quills.
Speaker 1:And that could have been the case. She could have had to handwrite it. Mhmm. Even if typewriters were a thing, that she had access to one.
Speaker 2:Also, listen to the first fifteen minutes of Frankenstein. It's free on YouTube. That hurt my brain.
Speaker 1:Just like the brilliance at that age. And and she went on to write other very impactful books that didn't quite hit the same level of popularity. But I believe she wrote another one about a woman after her partner died and things like that because her partner had died at that point.
Speaker 2:Was it
Speaker 1:Matilda? No. It was another one. But she wrote she was brilliant. She wrote so much and didn't really have the opportunity to take the level of credit that she deserved.
Speaker 1:During her lifetime, she was not super famous and popular.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. It was more so after she died. Right.
Speaker 1:Now her husband, super famous and popular. Her good friend, Lord Byron, super famous and popular. And yet here she is. And now we look at her and we consider she was like one of the masters of the Gothic movement.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:But she didn't get that during her lifetime. And you can say that about artists in general. Oftentimes, they're more famous after they pass away. But Van Gogh. True.
Speaker 1:He also passed away without one ear. Yeah. Bummer for him. Life is hard. Life is hard.
Speaker 1:But just that women should take credit for the things that they do.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Because the more women that do take credit for what they're doing, that inspires other women to take credit for the other things that they do. And I think we could do a whole episode on that. Just like things that you didn't know were started by women, like monopoly. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:You didn't know?
Speaker 1:The current idea of the tribulation
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Was dreamed up by a little
Speaker 2:girl. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:We could go into that someday. Yeah. And also, the more that women do that, the more that they stand up and shout their achievements, the less strength the patriarchy has to say like, well, look, women can't do anything.
Speaker 2:They can barely turn their head to breathe. Yeah. We're proving day after day after day that we are capable. We are strong. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:We are just as important as you are. But we have to start taking credit for our works. Mhmm. Even if it's isolating. Even if it's lonely.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And that's a whole other episode that we'll that we'll do.
Speaker 1:Soon. So next week, we are doing our Halloween episode. That's gonna come out the day before Halloween. We're very excited. Hounded toos.
Speaker 1:Yep. We're gonna do a haunted house. So I'm gonna come up with some rooms, some spooky rooms in the haunted house. Brie's gonna come up with some spooky rooms in the haunted house. I'm thinking like hell house.
Speaker 2:You know how churches used to do hell houses to scare people into like becoming Christians? Yes. That's in my mind. That's my image.
Speaker 1:Alright. Well, it's gonna be spooky, so I hope you're prepared. And then starting next month, we are gonna do a series called well, I don't know if we'll call it this because sometimes we get a little weird with our titles. But it's gonna be about women who fell from grace. And we're gonna talk about Amy Grant.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. We're gonna talk about Beth Moore. And we are also gonna do because if you don't know, Wicked comes out next month. And Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, had Had a little fall from grace. Just a touch.
Speaker 1:So we're also gonna talk about her. We may throw some more in there. We haven't quite decided how long this series will be yet. Mhmm. But we're gonna talk through those and kind of like what happened to them, why they fell out of favor with the church, with society Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And whether that was fair or not. Mhmm. Whether that would have happened to a man or not. Mhmm. So
Speaker 2:because women are allowed to be complex creatures. They're allowed to be not all good. Mhmm. But they also have good things to say.
Speaker 1:So so we're gonna talk about them, and we're pretty excited about that. And I'm so proud of us for having plans.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Look at us go.
Speaker 1:It's just really impressive. After a year and a half,
Speaker 2:we still don't have it all together.
Speaker 1:We have at least two things together, though. Maybe three. Maybe three. Four, actually.
Speaker 2:We have the next four episodes planned. Look at us go. We're incredible humans. Wow. You're welcome.
Speaker 2:Let us
Speaker 1:take credit for it. Alright. So get excited about that. We will talk to you about it next week. That's And all I have to say.
Speaker 2:And that's all I have
Speaker 1:to say. Love you. Bye. I
Speaker 2:love you. Bye.