Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Passionate about modern feminist issues? Want to learn more about how today's political, academic, and cultural leaders strive for a future of universal equality and justice?
Join NOW in a podcast dedicated to intersectional feminist discussions in American society with leaders in entertainment, sports, politics, and science. From conversations on constitutional equality, to economic justice and reproductive rights, listeners will find new ways to learn, engage, and get empowered.
Listen for new episodes released every other Wednesday.
speaker-0 (00:01)
You can't logic someone out of what they didn't logic themselves into. The data doesn't matter in these conversations. We want it to. We want to be able to show the chart and the numbers and say, see, doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. What matters when you're in that movement that deeply is story. What matters is human experience. Because if they can see yourself in your story, they can see you as a person like them.
That's what starts to change their mind. The data always has to come second, and it's really frustrating because it feels like some of these things should have such an easy answer. But in these high control groups, many of them are very cult-like. Many of them rely on years and years of indoctrination and propaganda. Story is what matters the most.
speaker-2 (00:53)
And welcome to Feminism Now. I'm Kim Mulonaweva, the president of the National Organization for Women. I'm here with National Vice President Rose Brunosh. Hi, everyone. Rose, it's the start of season six. Aren't you excited? And I first want to announce great news for us. Our podcast won at the Timber Awards. And that award recognizes outstanding podcasts produced by associations, organizations, and agencies that work in public policy. Our show won two awards.
speaker-3 (01:20)
Thank you. everyone, we are award winning now.
speaker-2 (01:24)
I know. Yay. Okay. But you know, we're always improving though. And so we're gonna be doing things a little differently this season. We're gonna try to be a little more relaxed and we're gonna try to have listeners get to know us a little more. And who are we? We're angry feminists. So Rose, I'm gonna ask you, what made you mad this week?
speaker-3 (01:42)
It's hard to choose one, but I I think I'll choose a story about how Texas GOP is trying to get rid of no fault divorce. if for those who don't know, you know, it used to be that in order to get divorced in the United States, you had to have a reason. It had to be infidelity, you had to prove it. And so they want to bring that back. This is very dangerous for women who are abused because it means they have to go through the court system, they have to pay money, and you can't just say you want to break up because you just want to break up.
So Kim, what about you? Does anything have you mad as hell?
speaker-2 (02:17)
Actually, there is something. There's been a lot of discussion in the media lately about postpartum depression. I did want to mention there was Hayden Panetier who passed away this week. And it was disclosed that she lost her contract with Neutrogena because she had postpartum depression. And I don't think that it's been acknowledged enough that that's a real issue and it really causes pain and it causes tragedy. And you know, there's a lot of cases where women have, you know, ended up committing murder because of that issue. And so I think we recognize that that's another
way in which women's pain, women's health has been ignored and not acknowledged. That makes me mad as hell.
speaker-3 (02:52)
Okay, but the good news for this podcast, to shift away from the negative stories, is that we also have things that make us happy, that make us love feminism even more. And today our guest for season six is one of those people. It's Monty Mater.
speaker-2 (03:06)
I know and I am so excited that Monty's gonna be on the show. She attended our national conference and it was amazing. People just were out the door wanting to talk with her and afterwards. So Monty's a progressive political and cultural commentator. She's a writer, a public speaker, and a vocalist. She has her own band. So she does it all like like most women.
speaker-3 (03:25)
I think that her story resonates with so many people. I think a lot of people up until now are not really aware of the Christian nationalism and how strong it is. You know, if you don't grow up in that type of environment, you might not be aware of what's going on. you have people like Doug Wilson, who's a confidant of the defense secretary, and you're probably hearing things about household voting for the first time. And that's been her life, you know. And so I I think women like her are so important to listen to.
speaker-2 (03:53)
Yeah, I think it's exciting that she's going to talk about her lived experience before and after Christian nationalism. So we're about to bring her in, but before we do, I want to let everyone listening know that you can give us a call and share your thoughts. If you follow Monty, tell us why. You know, I follow her on social media and she's amazing. So call now at a number in our show notes and leave a message. Or you can email us a voice note from your phone to feminismnow at no w dot org.
And I do want to say before we begin, we are going to be talking about abuse and sexual abuse of women and girls. So please take care of yourself when you listen. And now I'm excited to say, let's talk to Monty Mater.
speaker-3 (04:38)
Monty, it's so wonderful to see you.
speaker-0 (04:39)
Today.
It's so nice to be here.
speaker-3 (04:42)
We last saw you at the National Now Conference, just a couple of months ago. And thank you for speaking at at it and firing up all the members. It was interesting because we're hearing so much about trad wives right now, and you were raised almost like a trad wife, although you might have not called it that. Can you talk about what that was like?
speaker-0 (04:59)
Like
I was absolutely raised, and we didn't call it a trad wife. We called it a biblical wife. I was very much raised with the ideology that a woman's only purpose was to get married, submit to a man, facilitate his dreams, have his children. My whole life was geared towards marriage and kids. That's the only thing you have to focus on. And what's different, I think, in the the trad wife movement now versus how I grew up.
Even in my super conservative church and my super conservative family, they still encouraged women to go to college. The idea was to find a husband who will also be college educated, right? They called it an MRS degree. But there were some people, my dad included, who thought women should have a degree in case her husband passed. So it's a very different ideology from the trad wife movement now that is telling women to not go to school, which is crazy to me. But it was, it was very.
Dehumanizing. And I remember as a kid feeling very lost and and I always wanted more. I felt like there was more from life. I wanted to travel, I wanted to see, I wanted to do things, but my life was prescribed to me from the second I came out of the womb. My life was already decided. I remember coming out into the living room one time. I was probably six or seven. All three of my sisters are sitting in front of my dad on chairs and he's teaching them how to tie a tie because they needed to do it for their husbands.
The expectation was not that the man would know how to tie a tie, but that his wife would do it for him. I grew up in Wyoming. So
speaker-3 (06:24)
So where did you grow up?
speaker-0 (06:29)
very rural. I grew up on a cattle ranch in Wyoming. We were on the ranch unless you drove into town for school or for church. And so very, very rural. and that was also part of the reason for education because there wasn't a lot of men around. So you would send your daughter to school.
So that hopefully she could meet a man who would be able to get a high paying job and provide for her.
speaker-2 (06:51)
Yeah, so you it sounds like you're very isolated geographically as well as, you know, socially. So but of course you've changed, you know, now that you're an adult, you're very feminist if you identify that way.
speaker-0 (07:02)
I guess I do.
speaker-2 (07:04)
That led you to think, you know, this isn't I don't want this life anymore, or or things could be different.
speaker-0 (07:09)
Had a big breaking moment at 23, but there was a series of things along the way. I remember being very young and just being like, it's not fair that like I don't get to choose what I want from my life. You know, but then you're also taught, you're taught in this movement that you're born sinful, you're actually, you're not just imperfect, you're evil. Like you can't do anything good on your own. And so you're taught to doubt your own mind. Your own intuition is pride and it's sin. So if you question
God's plan for your life. If you question what the pastor says, well then you're sinning. But my big breaking point from this movement and kind of recognizing that this wasn't about God, it was about control. when I was engaged in my early 20s, my then fiance, his half sister, turned up pregnant. And she was 12. And
speaker-1 (07:59)
Yeah.
speaker-0 (08:00)
we found out that it was her mother's boyfriend. I believe he was in his late 40s, and it had been going on for three years. my gosh.
And it was so horrific. And at the time I was a no exceptions quote pro lifer. And all of a sudden this little girl is in front of me. And I watch how people shame her, all because of the sin and the abuse of a fully a grown adult man. Then at one point I took her to this birthing class and I take her into this room and there's maybe a dozen girls. The oldest is 19. She's the youngest at 12. Most of them are 15, 16.
All of them except for one, the fathers were over 21. And I'm sitting in the back of the room, and it dawns on me for the first time that there was never any demand for accountability for men. All of it kind of comes together that in the, you know, quote pro-life argument, there's no demand for accountability of deadbeat fathers. There's no demand for support from conception. There was no expectation of how husbands ought to behave in their marriages.
Right. They would preach wives submit to your husbands. And then they would just run out of time in the sermon to get to what husbands were supposed to do. And so this moment just brought into sharp relief how much of a lie this was and how unsafe for women and children it really was and it really could be. And that was when I really started questioning things for the first time and really started doing my own investigation into the history of these beliefs, the history of movements.
and and how they came to be sold is this bill of goods. And it it completely changed my life.
speaker-2 (09:41)
Sure. Yeah. The the exception became real when you found out about her.
speaker-3 (09:45)
Yeah. So TranWave content is really popular online on social media. And as someone who left, why do you think people fall for it? Because these are not people who grow up in necessarily Wyoming and geographically isolated, you know, areas. So why are they falling for this?
speaker-0 (10:02)
I think there's a couple things. and I and I think one of them is the same reason that young men are falling for the manosphere and going back to the church. I think one of the reasons is that the world feels really scary and uncertain right now. And these are communities that promise to have all the answers. For the trad wife side, it's you're gonna do this, and this is the most fulfilled you will ever be. You will be so happy, you'll be safe.
You don't have to do this on the manosphere side, the religious side. It's here is black and white, everything you're meant to do with your life. We have all the answers. We're going to keep you safe. Here's who you are as a man. I think the other side of it is that people don't want to grow up, right? When you leave a community of absolute certainty and all of a sudden the world of choice is available to you, it is terrifying. Because now, not only do you have to think everything through and someone's not telling you what to do anymore.
You don't just get the freedom of your choice, you get the responsibility of all the consequence. That is an adult grown-up place to live. And in the trad wife space, many of these young girls, what they're seeing online is, she's got her makeup on and she's well dressed and her hair is done and she looks cute and the lighting's great. It's this evasion of adulthood because who doesn't want, at least at some point, for someone to come in and take care of us, right?
I still find myself, I'm in my 30s looking around. Where's the adult in the room? And I'm like, it's me. I'm the adult in the room. So there's this safety and certainty to it, but it's also you don't have to be the grown up.
speaker-2 (11:37)
'Cause you're really emphasizing that the trad wife myth really appeals to women who are looking for protection and safety.
speaker-0 (11:44)
Yeah, and those are perfectly reasonable desires and needs, but they're being sold. It's being offered at the price of giving up their autonomy and their freedom. And protection and safety should never come at that high of a cost. It should always be given freely by someone who loves you. The trad wives on the influencers, if you will, first of all, I've met some of them. I can tell you they are not submitting to their husbands. I like you
speaker-3 (12:10)
I was about to ask you that.
speaker-0 (12:12)
can read that room.
A mile away. Not only are these women the providers of their families, which is awesome. You go girl. I've I've seen the dynamics. That's not
speaker-2 (12:20)
That's
speaker-0 (12:22)
exactly. Exactly. It's beautifully curated content, right? You don't see when the kid is sick. You don't see when you've been up all night trying to feed that newborn. You don't see the terrible twos and the teething stage. And you don't see the house filthy because many of them have chefs and nannies. Again, which is great. If you can afford that, that's awesome. But tell the truth.
You're selling a myth. You're selling a lie. So these young girls are not buying into trad wifery. They're buying into trad wife content, which is an illusion. That's a good.
speaker-2 (12:52)
Distinction.
speaker-3 (12:53)
So you do a lot of speaking events and recently you actually participated in one.
speaker-0 (12:58)
yeah, of one versus one, a face off. Yeah.
speaker-3 (13:01)
Yeah. Usually they do do those one on twenty formats where one liberal talks to twenty conservators and it garners a lot of clips. Why did you decide to do this?
speaker-0 (13:10)
So Jubilee had approached me about doing the surrounded show, the one versus 20. I declined because for me personally, social media and the algorithms and the kind of tunnels we can get into, I find that show contributes to a lot of clickbait and not a lot of conversation in that format. But I told Jubilee I would do a one-on-one. I was like, if you have a one-on-one format where there's a little bit more time, where we can at least have the chance.
to have a conversation, to introduce nuance, to not be screaming at each other, then I will do that. and that was what they organized for me. And I obviously very much prefer the one on one style. I just, I think you get, you just, you learn more, but it doesn't get as much clicks. So there is that.
speaker-2 (13:55)
So when you were on Jubilee, who did you talk to and and what did you talk?
speaker-0 (13:58)
about. So I spoke with Ali Beth Stuckey. We each got to pick a list of topics to debate. And then two of each of our lists were picked. And so we had this, it was very much, you know, kind of around it, a lot of Christian nationalist belief.
speaker-3 (14:12)
Monty, so we gotta take a quick break to hear from our chapters who are doing important work to help women keep their rights.
speaker-1 (14:23)
My name is Mickey Blossey. I am the second vice president for the Central New York chapter of the National Organization for Women. We have received a grant from the NAW Foundation to help fund a reproductive rights film festival. This is an undertaking that we have been involved with three previous years. The film festival has several parts. First of all,
We have two virtual sessions. Those are things that people anywhere across the country can participate in. We do have one virtual session that is going to be focused on doulas and certified professional midwives, and that is on September 8th. And then on September 10th, the second virtual session.
will be focused on emerging filmmakers with films that focus on gender and reproductive rights. And the next part of the Reproductive Rights Film Festival is showing films on campus at Cornell University. And then another night we will do an in-person film showing at Ithaca College.
And both Ithaca College and Cornell University have communications and media arts departments that are also partners in the film festival. And the final part of our film festival is in person three nights, September 17th, 18th, and 19th. On the 17th, which is Thursday, we'll have a feature film in the evening. Friday night, there will be another feature film in
the evening. And then on Saturday we have a matinee and we're going to show five or six short films. And then in the evening on Saturday we'll have another feature-length film. We have documentaries so that we are giving fact-based and current information, not only about abortion, but all of the issues around me reproductive rights. We will be showing, bring another chair
as a little, I'll say amuse bouche before the feature films. The short film Bring Another Chair really dramatically shows the activism of now and that we are an inclusive and I will say proactive kind of organization because as the film says
Shirley Chisholm said, if there's no room at the table for you, bring your own folding chair. And that film really shows women bringing chairs so that we can be included in the conversation. You can find us on Facebook at Central New York now. And you can find us on Instagram and on the web at central New.
New York now. You can find out more information about the Reproductive Rights Film Festival on the website.
speaker-2 (17:56)
Reproductive
speaker-1 (17:58)
Rights film fest dot com
speaker-3 (18:06)
Okay, so we are back with activist and commentator Monty Mader. The conversation you did with a conservative woman brought up some really important points, and one I wanted to talk about, which is this term complementaryism.
Yeah,
speaker-0 (18:20)
Complementarianism.
speaker-3 (18:23)
but it's really a dangerous idea. What is it?
speaker-0 (18:25)
Complementarianism is the church's separate but equal doctrine for men and women. So the way when you start asking questions in the church about, well, this seems inequitable and unjust, these marriages you're describing, where the woman has to submit and give up her autonomy and she no longer has her body and she doesn't get to lead and she doesn't get to say anything. Now they're advocating that wives shouldn't be able to vote. and when you're a reasonable, rational human, you're like, huh, that doesn't seem fair.
And so when you raise that question, they'll say, no, no, no, no, like everybody's equal in God's eyes. We're just different. We just have different roles. And not everybody can have like the visible forward-facing role. Your role is just different, but it is equally valuable to God. It is just as important. But it doesn't actually address the equality of the problem, right? Because when you create a marriage where one person gets to make all the decisions.
One person controls all the resources, one person gets to lead, one person has autonomy, one person has control. That is by definition an inequitable relationship. There is no way that you can spin that into equity and equality. And the tenets largely come from the household codes that are found in Ephesians and Colossians. Couple problems here. Ephesians and Colossians, very likely not written by Paul.
They were written by a Pauline student. Right? Maybe, maybe. But so they they very likely, almost certainly, were not written by Paul, but they were included because when Christianity becomes the imperial imperial religion of Rome, they now impose Rome Greco-Roman household standards back on it. So the goal is well, we got to get women out of leadership. We have to put women lower on the ladder. That's not how the early church was. So these books were very likely included, despite not being authored by Paul.
In order to enforce what male theologians at that time were trying to shift the church into. First of all, so that's the first problem is they're not actually written by Paul. Second of all, is that within those same household codes, so Ephesians five talks about wives submit to your husbands, Ephesians six talks about slaves obey your bastards. And people get real uncomfortable when you bring that up. well, no, that's different. That's culturally context. If the household codes are culturally based.
They are either all culturally based or they are all a universal standard. We don't get to separate them because one of the sentences makes us uncomfortable while we try to impose the sentence that's convenient for us. So complementarianism has really grown out of this movement. It's very much been heightened in the wake of women getting more rights. It really has been used to groom women in the church to accept this role, tell them it's godly, get rid of those feelings they have of this isn't fair.
And say, no, no, no, no, no, no. God absolutely sees you as just as valuable. You just don't get to be in charge of anything or make any decisions. Right.
speaker-3 (21:18)
It's equal to funny that you say that because Alison Stuckey, I'm aware of her. there was a controversy maybe a year ago where she was she's a Christian woman, but she has this podcast and she has these she write books and things and she she was giving advice to Christian men and the Christian men said, No, you're women are not supposed to instruct men. So it was kind of funny the the blowback and she was like so upset, but it's like you're promoting this. You're telling women to be sensitive to men, and it backfired on you because now
She was getting all this hate on social media for people following what she teach.
speaker-0 (21:51)
And that's the thing is these women who buy in, right? And it's traditionally white women, they buy into the system because they think the proximity to power will benefit them, or they have some some modicum of power and freedom themselves. So they're protected and they'll capitalize off of that, even if it hurts other women. But all of these women that work in this space, the ideology that Ali Beth works in absolutely teaches that women can't teach men. So it's always surprising to me because.
The women who operate in these conservative systems are always shocked when that happens. And that does always happen at some point. And I'm like, this is the ideology. This is the packaging that you're selling. and these women think that if they perform just right, they're gonna get chosen and they're gonna be the exception. No, you won't. Because this system, this system is not built. It's not built around, and I'm and I'm not speaking to Christians as a whole. I'm speaking specifically to this very narrow group of Christian nationalists dominantly.
This is a movement based on power. It's not about Christ. It's not about the Bible. And so all of these systems are built this way. And that's why also, and a lot of people talk about it online. It's like, where are the 40-year-old, 50-year-old, 60-year-old trad wives? Well, they're not there because they got out because you can only take so much. And for all the women listening, I hope that you know that there is no person on earth who can work a full-time job, take care of five kids, keep the house perfectly clean.
Cook all the meals, do all the shopping, get to the gym, always have their skincare done, always have their hair done, be well dressed and not have a nervous breakdown at some point. No one is meant to do that. No one is meant to do that. So, like I hope the mothers, especially the mothers listening, like you're not failing. You're a human being that needs to sleep. And I will say, and I I am calling myself out in this. This has shown up in my life recently. Women's overfunctioning is perpetuating the problem.
Because we show up and when someone, you know, when there's a gap, we fill it. We do it. We see it. We see it really dominantly in marriages. Let that man fail. Let him stumble around and fit learn how to do it. He's a big boy. He can do it.
speaker-2 (24:01)
Yeah, it's interesting that we're talking today because next week is Women's Equality Day, you know, which is celebrating when women receive the right to vote. But yet we also had the movement to establish household voting or restrict voting. But the and there's women who actually support that idea. I mean, why do you think they
speaker-3 (24:19)
Support
it.
speaker-0 (24:20)
Because
there's this belief of it'll never happen to me. Right.
speaker-1 (24:23)
Mm-hmm.
speaker-0 (24:24)
And again, it's all about being chosen. When you are raised in an ideology that the peak moment of your life is marriage, right? The one goal. You have arrived. But it's really about buying into this ideology of your salvation is tied to how good you are. And how good you are is tied to being picked by a man.
speaker-3 (24:41)
So Monty, along with getting rid of the right to vote, some conservatives want to get rid of Title IX. Title IX a law, federal law that was passed in the seventies that eliminates sex discrimination in education, ranges from sports to just general sex discrimination. Why do they want to get rid of Title IX, especially for sports?
speaker-0 (25:01)
It's interesting how this whole trans athletes and sports argument has taken a pivot, hasn't it? Right. Because these 1% of the 1% of athletes were the problem, but it was never about the problem. It's always been about women showing up how they think they should be, right? Because when you look at the transvestigations, who does it target? Non-conforming cisgender women, right? Specifically black women. We look at black Olympians.
the women who have been forced to do hormone testing because they were just too good. Can you imagine if a man had hormone testing because he was just too competitive and then told he had to take supplements to drive down his hormones? Right. It really comes down to policing. What does a real woman, quotation marks, look like? Are you feminine enough? We've also seen the bills where they're wanting to do physical genital inspections, right? Not from a doctor.
Not a doctor's note with a member of the school staff.
speaker-3 (25:56)
Yourself deconstructed from Christian nationalism? Have you had any luck reaching people who are still in it? What did you do?
speaker-0 (26:05)
I've actually had a lot of luck. I've had I have a lot of people come up to me all the time who are like, you helped me get out. You opened my eyes. You helped me understand. You made me challenge questions I'd never thought of before. But even in my personal life, like with family members, people I grew up with, I have a lot of people I know who were very deep in the movement coming out and being like, my God, I did not see this for what it is. And the combination of things was being brave enough to talk about it.
And a lot of women, I think, are afraid to do that because when you're inside this white Christian nationalism conservative movement, you lose your whole community if you decide that you don't agree with something or you debate it or you push back, you lose your church, you lose your family, you lose your acceptance. That is a very hard thing for anybody to walk away from. But also, in large part, making those decisions and choosing to live as myself is what helped.
The people I know personally get out. They saw me make my own choices and go after my dreams and choose to show up in the world, how I want to show up in the world. And that helped. I'm not saying it's the only reason because there's always a lot of reasons, but it helped them realize that there were options for them. And thankfully, I now see a lot more deconstruction content online, a lot more people talking about these movements, talking about their experience. And that is the most important thing. You can't
logic someone out of what they didn't logic themselves into. The data doesn't matter in these conversations. We want it to. We want to be able to show the chart and the numbers and say, see, doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. What matters when you're in that movement that deeply is story. What matters is human experience. Because if they can see yourself in your story, they can see you as a person like them. That's what starts to change their mind. The data always has to come second and it's really frustrating.
'Cause it feels like some of these things should have such an easy answer. But in these high control groups, many of them are very cult like, many of them rely on years and years of indoctrination and propaganda. Story is what matters the most.
speaker-2 (28:16)
Do you have any specific advice for someone who's listening right now and they know somebody who's starting to fall down the rabbit hole? I mean, is there you know, you you talk about talking with them, listening to them, trying to see where they are, not using data or right, you know, facts to convince them because that's not gonna work. I mean, what what else can somebody do?
speaker-0 (28:35)
There's a couple of things I would say. The first is that I would really encourage women and mothers in particular, start telling your story. You don't have to be on social media, but tell it to the people that you just know, even if they're not going down that path. But if you especially if you've got teen daughters in your circle somewhere, or nieces or nephews, tell them the truth about what it was like when you had your third kid. Tell them the truth about what it was like, how long it took you to get that medical diagnosis and how hard you had to fight for it. Tell the truth about crying yourself to sleep at night.
Because you felt like you were exhausted and nobody cared about you. Tell what it was like to go through that divorce and find that you could survive. Those stories are gonna change what's possible for young women. And we don't wanna say it right. We wanna, we wanna feel like we're perfect and we got it right. Be vulnerable, tell the truth. And I think all women can do that, but I think that moms in particular have a very special role in this moment because of the rhetoric that's being built around that role.
And if you have someone that you're close to that really is buying to the into this, and it doesn't matter if it's the trad wife movement or the manosphere or whatever, the best thing you can do, especially if you're like, I don't know what to say, I'm not sure I can make an argument. Don't make an argument, ask questions. Say say something wild, huh? Why do you why do you think that? that's interesting. Why do you why do you think that's important? Force them to articulate it. One, because they'll start to realize the holes in the argument. But secondly,
because
Often you'll actually find the core of the problem. And if you can get to the root of those problems, I tell people it's hard to hate from an embrace. So if you can start to ask questions, almost always it boils down to two things. People buy into these movements. One is fear. It's fear of something, fear of loneliness, fear of poverty, fear of failure. The second thing is.
And it's hard. I understand that people that are really frustrated with the Christian nationalist movement and the super conservative movement, because you just again you just want to shake them and they can be so cruel and so vitriolic. The core is people want to be loved. They want to belong to something. They want to feel like their existence matters. So if you can reorient yourself to these conversations, knowing that fear and the deep desire to be loved as a human being.
Are the core motivations, you're gonna have a way more productive conversation.
speaker-3 (30:58)
Auntie, thank you so much for sharing your work and your story with us.
speaker-0 (31:02)
Thank you so much for having me. And thank you for the work that you all do. I will say that despite everything happening, and I know that there is such an intense attack on women's rights and women's autonomy, but I've also never had more hope than I do now because we are waking up to so many conversations we've never been able to have before. And also there's always an upwelling of people who want to be free that happens in response to these movements. And I think that we're on the doorstep of our next biggest breakthrough.
Which is gonna be difficult and it's gonna get messy and it's gonna be a fight. But I think in my lifetime, there's something truly, truly beautiful that comes out of this.
speaker-2 (31:42)
If there's one thing we know feminists are good at, it's making some amazing posters. For marches, rallies, and protests, we know how to make our message get across. That's why we're running our poster contest for the Love Your Body campaign. We're looking for the best posters about loving your body, posters that challenge the narrative that there's only one way to be. You can submit your poster and win a prize. We're looking for posters from anyone from college down to elementary school. The posters are due October 10th, so get drawing.
You can learn more about the poster contest and our Love Your Body campaign and where to submit your artwork at now.org.
speaker-3 (32:20)
Kim, that conversation was so fascinating. What do you think?
speaker-2 (32:23)
You know, I thought it was really interesting to hear the experiences of someone who had been raised in white Christian nationalism and to hear how she was able to extract herself from that and then hear how she has advice for people who are trying to do that themselves. I also love the fact that she knows the Bible. Heart to heart, I can quote it and can also deconstruct it and explain why some of the interpretations that people use to keep women down really should not be used. So what about you? Did we talk about something that surprised you?
speaker-3 (32:52)
Not really what surprised me, but I would say that what I love about Monty Mater is that she actually lived it. You know, a lot of times I've seen documentaries about Christian nationalism and it's always someone from the so called liberal coast kind of investigating. So it's kind of voyeuristic, but this is someone's life. So she knows this movement in a way that a journalist doesn't. And I think that's wonderful. And I think it also helps people leave this movement because it's like, this is someone who's like me.
speaker-2 (33:19)
Yeah, and it shows that it's possible to leave the movement and still be fulfilling and and to find your own way. So I'm so glad that we had the chance to talk with her. It's the start of our amazing podcast season. And we've got even some more amazing interviews coming up. So listeners, if Monty's words resonate with you, we'd love to hear about it. Tell us why you you enjoyed listening and what you got from our discussion with her. Give us a call at the number in the show notes, or send us a voice memo at feminismnow at n ow.org.
speaker-3 (33:49)
Thank you all for joining us, and we'll see you next time.
speaker-0 (34:00)
Mm-hmm.
speaker-1 (34:01)
Topica.