Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Join feminist coaches Taina Brown and Becky Mollenkamp for casual (and often deep) conversations about business, current events, politics, pop culture, and more. We’re not perfect activists or allies! These are our real-time, messy feminist perspectives on the world around us.
This podcast is for you if you find yourself asking questions like:
• Why is feminism important today?
• What is intersectional feminism?
• Can capitalism be ethical?
• What does liberation mean?
• Equity vs. equality — what's the difference and why does it matter?
• What does a Trump victory mean for my life?
• What is mutual aid?
• How do we engage in collective action?
• Can I find safety in community?
• What's a feminist approach to ... ?
• What's the feminist perspective on ...?
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (00:00)
Hello, welcome back to Messy Liberation. And today we're joined by Koa Beck, which is such an honor to me because I talk about white feminism, her book all the time. And I'm sure Taina knows that as well, because it was really important in my own unlearning and relearning and my growth process.
Taina Brown she/hers (00:12)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (00:16)
And so I was I'm just super happy that you're willing to come and talk to us about white feminism and then also other things that you're doing besides just the book. And you also have a sub stack called Valley Girl, which I'm very excited to talk a little bit about that as well. So thanks for being here, Koa. Is there anything else about who you are and what you do you want people to know?
Koa Beck (00:34)
Well, I want to say thank you so much for having me and also Becky specifically. I see you a lot on the internet citing white feminism and tagging me, which is lovely and I appreciate that. But I think as an author, especially in a writer, I I really value, you know, de-centering myself in a lot of things that I write and just seeing.
Taina Brown she/hers (00:43)
Yeah.
Koa Beck (01:00)
you know, the sort of end manuscript, the end vehicle, right, to sort of take a flight. And you've been a big proponent of that in terms of like quoting, citing, you always are in conversation with people, telling people where this comes from and that, you know, they need to read this book and that it's really important. And so I really value that as an author. So thank you.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (01:20)
Well, thank you for saying that and thank you for writing it, because I often bring it up for folks on social media when I see people who are earlier in their journey of anti-racism racism work and like, where do I start? White women who are sort of like, where do I start? And I get frustrated, but also understand when very often that one white lady's book is recommended as a place to start. And I'm always like, there's a better, I think a better place to start. I think this book does such a great job.
Koa Beck (01:22)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (01:33)
Hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (01:48)
For people particularly who have long identified as like liberals or progressives who are the they've always voted blue, who feel like they're sort of the good ones, like I'm one of the good white people. Right. And I think that's the kind of woman that I'm always like, this is a book you need to read so that you can understand the ways that you are very likely unintentionally causing harm. The ways that you're showing up that you think are part of your like being a
Taina Brown she/hers (01:59)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (02:15)
a good person where you have a lot of unpacking left to do. And in a way that I didn't feel I didn't feel like it was harsh or judgmental or cruel or any of that kind of thing, even though that would be OK if it was. But it just was like really clear, easy to understand, easy for me to recognize myself in some of the pages of places where I still had work to do. So I guess, you know, there's not a real question in there other than I'm curious what brought you to.
that work to begin with of saying this is like the thing I really wanted to vote because I've now written a book and I know how much time that is. It's like it takes over your life and your book is probably far more even you know in depth than mine is. What made you say like this is what I want to spend the next year or more of my life focused on?
Koa Beck (02:49)
Hmm?
Taina Brown she/hers (02:56)
Okay.
Koa Beck (02:59)
That's a really good question, especially framed that way. You know, I feel like the more typical question
is like, why did you write this? The clear question is why do you want this stapled to you forever? And why did you devote this much time of your life? So to properly contextualize the book for listeners. So the book came out five years ago now, which is really wild to consider just how much has shifted and has not.
Taina Brown she/hers (03:09)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Koa Beck (03:25)
At the time that I was writing and researching white feminism, I was working in mainstream women's media and I held a lot of various editorial positions at mainstream publications and also not so mainstream publications. And I had really started reporting and writing covering culture and politics at a time in pop culture when feminism quote unquote was suddenly acceptable.
in pop culture discourse. So if you want to like pinpoint a year to it, I would say like, you 2010, 2011, all of a sudden it was considered acceptable to, you know, go up to like a pop star who you got access to and be like, you know, tell me about your feminist politics. Whereas, you know, not too soon before that, you couldn't even put feminist in a headline. You couldn't even like identify a woman.
Taina Brown she/hers (04:00)
Mm.
Koa Beck (04:19)
who was very visible or public facing as a feminist that was seen as a very transgressive things to do, particularly by mainstream newsrooms. Feminist was something you'd see in, I'm dating myself here, like, Bitch Magazine or something like that. It wasn't aligned with The Glossies or Harper's Bazaar or, this was considered a very, for a long time, like quote unquote, post gender landscape.
Taina Brown she/hers (04:29)
Mm-hmm.
Koa Beck (04:45)
don't agree with that, but that was the language that was used around me when I was younger. So as I started coming up, all of a sudden you could explore the idea in a mainstream publication that Beyonce might be toying with feminist politics. There was a big collapse that happened on the internet at that time where it was all of a sudden advertisers and editorial
Taina Brown she/hers (04:52)
Okay.
Koa Beck (05:07)
executives realized that women readers could care about makeup.
and politics. This was considered like very groundbreaking at the time. Yeah, I was like super obtuse to say out loud, but
Taina Brown she/hers (05:14)
He's like, whoa, women can do multiple things. Yeah.
Koa Beck (05:22)
that was the thinking at the time. So I really started my professional career in that landscape. However, as I moved along and, you know, started to get more assignments and then started like pitching different things and also got just higher in my own editorial career, I started seeing that
the women I worked with and for a lot of times, the women I reported to who were feminist identified, used that term, used that term to describe their politics, what they voted for, what they didn't vote for, all those sorts of things. I started to realize that when they said the word feminist and I said the word feminist, we were talking about totally different realities. And...
A lot of this, you know, initially I anchor it more in the book with like historical context, but I had to figure a lot of this out in real time as a very young person. So, you know, it's like I'd very earnestly come to these pitch meetings and be like, you know, you know, here are all these like angles into like affordable housing that have to deal with, you know, single mothers and like mothers of color. And, ⁓ you know, in terms of like feminism, we could slot it in this way and that way. And, you know, these women who I...
worked for and under would sort of like look at me blinkingly, you cause they wanted stuff on, you know, at the time, quote unquote mompreneurs. So it's like, they really wanted to sort of isolate and uphold like, you know, white or white passing women who are like very corporate, you know, this is the time of like lean in girl boss, like, know, women who had successful companies, women who...
Taina Brown she/hers (06:37)
Hmm. .
Koa Beck (06:55)
had come from middle-class backgrounds, who went to fancy elite colleges. And I'm sitting there trying to do stories on trans healthcare. So, needless to say, it didn't really align. And so a lot of the book started there, where I was mentally trying to understand what they were talking about versus what I was talking about.
And then around like Women's March, I remember, I started seeing the word white feminism sort of hurled around a lot on the internet in different think pieces. And I remember reading the criticisms and thinking they were valid, but nobody seemed to be operating from the same definition of quote unquote white feminism. And I thought that was an omission in like the discourse that was happening, particularly around like race and class and sexuality.
ability and like citizenship and stuff. So I saw the book as an opportunity to really contextualize a lot of things that I saw, you know, when I was younger, but then also to offer a working definition that I was able to really narrow down from history and is honestly informed by not just me, but a lot of people well before me who have also, you know, come up against white feminism in their organizing circles.
in different sort of activism they've tried to do in trying to change unfair workplace policies. And so I feel like the book, White Feminism, really came out of my own experience, but also very much trying to anchor my own experience in a way that was braided back through history and had more context for readers.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (08:28)
Yeah, because white being a feminist who is white is not the same as white feminism, which I think because I know just in sharing your book and talking about on social media, that becomes very unclear for people who are white and don't understand this, who identify as feminists. And they will say, well, I am a white feminist. It's not the same as feminism, which, you know, I'll mangle this, I'm sure. But is, you know, a feminism that's centering the white experience. And so it's all about what affects me as a white bodied person and the
Koa Beck (08:39)
Yes.
No.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (08:56)
lens I'm seeing the world through and how the world is seeing me and which really is about dismantling patriarchy. But it's not this intersectional view that's thinking along the lines of none of us is free until all of us is free. Right. And looking through all of the lenses of oppression. And that would be so the white feminism is just like this very narrow view of of liberation and its liberation for a very small group of people. I hope I didn't mingle that too badly.
Koa Beck (09:24)
No, I think that's
accurate. And I'll also add like, in addition to, as you said, like centering whiteness, it's also the aspiration to whiteness, which, I I cite many women of color and white feminism who I deem to be practicing white feminism in that, you know, they're not necessarily advocating for equal rights. They're advocating for white privilege. They're advocating to...
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (09:31)
Mmm.
Koa Beck (09:45)
know, enjoy the same privileges that somebody who's lighter than them or somebody who's, you know, been a citizen for a long time or somebody who's from a different class than them has enjoyed. They're not necessarily looking to like export that reality across say, you know, everybody with whom they share a demographic with, which I think is, you know, very different, especially, you know, feminisms and political organizing that's well outside white feminism in ideology and practice, you know.
I contextualize it in the book, there are so many ways in which native movements, queer movements, working class movements, Chicano feminism, black feminism, a lot of fat activists have really tried to change systems rather than adapt to them. And that's always been white feminism's of signature is that that ideology is always trying to fit into what is acceptable and really think individually as opposed to collectively.
Taina Brown she/hers (10:39)
Yeah, yeah. I think that's a really good distinction to make what you just said about how, you know, some versions of feminism, right, are more about adapting versus changing the system. And so I remember I was a women's studies major. And so just like learning about, I think when people use the word feminism, right, it's kind of used as this like
blanket term to encompass so many things, but I think the more accurate way to think about feminism is to think about feminisms, right? Like there are multiple types of feminism, right? There's white feminism, there's intersectional feminism, there's liberal feminism, right? Which is exactly what you just referred to, right? The type of feminism that...
Koa Beck (11:13)
Mm-hmm.
Taina Brown she/hers (11:25)
really just wants to assimilate into what the current system is as opposed to deconstruct it. so, and I think that's what a lot of people miss in just general cultural conversations because the idea of feminism has gotten so diluted and it's gotten so far away from what some of the original intention was for a lot of
founders in the movement, activists, a lot of the historical context has been erased in terms of what has led us to where we are today. And there's a lot of reasons for that. There's so many different reasons for that. So I'm curious, when you talk about white feminism with people who have read the book, as you were writing it, I'm sure you had like...
Koa Beck (12:03)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (12:13)
early readers or just friends or colleagues, right, that you were like sharing ideas with and kind of brainstorming, like, how did those conversations go? Like, I'm just, I'm curious about like the backend process of like creating something like this that could potentially really confront, right, a lot of ideas that people have held for a long time that like Becky mentioned earlier, they think are, you know, their intention obviously is to do no harm, but
Koa Beck (12:25)
you
Taina Brown she/hers (12:39)
We know intention versus impact is different, ⁓ but in some of those ideas might still uphold oppressive systems or oppressive ways of being and doing. like, did, how was that process? And I'm sure you've been asked this millions of times before, but just for my own curiosity. Okay.
Koa Beck (12:52)
You know, I haven't. ⁓
I haven't. I think it's worth noting. So I started working on the book in 2018. So to give you an idea of what was happening then, know, this was still like the wing was still happening. Linen was very much like respected as both like a pillar of, you know, feminist discourse, but also, you know,
Sheryl Sandberg and sort of the idolatry of her. The summer of 2020 had not happened yet for those that can cast their mind back. it was post-Me Too, right? But I remember around that time sort of waiting for like a racial reckoning of that ilk to like kick up and it just kind of wasn't.
Taina Brown she/hers (13:35)
Mm.
Koa Beck (13:38)
happening and you know have a lot of theories about that that have to do with like racial literacy in newsrooms and stuff like that and I remember the book proposal took a long time because it's it's no surprise to anybody sitting here probably listening like publishing is very white especially if we're talking about you know big five and so
Taina Brown she/hers (13:46)
. Okay.
Koa Beck (14:02)
presenting these ideas to white establishment was going to take a very
particular set of vocabulary and also understanding the racial literacy of who was on the other end of the email. And so the proposal took a long time in terms of how to lay these ideas out to a potential editor.
Taina Brown she/hers (14:14)
Mm-hmm
Koa Beck (14:23)
But when I was talking to friends about it, remember, these are friends who are both in my life and love me and then also like colleagues who I've worked with for many years and have been in these rooms with me and have in some ways had the same critiques that I have had. And I remember the reaction was kind of twofold where it was like, yes, this is awesome that you're moving ahead with this, but like you're gonna lose a lot.
if you say this. And I mean, like I, I don't care about that. I think that, you know, a lot of women I admire, non-binary people, people who have, you know, written in a way that I admire, that I have looked up to, that I hope in some ways has shaped me. You know, if you're actually gonna say something that's meaningful, you will lose things.
Taina Brown she/hers (14:51)
Hmm.
Koa Beck (15:15)
So it's like that didn't really impede my willingness to say these things. And also don't forget, there are other women in that book who I interviewed who also said things on the record. there would have been blowback to them as well. It wouldn't have just been me. But I, at that point, was in a position where I could...
Taina Brown she/hers (15:31)
Hmm.
Koa Beck (15:36)
lose more than you know maybe I could have like two years before so I always like factor that in for people too where it was like I had left an editor-in-chief job specifically to write this book. I knew that I wasn't going to work in women's media anymore. I wanted that long before this book was going to come to market. I really wanted to I had gotten senior enough where I could save a chunk of money, quit.
Taina Brown she/hers (15:37)
Hmm.
Koa Beck (16:02)
and then take my career in a different direction with regard to outlets that I worked with, editors that I would work with, things like that. And then some of my friends were like, hey, why do you have to call it white? And there wasn't just white women saying that to me who have been in my life. Some mentors I have were like who are older and come from a more, I would say, second wave-ish.
Taina Brown she/hers (16:09)
Mm-hmm.
You
Hmm, yeah.
Koa Beck (16:28)
feminism. ⁓
They were like, yeah, you know, like we're, very aware of, of what this is, this ideology. We've come up against this. You know, we call it bougie feminism. We call it middle-class feminism. We call it feminism light. We call it, you know, and I was like, I see that and I understand that. But what I've really witnessed in my lifetime is again, the aspiration to whiteness, like that
really needs to be confronted. This idea that like, if you are from an immigrant family and you straighten your hair and you can get as light as possible and you go to Vassar and you're able to start a company, that you are a feminist win story that can now be passed on. That story needs to be addressed.
And I think the proper vocabulary for that is white feminism. Because if you actually existed in a way that was more aligned with where you're from and your origins and the values of your family and how you were raised, this movement would not see you. And they also wouldn't respect you or take you seriously in anything that you say. The things that you are advocating for in the women in your families.
Taina Brown she/hers (17:27)
Mm-hmm.
Koa Beck (17:49)
you know, whether it's like protections for domestic workers, things that, you know, your mothers and grandmothers have needed who have immigrated to this country, white feminism does not see them. And it's not interested in helping them. And it's not interested in even, you know, identifying, let alone centralizing any of their needs as marginalized genders. So again, I feel like white feminism, I had to like respectfully disagree, which you can do with, you know,
Taina Brown she/hers (17:52)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm
Koa Beck (18:17)
people in discourse, which I feel like gets lost now with sort of the internet and everything. But ⁓ yes, and still to this day, I'll get criticisms about why it's called white feminism. I don't really engage too much online, because that's not really my thing. But if you read the introduction, it's laid out pretty cleanly. So if anything, just reveals who doesn't read it.
Taina Brown she/hers (18:20)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (18:21)
Hope does it ever.
Well, you wrote in salon about being, I think the article is called something like passing for white and straight. And so you've mentioned a few times here, white passing. And when you're somebody who's perceived, at least in some circles, as potentially being white or having white privilege or those sorts of things, right, that you've dealt with that in your life and being multiracial. One, how does that inform the work? Because in my mind, it gives you a really
Koa Beck (18:48)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (19:06)
wonderful lens into white feminism, right? Being on potentially on both sides of being amongst white women who probably maybe say things they might not have said otherwise, right? So I'm curious about that, how it informs the work, but then also if there's any of that that then becomes an issue in how it's received or how you have felt sense and how that work is received.
Koa Beck (19:16)
Do you
Mm-hmm. No, I think that's ⁓ also another really good question. Yes, I think the fact that I'm so light, I think is, you know, very relevant to what I was able to distill about white feminism and also my critiques towards, you know, ascending to whiteness because that has been something that people have applied to me, you know, and without, you know, any input from me. To be...
for people who have not read that piece or don't know me. So my mother is black, my dad is white. I'm pretty light and I have very coarse, long, curly hair that I do not straighten and have not straightened for many years. in like corporate spaces that I've occupied and you a lot of job situations, I have often been read by senior people as white.
And I've been very conscious of this, piece that Becky just cited, you can read it online. I wrote it in my 20s. And I've been very conscious of this when I've gone into interview or when I'm being evaluated for certain things, this idea that the person sitting across from me who is holding this power and who is evaluating me and who is deeming me competent or not, they probably think I'm a white person. And that absolutely factors into, I think, my mobility.
and the mobility that I did have in corporate spaces. I'm also queer. I'm married to a woman and have been with her for almost 15 years now, if you can believe that. But I'm very conventionally feminine and so that's another thing that people don't really read about me. Like people have been asking about, you my boyfriend for many years, just assume, you know, and they're not trying to be like trans inclusive when they say that word. And...
it's followed me around, where it's like, I will say the word like, wife, especially after we got married. And it's like, you see people's faces kind of contort around. And I think that being conventionally feminine, being light skinned, these are things that have caused me to go unread in a lot of circles. And Becky's right. mean, people have felt very comfortable in my life, particularly in workplace settings, saying,
super racist things in front of me, super homophobic things in front of me, super queer phobic things in front of me, all kinds of stuff. Because I think when they glance over, there's something that indicates that, you know, of course I mirror back what they think. And actually in the beginning of white feminism, I cite an instance in women's media that had to do with a cover of, you know, Nicki Minaj.
before she went, MAGA of course, ⁓ was on a cover of a magazine that I used to work for and a colleague said something just like really racist and classist in front of me. it's not necessarily explained, know, top down in the book, but I would round that up into those moments where, I think if I presented differently, I don't think she would have felt as comfortable saying that in front of me. But I remember when I was weighing
you know, whether to actually do white feminism and putting together the research. And I remember my wife actually being like really advocating for the book in terms of like, you have seen more in terms of getting like up close with this ideology. You've sat at meetings with this ideology. You have gotten so much farther in understanding its mechanics than probably a lot of people who
have your identity constellation, which I credit her with that because I was really waffling if I did want to spend, now it's been what, like seven years, I think, of both committing myself to this research and then also continuing to talk about it.
I go to classrooms a lot and like speak to students. A lot of people who are studying white feminism will reach out to me all the time. So it was a huge commitment to take on in my own life, you know, a pretty like dark and sinister subject matter.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (23:17)
now.
What about the reception of the book?
Koa Beck (23:24)
I could be wrong about this, but I think in the first maybe like couple years that white feminism was out, I think people like didn't know what to make of me racially. Where like I remember trying to find something, I think it was like a piece of press that I did that I wanted to make sure that the editor of the book had.
and I was looking around online and it is one of those things where like you type in a name, right? And then like Google generates, you know, what the top things are. And the top thing was Koa Bek ethnicity. You know, which is also fascinating because I find that when I'm, because of how I read racially to people, it's different. Like I find like,
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (23:51)
Yeah.
Koa Beck (24:05)
white people tend to read me as white for whatever reason. People of color do not read me as white.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (24:08)
Yeah.
I think it was interesting
the way you said that earlier about how people are sort of putting onto you their own feelings about these issues in a way.
Koa Beck (24:17)
Yeah.
Yeah, feel like, especially when I was younger, it's like when I would move through the world, know, especially I feel like in general, black people in particular are always like, which one of your parents is black, you know, like there's something they can read on me. And then, you know, my friends, you know, across race, I feel like
However I'm positioned, my hair, something like that, if I'm sitting with a bunch of friends of color, I get rounded into them. But something my wife and I have talked about a lot in our relationship is my wife is white. And so a lot of times if I'm with her, I get weirdly whitewashed because we're together. And that's something that we've been laughing about for.
a decade and a half and also just like analyzing and kind of exploring like what is that? And I think something similar has happened like you know when I when I was on editorial teams with like lots of you know white women I think that was another dynamic but yeah I'm sure you know biracial people who are listening to this I'm sure I'm not saying anything you don't already know I'm sure it's like it's different ways of seeing.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (25:23)
You
another thing I saw in an interview that you did, Koa, was you said something along the lines of progress, that you don't measure progress by like a linear timeline because progress is just ebb and flow. move forward and backwards. And as you said, it's been five years since your book came out talking about white feminism. It's been, you know, six years almost exactly since the black squares were all over Instagram in 2020. You know, I know we all.
Koa Beck (25:36)
Not at all.
Hmm.
⁓ God, you know I forgot
about that.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (25:52)
I intentionally forgot about that.
Taina Brown she/hers (25:52)
Yeah, we did.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (25:54)
But based on what you've seen, how do you measure progress around white feminism and how white women specifically are showing up in these movements and in their understanding around anti-racism work and their part in making change? I know it's not linear, so it's not going to be five years. We've advanced this much, but
Do you feel like overall it's forward progress? Is it moving back? Cause I think sometimes I, I don't know about Taina, but I can get discouraged when I look at what's happening in the world that I can sort of get nihilistic about like, what's the point? We're all it's all everybody's horrible, but I'm curious for you what you see. Do you feel like it's progress to some degree or no?
Koa Beck (26:23)
Sure.
Yes, I do. And I think a big piece of that is younger people. I get a lot of requests and I try to do all of them because I really try to prioritize students and very young people. I get requests all the time from high schoolers, people in college, pretty young people. I mean, we're talking like, know, 15, 16 year olds.
Taina Brown she/hers (26:57)
.
Koa Beck (26:59)
who are doing a project on white feminism, who need to do a presentation for school, who are working on it for something to do with a degree. To be clear, it's like a scholastic setting. And they really wanna talk to me about the mechanics of white feminism. And I'm telling you, the questions that these young people have are...
Taina Brown she/hers (27:19)
You You
Koa Beck (27:26)
so enlightened about, I mean, things that, you know, I had to really turn over and labor with at, you know, 18 years old in a private women's college with like Judith Butler texts and, you know, things like that. They're able to condense in two lines and say,
I'm noticing this and this, this fits into the white feminist model of blank.
Taina Brown she/hers (27:53)
Hmm.
Koa Beck (27:53)
Where do you think this is going? Like
they can do the long division already at 17 years old. And it's not just in America. I mean, a lot of Canadian students reach out to me a lot. And you know, they're not in like Toronto. They're in, you know, provinces that are like kind of on the more rural spectrum. They live in smaller towns. I've spoken to, you know, high school kids in Australia, in the United Kingdom.
Taina Brown she/hers (28:17)
you
Koa Beck (28:19)
I get Instagram messages all the time from younger people in Brazil who have read the Portuguese edition of white feminism and are very interested in getting quotes from me. I do not speak Portuguese about where I see this movement going and also just things that they can do that they can take into their activism, things that they can
Taina Brown she/hers (28:24)
Okay.
Koa Beck (28:43)
keep in mind.
A lot of young people who by the way are not cis women necessarily reach out to me and are like, I, you know, found or I came up against this like white feminist practice. I read your book. What do you think I can do here? So it's like for me, you know, being the writer of this work, having done this research, I'm seeing younger people.
not only read it and engage with the material, but then like take it with them in their lives. Now, granted, those aren't the people in like Congress right now, but these are nevertheless young people who are in formative periods in their lives with regard to politics, activism, and also just their own, you know, approaches to legislation, to gender rights, to, you know, any sort of like racism that they ID, you know, in their real lives.
Taina Brown she/hers (29:35)
.
Koa Beck (29:35)
And it's not an abstract concept for them. It's something that they can reach out and touch and the literacy is there. They are totally turned on in that way. They understand the concepts in the book and they apply them long, long after. mean, I think another thing that kind of makes me hopeful is that this book came out pre-vaccines.
COVID, that whirlwind of instability and also fear. And you're still asking me to talk about it. Five years after the fact, and you're not alone. And I think also as somebody who is a writer and does study ideas and likes to assemble ideas.
Taina Brown she/hers (30:02)
. Okay.
Koa Beck (30:19)
I see the ways in which people have taken, know,
not just my work, but you know, a lot of work of my peers that I really respect. And you know, the books aren't us anymore. You know, people have taken them and they have their own, these, these books, these ideas, they have their own lives. You can reach out to me and talked about and talk about it, which is great. But you also don't have to like people are actively applying these.
Taina Brown she/hers (30:24)
you you
Koa Beck (30:45)
approaches, you know, this literacy, this awareness, understanding of history, and they're using it in 2026 all over the world. And so that's something that in my corner of, know, sort of the internet and, you know, just my inbox, like that's something that makes me very hopeful. I think also a lot of, you know, the more conservative strategies that are happening right now.
those are in reaction to some progress that was made. And this is how it works. Like I'm a historian, so I take a long view with a lot of things and a lot of historians do. It's like, if you study any sort of history, it's like the same things happen over and over again. And so, the wins that did happen for some people,
Taina Brown she/hers (31:28)
Mm-hmm.
Koa Beck (31:34)
prior to say a Trump won administration, they were successful and they scared a lot of people. And so this is what happens. In some ways it's like the most predictable thing there is. I think it's a myopic understanding of civil rights to assume that once you gain a right for a person or a person, that it's just a box that is like checked and there.
and that is set in stone. That's like not how any progress works or has ever worked, honestly. Anytime something is achieved, there is a body of people or peoples or organizations that are going to chip away at that right that was secured. And I think Roe v. is a good example of that, where it was like, Roe v. Wade had been steadily undermined for decades before
Taina Brown she/hers (32:15)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Koa Beck (32:24)
it legislatively fell. again, like Becky said, I advise taking a long view with these things. And I do not believe progress is linear. It's just a pendulum.
Taina Brown she/hers (32:26)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. you, Becky mentioned you were working on a new project about Valley girls. And it's funny because like she texted me that earlier today and literally yesterday I saw a commercial for a reality TV show called The Valley. I think it's on Bravo. So.
Koa Beck (32:55)
Mm-hmm. I've written about it. Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (32:59)
And when I saw it, I was like, is this real life? Like there's a reality TV show about the Valley now. And then like today I'm finding out that you're studying this and you're working on it. like, what can you tell us about that? Like, is that about? And why the Valley of all places?
Koa Beck (33:14)
Sure. So I am from the San Fernando Valley. ⁓ It is what is affectionately referred to, and by that I mean not so affectionately referred to as the Valley in LA. It's where I was raised. The paternal side of my family has been here since my grandparents. So my white grandparents moved here and they raised my dad here.
Taina Brown she/hers (33:19)
Okay.
Yeah.
well.
Koa Beck (33:39)
And I was born elsewhere, but I was raised here. My dad and mom moved back here when I was about three. And then I lived in New York for a long time when I was working in women's media. And then I moved back to LA actually shortly before the pandemic. But having said that, I am a true blue valley girl. You can probably sometimes hear it in the way that I speak because when I get
Taina Brown she/hers (33:59)
Yeah
Koa Beck (34:03)
very like into a topic I'll say like a lot and I do I think I do up talk to like I have all the Sort of like core things that people make fun of And for me Growing up and then living other places Particularly in you know professional settings and stuff like that Valley girl quote-unquote was always said with derision
Taina Brown she/hers (34:12)
Mm-hmm.
Koa Beck (34:24)
So it's, ⁓ even now in popular culture, know, it's like a valley girl is still in 2026 used as like kind of like a nicer word for like bimbo. ⁓ You know, this idea of like a middle-class white woman, you know, she has like a blonde ponytail that's to the side and one, she is very consumeristic. So the idea that like she shops all the time.
Taina Brown she/hers (34:35)
Mm-hmm.
Koa Beck (34:49)
But also she's an idiot. Like you're not supposed to assign value to anything that she says because she's just a mindless consumer. Now, what was always fascinating to me is that actually being a Valley girl and know growing up here, yeah, I went to the mall and the beach and all that stuff. I've never been blonde. I'm from a middle-class home.
But I always found there to be a huge chasm between like that gender stereotype of like the blonde, know, saying like all the time and like having all this money versus, you know, myself and my friends and also, you know, the women who are from the Valley, which by and large, you know, again, historian take a long view.
you know, lot of women who are from the Valley are indigenous. A lot of them are Latina. A lot of them are decidedly not white. And yet weirdly like that's what got translated. So it's been a long interest of mine to determine how that happened. How this weird sort of like 80s gender stereotype got transported everywhere. I mean, people in Europe know what a Valley girl is, right?
Taina Brown she/hers (35:34)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm
Koa Beck (35:53)
but it's so far from the actual history of the Valley. A lot of the colonization that happened in this part of the world, a lot to do with the racial politics of this area. The San Fernando Valley is considered a suburb. So with that comes a lot of white supremacy, a lot of like redlining, a lot of like maintaining and sort of like carefully curating whiteness across like normative gender roles.
Taina Brown she/hers (35:59)
Yeah.
Koa Beck (36:18)
very specific heterosexual families that have children who are born to certain classes and then do certain things. So I was awarded a fellowship in 2022 to basically research this further by the Huntington. And so I went in and got, know, just, I mean, it's like Christmas for me where it's just like endless archives that I can just dig through. It's kind of similar to what I did for white feminism.
And so I have a newsletter called Valley Girl where every week I write an essay that's a meditation on the Valley Girl gender stereotype. it's across, it's across his history, it's across culture, it's also across me. There's things about my life and things that I've experienced particularly growing up as a cis girl in the Valley, different things to do with gender and the gender of this area, how it gets translated elsewhere.
and I really enjoyed doing it. It's her, I don't know when this podcast is coming out, but it's, Valley girls first birthday next week. She's an Aries. okay. Yes. Happy birthday to Valley girl. and it's, it's been really wonderful. you know, building a newsletter and seeing, you know, the readers, like it's Valley girl has a very.
Taina Brown she/hers (37:13)
⁓ Happy birthday to her!
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (37:17)
Happy birthday. I think it'll be coming out next.
Yeah, they'll be coming out on her birthday. So that's perfect.
You
Koa Beck (37:35)
engaged readership. And it, you know, in some ways it follows some formulas that I think are similar to white feminism, right? Like here's something you think you know, and then let me take you on a walk through history and culture where I present to you what you don't know. And so it's, it's, again, I have so much research on this. I mean, I could be writing this, who knows how long just based on how much I have, and then how much I'm willing to say.
Taina Brown she/hers (37:45)
Mm.
.
Koa Beck (38:01)
But as of Valley Girl's birthday, it's been free the whole year that I've been doing this, but I'm gonna start a paid tier just after her first birthday where I'm gonna be doing Valley Girl office hours. So for the people who would like to, I'm going to be sort of hosting these, you know, very casual, probably much like this podcast, honestly.
where, you know, readers, the essays come out on Thursday. So if you've read them and you would like to, then you can come to office hours and discuss them with me. Because there's, for those of you who know, there's pretty epic footnotes in Valley Girl. There's a lot that can be discussed and picked through. And there's also a lot that, you know, I don't put in because it doesn't make sense editorially. But yes, that is the overview of Valley Girl.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (38:45)
Yeah.
That's fun.
Well, what you just said is totally true because I just started diving in and I watched the interview that you posted with you on a on pop syllabus. I believe it's called a podcast. Really interesting because, yeah, my mind was sort of like why Valley girls? You just sort of what is. But as you watch it or learn more about it, it does feel like this extension in a way of what you did with white feminism, because there is I was like I had to I had to do a lot of my own.
Koa Beck (38:59)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (39:17)
I'm sitting with myself of my own judgment because I was like, wow, look at this, like this sexist judgment that I have around women who present in this way. And I absolutely I've bought into so much of the the real sort of sexism that is there. And then just even unpacking the racism in that this is the trope that we're given that's not even reflective of the real fullness of the of what it really looks like to be a Valley girl. So there's so much.
Koa Beck (39:25)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (39:45)
juiciness there that I can see why you're doing it. Even though at first I was sort of thinking, what? It feels so left field.
Taina Brown she/hers (39:51)
Yeah,
Koa Beck (39:51)
I don't think you're alone in that. Yeah, go ahead.
Taina Brown she/hers (39:52)
yeah, I lived in LA. yeah, no, I was gonna say I lived in LA for a while because my wife is from there and she have friends. We still, they still live in the Valley. And I remember the first time we went, I was like, this is nothing like pop culture tells you it's going to be like, it was a bit of a jarring experience. And honestly, like looking back, I'm like, I should have expected that. But also I think,
the cognitive dissonance in my brain was just like, whoa, like, okay, this is completely different from what I thought it was gonna be based on what has been spoon-fed to me through movies and music and pop culture and whatnot. So yeah.
Koa Beck (40:33)
And you're not alone in that. mean, those are some of the pieces that I feel like really embody sort of the heart of Valley Girl, where it's like analyzing the really commercial distortions of this gender stereotype. Why do you think that? What films did you watch? What music did you listen to? For people who know, I have a number of pieces on Moon Unit Zappa, who's...
Frank Zappa's daughter, and she very famously did the Valley Girl accent in her father's song, Valley Girl. it came out in, I think, 1982, and it went everywhere, and that was really the nation's first understanding of this gender character. Meanwhile, she just published a memoir, I think, like a year ago, and she's done some reflecting on how she weirdly had to embody this like,
white female drag, you know, to like quote unquote be a valley girl. And like her makeup had to be done a certain way to sort of like de-ethanatize her. They, you know, changed her hair. She had to perform the valley girl in this like really specific way that would contribute to her father's record sales. And so, you know, once again, patriarchy, money.
Taina Brown she/hers (41:30)
Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
Koa Beck (41:50)
white supremacy, all these things are related every single time. And they have such a basis in that gender stereotype and why you think that when you go to the Valley, that's what's been exported. ⁓
Taina Brown she/hers (41:58)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (42:02)
I think for white women,
Taina Brown she/hers (42:02)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (42:03)
it's a really good thing to if you've read white feminism or you understand the concepts, it's like this lovely zooming in on one way that this like all of this shows up right and really digging in deep into that of, OK, here's what this looks like in practice through history of this one specific thing. This is how it happens. So I think it's super fascinating. I know we only have a couple of minutes left and I really did want to ask you.
Koa Beck (42:26)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (42:27)
about fostering
to adoption in that piece. Just I know it's not totally related to this, although I'm curious if it is. I guess that's sort of why I wanted to ask your experience through the foster system and foster to adoption. You know, again, with the identities that you hold, did that experience? Did you see ways that it sort of relates to all of this work you've done around these issues around sexism and racism and all of the other oppressions? I'm curious, like, what did it teach you?
Koa Beck (42:54)
It taught me a lot about court systems in a way that, you for me, I think as a writer and a researcher, normally these are archives I find, these are things I read about in the newspaper. And for listeners, in terms of, you know, more context, my wife and I are licensed foster parents. We adopted our child from
Taina Brown she/hers (43:04)
Mm-hmm.
Koa Beck (43:16)
the foster care system. And before that, we were her foster parents. And then we got the opportunity to be legally recognized as her parents. And I wrote a piece about it for a very special issue of the Massachusetts Review, which is free. You can read it online about witnessing the judicial violence of
mothers in particular, but parents in general who are struggling mostly economically, but not exclusively, and getting their children taken away from them and being told it's for the good of the children, which I think is a really fraught statement. I,
Taina Brown she/hers (43:42)
Well.
Koa Beck (43:56)
as a foster parent, have been to court proceedings having to do with now my child's before we legally adopted her.
And again, you know, I had to sit there and watch the judge make declarations and literal judgment on my child's family. And he was empowered to do that. He's expected to do that. But I think a lot of what I saw was gender stereotyping and then a lot of like mythologies about gender in the courtroom.
Taina Brown she/hers (44:29)
Hmm.
Koa Beck (44:30)
So
a lot of, I write about this, you know, this like weird idea, I'm paraphrasing obviously, but it's like nobody in the courtroom asks my child's parents, hey, what happened to you? Like you have a child who, you know, is biological to you and you're not in a position to care for that child. Why is that?
Taina Brown she/hers (44:43)
Hmm.
Koa Beck (44:54)
And again, know, a lot of legal scholars would say that like that's not the court's position, right? They're supposed to assign judgment, allocate blame, things like that. But it's like a lot of the mythologies that I've spent a lot of my life analyzing, decoding.
sort of diagramming out, I saw in this like very flagrant way in a courtroom around motherhood and parenting and really got this like horrifying front seat, know, to like these weird mythologies around gender and motherhood in terms of a lot of times what I heard and again, I'm paraphrasing like as I attended court was like,
⁓ again directed at my child's family was like, you you are a mother. That is your basically one role, not my opinion. And you can't do that. So what is your value? That is essentially what I witnessed, you know, time after time in just like different ways. And it was really horrifying to see.
Taina Brown she/hers (45:51)
Mm-hmm.
Koa Beck (45:55)
the ways in which that reality doesn't translate to other foster parents. My wife and I were and are in lot of foster to adopt support groups and for some families, it is weird the way that ⁓ foster care is just kind of seen as like kid shopping. There's no holistic understanding that this was a child who has a family.
the family is not able to care for them because of a constellation of issues that have to do with like mental health, economic insecurity, food insecurity, housing insecurity, you all these systemic issues. And then what, it's just like a child for you to swoop in and have. I mean, it's like truly a gross process. And yet I can also understand, you know, having done it and having made the decision to do it and, you know, adopt this process that it's like for like these...
societal infrastructures are so disappointing and so set people up from certain communities to fail in fundamental ways in their life. That it's like weirdly for this child, this is like an avenue to security, which is grotesque. Like the ways in which you can like completely dehumanize.
Taina Brown she/hers (46:54)
Mm-hmm.
Koa Beck (47:10)
and also disenfranchise an entire population of black parents in LA County. And then it's often white parents that are swooping in and just shopping for black kids and adopt them. And these children are not always guaranteed to have relationships with their families of origin, which is also truly horrifying in terms of that child.
Taina Brown she/hers (47:15)
Mm-hmm.
Koa Beck (47:33)
⁓ the things that they will grow up and understand, you know, being what the only child of color in their family potentially, the only black child, the only Latino child. So it's a lot of, it's a lot of dynamics that I feel like I've studied in an abstract way. And then, you know, now they are wrapped up in my motherhood.
which, you when I look back, I can't really see it any other way, but it definitely taught me a lot about the family court system and the ways in which gender mythologies are front and center in the family court system. And like very classist ideas about how to properly quote unquote, like care for a child, how to properly be a mother are very much embedded in the legal system.
Taina Brown she/hers (48:13)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (48:18)
I bet you could write a whole book on this. Maybe you will. I'd maybe. And maybe a whole book on Valley Girl because that also. Yeah. Well, I want to honor your time and thank you so much for being here. What you said earlier about your work existing now beyond you and that, you know, sort of become this legacy where sometimes you're still fielding questions and thank you for doing this, but also times where it's living beyond what you've done and.
Taina Brown she/hers (48:18)
Bye.
Koa Beck (48:20)
I've thought about it.
Taina Brown she/hers (48:20)
Yeah.
Koa Beck (48:26)
Hopefully, yes, we'll see.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (48:44)
You know, I cite you in my book. You're one of the people who's informed my way of thinking about issues. so that's just, you know, it continues on. So your legacy continues on. I think that's a beautiful gift. And I hope that you take time to honor that for yourself, because I think that's lovely. And thank you for being here.
Taina Brown she/hers (49:00)
Yeah, absolutely. It was very lovely speaking with you.
Koa Beck (49:03)
Thank you to both of you again for having me. This conversation was really great and I talk about this all the time and I was really impressed with these questions. I hope you know them.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (49:15)
Well, thank you. And I think we would
Taina Brown she/hers (49:16)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (49:17)
have easily been able to talk for another two hours But thank you so much, Koa.
Koa Beck (49:20)
Yeah,
of course.