To the We Are More Pod cast. My name is Alyssa. And my

name is Bree. We're two sisters passionate about all

things faith and feminism. We believe that Jesus trusted, respected, and encouraged women to teach and preach his word. And apparently, that's controversial. Get comfy.

Hello, world. Hello. My name is Brianna. No. You can't

sing anything from that show.

Hello.

Did we tell you guys how we went

and saw that show, the book of mormon? I don't know. I don't really

I

can't say that I recommend it. The music great. It was a good time.

But woah. I had only Brie told me to listen to the whole soundtrack before we went. Because she bought tickets for my birthday.

And she had been wanting to go see it. But do you think this woman ever listens to me? No. Of course

not. I had heard a couple of select songs. Okay? I had heard that song. The tamest songs.

The tamest songs by far. I I assumed this is the vibe. Right? This is not the vibe. No.

I think it had so much good social commentary. But yeah, if I I don't know that I can absolutely recommend it. Unless you're going as a study of I don't I don't know. It was a wild time. No.

We had a wild time.

And now we learned that we always listen to Brianna when she says, this is gonna get inappropriate. I need you to prepare yourself.

To be fair, that is that is a good statement. If Brie tells you it's gonna be inappropriate, listen. Yeah. Never ignore.

Yeah. And I've said that many times.

I feel like on a normal basis, I usually listen. I don't read the books you tell me not to read.

Yeah. Good for you. Although you thought about it. Which one did I think about? We can talk about it later.

So today we are doing I wanna say a lighter episode, but it's really not. Like, it's still fairly heavy, but it's less bookish. I don't know.

Yeah. We're just chatting it up today about some current events and topics and so forth and what have you. Oh, good. Yeah. But we're not doing like a deep dive onto a book, which I would like to do an episode on this book once I finally read it.

So maybe if it's good, we can read it. It's by Hilary McBride. It's called Holy Hurt. Understanding spiritual trauma and the process of healing. So I feel like that's very On brand for us.

On brand. If you ever wanna hear about spiritual trauma, I

feel like here we are. Look no further. But I mean, don't wanna advertise that I'm all trauma because I'm so much more than that. I'm beauty and I'm grace. I miss United States.

Thank you for that. Actually, I don't wanna claim that. Honestly, though, I think

if you're looking for spiritual trauma, you need to look no further than the woman to your left. Mhmm. You know, it's not like us in particular. It's just most women that are in churches.

Most women that are in churches, but also just like most women. Yeah. And it's not just church hurt. It's just the life that we live in today. I saw this quote from I think it's like Kristen Stewart.

Is she the one that was in Twilight? Oh, in Twilight. Yeah. Yeah. She was like, just being like, having a female body is an act of rebellion Yeah.

If you're able to wake up in the morning and say, I love myself.

Loving yourself is really I wanna I I wanna say, like, impossible. Like, I don't wanna say that, but it feels that way so often. Mhmm. Because you think of the amount of industries that are out there to tell us, this is how you're supposed to look. This is the size you're supposed to be.

Mhmm. This is how much makeup's supposed to be on your face.

And then you get your religion wrapped up into Because our religion is cultural. It's based on the culture that you live in. The Christianity of today is not the same as Christianity of, you know, even the thirties. Mhmm. But because your religion is of your culture, you have to be a certain way.

Mhmm. Women are constantly under so much pressure.

Yeah. Well, you think about the weird standards that you have to hit because I think of, like, makeup. Brie and I love we love some good makeup. Don't actually like to have to put it on. We're pretty lazy about it.

But when we put it on, we go hard. Okay. We do. It's just how it is. But I've noticed that in church spaces, there's a line.

You're supposed to have makeup on as a woman because you can't be ugly. But you can't have too like, I have winged eyeliner. I have more bold eyeshadow. I have whatever. You can't have that.

That's too much.

And I don't know that, like, anybody would necessarily say that to you. No. Maybe you would.

Depends on you get.

Yeah. It depends on where you're at and how conservative of a church you're at. But, like, they say you should look your best.

Mhmm. But, like But best to a certain degree.

Yeah. And best depends on who you're talking to.

Right.

Right? My best is different than, you know, your best or her best or their best. Right. Or the pastor's best.

Which apparently, usually is just throw on a dress shirt and barely comb your hair and show up.

Or those young youth pastors, you know. The youth pastor look. Don a pair of very expensive sneakers.

Mhmm.

And a jean jacket. Maybe some skinny pants that are a little bit too tight. A jean jacket. There's such

a You were talking about that. We have youth pastors in our family and you said something to one of them. And you're like, it's the youth pastor vibe. And he just didn't know what to do with that. He was so confused.

I've dressed like a youth pastor before.

You know, sometimes sometimes it's a vibe. Yeah. Although we don't have super expensive shoes.

No. How are they affording those shoes?

I don't know. They're really expensive. I've seen memes online where people will take screenshots of, like, megachurch pastors.

Mhmm.

And they'll do a little arrow and be like, this cost this much and this cost this much. And it is wild. Some of I mean, I guess I'm not in the sneaker world too. So I don't know how much

those things are supposed to cost. But wow. Those sneaker people, man. They're a different level.

Yeah. It's not

I don't wanna hear any more about anything that I ever buy from a sneaker person from them specifically. Because you talk to a lot

of sneaker people. That's your crowd.

I love talking to sneaker people. They're her favorites. She seeks them out. I seek them out. I befriend them.

Ah, yes. And I convert them.

To non sneaker wearing? Yeah. To Birkenstocks. Ah, right. The superior shoe.

It is a great shoe. I just got

my Birkenstocks out, I've been wearing them. And I forgot how wonderful they are.

They just hug your feet so well. I've had the same pair of Birkenstocks forever.

You have.

Oh, And they you know, they show. Yeah. They they look like I've had them since I was, you know, in bible times. Wow. But they're so comfortable and they hold up.

It's really too bad

that Jesus didn't have Birkenstocks. It probably would have made his life easier. Who said he didn't? Probably the makers of Birkenstock. Let's ask him.

Where's their phone number?

How old is your company? Mhmm. Should we look it up? No. I'm not gonna do that.

No. Today, we have done some decent research. Some some decent research. Don't look at me like that. I read some articles.

We sat up here for thirty seconds. Shut up. And said, alright. Let's go.

But we're gonna talk about three different news pieces. Breezer moron video. You were watching videos. Right?

There's an article. But, yeah, I was you know, I'm

a scroller. Then I found something from the BBC, which is always a good time. I love the BBC. But there was not good British humor in it. It was more of a serious piece.

Yeah. So that's what we're

gonna talk about today. We've got three different ones to talk about. I feel like everybody and their brother, if you're on TikTok, or at least maybe it's my algorithm. I know. Think it's

your algorithm.

Has seen this. But there was a house meeting. This article says it was from eleven days ago. So maybe like a week and a half ago. Mhmm.

Where they were talking about Medicaid and putting more restrictions on Medicaid because budget cuts and, you know, those people want more money, I'm assuming. But there is a representative named Alexandra Acacio Cortez, and she represents New York. And she was kind of trying to talk about maybe putting more restrictions on Medicaid isn't a great idea, especially for women who just miscarried, women, etcetera. Women need more Yeah.

Medical care as a rule.

And with all the things going on with women and reproductive rights

Right.

There's been several cases where women have been bleeding out. Mhmm.

Or There's a woman that died in the parking lot.

Yeah. Yeah. Just because they're not able to get the care that they need or the doctors are scared to give them the care that they need because they don't want their medical license taken away or they don't want any other action taken against them because that's their career too. But these are their lives. Right.

It's so tricky. So she was speaking, and there was a couple of Republican men who I think really just wanted her to stop talking at the end of the day because they accused her of looking at the camera too much. They were like, please address us, the Republican Party. If you're gonna be speaking to us, address us, not the camera.

Uh-huh.

And she came back and said, pretty much, I am talking to the people because I represent the people. I work for them. And she looked right at the camera.

I love that, the boldness of

it. Mhmm. I I love her. She's done several. If you follow her at all, she's very outspoken, but in a good way.

She's very educated. She's possibly gonna be one of the Democratic representatives. Representatives? Nominees. Nominees.

Her presidency. I know a lot about government. Her biggest quote after she said, I am addressing the people. There's 13,700,000,000 people. Billion?

That seems right. Million. 13. 13 point seven million Americans on the other side of that screen right there. Hello.

I'm talking to you because I work for you. That's what she said. And she said, like, there are districts that are even, like, Republican districts that have 25 to 40% of their people on Medicaid. So we should be talking about this more. And I will not yield to disrespectful men.

There was a time in my life where I was on Medicaid when my husband and I first got married because we just lived well below the poverty level. And sometimes you're there for a short time and sometimes you're there for a long time. Mhmm. The idea of having something as basic as medical rights taken away from you and to have them so uncertain as they are right now, that's terrifying. And you're already living in such a vulnerable space.

Mhmm.

It's not like you have the funds to well, if they cut this benefit, it's fine. I'll just pay for it. It'll be a little tough, but I'll pay for it. No. You go without.

You don't go to the doctor. You don't get care to make sure that things aren't going like preemptive care, you know? Mhmm. You're just you're just out. You're just stuck.

And now suddenly now we're gonna live in a society where the wealthy get to live long lives and the poor just don't get that right. And that's wild to me in what's supposed to be a first world country.

And it's wild to me that the Christian people aren't more concerned about this. Yeah. People not being cared for

Mhmm.

No matter their income level, should be a priority Mhmm. For Christian people who are Christ followers. Right. Those are the exactly the kind of people that he would reach out and say, yes, blessed are the poor. Mhmm.

Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the you know, I could go on, but I don't remember them.

It's not the rich people. Let's go with that. No.

We should be caring for each other, not worrying about our individual self so much and how much we can line our own pockets. Mhmm. How can I help a neighbor? And I think men, this is a concern for you too. Mhmm.

There are plenty of women and the women in your life, this is affecting them. Right. And you need to listen to them. Mhmm. And women need to listen to each other too.

For sure. It's so easy to not see we've quoted this 7,000,000 times, but Beth Moore's quote that we found in Your Jesus is Too American, where she said where you sit determines what you see. Mhmm. I think I've I literally have quoted that like 20 times in the last week. But you may not see this because it might be relatively far out of your realm.

You know? Like, when we went on Medicaid, it felt like a shameful thing because that's not a thing Christians do.

You're supposed to be able to pull yourself up from your Exactly. And just if you get another job or work an extra shift, everything should be fine. But it's not. Right. We don't live in that world where especially like, you think back to our parents' time.

Mhmm. You could get a job over the summer and pay for college. Pay for your entire year of college. That is impossible now. No.

You couldn't. Because the jobs that you're getting don't wanna pay you that much. They'll pay you, like, especially because you're a kid. Mhmm. You know, 16, 17, maybe $20 an hour.

At the most. It doesn't You can't pay for college that's $40,000 a year and then you graduate. This Base fired up. Fired up. Can you see

her sound waves getting big?

You graduate after going to school because that's what you're supposed to do as, you know, a good old American person. You're supposed to go to college, and then everything will be fine. Nope. Just kidding. Now you're a hundred thousand dollars in debt.

And after you graduate college, they don't wanna pay you that much either. Right. And they say, you don't deserve that much. Right. You need to start from the bottom to work your way up.

So now you're still making 16 to $20 an hour and paying your student loans off that are a hundred thousand dollars. I'm upset. I don't wanna be here anymore. We should move to France.

I'll look into it. French listeners, can we stay with you?

I should do a whole episode where I just rant on this topic. I'll just I'll leave. I'll just go out. Okay.

You can just whatever floats your boat.

If you would just want to see me angry, talk about college. Talk about college

with me. One of the other things that I think is really interesting that she said that it's one of those things that feels big but shouldn't be big was when she said, I work for you. Mhmm. In speaking to the American people. I don't know if this is like this.

I know we've got a lot of international listeners. I don't know if this is like this where you are from. But here we vote in our representatives, and it seems like they then forget that we exist.

I forgot that you existed. Very Taylor Swift with them.

Very. But it's like we vote them in and then they work for themselves. They work for their own interests or the interests of whatever corporations put them in power. Mhmm. And for her to say to look at people, just people, and say, I work for you.

I care about you. I represent you. It feels a little revolutionary. And it shouldn't. But it feels that way.

And we've got where we live. We usually have a really good congressperson, one

of our

senators. And she I remember being impacted by her when COVID hit because yeah. She's my favorite. So when COVID hit and I guess I could let Brie tell her own story. But she's taking a drink now, so I'll tell it.

When COVID hit, Brie works at a dental office. And so her office had to shut down. And she was trying to get unemployment. And it

was chaos. It was right at the beginning of COVID. So signing up for unemployment, there wasn't an option that said like, due to, you know, I work in health care and they shut me down. So I there was this whole go around. There were it was like, honestly, a couple months where I wasn't getting paid at all, which was really frustrating.

And I was trying to go everywhere I could to figure out how to resolve this because they were like, no, you can't go on unemployment because you need a doctor's note to prove that you're sick. Mhmm. And I was like, I'm not sick. It's I can't work. It's COVID.

I contacted Alyssa Slotkin's office. And it wasn't maybe her directly, but

No. But it was a program that she had intentionally offered. Mhmm. I thought she wasn't a senator at that point either. I think she was a, like, a state representative.

I know. But they got it resolved for me. Really quickly. Yeah. A matter of, like, days.

Mhmm. And even now so I'm on her, like, email list, and this isn't like a political advertisement, but just sort of like how politicians should act. Mhmm. Every couple of weeks, she emails out, here's kind of what's going on in the government. Here's what I'm looking at.

Here's what you should be aware of. You know, she also does like these call in town hall meeting things.

Oh, yeah. She just talks.

Yeah. And I think it should just be it doesn't have to be a partisan thing. It doesn't have to be like a, oh, the Democrats are doing this more. Oh, the Republicans are doing this more. But just I care about the people that voted me in.

Mhmm.

Something that I really like on TikTok that I've been seeing is, you know, it's really hard for me to watch the news because it's almost like that's another political thing. Do you watch Fox News or do you watch CNN? Right. Or what do you watch to get the most accurate news? Mhmm.

There's several TikTok accounts right now that are just like, it doesn't matter what party you're at, but you should be informed. Here's what's going on in the world today. And there's this one that I watched this person just lays underneath their desk. And I think I've shared a couple of their posts on our TikTok, but lays under their desk and says, like, here's the most important things that happened today. Bloop, bloop, bloop.

And then there's another one that I was just looking at earlier. It's called girl news. And it's specifically, like, related to.

Oh, I think I've seen that. I know.

I just shared one of their posts on our TikTok too. Just like, as a woman, here's some things that you should be informed about. Yeah. Here you go. But I like that.

Just like quick spurts of like, let me know what's going on because I'm already on TikTok anyways. I'm not gonna turn on the news.

No. And honestly, the the twenty four hour news cycle is a disaster.

Oh, it sends me into a deep depression.

Me too. It's a lot of anxiety. I hate it deeply. So the next article we wanted to talk about the next two kind of lead into each other, which is always fun. Look at us in our ability to do things.

I'm gonna need to, at some point, record you doing that and just stick it in whenever I feel like it. So the article that I want to talk about is not like super current events. Like, Breeze was a super current event. Mine is kind of like a general overarching this is what's going on in the world, and I love it because it's global. And it's always fun to to look outside of our low bubble and see what's going on in

the rest of the world. But this

is about the divorce rates. And if you, again, are on TikTok, you have seen just absolutely countless clips. And maybe maybe it's my algorithm. I don't know.

It might just be your

I'm seeing clips absolutely constantly about the divorce rate. And mine are specifically from The US, but the article we're looking at is the BBC, so it's from The UK. I've been seeing all these TikToks and reels and whatever about the divorce rate and how obviously, like, we all know the divorce rate is going up, but also the divorces are primarily being initiated by women. And you'll see all these bro podcasts. And mostly because of the way my algorithm functions, I'm seeing the people being like, these bro podcasts are stupid and how do they things like that.

Because that's what I watch. But you'll see the bro podcasts and they say like, oh, how dare women. This is horrible for men. We need to change this. And if this is the case, then by this year, there will be more divorced people than there are married people and, you know, on and on.

And so I thought it would be really interesting to see, first of all, where those statistics come from. Mhmm. And also what it means for women because all the bro podcasts are focusing on how it affects men. But like, are women initiating divorces if in fact they are initiating more divorces? So I found an article.

Now it's from 2022, but it this remains fairly valid. It says in The US specifically, where no fault divorce is legal in all 50 states. So don't have to say there's not like a criminal situation. You can just both of you can file for divorce. That's okay.

Some estimates put the figure at seventy percent of women initiating divorces over men. And that comes from the American Sociological Association. So up to seventy percent of divorces in The US are initiated by women. In The UK, it says ONS statistics show that women petitioned for sixty two percent of divorces in England and Wales in 2019. Mhmm.

So that's quite significant.

Mhmm.

That's not like a, oh, well, fifty five percent are initiated by women. No. That's that's a big number. Quite the majority. Yeah.

So then why? The article goes through quite a few different reasons, but the big one is that women are saying that their partners aren't meeting their emotional needs. Now that's a big umbrella, and we can break it down a little bit more. But their emotional needs aren't being met. This isn't primarily physically abusive situations.

That's not that it's not represented there for sure. Yeah. But that's not what we're mostly talking about. What we're mostly talking about is emotional needs not being met. And women being able to say, you know what?

I'm worth more. Mhmm. I'm worth more than treating you like a child. I'm worth more than you treating me like I'm not important.

Mhmm. Yeah. Like, I didn't sign up to be someone else's mom. Mhmm. I need a partner.

And I love that people are starting to call their people, their spouses partners Because that's truly what it's supposed to be. Mhmm. It's not supposed to be another child that I have to look after or make sure that they brush their teeth. You know? They're a full adult person that I partnered with to get through life.

And if, you know, like school projects, group projects, generally, they suck.

One person's not holding up.

If you're with someone that sucks, cut them out.

Like, it's funny, but yeah. And that's clearly what's going on here too. Women are finding value in themselves and stepping away from relationships that don't give them that level of value.

Mhmm. And I think we forget, like my friend says this, Yodo. You only die once. But like, you have one life. Yep.

Do you wanna live your entire life miserable? Do you think that's what the God of creation wanted for you? To be miserable. I think he'd so much rather you be happy and thriving and following God Mhmm. Than strap down with a worthless partner.

Well, Sheila,

who we follow on Facebook, Sheila Ray Gregoire, she posted something, and this was quite a long time ago, but this is kind of her general message. And she said, God cares more about you than about your marriage.

Mhmm. Mhmm. I love that quote so much.

I wish people would really internalize that one because I I mean, in the Christian circles, you so often hear like divorce is evil. God hates divorce. Blah blah blah. Which is not at all what the Bible says. But you hear it all the time.

And so women get stuck in these marriages because not only as we'll talk about it, there's a lack of financial independence, but there's also this spiritual aspect of like, well, you're going to hell. Right. You're literally You're gonna be with your eternity.

Mhmm. We're gonna be definitely judged.

Yeah. And so you wind up with a god who cares more about your marriage. About not not you having a good marriage, not you having a safe marriage, but just the institution of marriage. That piece of paper that you signed. More about that than you.

And that's not very loving.

Or a god I wanna follow. Mhmm. Like, that god is not my god. I don't know. If it's your god, I think you need to do some reevaluating.

Mhmm. Because that's not the one that the Bible talks about.

If he knows the amount of hairs on your head Mhmm. He cares more about you than a piece of paper. Mhmm. And unfortunately, that's what marriage like, a lot of marriages Mhmm. Have become.

Right. Literally just a piece of paper.

Mhmm.

Not emotional support, etcetera.

That was very descriptive. Thank you. It talks about then how generally divorce is increasing. So this is super interesting. It says in The UK, Divorce was so uncommon that before 1914, there was only one divorce for every 450 marriages.

Wow. Think about that statistic. That's wild. Now in The UK, more than a hundred thousand couples get divorced every year. And in The US, the number is around half.

And that comes from the World Population Review. And that's like their divorce rates per country. They've got a list and that's from 2025. So it they go and they talk to some experts. Like, why what's going on?

Why are we divorcing at such a huge rate? Why are women initiating most of these divorces by, like, a huge percentage? How about

we just stop getting married?

I mean, that's always an option.

That'll that'll really eliminate divorce. It really would. So

there's a expert that they speak to, and her name is Heidi Carr. And she's a psychologist and an expert on domestic violence in the US Education Development Center, which is quite the title.

That's a lot of words.

A lot of words. But she talks about economic independence. And I think this is something we all know. But just to shine a light on it, women are much more likely even now to reduce their hours at work when they get married and have a family. They're more likely to leave work by a large percentage when they get married and have a family.

They're more likely to make less than their spouse in the first place because of the wage gap.

Mhmm.

So economic independence becomes kind of this precursor to being able to divorce your spouse safely. Mhmm. Because what happens if you're not economically safe? Women are more likely to get custody of their children. So now they have to worry about getting a better job, getting a job in the first place, taking care of childcare, doing all these different things.

So the reason that it's increasing or one of the reasons that they believe it's increasing is because women are more economically independent. Mhmm. They don't have to sit in crappy relationships simply because he pays for stuff.

Mhmm.

They have better jobs. They're making more money. They have more resources than to go out and get better jobs.

Mhmm.

And so they're choosing a better life for themselves.

I also think something that could play a role into it is support systems. Mhmm. I think lately there's an emphasis on female friendships and supporting each other. And I think if you have that support, it's a lot easier to say, I'm worth more. Mhmm.

Yeah. So this article talks about that quite a bit, actually.

Wow. Thank you.

You're so I didn't even read the article. Intelligent. Thank you. So this article says women tend to have more close friends than men. In fact, in The US, Fifteen Percent of men said they have no close friendships at all.

15%. That's massive. So that means that women have better support systems to talk about marital issues with to say, is this normal? Mhmm. Am I doing okay?

Mhmm. Whereas men don't have that sounding board. And it's not to say that wives can't be the emotionally detached ones, things like that. But the men don't have people to talk about it with. 15 of them literally don't have anybody to talk about it with.

Yeah. It says that having those friendships, having people to lean on afterwards, having a support system that you know will be there for you, will be there for your kids if you have them. You're not gonna be alone. Yeah. It gives you the safety to step away to say I have more value than this.

It also interestingly says that research suggests that if a close friend gets divorced, people's own chances of divorcing rises by seventy five percent. Woah. Isn't that wild? Woah. That comes from the source they cite as the Guardian.

But I don't know exactly why they don't give like a why. But I wonder if maybe it's that one person is opening up

Mhmm.

A lot. And so the other people feel that they can open up a lot. It opens that safe space. Yeah. For you to then say, you know what?

I'm not happy either.

That's how you create those close friendships Mhmm. Is real honesty with each other, sharing things that maybe you didn't feel safe sharing before Mhmm. With that person and knowing that you're not gonna be judged for it. Mhmm. You're gonna be supported through it.

I feel like so often when this topic comes up, it always leans negative. It's like, well, if if people are getting divorced seventy five percent more because a friend gets divorced, it must be because they're egging each other on. It's because they're just complaining all the time. It's because whatever. But I think there's a less nefarious reason for it.

Or how about you wouldn't have to complain so much if people were just stepping up to the plate. Mhmm. If we expected more of our partners and saying, hey, I deserve more. Treat me better. And those people did step up to the plate, there would be less reason to complain and then want to get divorced.

Now this article also does talk about the fact that initially men are way less emotionally stable after a divorce than women are. Like, they do a lot worse right away. Over the years, they say it kind of evens out to where, like, men are just as okay as women are, you know Mhmm. After a time. But initially, men really struggle a lot more than women do.

And you have to ask a lot of questions of why that is. Is it the lack of their singular emotional support system? Is it the lack of someone to do the laundry?

Literally someone to care for their basic needs. Exactly. Because they can't do that.

Yeah. Or they haven't been expected to do that. Mhmm. It says that twenty seven percent of women say that they regret getting a divorce. But thirty nine percent of men would say that they regret their divorce.

That's, again, a very significant percentage. You're not

talking about a small amount there. I saw a TikTok the other day that was this woman talking about she had just recently gone through a divorce. And her ex was talking to her and being like, I'm just really upset with you that you're not upset. Mhmm. He's like, why aren't you doing worse?

Like, I'm I'm not doing well right now. How come you seem like you're doing so well? And she's like, I am doing well. Mhmm. I'm doing so much better than when I was with you.

Constantly being emotionally manipulated and feeling bad about myself. I'm doing great now because I've cut that part out of my life.

Another one of the things that this article talks about is education level. And this is gonna lead us into our next couple of things that I want to talk about. But it says that across the globe, women with a higher level of education are more likely to initiate divorce than those without high level of education. Which again has several interesting things being said there. But primarily, this goes into the economic statement that we had before where women that have a higher education have the potential to make more money.

Not always the case. A terrible standard. But true oftentimes.

Mhmm.

That women with a higher education may be able to better support themselves financially. And so they're more likely to initiate divorce than those who don't have that same privilege. Mhmm. And that leads me into a really interesting article. We'll get to Harvard in a second.

But this one is super interesting. So I heard this a while ago. This is pretty recent. This was in January. If you're not from The US, obviously, you probably do know that there's just a lot of political turmoil at the moment.

But one of the places that there has been a lot of political turmoil is Florida. Florida has a very conservative governor, and he has been appointing a lot of people to a lot of places.

I've seen the TikToker who's like Florida man Friday. You know? She makes a little song about news from Florida, and it's just crazy stuff.

Florida news is wild. It's insane. But this one in particular so the governor of Florida has been kind of like stacking different boards. So he appointed a man who's a political scientist who is all for like traditional American values. And I'm saying that with finger quotes, but you can't see them because this is a podcast.

But the governor appointed this man. His name is Scott Yenner. I'm not sure that I'm saying that right, but that's how it's spelled. He was appointed to the board of the University of West Florida, which is a public school in Pensacola, and it has about 14,000 students. Now Scott, he was speaking at the National Conservatism Conference in 2021, which just is quite the title, isn't it?

And so he detailed what he saw as the evils of feminism. Oh. Which is, you know, what you do when you get up in front of a bunch of people. Talk about the evils

of feminism. I actually would love that on a shirt. The evils of feminism? The evils of feminism. And then just have my face and your face on it.

I mean, that would probably be applicable.

So he labeled it as independent women.

The evils of feminism. Uh-oh. But she would never hear that like independent men. Evil. Evil.

And then he said he labeled independent women as medicated, meddlesome, and quarrelsome. Like from the sea? Yeah. And then he talked about colleges. He said, if we want a great nation, we should be preparing young women to become mothers, not finding every reason for young women to delay motherhood until they are established in a career or sufficiently independent.

I think for that reason, that reason alone, I will not birth anything. I mean, that's fair. Just just out of Spite. Just out of spite.

He then said that higher education delays growing up and that colleges and universities are indoctrination camps that society should deemphasize in order to make progress on family matters. Now note that he's saying all this stuff, but he's not telling men not to go to college. He's telling women not to go to college. He then says every effort must be made not to recruit women into engineering, but rather to recruit and demand more of men who become engineers. Ditto for med school and the law and every trade.

If every Nobel Prize winner is a man, that's not a failure. It's kind of a cause for celebration.

My head just got blown. You know what? Not on topic. Maybe a little bit on topic. We should dump all of our money into researching how we can get men to give birth.

Because they want to grow the birth population so much. Right? Birth population?

Yep. The the

Birthing rates? Wanna increase the birthing rates so much. What's stopping us from letting you birth them? Let's fig let's find a way.

I mean, it's probably lack of a uterus.

I'll I'll give up. I'm gladly willing to donate mine. And then they can birth the babies. I love it. The birthing rates will skyrocket.

Yeah. Yeah. I have no other comments.

I'll donate $10 to that cause.

But I thought that was a really interesting pairing with our first article that says that women are divorcing men at a higher rate if they're well educated. Mhmm. Let's now argue as the conservative population

Mhmm.

To not allow women to be better educated.

I mean, back in the day, they didn't want women to read. Right. Because education is power and they wanted to limit the power of women. Mhmm. And it's just historically, they're always trying to do that to women.

Mhmm. They don't wanna allow them in the church. They don't wanna allow them to read. They don't wanna allow them in schools. This is just we're just turning back time.

Yeah. Education is freedom.

And it is absolutely a privilege. I recognize that, like, not all around the world do people have access to this. Not even in our own country do people have equal access to education.

Mhmm.

But to look at someone, any someone, and say because of your gender, because of your race, because of your socioeconomic background, you should not have a right to this education. Mhmm. How, as people of God, are we accepting that? How are we sitting there saying, yeah, that that makes sense. Inequality, that's what I'm fighting for.

How how is the church on that side of history? Because the church is gonna be seen on the side of history that says inequality, lack of rights. Is that really that's really where we wanna go?

I'm gonna circle back to men in power Mhmm. Will always do anything they can to stay in power.

Well, I mean, that's really clear as as we're reading these quotes. I pray for your souls that you have not had to listen to any bro podcasts. But if you've seen any clips of them, because they're all over the ticky talk, you can see that same thing being true over and over and over. Mhmm.

Limit women. Don't allow them to think, breathe, or drive.

Pigeonhole them into one role that not all of us are suited for. Mhmm. Just like men. Some men are suited to be parents and some men aren't. Some men are suited to be engineers, train conductors.

Drain conductors.

I don't know. Another kind of engineer.

Whatever other career you should choose. Not everyone is suited to the same thing. Not all women are suited to being mothers, are suited to being wives. That's not a ding against them. It's simply that because we're different humans, we have different needs.

We have different futures. We have different preferences. Just like we don't expect people to all have the same favorite color.

Right. We all are called to different things. Mhmm. Some people it's motherhood. And they should absolutely be mothers or fatherhood.

Mhmm. They should absolutely be fathers. Some people, like me, don't really want that. Or any you should just be able to do any whatever God is calling you to do Right. That's what you should do.

Right. And we should encourage people to figure out what that

is. Mhmm. And at no point assume that your calling is everyone's calling. No. So then on the college track, Brie found a super interesting article.

And this isn't necessarily geared directly at women, but it kind of is.

Let's be clear. I didn't find an article. I watched a TikTok.

Brie watched

a TikTok. I listened on the article.

Hey. But we both know about it now. Yes. So hooray for us. Za.

This one is a little bit more US specific. But important to know because it actually does have a lot of international impact.

Mhmm.

And I was unaware of this until you talked about it.

Well, you're welcome. That's the power of TikTok, baby. It's hard to stay up

to date on all of the utterly wild crap going on in our world right now. Ugh. Yeah. So this one in particular, again, has to do with college, specifically with Harvard. And actually, it's 10 universities, but Harvard is kind of the big name.

So apparently, our president has been clashing with Harvard.

Let's back it up. Our president has been clashing with everyone.

Everyone. In this case, it's Harvard. Specifically. In this case, it's Harvard. And specifically and this is just utterly wild to me.

But specifically, what the federal government attempted to do was to tell Harvard and 10 other universities that they could not accept foreign students. Not not sure why, but that's what they said. So our president put an I I can't say tweeted because it's this weird, like, it's called social truth. It's like a alternative social media for people that just wanna listen to him talk,

I think. Is it because he's mad at Twitter? No.

No. Twitter kicked him off, but then he I think he got let back on. I don't know. It's a whole different platform. But anyway, so he put on there, he claimed that almost 31% of students studying at Harvard are from foreign countries, some of which are not on friendly terms with The US.

And then said that the university administration was not open with details about those students despite the administration repeatedly requesting information. Now first of all, as a student, I know that I had to sign a paper even to let my mom see information about my education. Well, that's Once I was in college.

It's not just for school. Like, for health concern. Like, in the for medical stuff. Once your kid turns 18, they have to sign, like, a HIPAA release document saying, like, yes, you can share x y z details with

whoever you want. So the fact that the government is like, no, we should be given full information about these students is a little wild to me. Mhmm. Particularly because the government is the one that, you know, said they could come Mhmm. And study at this university.

The university accepted them as students, but the government let them in the country in the first place. And also this 31% is not verified anywhere. Like Harvard is not saying that that's accurate. This is just a statistic that's I don't know where it came from. There's no resource at all for it.

They also wanted the federal government told the students at these universities, the foreign students, that they would need to find other student or other universities to study at, Which, like, let's back it up a second. We're scared of them being in the country because they're from countries that are apparently not friendly with ours, which, you know, we've decided to make enemies of everyone. So

Mhmm.

But they can stay here. They just can't study at the very prestigious university that they're accepted to.

Mhmm.

So they're not actually threats. You're not actually scared of them in any way. You just don't want them here. Why? Mhmm.

Why? That doesn't make any sense. So these poor students had to have been terrified.

Mhmm.

They're in a foreign country, probably without the support system that they would normally have wherever they call home. Mhmm. And now they're about to be displaced. Where are they going to go? Mhmm.

Is another university gonna accept them mid year? Like, there's no way to know. So anyway, a federal judge blocked this a day later. So the but there was still a full day where these students were told this was what was gonna happen. Mhmm.

So Harvard, because my understanding is that the case is still ongoing, it's just currently paused. Paused. Yeah. Like blocked. So Harvard, in response, they actually have a lot of free courses online.

So if you ever are interested in that, there was, like, tons of pages of free courses when I looked this up.

I think that's so cool. It is

so cool.

Harvard is probably not the only place doing that. So if you're interested in taking classes and you have some extra time, look that up.

Yeah. There was one I saw and it was like how to argue for a better wage. Like, how to go to your boss and argue for a better wage. So huge amazing resources Yeah. To democratize education.

And it's not I mean, you're not gonna get college credit for it, in my understanding.

But you still get the knowledge.

Yeah. You have the education. And you could put on your resume, hey, I took this course from Harvard. Yeah. I definitely would.

But they put out several courses in response specifically to this. And I wanted to read the title of one of them because I think it's hilarious. And it's American Government, Constitutional Foundations. Learn why America's promise of liberty and equality has yet to be fully realized. And I just find that very sassy and very funny.

I know. They're like promote the TikTok that I saw was like, this is Harvard's response to president Trump. And the three classes were like, that one, understanding the constitution, and understanding when you're about to go into a dictatorship.

He's just so good. I'm here for all the sass. Mhmm. I love the attitude. It makes me happy.

I think the message from all of these things is that when the world doesn't work for you, when the world is unreasonable and crazy Mhmm.

Get crazier. Change it. Mhmm. Do something to change your world. Be a little bit radical.

Mhmm. Be a little bit crazy. Because again, like we talked about, yodo. You only die once. Why not?

And you only live once. I know that's like a silly saying, you know, yolo. But you really do only have one life and you have to make the most of it. You can't let the world control you.

Mhmm.

You control the world.

I've been talking to my husband a lot about this lately because I think I I try very hard to cultivate an image of myself that

says,

I will live life the way that I want to live life.

Look at you. I know. I think that's pretty clear.

But and I've been talking to him a lot about this while I try to show that to everyone else in the world. That doesn't mean that I'm not living life scared of those same decisions.

Mhmm.

Like, I just recently got a tattoo. And while I love it and I got it because I wanted it and because I get to make my own life choices, it still scares me to go out into society that may not accept me the same, that may interact with me differently because of that choice. So when we read through these things and we talk about the women in these situations, they're not living this way because they're not scared. They're where did that quote come from? Do it scared.

Yeah. I was always also told, get comfortable being uncomfortable. Mhmm. Because the second that you're comfortable, things should be changing.

Mhmm.

Or things will change. Yeah. So you have to be able to adapt and keep pushing through whatever life throws at you. Because life is long and it sucks. Then you die.

And then you die.

We're so inspirational. I know.

You just have to live

Mhmm.

A little. There's a quote Laugh. Oh my gosh. A little. And let your poor heart break a little.

You want me to go on?

I would love if you didn't. Okay. Audience, vote on it. There's a there's a quote that, like, plays with that too. And it's something along the lines of, like, bravery isn't not being afraid.

It's doing it even though you're afraid or even when you're afraid. So live life a little bit scared sometimes.

Mhmm. Well, I think even with this podcast, I definitely know that there are people in our lives that don't agree with us. Mhmm. Or maybe they think, wow, those girls are really outspoken. They should stop.

Or they need to stop spending money on Starbucks. You know, many things have been said about us. But you just have to care less about what other people think about you and just really care about, like, are you happy and satisfied? And do you feel like you're getting everything out of life that you can?

And if you can find the support system that walks with you through those things, I think that's the biggest part.

Outrageous confidence. Outrageous building each other up. Mhmm. I don't care what you do as long as you're doing it boldly.

I told mom the other day, Brie could literally murder someone. And I won't question it fully on her side at all moments. Which is maybe not the best message. Maybe Maybe where we are.

Maybe not the best message. But like, find people in your life that have that level of boldness with you, have that level of confidence with you, who just are on your side. Because that does make life way easier. It makes getting divorced way easier. And on that note.

Oh, I wanna do an episode on the idea of being a provider. I saw a TikTok that was doing like a dive into the word provider. And we really, especially in the Christian community, harp on like, the husband should be the provider. The husband should be the provider. But what does provider really mean?

Does it mean just financial? Just money? Because you have to then do something with that money. Right. You can't eat dollar bills.

I mean, you can. But I don't think it tastes very good. You have to use that money to then, like, purchase food or grow food, however you wanna do that. Mhmm. I'm not growing anything.

Make the meals, emotional support, like, all of what goes into being a provider.

Mhmm.

And we don't give that credit to women Mhmm. When they are, like, just as much, if not more, of providers for themselves and their their family.

Actually, that first article that I talked about with the divorce rate for women, The UK fairly recently put, like,

homemaking skills. I mean, we laugh at those, like, homemaking skills. Like, the books that girls got when they were, you know, young, how to how to care for their household. But like, legitimately, everybody could use that. Everyone should know that stuff.

Everybody should know how to do their laundry and boil an egg. It's just something that as a human, it's it's just life skills.

Well, this says that a big turning point for women initiating divorce in The UK specifically was in 1996. So very recently, guys.

That's when my brother was born.

Hey, Brandon. And that's when being a homemaker was recognized as a contribution to the marriage. So prior to that, whichever spouse was making less money, which overwhelmingly in 1996 would have been the wife, they would have been entitled to less of the overall assets in the marriage. So this is, again, The UK, but they would have been entitled to significantly less money. So they would have been left in a really bad place financially.

So once Homemaker in 1996 was considered a contributing part to the marriage, now suddenly women were more entitled or whoever the stay at home spouse was, were more entitled to the overall amount of money, the pool of money when the divorce hit. So yeah. Valuing what what the stay at home spouse or what the more caregiver spouse brings to the table. Mhmm. Whether that's legally or in the Christian community.

Yeah. I was gonna get into it a little bit more, but we can get into it at We'll get into it next week. Well, I hope everybody we're recording this on Memorial Day right now. So thank you for your service out there in the world. Whatever country you're from.

Whatever country you're you're from, how you contribute to your country, thank you for your service. And enjoy the sunshine. If it's sunny wherever you are. Enjoy the moonshine. Alright.

Well, we'll talk to you next week about providers. And that that word gives me the ick. Providers? Providers? Yeah.

Just because of the way the church has, like, ingrained it in me. I think it's from

the the health care provider. Alright. Well, we'll talk to

you guys about that next week. Bye. Love you. Bye.