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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)
Your hair looks lovely. You're at the right place with the hair.
Taina Brown she/hers (00:02)
It's in that stage of it's been a while since I got the blowout and like right before it gets greasy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (00:09)
Yeah, it's just the right amount of dirty. I understand that
as well. Like I reached the point where I'm like, okay, we've now crossed over from the right amount of dirty to, now I just look dirty and it's not good anymore. Anyway, hi everyone. As you may be able to tell from the fact that we're talking about our hair, we don't have a plan for today.
Taina Brown she/hers (00:18)
Mm-hmm. We reached a tipping point. Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Hello?
Do we ever have like much of a plan? Sometimes we have an outline, some bullet points. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (00:32)
Sometimes.
Or something that we, at least a topic.
Today we're flying blind. We could talk a little bit about mental health days.
Taina Brown she/hers (00:41)
We could
actually, that's a good topic, especially considering everything that's happening in the world and just like what we were texting yesterday,
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (00:49)
Well, world is always worlding. I feel like, I don't know, some part of me wonders, is it nostalgia that makes us think there were precedented times or it was less whatever, or privilege, or a combination of those, or illusion? Because I mean, honestly, as long as I've been alive, you know, we had the Cold War in my, like in my lifetime, we had 9-11 in my lifetime, we've had, you know, a war in Iraq,
Taina Brown she/hers (00:51)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
It's been shit.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (01:13)
I don't know that there's ever a time when the world isn't crazy making if you feel it being that way, right? Like on the global scale, on the bigger, the macro, On the micro scale, I think it's more about how do we respond to it? I wonder if part of the reason it feels more heavy is because the older you get, the more responsibilities you have. And so what didn't feel so overwhelming when I was little, because other people were worrying about everything.
Taina Brown she/hers (01:22)
yeah.
Mmm.
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (01:38)
As I get older and the more I have like a house and you know, and a mortgage and I have a kid or I have clients and like all the things that get added onto your plate with each new addition to the plate, the world feels harder and I don't think it's any actually any harder. I think it's always been shitty and hard on the macro level, but I think individually it feels harder because we have more things we're trying to balance at the same time. This is my new work entry.
Taina Brown she/hers (01:46)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. think,
yeah, I think, I think it's a combination of all of that. Like I think, because I mean, we can't deny the effects of globalization, right? And climate change, you know, all of those things. And so as those things become more prevalent, I think that tightens the pressure.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (02:13)
And climate change, yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (02:23)
but also I think it's true that, when you're younger, you feel less responsibilities. feel the, for a lot of people, not for everybody, but for a lot of people, you feel the impact of worldwide events or even national events. the impact of that grows as you get older because of responsibilities, because you're thinking about things. And, and part of that is just like neuroscience, right? Like,
We know our brains aren't fully, like our frontal lobes aren't fully developed until like our mid-20s. And the frontal lobe part of your brain is the part of your brain that helps you understand long-term consequences. So this is why young people make rash decisions. Yeah. Because you literally cannot see the long-term consequences. So if you have a young person in your life, them some grace because of that, because their brain literally cannot function in that way. But Dennis...
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (02:59)
stupid things. Do really stupid things. Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (03:14)
once that frontal lobe is fully developed, then you start to see the dominoes being laid out and then you're just like, shit, this stuff matters, it means something.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (03:24)
Yeah.
Well, and when you're little, your world is small. And the bigger, the older you get, the bigger your world gets. And then also the more people that you feel love, affection, responsibility for the more compounded the pain. So what feels maybe a certain way at 12 feels very different at 22 when you're now in love or at 32, maybe when you have kids or maybe at 52 when you now also have grandkids or whatever, you know.
Taina Brown she/hers (03:27)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (03:51)
that like it just continues to I think compound the the acute pain of things that you see in the world and then of course, good.
Taina Brown she/hers (03:57)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, because it's not it. No,
no, was gonna say, because it's you're not just thinking about yourself anymore. You know, you're thinking about how things are affecting the people that you care about, whether it's immediate family or friends or colleagues, you know. And so it's it becomes more pressing.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (04:09)
Exactly.
Yeah.
Not to mention, obviously, we live in a, like you said, with globalization in the world that we live in now with the Internet, that certainly changed things because our worlds do feel both smaller and bigger at the same time. Right. So, yeah. Well, anyway, what we're talking about was mental health days or mental health, caring for our mental health because of all of that. So like the reality is whatever reason people are feeling acute pain at the moment, like emotional stress and all of that.
Taina Brown she/hers (04:21)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah.
Hahaha
Yeah
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (04:40)
It's real when you're feeling it, right? It doesn't matter why you might be feeling it, you're feeling it. And even kids are feeling it. We all feel it. And we don't live in a world that honors that, tends to that, cares for that.
Taina Brown she/hers (04:53)
Yeah,
it's fucking business as usual.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (04:55)
Yeah. And you know, you hear from people all the time, like, wait a minute, we're now in a new war. And, you know, the laundry list of things, we can't cite them because by the time this comes out, it'll be different than the next hour. It's different. Everything's changing so rapidly with like global issues. But there's always something. And then you like, OK, so I'm just supposed to go to work and pretend like everything's just the same. Like, how do I just get up in the morning and brush my teeth while this stuff, you know? And it's easy to let that stuff really start to weigh on you.
Taina Brown she/hers (05:15)
Yeah, yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (05:24)
And so we were talking about this because yesterday, first of all, you had reached out and said, can we sort of modify our expectations of each other with our business because you're feeling it? And I was like, yeah, that sounds like a relief because I have other things that I have going on as well. And my husband had just the day before taken a mental health day because he hasn't been sleeping great. And so he needed to turn off.
Taina Brown she/hers (05:24)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (05:48)
And then that day I was home with my kid because I had given him a mental health day where I was like, you know what? He was a little snotty, but really he just wanted some time off. And he doesn't, he's not somebody who plays hooky all the time or anything. Feels like over, right? I don't have a mental health day. I need to do that for myself next. But I've also lately been thinking about how I'm really due for my quarterly hotel retreat, which is really my mental health time. And that's coming up because I always do one around Mother's Day.
Taina Brown she/hers (05:52)
Yeah.
Yeah, you got a mental health day and you got a mental health day.
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (06:14)
So anyway, it's just sort of like looming large. think a lot of us are feeling that. And so I think we have to, know, not everyone has there's such a privilege in that not everyone to that time. But if you can, like we need to not feel bad about that. I hate the idea that you have to remember when my kids doctor, we took him to the doctor recently for something and he was like, see a note because he was going to be a little late to school. I'm like, no, his school doesn't ask for notes for being out. They trust us. But it made me remember that like
Taina Brown she/hers (06:17)
Yeah.
There is, there is for sure.
Yes.
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (06:40)
There are so many people, their kid's gonna be out of school or if they're gonna be off work, they have to like quote unquote prove.
Taina Brown she/hers (06:46)
It proved that they needed that time off.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (06:48)
Yeah,
and that certainly doesn't align very well with I know myself and I needed today to rest, right? Yeah. Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (06:54)
Yeah, there's no trust in that, right? And there's no agency.
What it communicates is that the individual doesn't have the option to choose for themselves what they actually need day to day, moment to moment. I remember when I was in elementary school, and even middle school and maybe high school, still you needed a doctor's note if you were gonna be absent from school. Like your parents just couldn't say, ⁓ she was sick.
or she needed a day off or we had something happen. You had to have an official doctor's note, unofficial doctor's letterhead with an official doctor's signature. So you wouldn't get like, so you wouldn't have an unexcused absence. Cause you know, most schools, they only allow a certain number of unexcused absences before it becomes truancy. ⁓ And then they have to like report it. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (07:42)
Yeah, with the state. Right, and the
state, their funding depends on that too. So it's not necessarily them being jerks, it's that their funding depends on that. Although I wonder how much leniency they actually might have on how they define an excused absence. For us, an excused absence is the parents saying that my child is excused today. Now, they're in elementary school. That may change when my kid gets to middle school. I don't know. But talk about an ultimate F-U to say you as the parent don't know your child. You as the parent.
Taina Brown she/hers (07:48)
on the app. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (08:12)
don't have that sort of say to decide whether your child needs to be home today. Well, the doctor has to, we have to have this gatekeeper showing up to approve or not approve what you're saying about your child. Could there be abuses in the system? Sure, right? And that is something that then you talk about if you have a child who's been out for months and months or something, that's a different situation than every once in a your kid needs a day off. And I'm not gonna take my kid to the doctor to say, you prove my kid is mentally exhausted today? He just needs a break. I know my kid.
Taina Brown she/hers (08:15)
Yeah, the state decides for you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (08:41)
I know I
have the kind of kid who doesn't ask for a lot of time off, who isn't always trying to fake like I did when I was a kid trying to fake illness. He likes school. So if he's telling me he's just tired and just wants a day off, like, OK, it's not a problem. But I should be to make those decisions, right? And the same with employers. What a fuck you to say you don't get to decide that.
Taina Brown she/hers (08:47)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And even if you didn't know your kid, even if there was something amiss, right? Like, you as a parent should still have, like, that power should still rest on you. And the way to handle a situation like that is not by punishing a parent or a child, right? Like, we live in such a...
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (09:16)
bright.
Taina Brown she/hers (09:20)
what story I'm looking for.
Disciplinary culture, right? There's a specific word I'm thinking of that ⁓ abolitionists use that I can't think of it right now, but yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, if you know anything about abolitionist work, you probably know what word I'm, if you're listening and watching, you probably know what word I'm trying to think of in my brain. We want to hear you, we can't. Yes.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (09:27)
Yeah, exactly. I know. I was thinking abolition, that's what gets rid of whatever the penal notes. But anyway,
And you're yelling at us saying it's whatever. our pyramidal puzzle brains are saying, sorry, no access to that
word at the moment.
Taina Brown she/hers (09:51)
Yeah,
I haven't slept well in like weeks. So that's where my brain is at. But yeah, we live in such a culture that punitive, punitive, that's what it is. It's such a punitive culture here specifically in the US and in a lot of Western cultures, like Western colonized, imperialist cultures. it's like that's a lot of times that's not the helpful way to handle something, right? Right? It doesn't get rid of the...
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (10:15)
It's not even a humane way.
Taina Brown she/hers (10:19)
the root of the problem, right? It just exacerbates the problem. It creates more problems. And no one should feel like they're gonna be punished for needing space to fucking breathe.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (10:32)
Yeah, and also it doesn't address people who don't have health care, right? Or for whom the cost, even the co-pays become an issue to go in and get that doctor's note. Especially if it's a mental health day, but also just even for a common cold where I know what my kid needs, I can help treat them, like whatever. Anyway, that stuff is ridiculous. It is punitive and it is pointless. ⁓ Other than it is, I feel like continues the systems that we have, this country's built on, around ownership.
Taina Brown she/hers (10:35)
Right!
Yeah, like how do you get a doctor's note if you can't afford to go to the doctor?
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (11:01)
and around the ideas of who has full personhood and who doesn't. And certainly in America, continuing to today, children don't have full personhood. They are most certainly not granted full personhood. And I think there's a lot of problems around that in many ways. But at minimum, parents should be given the full personhood choices for their children versus the state deciding those things. But also, just going to the larger issue, I think
Taina Brown she/hers (11:01)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (11:27)
We don't give ourselves permission because of capitalism and all of the reasons to say, I'm allowed to rest today if I need to rest today. And I don't have to have the excuse of I haven't had enough sleep. That's valid too. But I don't even have to that. don't have to have that there's some sore, there's something sick or some physical ailment. I can just say, I need rest today because I'm feeling overwhelmed. I need rest day because the state of the world is making me sad.
Taina Brown she/hers (11:37)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (11:55)
I'm
angry, whatever the things are, like we don't honor the emotions to begin with, and then we don't give ourselves the space when we say, just, I need a little time. And we don't give that to ourselves. And then it all compounds. So we break down.
Taina Brown she/hers (12:03)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it does. does.
The visual I usually get when I think about things like this, it's like...
have a plate and there's only so many things that fit on that plate. And the more things that I stack on, like if I, if I'm going to stack things onto my plate, then that means I need to take some things off, but we don't do that, right? We just keep stacking and stacking and stacking and not taking things off. And then it gets overwhelming and you can't carry it anymore. And you
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (12:33)
It makes me think of
like going to either a buffet or like a, you know, in the US Thanksgiving dinner or one of those kinds of things where I haven't had lunch yet. So that could be part of it. But it makes me think of exactly that where my greedy eyes think I can handle more than I can. And so I'm just putting all the food on and then either I eat it all and I feel sick or it all gets. don't like my food touching and stuff or so I'll touch and then it and then that causes me all kinds of. Yeah, it's messy and challenging.
Taina Brown she/hers (12:35)
you're making me hungry. Me either.
Yeah.
And then it's just messy and gross, yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (13:02)
where like I could just get a little bit of the things I want now and then I could come back once I finish those, right? Is my stomach, am I still hungry? Can I go back and get more? It just totally makes me think of that. And yeah, exactly. Like how many of us know that experience so well and we do it in so many ways. And I feel like we're doing that with our workload and with, and not even just workload, but just expectations on ourselves on how we should show up. Like I should be able to hack it. I should be able to do this. I should be able to.
Taina Brown she/hers (13:08)
Reassess. ⁓
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (13:30)
And even if showing up doesn't even look like work, I know this experience too, where I don't even know what I'm gonna work on that day. Or maybe there's really no pressing deadline at all, but I still feel like I'm supposed to. I'd open that laptop, I gotta check that email, I gotta come up with something to do today to like prove my worth, my whatever it is. Instead of just saying, maybe today I just need to rest. ⁓ I'm getting better at that. I will honor that for myself that I have been getting a lot better at.
Taina Brown she/hers (13:36)
Mm-hmm.
supposed to be doing something. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (13:57)
scheduling more open space in my calendar, taking more open space, maybe not so much during the book launch time, but in general, I have been getting better. But I still feel that pressure all the time to like perform and to and also to make people think I'm performing.
Taina Brown she/hers (13:59)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, that you're being productive. Yeah, that is not just like the inner perception of yourself, but also like how other people perceive you. Like, are you actually like being a productive member of society? Like, are you contributing? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (14:26)
And am I OK? Am I strong enough that I can handle all this, right? Not necessarily
letting people see that I'm overwhelmed or I'm tired or whatever. This is heavy on me. And we do such a disservice to each other when we do that performance thing, because the greatest gift is when someone else can say, can we like, as you did yesterday, can we like reassess?
Taina Brown she/hers (14:34)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Can we like
chill?
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (14:48)
We just reassess a little bit
and maybe we just push pause for a certain amount of time or we you know we you know we don't have this expectation on each other we reduce how much work connect we're talking or whatever the thing is but when you don't say it then the other person is left also performing and it's a gift to give that person that opportunity and even if it's not that just give the person opportunity to say oh my god you're feeling it too I thought it was just me I mean the amount of times people say that like and.
Taina Brown she/hers (14:52)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (15:16)
The weight that you feel come off your shoulders when you get to say that is amazing.
Taina Brown she/hers (15:20)
Yeah.
Yeah. Can I tell you, it took me 20 minutes to send that text message, which is an improvement because I think years ago it would have taken me hours, right? And even years before that, might've taken me days to like ask for the space that I needed. And even though I knew...
I was like 99 % sure what your response was gonna be, right? Because we've been working together for so long now. I knew you were gonna be okay with it, but there was still that part of me that was like, no, I should just buck up, right? I should just get it done. I just need to hustle. I just need to push through. need to stop being a baby, whatever the case. And so, like...
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (15:54)
Push through.
Taina Brown she/hers (16:03)
Like I'm proud of myself for sending it, but it still wasn't easy. All that to say like, it's still not easy to like ask for those things and it.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (16:07)
Yeah!
And was long.
I remember seeing it. was like, my God, what's this going to be? And you know what's so funny, tiny, this is like how ridiculous we are. I'm on the other side and I see this long text come from you. And I, without looking at it yet, I just see, there's this long message. I know.
Taina Brown she/hers (16:13)
You
I was trying
not to make it long because I knew it was gonna like make you anxious.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (16:27)
Well, my
anxiety peaks and I'm like, she's telling me she hates me. I haven't performed. I'm not doing something right. I've dropped some ball and she's upset with me. I'm, whatever. Like I made it about me immediately. My anxiety was like, this person no longer likes you. that just means, it's where my, uh huh. Well, it's immediately where my head goes. I'm like, oh, I've been discovered. And she's like, now she doesn't want anything to do with me. So like I then procrastinate reading it.
Taina Brown she/hers (16:40)
you
You're such an awful person.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (16:53)
because I'm like, I don't want to see because it's going to confirm my worst fears. And then I get to it and I immediately am just laughing like, first of all, Becky, you're an idiot. Like, why did your head do this to you? And make sure you take your Lexapro. And then I'm laughing like, you could have just said, yo, chill. And I would have been like, cool. You know what I mean? could feel like it felt like the weight of it on you of like, I could feel your weight of like, I don't want to.
Taina Brown she/hers (16:54)
Really? Yeah.
Have you taken your meds today?
Hahaha
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (17:20)
disappoint this person. I don't want to, I don't want her to think, you know, like, I could just feel there's all this in it because it felt not like a normal text between us, just real quick. And so I'm immediately like, my God, fucking who cares? Like, yeah, we're great. Like, it's cool. But we did the funny, this is so funny how we are all in our own heads about things. And then we, so many of us are thinking similar things and we're not sharing that stuff. Because immediately I was like, cool.
Taina Brown she/hers (17:21)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (17:43)
Like, yeah, I've got this book launch going on. I'm trying to juggle 60 balls right now, and I'm doing it, but I'm never unhappy to set one down for a while. Like, ⁓ sounds great. I got my kid over here, and you know, he's milking this day for all it's worth, and I'm feeding him, might as well be feeding him grapes while I fan him. So like, I'm like, yeah, that's great. And it's just so funny how we have such stories in our head about things, about you, about how it's going to be received, and me thinking something completely different that it's all about, you know, me and...
Taina Brown she/hers (17:52)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
How much I need to justify, like how much I felt like I needed to justify, right, the request or the ask. It makes, yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (18:13)
Yeah, that's a funny.
Which is so, that says something though, doesn't it Tanya? Because I think,
I would hope anyway, that of all the people in our world, like the people closest to us, and I hope I'm one of those people, because I work with you all the time. Like, I, you we hope that those people are the people who would be the least likely that we could, we have the least amount of explaining to do, and we're gonna be the quickest to say, of course. And yet if with those people, we still feel, because I feel it with my husband too sometimes, right? Like, and if we feel it with them, then of course we feel it with.
Taina Brown she/hers (18:34)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, same.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (18:46)
you know, the doctor or the school's principal or the whoever, right? It makes it way harder in those spaces. So that's where we keep just masking up all the time. But I just think what might change if we didn't?
Taina Brown she/hers (18:50)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, it makes me think of, you know, just kind of going back to the conversation about like, productivity and value and how much how much we assign self worth to what we can produce, right to the work that we do. And it just it I mean, I can't think about that without thinking about accounting ledgers that enslavers had right in the.
in the colonial era of the US and how a person's, a Black person's, an enslaved person's value was determined by how much they could produce, how much work they could do on a day-to-day basis. And that is the system that created American capitalism. That is the system that created the American workforce, right? Back then, nobody was getting paid for it because they were enslaved, but that's still...
the foundation of the value of work today that we live in, that has not changed. And so this constant pressure, whether it's external or internal or both about, well, I need to justify, I need to have a valid reason to not be able to work and I need to be able to prove it. And I need someone else to validate that on my behalf.
or I just need to hustle and grind and get through it regardless of what my body is telling me, regardless of how exhausted I might be, regardless of anything else that's on my plate. Like that all goes back to the plantation. And without having that context and that understanding, I think we don't really have a full picture of what it would mean to divorce ourselves from that kind of thinking.
Right? Because then when you understand that that's where it comes from, then the impetus to absolve yourself of that pressure feels, what's the word I'm looking for? More urgent. Like it feels, and not urgent in a bad way, but like in a ethically and morally, I cannot.
align myself with this kind of value system anymore, Important, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yes, yes, not fake urgency is just this like, and obviously we have to work like we can't, we can't just like, yeah, like we have to work, we need money, like we need to be productive, occasionally at the very least, right? But, but then that
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (21:06)
I ⁓ what you mean by the urgent. It's not the picky urgency. It's like the
We exist inside capitalism. We hate it, but we do.
Taina Brown she/hers (21:29)
changes that can that knowledge can change how we decide individually to function within capitalism, how we decide to engage with it. And it allows us to be able to take some of that power back and be like, no, I am going to take this mental health day or no, I am going to sleep in or clock out at five and not take my work home with me. Right. And, you said it would be you and I both own our own businesses.
we do this podcast for fun. Like we're not getting paid for this, right? We have the privilege of being able to do this, right? To do this kind of work because of, you know, whatever reasons, right? Whatever our circumstances are and taking mental health days and going to see a doctor and things like that. Those are also privileges for a lot of people. And like, I understand that not everyone has the ability to do that, but I think
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (21:57)
No, lest anyone think we are. No.
Taina Brown she/hers (22:22)
I still think in small ways that you can take your power back. Maybe you can't take a mental health day, but maybe you can have better mental health moments. Maybe there are other ways to see to yourself and care for yourself and slowly inch back from the tentacles of this toxic capitalism that we're forced to have to engage in every day.
And it might not make a big difference in the beginning, but that adds up. The more you start to slowly take little things off your plate, eventually it will start to feel lighter. It's not gonna feel light all at once.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (22:59)
No, no. And what makes me think of just what you said to you, like we do this for fun. And still, I think both of us and certainly me, maybe more even than you can get caught up in this belief that like we have to get it out. We have to take care of this. We've got to do that. Like, you know, we got to have it grow. We got to do blah, blah. And it's like, no, that's real.
Taina Brown she/hers (23:11)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (23:17)
Right. We get to determine the rules here. We get to decide when it comes
out and what work we do. like you took some time off from social media and there was a while I wasn't putting out shorts. And we, you know, we can do that. And we have to remember that because it's really easy to also start to believe the story your brain is telling you about things being real or urgent or necessary or whatever. And some things are. But there are also a lot of things often that aren't. But we are believing that they are. And.
Taina Brown she/hers (23:36)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (23:45)
Sometimes also we aren't asking for help, right? So we think we don't have any solutions, but that's because we are still caught up in this idea that it's all individual and that we haven't built any community or collective action that would afford us some opportunity where maybe we won't have the financial privilege or other privilege to care for ourselves. But if we were accustomed to asking for help, if we had some support structures in place, if we learned to live in a way that was more communal, collective than we could, I wanted to also say.
Taina Brown she/hers (23:53)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (24:12)
a couple things about the enslaved part that you were talking about with the like, you know, ledgers and all that, because first of all, clocking in and clocking out grosses me out and always did when I had to do it, because it felt so much the same of like, okay, I'm having to prove down to the second that I you know, you've gotten your money's worth out of my body out of me as like this tool that you use in your business. And it's certainly not the same as being enslaved. And I understand that. But it is the vestiges of that are
Taina Brown she/hers (24:17)
The Ledger exam.
Yep.
Yeah.
Yeah. It's a
thread of that, yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (24:39)
Exactly,
that same stuff. I mean, you went from that to indentured servitude, where it's like we don't technically own you, but if you want to this thing that I promised you, you got to work for it, right? And then the evolution of what work has looked like has led us to here, and it all goes back to that for sure. And there are still so many little things that we look at that you can easily trace back and say, why are we doing this? And it's because I have to prove my value to you. I have to
Taina Brown she/hers (24:50)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (25:05)
that you're getting your money's worth out of me because you see me as property, ultimately, right? And if I don't, then now you can just disregard me, throw me in the trash, right? But it also may, and I think that's important for folks who have white privilege and who don't have that legacy on the side of being enslaved, and maybe they don't even have enslavers in their history, but certainly have benefited from that side of history. It's important for us to recognize that inside of our relationships, whether that's as an employer,
Taina Brown she/hers (25:08)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (25:33)
worker, a peer, a friend with our friends who do have that lineage, that direct lineage. that because don't forget, it still lives in the bones like this stuff lives in our bones. And so it's important. And I appreciate you calling that out for me to also remember that those feelings that can come up in our friendship. But also, and also, it makes me think, too, the only way that I tap into some of the understanding there. So again, this is not about drawing parallels or comparing.
Taina Brown she/hers (25:39)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (26:01)
But where I tap into some of what that is like is I do think about women specifically because that's obviously an identity I hold and particularly women who are mothers. ⁓ I think this goes beyond just mothers because I think this is still an experience, a universal woman experience and it lives in my bones. The idea of caretaking, right? And that our care was demanded and in many ways stolen. there was also very little choice.
Taina Brown she/hers (26:05)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
Hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (26:31)
Women didn't have choice to opt out of the caretaking system, right? Because if you wanted a place to live before you were able to earn your own money, right? It was about this proximity to power. And the way you maintained that proximity and kept a roof over your head, kept food in your mouths and your kids' mouths was that you were expected to care. You were expected to take care of all of the home, the children.
Taina Brown she/hers (26:40)
Yeah.
Yeah, your husband,
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (26:55)
Your husband and
Taina Brown she/hers (26:55)
yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (26:55)
all of his needs including sexual needs but also all the other needs and those things still live in most women's bodies I think as well those expectations that that is part of how we are supposed to show up and prove our worth so when you add the work piece now. Those things still remain though and I think so many women you know where I relate is like the places that I am holding on to some of that stuff right of.
Taina Brown she/hers (26:57)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (27:20)
the expectation that I'm supposed to be the default parent. I'm supposed to be the one that's tending to my child's emotional needs, or I'm the one who's supposed to remember the birthday parties and buy the present. All of these things that add to the invisible labor. And I think that that's something that we also need to hold space for and remember in the same way that, you know, for you, I would imagine there is stuff in your bones. It's like when there are expectations or that weight of feeling expectations that there's like this
Taina Brown she/hers (27:22)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (27:48)
I don't want to speak for you, I'm assuming there's like this something baked in there around like this is whether or not this person sees me as human, right? If I fail to deliver here. And I think I can feel some of that as well. Maybe not whether I am human, but whether I am worthy of love, whether I'm worthy of care, whether I'm safe in my, if I'm not able to hack it as a mom or as a caregiver for the people around me. So I totally relate in that way. I think that thread.
Taina Brown she/hers (27:55)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (28:16)
or maybe white women who can't understand that, they can probably understand that piece.
Taina Brown she/hers (28:20)
Yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, it's all tied in together, right? And it all compounds, the deeper your identity goes. I think...
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (28:27)
Absolutely.
Taina Brown she/hers (28:31)
And not to say that those things are bad things or that no one should intrinsically want to be a caregiver, right? Like if that's your desire, like, yeah, it's about choice, right? And it's also about the fact that when you are partnered up with someone to do life with them, those are shared responsibilities. that, when I think about Indigenous communities,
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (28:40)
It's actually about choice.
Taina Brown she/hers (28:56)
⁓
and the way that they shared responsibility for the care of everyone, right? Every living thing, including nature, right? Not just the things I could speak and reproduce, but including the trees and the rocks. Like everyone had a responsibility to care for everything, right? Or to care for things, right? That didn't look the same for everyone, right? Because...
Maybe somebody was better at making quilts or whatever, right? And maybe someone else was better at hunting, right? But everyone had a role to care for the community in their own way. ⁓ yes, they were all valued. Like there wasn't one that was valued more than the other. Like they were all equally valued because they were all equally necessary. Like they understood, they understand that.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (29:35)
and all of those roles were seen as important.
Taina Brown she/hers (29:48)
Those are equally necessary things that need to happen for the community to thrive. And when you are a part of a home or family unit where, for lack of a better term, someone is not pulling their weight, someone is not fulfilling their role, I remember just having this conversation with one of my uncles all the time when I was younger. Loved him.
He's now gone, but loved him dearly. He was a lot of fun. He was also really raw as a person sometimes thanks to trauma, you know, the thing that we all experience. he was misogynistic. Like there are a lot of people in my family, men and women, who have this misogynistic view of the world and especially the relationships between men and women.
He firmly believed that a woman's role was to be at home and to take care of the kids and to cook and clean and do all of that. And I just remember telling him so many times, I would have no problem doing that if I felt secure enough in my partner to take care of everything else. Like if I knew for a fact that the finances were going to be covered, that, you know.
other thing, like that everything else is taken care of, I'm more than happy to sit at home and be a good little housewife, you know, and just like do all of those things. One, because I like doing those things, like those things feel like a burden to me. And that's one of the most important reasons, right? Absolutely. But I also, even at that young age, having these conversations as a teenager with my uncle, like I also understood that that out of experience and just
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (31:16)
That's the most important reason.
Taina Brown she/hers (31:31)
my limited understanding of the world at the time that having that kind of an equal partnership was probably going to be unlikely with a male partner. Like I just knew. And then when I got older and I started to realize I'm not a heterosexual person. And I remember one of my roommates asking me, would you ever, because we talking about like relationships and,
Like I was trying to figure out like, am I bisexual? Am I pansexual? Like what's happening here? And so she was like, well, do you like men more than women? Do you like this more than that? You know, so we were, you know, going through all of that, just an exploratory conversation, not to like make any definitions, but just to like be curious about what was happening. And she was like, well, would you want to marry someone who was a man or someone who wasn't a man? And
I remember when she asked me that I was like, even though I wouldn't mind being partnered up with a man, I probably would not marry a man. And she was like, why? And I was like, I just don't feel like they're reliable partners. Like I would much rather be that committed to someone who wasn't born masculine because
There's a culture in which people who are born masculine live in this sense of this bubble of entitlement. The world caters to them more easily. The world bends to them more easily than it does to people who are not masculine. And that is what we call male privilege. Whether or not they want that, whether or not they accept it, whether or not they receive it and take advantage of it, that's a completely different story.
Well, I'm talking about here is just the reality of how the world functions, where it will give in to a man's needs more than it will to anyone else. And because of that reason alone, I just have never felt like I would be in an equal partnership with a male partner as much as I like the D, which confuses my wife so much because she's just like purely
And she's like, how can you? And I'm like, I know, I know. They give me the XMX2. I wish I didn't. And a lot of, even a lot of my straight friends that are women are like, if I could choose, I wouldn't, but I can't choose.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (33:41)
I I didn't!
Yeah, because you
Exactly.
Well, and that's there we go. Right. At the core of all of that, because, yeah, for all the people who who think it's a choice, believe me, most straight women, not all, but a lot of straight women would tell you, you know, if it was a choice, I would not be with men because they because here's the thing. Even the most enlightened, the most, you know, aware and caring and all of those things, men, all of them who are really actively trying to do the work, they can never. Sure.
Taina Brown she/hers (34:02)
Yeah.
Yeah. And there are a lot of people who
aren't doing the work. I recognize that.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (34:18)
But they can never have the lived experience of being anything other than perceived as a man, right? And so it doesn't matter how much they want to empathize, right? That your want of empathy is not the same as actually being able to. And it's not your fault. It's not shortcoming. It's just that you can't. In the same way, no matter how much I want to empathize with you as a Black woman, I will never have the experience, actual lived experience of being perceived as Black.
Taina Brown she/hers (34:22)
man. Yeah, received as a man. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (34:45)
I can never know. I can read, I can listen, I can learn, I can care, and I can do all of those things. But I will never actually know what it's like to walk around in black skin and have people receive me that way and treat me how you get treated every day, right? So I could be the best possible partner I can be as a white person to you, but I would never be the same partner to you as a black person is going to be.
Taina Brown she/hers (34:58)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (35:09)
And the same for men, like a man can be the best possible partner he can be as a man or a woman, but he will never be the same as a woman. And certainly not a woman who is not still caught up in her own internalized misogyny, which is, I would rather be with a, and to be clear, I'd rather be with a very evolved man than a misogynistic woman, right? But yeah, I totally hear what you're saying. it's not their fault necessarily. mean, some it is, but some it isn't.
Taina Brown she/hers (35:12)
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, a different story.
absolutely. Yeah, yeah.
It's not, it's not. Yeah, some of it is.
For some of them, it is their fault, because they just don't give a shit. And I understand that there are a lot of men out there who are trying, who are working, who are doing the things necessary to just kind of disentangle themselves from that toxic misogyny ⁓ that we're all bred to live in. Because it's not just men who act like that. It's also like...
Before I met my wife, I was talking to a lesbian who...
embodied toxic masculinity. Right? So well. Much more able to than I thought was possible. yes, yes, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Me too. Me too. Like I have to catch myself sometimes being like, why did I say that about her? Or why am I thinking this way? Like, that's not right. But I, and I think, and I,
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (36:04)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely.
And I know a of straight women who embody toxic masculinity. yeah, that's, misogyny is very real. We all breathe the airs I still have some of that stuff that I find in myself. Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (36:30)
Also, just recognize that for some women, that's okay for them. They're okay with having that extra, I don't want to call it a burden, but having that extra responsibility in a partnership to be able to have those conversations with a male partner and do that work with a male partner. But for me, as an eldest daughter, as a mixed race eldest daughter in a family of misogynists,
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (36:49)
Yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (36:54)
And just with everything that I had emotionally been through by my early 20s, early to mid 20s, I was just like, I don't want that added responsibility. If I'm going to actually date someone and be partnered up, I want it to feel as light as possible.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (37:12)
I would just point out though that it's not always is it that women are saying, I'm gonna choose this added responsibility. They're taking on that responsibility because that's the only thing they have, their only option to be partnered, right? So their choice isn't really between being with women or men and dealing with this responsibility. The choice is I take on, I recognize I have take on this responsibility or I'm alone. And there are many women who say, I choose alone and I honor that fully. But for straight women in particular, like it's different for you and I or for folks who are bi or pan or whatever.
Taina Brown she/hers (37:17)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (37:41)
where maybe it is a choice. But for some straight women, the choice isn't necessarily I choose to take on the responsibility or I don't. It's like I choose to or I'm alone. again, alone's a fine choice, but if it's not the choice you want to make, because you're right, it's exactly that. It's a responsibility. And it's responsibility women shouldn't have to take on. In the same way, you shouldn't have to take on inside of our relationship the responsibility of having to educate me around
Taina Brown she/hers (37:51)
Or I'm alone and I don't want to be alone. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (38:08)
things
with your lived experience. And yet, that is the world we live in, right? And what I hope is that I can at least honor that I know you're having to do that and be one grateful, also apologetic, also doing the work I can to minimize how much you're having to do that. But that's just the reality, right? And so like, and this exists, by the way, in any relationship you have with a man. Exactly.
Taina Brown she/hers (38:12)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah.
Any relationship
where there's difference, this is the kind of thing, the messy part of it.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (38:37)
Yeah, and if you fall in love with someone who's disabled and you're able bodied,
you could say, I'm because guess what? They have to take on that responsibility of educating you about disability. They shouldn't have to, but they have to. Now they could say, I could just choose not to love you. But sometimes we don't get to choose who we love. And that's because I love my husband. And if you're listening, there's still work to do. Right. There's lots of work. Exactly. In the same way that I am honoring that with Taina, I will always have work to do right around disability.
Taina Brown she/hers (38:46)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
There's always work to do. Yeah.
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (39:03)
and around race and all sorts of things. There's always work I can do. My husband has work to do too, right? And I have to take on that responsibility of knowing there's gonna be times where, and it's frustrating, and this is what think men and women often experience, and I think it's in all sorts of relationship. It's when it goes unsaid because you don't feel like you should have to say it, and you'll hear people say, and I've been a person to do this too, where I'm like, I shouldn't have to tell you, exactly. But I have to remember, I do.
Taina Brown she/hers (39:07)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. ⁓ I shouldn't have to tell you.
But you do.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (39:31)
Exactly. And
Taina Brown she/hers (39:31)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (39:32)
choosing to be in this relationship means I am choosing that responsibility, right? Which sucks. I shouldn't have to, but it is a real reality. So anyway, one other thing you said, too, though, about the you know, with relationships and partnerships and the challenges, because you were like, if you're partnered up, there should be some equality in the marriage or in the relationship around parenting. And absolutely, I agree. And I just want to go back again to because this is the thing that I'm like the most.
Taina Brown she/hers (39:36)
Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (39:58)
geeked out on and learning about and really leaning into more and more, which is the community aspect. So even if you're not partnered up, rest, 100 % of responsibility still shouldn't have to fall on you, right? Just because you're not partnered up or that person chose to leave or whatever, we should have communities that, again, like you said, step in. And ideally, that you don't even have to ask. But that's not, we are not accustomed, at least in this Western culture, of living that way.
Taina Brown she/hers (40:03)
Hmm.
Yeah, yeah.
That can fill in, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (40:25)
And so
we often have to, again, going back to that responsibility, we end up having the responsibility of having to ask for the help we need rather than waiting for it to arrive. Some cultures, it arrives. You don't have to. That's not necessarily our fate at the moment. So we do have to be willing to ask for the help that we need, because just because you're alone doesn't mean that you should have to have 100 percent of the responsibility. That whole it takes a village thing, which I know was, you know, problematic in some of the ways that the white lady co-opting that language. But all that to say.
Taina Brown she/hers (40:28)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (40:55)
That is real. That
Taina Brown she/hers (40:55)
Yeah, yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (40:56)
is how we are meant to live. We were supposed to have wise elders that when they're no longer able to contribute in the going to hunt or the making the clothes or whatever way, they, exactly. We have young people who are helping raise the kids that are a little younger than them and all of these things that we've lost, but we have some agency to start to create it again for ourselves.
Taina Brown she/hers (41:05)
They mentor and they spend time and they raise, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. And I think that's what's really striking me about our conversation today, right? This going back to we do have choices. Sometimes it doesn't feel that way. And sometimes the choices are not great. They're not the best. They're not ideal. But there are choices that we can make day to day and how we work, how we love, how we show up in community, whether you're partnered up or not. Like, before I came out, I was like,
I don't want the responsibility of being with a man, so I'm just going to be single. I am totally fine with that. I'm totally fine with being alone and nobody understood it. I was queer before I was queer because people were like, well, what do you mean you don't want to get married? Because I was also just so embroiled in church culture that it was like, you're a woman in religion and you don't want to marry and procreate and further the kingdom of God? What's wrong with you?
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (42:08)
The older that I get,
the more I relate. If I'm ever single again, I'm done. I have so many other wonderful relationships. don't need to manage a man in the art. Sure, yeah, you can have fun. if I even want that, whatever. But anyway, but I love what you said. I also am feeling that. like, I think that what this time right now, this snapshot in history is teaching a lot of people, most especially people who have
Taina Brown she/hers (42:13)
That's it. It's over. It's over.
Yeah, and you can like be with people without having to be in a relationship. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, if you even want that, yeah, so, but.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (42:36)
had more privilege that they haven't had to think this way is thinking more collectively, right? Who are my people? Who are the people I can trust that I can turn to, that I can support, that I can look to for support in the business world, but also in my personal life and in my relationships and all of that. Like, I think people are starting to realize where there's gaps. They're starting to fill those gaps more. I think coming out of the online fever dream of 2020 to 2023 and like,
Taina Brown she/hers (42:51)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (43:04)
You know, people are looking for more of that and even still online communities, too. But just trying to figure out what does it look like for me to find some support? Because we all need it and it's not a failure to need that. It is how we are meant to show up.
Taina Brown she/hers (43:11)
Yeah. Yeah. No. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Everything about this world lives in an ecosystem except for us. Like everything is like in relation to one another. And yet humans have decided at some point that we no longer want to live that way.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (43:31)
We live in ecosystems, for most of us, they're ecosystems of like one or three, right? Like, yeah, we've made our ecosystems incredibly small. They still are there, but we have that choice to change that. So I appreciate that. yeah, and one way that I can ask for help, and I've already done it, but I'm just going to reaffirm it, remind my husband that it's time for me to do my retreat. It's time for me to have some alone time, because I also need my mental health day or days so that I can.
Taina Brown she/hers (43:35)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Incredibly small. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (43:59)
rejuvenate to be able to show up and be the way I want to be in support of others.
Taina Brown she/hers (44:03)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'm proud of you for that. I think if you're listening and you're watching and you're like, how the fuck do I do this? Because a lot of what we talked about was just ideas, but like, OK, how do you implement that? I cannot recommend enough the book, How We Show Up. We're currently going through it in the coaching circle. And it's not the first time I've read it. But it's
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (44:06)
and a lot of you for texting me yesterday.
Taina Brown she/hers (44:26)
Every time I read it, I'm just like, this is so good. Like there's so much practical, not advice, but like practical examples that Mia Bird song. Like each chapter is literally practical examples of the principles that she's covering. And so if you're just like, I don't know where to start, read that book, like get a copy of that book, go to your library, check it out, get an audio book, whatever, get a copy of it, read it. And then.
have conversations about it with the people that you do have community with. Like you said earlier, we sometimes assume that everyone is on the same page and we don't have to explicitly ask for what we need, but that's not the case. Nobody can read our minds. So if you don't ask for it, there's no impetus to get it started.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (45:09)
Yeah, and her book's all about community. And then I will selfishly, because my book comes out this week, recommend my book as well, Liberate Your Business, for those who are entrepreneurs and thinking about some of these same things as far as running their business. So we'll put the links for my book and Mia's book in the show notes or description so that you can check those out. And thank you for being somebody who's willing to send me that text. And then also, like knowing that on the other side of that, any time I get a long text from you, I'm probably going, this is it. She's like, yeah.
Taina Brown she/hers (45:20)
Mm-hmm.
We're gonna spiral.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (45:38)
I
have immediately gone into a shame spiral. That's just my go-to. So. I am too. All right. Thank you.
Taina Brown she/hers (45:41)
Well, I'm glad we're together.