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Intersectional feminist conversations about doing work and life differently. Hosts Becky Mollenkamp and Faith Clarke talk with entrepreneurs, authors, and thinkers about capacity, care, bias, and burnout. We name the systems we're taught to ignore, and imagine what's possible when we stop performing and start being honest.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (00:15)
Welcome back to Yes and Otherwise. We are joined today by Gemma Hartley.
who is the author of previously of a book called Fed Up about emotional labor, women, and the way forward.
And then you have a new book that's just come out last month called No One Loves an Angry Woman, an Exvangelical Coming of Rage story. Excited to talk with you about all of the things. Before we do though, we like to do a little icebreaker, a little get to know you. And Faith, who's also here, suggested that we start with your favorite children's book. Those can be interesting. It can shed a little light on who you were and who you've become. And I will, I'm gonna be so cliche.
But I loved little women. I had a big thing about pioneer women when I was a young girl. before I understood anything about what all of that meant and and the fact that they were stealing land and everything else, I really related to like young girls who were dealing with challenging circumstances, even though theirs looked nothing like mine and that book.
I always related to Joe and felt like a personal sort of thing with them. So that would be mine. Have you thought of one, Gemma, or should we go to Faith next?
Gemma Hartley (01:22)
No,
I'm good. I I I know which one it is, and I write about it actually in the book. The Song of the Lioness was my favorite
Faith Clarke (01:30)
huh.
Gemma Hartley (01:30)
children's book. And I think it was a lot to do with like a girl who was, first of all, the main character of the book, which I didn't get a lot of in school. I obviously didn't read this book for school. They would have loved to ban it if it had crossed a teacher's hands, but it subverts gender roles. it's a
story of a young girl and her twin brother who trade places. So she becomes a knight and he you know has the life that she had and they have to you know hide their gender in order to fulfill these roles. And it was just like a a great epic fantasy for me as a young girl to kind of like see a new role for women in literature that I didn't really get growing up.
Faith Clarke (02:16)
So now I listen to the both of you and now I'm like, should I change mine? But I I wasn't actually thinking about the ultimate favorite, although this one has been in my mind. So I'll just say for for to broaden it slightly before I go into this one, is that I was a fan of Enid Blyton as a child, and so any of her famous five secret seven, it was groups of kids.
solving problems together having fun and how these kids had the ability to go off and solve problems and solve mysteries was beyond me because I didn't my grandmother wouldn't let me go to pool parties. so there was something about the adventure and the mystery and the autonomy that was just fascinating to me. The one that stuck in my mind though when I thought of this was a book my aunt worked at the United Nations. She'd gone to Addis Ababa and I don't know if it was when
She came back and she came back to Jamaica with a book about this mouse called Tupo San. And Tupacan traveled the whole world. And I went and looked it up last week, and it was published in 1973. And he the mouse traveled Belgium and it was a whole Europe travel. And I I just remember now I'm looking at the pages last week and I'm saying, I was seven years old. How could I have read this book? I'm not sure.
But the pictures gave me a craving for can I live, can I see life through other people's eyes? it it was just looking at pictures of other places and this mouse who was meeting these people and having these conversations kind of just, yeah, even now I'm thinking, can I, can I?
experience other people's lives before I leave this forum. Can I can I go and live for a year somewhere else? I'm living in Jamaica right now, Gemma, as my current gap year adventure. And I'm just yeah so that that was part of my my wonder. And I think sometimes these books say something like you're saying Gemma about yourself and about what you crave. And for me communal work and curiosity and adventure has been such a theme in my work for
A lot of yeah, my life.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (04:20)
And
aren't books are exactly that, right? They're that experience of living like walking in someone else's shoes, living someone else's
Faith Clarke (04:26)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (04:26)
story, experiencing that in ways that you wouldn't. This is my gentle transition into talking to Gemma about
your book,
Faith Clarke (04:32)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (04:33)
because it gives us that glimpse into someone else's story. And as we we were saying right before we started recording this, that faith has a shared experience of Christianity, of being in
the church and that sorts of things earlier on in life. And then you each have different paths with that. And then I was saying that's not my experience of all at all. I wasn't raised with any form of any kind of religion or belief system beyond a golden rule kind of belief system, I guess, of just, honor everyone's humanity. And so your book is a glimpse into a world that I haven't I don't fully understand, but I'm very interested in.
I've also recently read Yesteryear and Tradwife, which are two fictionalized books about Tradwives and that whole thing coming out of there. And I'm curious, there's just been a lot of those two books have been pretty popular, as well as, you know, obviously the Instagram boom of a lot of these sorts of people. And I'm curious what you think that's about. Like, what is this fascination that people seem to have with the trad wife experience?
Gemma Hartley (05:34)
Yeah, I think it's interesting, and I think people are interested in it for different reasons. So I think the reason for the existence of the Tradwife influencer is to really trap women into this ideology. So it's kind of holding the door open for young women who are going to maybe you know, not be as educated about history and Christian nationalism as they might need to be.
And kind of offering these really comforting narratives of what life could look like. It's very soft life is like one of the key like ideologies that gets you towards Tradwife content of like you're gonna have more rest.
You're gonna rest in your feminine divine. And it gets more and more progressively conservative and radicalized as you go down that pipeline. And I write about in my book how it's so much easier to like hold open the door of a golden cage and invite someone in than to try to put them there by force. And so it's kind of giving this option to women.
that says, we'll take care of you, we'll make sure your life is soft, that it's restful, that it's beautiful, that you'll get to spend time with your children. And what it's not telling them is that when they get there, the promises will not be fulfilled. on the other side, in like the yesteryear part of it, I think people who did not grow up with this ideology are very curious about how it takes hold. And so, you know, I
I'm not sure how well yesteryear does that. I've read it as well. I don't think it understands that point of view. I would love to see someone who has actual life experience with faith and radical ideology to write a book like it. but I think that we have this kind of curious fascination of like, yeah, actually that does like it, it does have this really idyllic,
aesthetic to it. And it it's almost like obsessive of like, yeah, but like, do they really believe it? Like are they, are they really in on it? Or is it, you know, are they actually living this life? I think there's a lot of kind of curiosity of what goes on behind the scenes, which is what
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (07:49)
Yeah.
Gemma Hartley (07:50)
is driving the popularity of kind of media around Tradwives.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (07:54)
I think I'm that side of things, right? Because I'm on the voyeuristic I don't have any personal experience with it. And as somebody who sits so deeply on the outside, like so far outside of that, that from my perspective, it feels it you just sort of look at it and think, what are what are these people thinking? Don't they like how do they I think it is that like how does this even happen? And I think in the current climate we're in, I think maybe it's that grasping for some answer to that, because it's like
It seems to me so wild that I'm like, how does anybody fall down that rabbit hole? And I'm looking for something that I think I can hold on to to say, I get it. But as you talk about the soft life element, there's a part of me that kind of gets it because I'm like, well, I do want, like, I've thought about having a backyard, having chickens in the backyard. That'd be kind of nice to raise some, like have eggs. And there's elements of the soft life stuff that I do think, okay. It's I think the key is it doesn't, it's not all at once, right? It's the slow.
burn into often. It's like the pipeline of it that happens. So yeah, I just I'm curio I was curious what you what you make of the fascination.
Gemma Hartley (08:56)
Yeah, well, and I will also
say that they are very well paid and doing public-facing work. They are not living as trad wives. Tia Levings, who wrote A Well Trained Wife, she lived as a trad wife. It is not that glamorous, it does not look like that, it is very high control. And so again, it's like opening the door to a gilded cage that is actually not going to be a gilded cage at all once you get in it. And so I think that also looking at the money that is behind.
these accounts is really important. And also just looking at even ones that are not funded by, you know, radical conservative groups, they are still getting to do a job. They are still getting to perform in front of a camera. And I think Sarah Peterson, who wrote Mom Fluenced, does a really good job actually peeking behind the scenes of how people get to that cognitive dissonance.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (09:48)
you talked about how you were groomed to be the kind of woman who would vote for Trump. It's this pipeline, this grooming of this generation of young girls becoming young women who become living inside the cage, as you said.
How
do you find your way out? I know it's a big question, but if you're groomed to be the kind of Faith and I talked about this recently. if I were that person, I would be that person. Meaning if I had had their same life experiences, I can understand how I might show up the way they show up. Right. And it's, I think so many of us right now who are sitting seeing what's happening in the world and this almost cult-like mentality of this feeling of how
Faith Clarke (10:21)
It's not almost.
It's it's very cod like. It's it's it's just
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (10:24)
Okay, you're right. Thank you. Thank you. You're right.
This cult like mentality or this cult mentality. It's not even cult-like,
Faith Clarke (10:28)
Yeah. Cult, yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (10:29)
cult mentality. Wondering like, how do we, how do you pull some pe how do you pull someone out of that like trance? What started it for you? What do you think is important to say this is how we take these people who are groomed to vote for Trump and to be that kind of person and start to like almost shake them loose?
Gemma Hartley (10:48)
Yeah, this is a really difficult question for me because I think that without a tremendous amount of pain and trauma, I would not have turned away from it. I think that the experience of pain is something that often takes people away from
cult-like mentality. They have to have it not work for them in such a way that it actually l shows them out the door. And that is what happened with me after experiencing assault and kind of realizing how harmful the ideology within me was. I still stayed in it for a long time after that. I think actually what really radicalized me with was motherhood.
Going going all the way through the little pipeline that I was supposed to getting to motherhood and realizing how incredibly unsupported I was, and that the systems that do not support me are actively being worked against by the people that, you know, raised me. Like the church does not generally want government and systems to fill a need that they see as their responsibility. And so
I think that is probably what radicalized me more than anything else. But I think often like that with the experience of, you know, other pain and trauma that I experienced in the church is what drew me out. I think when we're talking about people who are actively in it and aren't seeing the downside for themselves, I think we need to find common ground with people. Like you can't you can't logic your way out of a cult.
And so you need to have enough safety with a person to start to draw them away from it. You have to be able to offer them something that is better than what they are currently experiencing. And I think what is really difficult for a lot of kind of like cult supporters of MAGA is that they are probably like subconsciously very scared of losing their sense of belonging because.
There's a lot of really mean, scary people on the left that are not going to like we do have a reputation for not being open, for not being caring towards people who are on the journey of like learning their way out of really harmful ideologies. And so it can feel really disorienting to come out of a place where you get kind of unconditional belonging as long as you vote a certain way, to you kind of like.
have really perfectionist standards that you're held to immediately. And it's really, really hard to make that transition without having the support of people who will hold your hand a little bit.
Faith Clarke (13:26)
I think it's hard on both sides, because it's the same problem. it's that same problem of blaming the person. how could you? I had this conversation with myself. How could you think that thing? How could you believe this thing? How could you have supported this idea? What this how could you feels like it's such a thread of supremacist ideology that we all swim in that sea, that we then
Instead of recognizing the systems that are underneath, we point the finger at ourselves and each other. And I think as to your point about pain, I I've seen the pain go both ways. the pain allowing us a little bit of space to say, wow, what what's really happening here? But also the pain turned inwards to say, How could I have been so stupid?
to have let this happen to me or how was I not faithful enough to have protected myself from this thing or how come I'm not spiritual enough so that I could have been and and just this general tendency in our society to point the finger to blame the self and to blame the other like feels like so much of the the big pain versus what's really happening here in this system that's controlling us all.
Gemma Hartley (14:37)
Yeah, I think that's such a good point because I think that self and individual blame, not only for ourselves but for others, is so wrapped up in that like bootstrap mythology, American individualism. Like we really want to say, like, no, you are responsible for each and every decision you make, for each and every impact that you have in the world, when really like we are working within a system that has no real ethical solutions for us at this point.
Faith Clarke (15:06)
Yeah,
right.
Gemma Hartley (15:07)
And
I think that's so, so good to keep in mind as we are talking to people who we might want to pull, you know, a little bit closer to us. instead of saying, like, I can't believe you would do this. How could you believe that? How could you, you know, be in this system and not do that? How could you have your life experiences and not do that? Like I think it's very
we have a real lack of empathy, I think, for other people who have lived different lives than us. and I think the more we move away from that like individualistic framework to the collective framework, we can hopefully start to bridge that gap a little bit.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (15:45)
And you talk about that internalizing. I love that you brought that up, Faith, around like blaming yourself. And and the systems will often support that, right? Because then it helps to reinforce them. And I'm thinking about you mentioned your assault and the ways that you took ownership of that assault, right? And and blaming yourself. And and it happens so often. I mean, we see
I just think the timing on talking about an assault like that with everything that's going on with this Cornell story and the the immediate and intense sort of victim blaming that we are still seeing in 2026 just blows the mind that we're still but it happens and and I think you can probably relate to some of that, internalizing that or trying to even like the ways that the that culture you were living in was
training you to take responsibility for men's actions, men's feelings, men's behaviors. I don't know that there's a question inside of that, but I'm just curious, like what comes up for you as you think about that and maybe also a little bit about this Cornell story and what that I I'm sure it's very triggering. So you don't need to speak about it any more than you feel comfortable, obviously.
Gemma Hartley (16:52)
Yeah, and I will say, I I'm going to choose to hold back a little bit because it is very re-triggering to talk about this story in particular. And what I will say is like that self blame was yes, to protect men, but also like self blame protects systems. In you know, that's that's exactly why we're
Faith Clarke (17:13)
Exactly.
Gemma Hartley (17:15)
pointed towards it.
Also, when we look at it through a capitalist lens, individual problems require individual solutions. And so it is very capitalistically motivated to say, like, you're having, you know, this particular problem. Here's something that you can buy.
to make it a little bit easier for you, not for anyone else. like, you know, even within, I think feminist spaces, we're often so focused on individual solution rather than collective liberation that you know, a there are a lot of, I would say, especially white women, you know, upper middle class that will buy their way kind of out the feminist movement because they no longer need to fill any of the
gaps in their life. And it's kind of like well to hell with everyone else.
Faith Clarke (18:00)
I think that there's that that that blame. It's I always see it as the system protects itself by
Gemma Hartley (18:07)
Mm-hmm.
Faith Clarke (18:07)
blaming the individual. It's the ousting of the speck or the you know, so there's a problem, it's you, and we kick you out, we harm you, we blame you, we ex you know, we use violence against you, and now we're okay again, and the system remains intact. And I think just recognizing that so many of our
Big issues are tied to that. if we find the problem, be it Trump, then what we're saying, let's get rid of him, impeach, whatever, and then then we're okay. And we're like, uh-uh, the system produced Trump. But the system produced, you know, so that there is this how can I recognize for me as a woman who still identifies as Christian, how can I recognize the systemic brainwashing in me, in my
Gemma Hartley (18:55)
Yeah.
Faith Clarke (18:56)
conversations with my queer kids who when they say XYZ and I feel what I feel and I'm like, no baby, whatever it is that I said, you know, in 2018 when we were having these conversations. recognizing is is that about spirituality and my own position of faith as a or is that about training?
It was that about shape and and is that about the system reinforcing some kind of norm so that it controls my behavior for its own benefit? And I think there there's so many. I was listening to a woman just this week talk about the moral indignation about cursing. And you know, Becky and I will go back and forth or like I'm there is who's which episode is this? And 'cause I'll just, you know, swear. And she was saying that.
Yeah, there's this moral indignation that really is a kind of classism. And when she went back into the history, and it's like there's there's so many things that you're like, no, no, no, I have a scripture. I can prove that this is not the right thing to do. Here is what the scripture says. When really, this is about the system reinforcing and protecting itself and somebody giving me an interpretation of that scripture so that they can shape my behavior.
and yeah, so my own reflection and I think how as I'm as I dialogue with clients is like, yeah, where where where are we living out historical shaping? And is this shaping that we want for ourselves based on our present today values and what we believe is is the way we want to be creating the world as we move forward.
Gemma Hartley (20:36)
Yeah. And I think what you're saying is so disruptive and good for us because really when you think about like the shaping, I talk so much about the conditioning of Christian patriarchy and really white Christian patriarchy within the evangelical church. And it starts incredibly young because it's so much easier to have women self-surveil to have that internal blame, that internal you know, shaping that you cannot.
separate from the self without a lot of intention, that the system doesn't have to do much to maintain itself. We maintain the system for it. And
Faith Clarke (21:12)
Yeah. Right.
Gemma Hartley (21:14)
I think that the more we are able to do that internal work of like, is this me or is this the narrative that I've been given? Is this some old history that has been inherited by the way that I was raised, the way that I was conditioned? And
I think that is, when I talk about no one loves an angry woman, angry women are disruptive because they're no longer following that script. They are kind of taking their own agency into their hands and saying, I'm not gonna believe the things that I was given about myself. Even if they come up as a knee-jerk reaction, I'm gonna recognize that that's not me. That doesn't align with my values anymore, and I'm gonna set it to the side and I'm gonna keep moving forward to create change.
Faith Clarke (21:57)
I think too that when you see yourself, I think about myself as a parent overriding knee-jerk reactions on behalf of my kids, right? we'll go with my kids didn't know I was scared of bugs until I they were adults. They're like, What? And we homeschooled and we were looking at the bugs, right? And and I think that when I see myself as so powerful that these humans did not know, that's I this was a no-no for me. then it's like, what else could I?
What else could I disrupt? What else could I cognitively override, even though it's coming up for me? I'm like, no, this is, I know the bugs are fine. And I know this, and I I can have this conversation with myself about some of these moments that I'm in. And I'm wondering, what was a moment that feels comfortable sharing? What was a moment of like eyes wide open when you were in that, yeah, that duality? Like, yeah, this is what feels
This is what's coming up for me and yet also, hmm, you know, I'm I'm seeing something different.
Gemma Hartley (22:56)
Yeah.
I think I still have moments like this pretty often because that conditioning is really deep and it still comes up. My initial reaction is usually not the reaction that I want to have. And so I try to have moments between the internal activation and what comes out of my mouth.
And I notice a a lot in parenting. And so when my kids would, you know, tell me that I had done something that felt harmful to them, I immediately got like I would always and still feel really defensive and feel like I would like to dismiss them because that is what was done to me. And I like the knee-jerk reaction is to repeat that pattern. And I
am able to take the time now to recognize that no, if they feel safe enough.
To tell me that I have done something that felt harmful, I need to be able to respect that, to hear that, even if I have a different perspective on what they are telling me, because my kids are older, they're teenage years now. And so we can have really adult conversations about like, yeah, you know, I I understand why you would feel that way. And here is the way that I was raised, and this is kind of like part of my old conditioning.
That is coming up when I behave that way. And I appreciate you calling me out on it because it's you're right. It's not okay. and I grew up in a family where apology and repair did not happen. It was one way. You you apologized after you had been, you know, beat with a wooden spoon. it was very, very different than the way that I am raising my kids. And so I I kind of like noticed that, like,
Their behavior does not need to result in me repeating these really harmful patterns from my past.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (24:43)
And you brought up parenting and some of these moments and it made me think about I think it was your was it your mom or your mother-in-law who paid for your kids to go to the same Bible camp that you had gone to as grandparents.
Gemma Hartley (24:52)
My grandparents did.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (24:55)
and no judgment on this, just very curious, like what goes into that decision for you on your children now and their experience with religion? I'm always really curious about that for people who especially are like ex-vangelicals who have left that.
and how you make those decisions because I could see where the ex other extreme where Faith was talking before we started about throwing the baby out with the bathwater, we're just going this other extreme and saying none of it and to the point of I won't even let you have exposure to any of that versus like, how do I maybe give them choices or potential of seeing things? So how have you navigated that as a parent?
Gemma Hartley (25:29)
Ooh, it still feels tricky. It still feels tricky for me because I know how much I can't control within those environments. All I can do is offer a space, space for them to be safe when they return to me. And so part of my decision in allowing them to go to that same camp that I went to as a child was reflecting on my own experiences. And
It's difficult because my experience in that environment was also when I was very deeply steeped in this culture. And so nothing read as weird to me. Nothing seemed out of place, but I was like, but I was also pretty deep in it. And I don't want to make religion feel like something that is out of bounds for them, that they cannot explore that, that they cannot have.
faith and spirituality as a part of their life. I have faith and spirituality as a part of my life. It just does not exist within that church. And I want them to be able to make that decision for themselves, but I also want them to stay really deeply grounded to their own values. And so I am very clear with them about where I stand with my faith and talking to them about, you know, when they went,
One of the years was very heavy on talk about sin. You sin every day. You are sin is what exists within you, and you cannot be, you know, clean of that without redemption through God. And I, you know, told them I do not believe in the concept of sin. I don't believe in it at all.
And I had a friend who told me that her experience with sin is that she views it as anything that takes you away from your intuition, anything that takes you away from your body, anything that takes you away from your inner knowing. And that is very different from the way that sin is described often in evangelical culture. And so I, you know, I'm like, I don't want that to be something that you believe about yourself, that you are bad inside. I believe that you and
Every other person is at their core good. There is a lot of things that can get in the way of you behaving in a way that is attuned to that divinity within you. But I that's what I believe. I believe everyone is good at their core. And I don't want my children to believe that what exists within them is bad. And so these are the kind of conversations that we had in order to, you know, tell them, like, yes, go into this, you know, place, learn.
whatever it is that you need to learn, but also know that we we aren't gonna wholesale jump into this world. And like there are choices that you might want to make regarding how this culture will treat people you love. You know, because my my kids are you know, I have some kids that identify differently than others. And I don't want them to feel like
They are having to hide pieces of themselves in order to belong in a space.
Faith Clarke (28:34)
Yeah.
I have a camp stories, and it wasn't grandmother or anything, but I I also recognize just for context that white evangelical space is different from what I grew up in. And so while I had to do a bunch of deconstruction along many of the theological frameworks, because I I basically got to a place where I was like,
Any any description of God that doesn't include my children can't work. Whereas I was willing to sacrifice myself. I was like, well, I can blame me, I can shift my shape, I can grow me, but then then these people, no, no. You you know, so my own process became about kids, and and and yet I have to acknowledge that white evangelical space.
was an animal I didn't understand. I assumed that it was just all the same from what I had experienced. And yes, I have had to be, I had to come to terms with some of the harm of what I experienced, but also wasn't prepared for what my kids would experience and was didn't was unaware of it. So it was only in later years, it was conversation years later that I was kind of wait what?
But that's not what I said at home, but it it didn't matter. And so just recognizing that back to the systemic nature of things, that there's stuff in the water that we will just have to grieve. That we that we we don't have enough antidote in us to prevent. Because it's just in the water. And so part of this grieving and this repairing is kind of the way we live in.
in polluted water, so to speak. so and yeah, your story, brought up, I guess, some of those questions. But I also I think it's quite subtle. It's very easy for Jamaican evangelicals, for example, to look at a trad wife situation and just say, those foolish Americans, and back to the blame. When and so you you can't see how the thing takes the form of
what's for the people that it's engaging, you know? because I I had no illusions about being able to live a soft life. My mom had two jobs and my dad wasn't around and the women in leadership in my church were also working and leading in church and volunteering. So I I saw a completely different thing and and would not, you know, that seduction wasn't my brain would not have taken that in.
but there were other aspects of the seduction that were there that were part of my belief around holiness that was really perfectionism and shaping and control. And so just also recognizing that yeah, there the system takes the form that it needs to take for the people that it's targeting.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (31:20)
Yeah,
because
Gemma Hartley (31:20)
Mm.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (31:20)
I think too, Gemma of like you're saying, well, I can't, I can't protect my kids everywhere they go. And I I immediately, again, as somebody who's completely outside of all religious everything, can feel that in that I send my kid to a public school every day. And I know that he's being indoctrinated in that school in a different way. It's not the same as what's happening in the church, but also he's being indoctrinated into patriotism in a way that I would.
Personally, not prefer for him to be indoctrinated into productivity culture and into what it means to be a quote unquote good citizen, all sorts of things that are not how I would want to show up. And we have to at some point, I think all of us make some of these hard decisions about, you know, where how we let our kids go out into the world and and they're gonna drink these waters in, because as you said, we all are. And then how do we, and what I think is so important, Jem is what you said is like I want them to have the soft space that speaking of soft life.
Gemma Hartley (32:15)
Ha ha.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (32:16)
A soft
space at home where they have that safety to have the conversation. To, you know, like my parents, when I said I wanted to go to Bible school, because my friends were doing it, they dropped me off at Bible school. They didn't go with me. And when I wanted to go to church, they dropped me off at the church and said, have I mean, and I'm talking when I was like seven, right? Like a little kid. And they said, Go and have your experience. And I think that that is my parents didn't do everything right, but that was one thing they did really well, which is like,
I'm not going to tell you no because it's not my what I want, but I'm gonna let you experience that and then we'll have conversations about it. And so I think I think it's easy sometimes. This I think you mentioned this, Gemma. I feel like like this, it's easy to sort of sit in judgment of others whose life experience is different than yours and you can't understand and elevate yourself as if you are somehow better than that. And I can be guilty of this because again, I've never had that Christian nationalist experience at all. Well.
Not directly, I think we all do living in America to some degree. But it could be easy for me to sort of sit in judgment and say, like, how does anyone get that way? And when I pull back and say, Yeah, and I went to public school and I know where I know the patriotism I've been indoctrinated into, that once I was able to do a little learning, I realized was not just truth and facts, right? That we I think it's finding that, like you said, the empathy, finding that those shared understandings wherever we can.
makes a huge difference. I'm assuming that's part of what you're hoping this book does for other folks that are in. There may be either I don't know for like you said, for those who are all the way in, maybe not, but for those who have maybe started their own questioning journey.
Gemma Hartley (33:51)
Yeah, I I often think that my my book is probably not for the first time questioner. I think that there are books along the way that like are still within the faith that have like a more beautiful, authentic feminist theology. I think of Chelsea Kim Long, who just had a book come out called Faithfully Dissident Daughters. And that is really one that I think bridges the gap for people who are wondering like.
What happened to my faith? What happened to my community that they would support this? And like, what are the stories that I have living within me that don't align with what I actually believe about the dignity of human life? And so I think that there are stepping stones. I think you're you're pretty far across the river by the time you get to mine. but I do hope that it is a lens for people to see their own conditioning and
The behavior of that conditioning with compassion. Because I think so often, especially for women, there is this kind of like self-surveillance and berating that we do where we say, like, I am not being a good enough feminist, I am not being a good enough mom, I am not being good enough in all of these different identities that I hold dear to myself. And we take those knee-jerk reactions that we have that are so deeply.
From our entrenched conditioning, and we act like that is our authentic self. And we've done something wrong. We have transgressed by having a thought that comes from deep within our conditioning. And I think that
Faith Clarke (35:24)
Thank you.
Gemma Hartley (35:24)
what I want for my book to do is to allow people to see, like, I actually did grow up.
In these polluted waters, too. I think a big part of No One Loves an Angry Woman, it's not about evangelical culture. It's about the way that Christian patriarchy influences culture at large. it's part of the reason why Christian nationalists were able to kind of take over our country. And so I think that we all grew up with this, whether or not you ever set foot in a church. We've all been conditioned to believe these things about our worth and about.
how we give value to society. And I want people to be able to look at it as a mirror for their own lives.
Faith Clarke (36:01)
And I think the stories that we see, when we start to feel witnessed, that gives us courage, my thoughts are are valid. And and if this thought is valid, what else is valid? And it can feel a bit expansive just by just by listening to and reading a story that helps me feel like I'm I'm being seen. But I'm curious about something because I I tell people all the time, I did not, I don't think I got angry.
Maybe before the age of thirty-six. I think that might have been the first time. And and anger came to me through non-evangelical spiritual explorations in Christianity was b the beginning of understanding. Wait, evangelical isn't the only thing that's out there and this this whole world of Christian ideology. And so I was in on contemplative traditions and as part of that just explorations around who I am. And it's like, wow, I
I can feel anger. I wonder how I do that. and so I recently posted on my Substack maybe a year ago, this this very powerful Becky, we can put the link to it, this very powerful song where this woman was just belting out, be glad that I'm not God. And she was so mad. It was so I was like, This is awesome. So how like how did you allow yourself to feel anger?
And what's your guidance for those of us who are still kind of yeah, anger might we need to be cautious with it. And how do we curate it and not just leave it as an experience for powerful men? Because apparently everyone else can't be angry, but you know, powerful men can be angry. and powerful white men.
so yeah, what are you just anything about rage and how you experienced this and how you allowed it in and then what that means and you know, yeah.
Gemma Hartley (37:49)
Yeah. I have a lot of thoughts. So first I want to get to this idea of like powerful male anger, the way that we allow men to be witnessed as angry. And I want to say there is a difference between dysregulation and the experience of anger. And I
Faith Clarke (38:08)
Right.
Gemma Hartley (38:08)
think what we see from men and what we think of as anger are just outbursts of dysregulation.
And I don't think it actually comes from true anger. I think it comes from often the suppression of other emotions because we only allow men to feel anger. And so I I think that that's something that I really like to clear up out the gate when we think about anger as being dangerous and something we need to be cautious with. I think that dysregulation is something that we need to be cautious with. I think anger is something we need to let ourselves feel.
And that was very foreign for me for a long time. And what actually gave me the capacity to feel anger was having like somatic practices in my life, having enough capacity to hold anger without getting dysregulated. And so a lot of it came into my yoga practice. I am a yoga teacher, like done my 500-hour training. I've been teaching for five years.
And before I became a teacher, I practiced all the time. And I noticed as I started to deepen that, you know, spiritual journey, the spiritual aspect of yoga, I would come to the mat and I would feel rage. And it was so strange for me because I'm like, why am I feeling so much rage? I'm in a yoga room, like I'm in a yoga studio. I'm on my mat. I'm doing slow, nice movement. Why am I feeling rage? Because it was safe.
Because I was safe in my body and that rage was able to be there and be held. And I didn't need to push it away because I had the capacity to feel it. And I think often we want to rush past feeling anger and right into like using anger to be productive, to go back to that like productivity culture. Like, well, it can we make it useful? It's useful in and of itself to feel because it is going to teach you things about yourself.
about the way that you are living, about the way that you want to see and create change. And so my experience with anger is twofold. There is that experience of it, which happened, I would say there was about a year where every single time I got onto my mat, I would feel rage. And it was frustrating. Sometimes I would cry, but I needed to, I needed to feel a lot of rage because I had tamped it down for so long.
And I think that is actually part of what can feel dangerous, is that once we take the lid off of that anger, a lot of it is going to come up. I wrote the first essay for No One Loves an Angry Woman. And I was like, this, the assault, that is what I'm angry about. And how it became a whole book is taking that lid off actually showed me, no, you're angry about a lot of things. And you have a right to be angry about a lot of things. And
We have to experience that anger in order, I think, to feel the grief that lays underneath that anger. I love this like Cormac McCarthy quote from Stella Maris that anger is for what can be changed, grief, everything else is grief. and I find that to be very true. Like, but also that you have to experience both. You need to have the anger you didn't have in the moment and then grieve the change that's no longer able to be made.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (41:21)
It makes me think of your first book, Fed Up, which was about emotional labor, because you're talking about capacity. And it just feels like yet again, the ways the system preserves itself because you're talking about needing the capacity to be able to even begin to feel the anger. And when we're kept in this place of taking on double work through emotional labor and all the additional labor, physical labor and then emotional labor and all of that, like women don't get the capacity.
To even begin to feel the anger, right? It's like I can see where this book builds on those concepts around emotional labor and just being sick of that because it doesn't leave us any capacity for anything else. And I think, you know, when you hear women always, when you ask a mom, especially, but just women in general, like so often, like, how are you doing? They're just overwhelmed. I'm just, I'm just, it's, I'm busy, I'm overwhelmed, I'm stressed, whatever. And where is their space in that?
Like you said, to even begin to tap what's below the surface. there just isn't. So that's how I think it keeps getting pushed down. Do you feel like this builds on that? once you were able to say, I can't just keep bearing all this emotional labor, that's what gave you that space to be able to finally feel some anger and put that anger to good use?
Gemma Hartley (42:35)
Yeah, I think that was absolutely a part of it. If I was still the only person in my home carrying emotional labor and the mental load, there's no way that I would have the capacity to feel anger without also getting really dysregulated and having that outward expression that we think of as anger. And so I think I needed to, you know, have a lot of that taken off of my plate.
And I know that that is not an option for everyone. Not everyone's gonna have a partner that's going to step up and start doing their part. I know that I know from this book being out in the world many, many years that that is not the experience of most women. I also think that what that takes then is kind of like that internal disruption of I'm not gonna follow the good girl script anymore, then I'm gonna carve out capacity for myself because I am not going to.
keep carrying water for the patriarchy in the way that I have been doing. And I think that's where like women's anger becomes very disruptive is that like it it demands change. It demands that you cannot like go back. I I call it going back to the place of unknowing. Like you don't get to go back there. You don't get to unknow the thing you know. And so something has to change or else you're going to live with resentment. You're going to live with you know
things that feel unbearable to you. And I think that's what our anger allows us to do as we move forward.
Faith Clarke (43:57)
I also think that the fear of appearing dysregulated is part of the perfectionist script. because I I mean I have lived with male anger with relatives that was destructive. But I've also lived with female anger, you know, and in Jamaica can be
more matriarchal in some elements, even though the patriarchy is pretty strong. And so the matriarch has the power of anger. She can, she can yell and she can and I there's a part of me that had to claim that power. I'm it wasn't necessarily claiming the yelling but it was claiming that I was I power
That I can be in versus I don't have that power. And so I can't. It was almost a sense of deserving to be the person who could be angry. And then I can decide what am I gonna use harmful words? Am I going to, you know, all the things. And it's it's still a work in progress for me, but I'm I'm just recognizing that a lot of our need to be regulated first.
Again, culturally, I think about how African women move and beat drums and stomp and yell. I think about how black church, when women are praying, or people are praying, they are speaking and yelling and chanting. And I'm like, there are expressions of anger that I am not allowing myself because I want to behave.
And I want to be seen to be behaving. And so some of this whole being angry is about releasing the perfectionist script. And it's like, what is this energy in my body and what is it demanding of me? And then how do I not harm people while I'm, you know, letting this energy move through me.
Gemma Hartley (45:51)
I love that. And I think there is also this difference between dysregulation as harm and like needing to regulate with movement, with power, with noise. Like I think we often think of like regulated as quiet, calm. All we're thinking about is white behavioral standards when we're doing that. Like we're we're not we're not actually thinking about what regulates a nervous system because often that is like power, movement, noise, and
In some cultures that is encouraged and in some cultures it is not. And in white cultures, we really want the silent, submissive, quiet, calm version of regulated. I don't think that we need that. And I think that that expression of power, I love how you describe it as power because that's really what it is. When I feel expression of my anger, I feel clear. Like I'm not, it it's not an outburst that is coming out without my control.
When I am expressing myself with anger, I feel as clear as I could possibly be. Because I feel like rage kind of like burns away everything that is unnecessary. And I just like, I know what I want, I know what I need to say, and I claim the power to say it.
Faith Clarke (47:03)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (47:04)
I take issue with the title of your book only because I love an angry woman.
Gemma Hartley (47:08)
Ha ha ha.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (47:09)
But also I know why you named it that. I get it. But I do think angry women rage, I think rage is like can be beautiful. I think women can look their most beautiful when they're raging, right? I just think it's such a wonderful thing. And so I hope this makes people feel like it's an invitation. It's I think it feels like an invitation to explore what does it even look like.
For
you? What does anger feel like in your body? Because you're saying, I think so many people don't even know. And so that invitation
Gemma Hartley (47:37)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (47:38)
into starting to explore what does that look like? How do you even feel it? And and what does it mean to have that dysregulated feeling versus a regulated feeling? Because I think, I think, especially for women, the way that we are conditioned, anger is just so foreign to so many of us, especially white women, I think, who are even more conditioned to be to.
placate, I think, and because we we have protection that allows for us to have that experience. Whereas like you were saying, Faith, there are many folks in black cultures that that's just not an experience that you get to have. So like you're maybe more in touch with anger than white women. And I think it's good for us to start to understand like what does it even feel like? So thank you for
Faith Clarke (48:18)
I mean, and the
placating is a is a proximity to whiteness and you don't recognize it. So as you become more educated, more financially stable, more whatever, then you become more, you know, this more placid version. and it it takes some time to be like, that's the cage. You know, you're it's it's it's and to think of so many people who society consider to be
not that while it's they are probably not in the cage. And yeah, so it's it's been an interesting journey, surely, in terms of embracing a full range of emotion.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (48:56)
Yeah, yeah. Thank you for sharing with us. Thank you for sharing the book. We end by having you share with us as you're exiting this conversation. What are you feeling called to say yes to?
Gemma Hartley (49:09)
Hmm. I say yes to my anger every single day. I say yes, you are welcome here and that feels very revolutionary for me still.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (49:19)
I love it. And then we say we're going to get to yes and otherwise. So yes to anger and
Gemma Hartley (49:24)
Yes, to anger and creativity. I think anger and creativity are working together in me in really interesting ways right now.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (49:31)
Hence the book and who knows what's next.
Gemma Hartley (49:32)
Ha
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (49:33)
Okay. Otherwise.
Gemma Hartley (49:35)
Otherwise soft life no
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (49:38)
Not so soft life.
Gemma Hartley (49:40)
but really and truly otherwise rest otherwise rest because I think you know part of being in this space of like honoring my rage and collective rage especially you need rest in order
Faith Clarke (49:55)
Absolutely.
Gemma Hartley (49:56)
to keep going and not burn out and I again like I
Have to keep pulling myself back from being like anger has to be productive all the time. No, sometimes it can just be felt and I can rest.
Faith Clarke (50:08)
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (50:08)
Yeah. Thank you for
that. because I'm I I'm really gonna sit with that piece around capacity that I think for so many of us, the reason we haven't felt anger is we just haven't even had capacity to. And we've got to create that so that we can have it. So thank you so much. And your book is Beacon Press.
Gemma Hartley (50:23)
Yes.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (50:24)
where's the best? I mean, I'm sure it's available everywhere, but where do you want people to go to find it?
Gemma Hartley (50:28)
So two places. bookshop is great because you can choose the indie bookstore that you want to support with that. Otherwise, support your public library. Ask them to order it in. You do not have to go out and buy another hardback book if that is not within your budget. Have your library do it for you. They will be thrilled to get to order another copy.
Becky Mollenkamp, she/they (50:48)
Yes, thank you. No one loves an angry woman, but we love you, Gemma, for writing the book, for all getting us all thinking about our anger. And thank you for doing this. We really appreciate you.
Gemma Hartley (50:56)
Thank you so much for having me.