Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
This isn’t your average podcast—it’s a radical little book club for your ears.
Each week on Assigned Reading, feminist business coach Becky Mollenkamp invites a brilliant guest to read and unpack a feminist essay. Together, they dive into the juicy, nuanced, sometimes uncomfortable questions these texts raise about power, identity, leadership, liberation, and more.
If you’ve ever wanted to have big conversations about big ideas—but without having to get dressed, make small talk, or leave your introvert bubble—you’re in the right place.
🎧 This show is for the nerdy, the thoughtful, the socially conscious.
💬 It’s for people who crave deeper dialogue, new perspectives, and human connection in a world full of sound bites.
📚 Think of it as a feminist book club you don’t have to RSVP for.
Assigned Reading is here to help you feel less alone, more seen, and newly inspired—with accessible essays, warm rapport, and the kind of smart conversations that stay with you.
🚨 Sign up for Becky's newsletter, Feminist Rants Are My Superpower: https://beckymollenkamp.com/rants
🎤 PROUD MEMBER OF THE FEMINIST PODCASTERS COLLECTIVE 🎤 http://feministpodcastcollective.com/
Becky Mollenkamp (00:01.326)
Hi, Tori, et cetera. After saying, no one will see that but me, I totally am calling you out on it. You can't see it, but when Tori entered the room, you have to enter your name and she put Tori, et cetera. And I shouldn't presume I didn't look at your sheet, which I should have. Are your pronouns she her?
Tori, Etc (00:03.416)
Hello.
Tori, Etc (00:09.986)
I love it.
Tori, Etc (00:19.724)
I am fine with literally any pronouns, have never cared about that my whole life, so you're good. Yes.
Becky Mollenkamp (00:23.374)
Anna Deshawn, who's in the podcast collective with us always says anything that's respectful. And I'm like, that's perfect. That's sort of how I feel about that as well. Well, welcome. Thank you for joining me to talk about this amazing and like, really important piece from Kimberle Crenshaw that I think anyone who has studied much in the way of feminism will know, but for folks who maybe just have more of an interest in equity, social justice, some of these kinds of issues, but have not necessarily done as much research or academic level work may not be familiar.
Tori, Etc (00:29.56)
I love Anna. She's great.
Becky Mollenkamp (00:53.614)
So what was your experience level with with Kimberley Kernschall with intersectionality with this piece before reading it?
Tori, Etc (01:00.034)
I was very familiar with Dr. Crenshaw's work and going back and rereading this, man, it's so deep and her analysis is, I think, especially for the context, so incredibly profound. And then adding on top of that, the piece of, wow, I feel this in my bones, of like,
you're layering identities on top of one another. That's not allowed. You're trying to like hack the system by being too oppressed. Black women don't exist, says the courts is like, yeah, wow. So I'm very grateful for this piece on sort of an individual level. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (01:48.494)
love that. I mean, I'm grateful for it too, probably in a different way, less of the like, feeling seen, but more of the feeling called in, not out, called in. And like the that beautiful invitation to expand my own thinking around issues and continue to. This was written in 1989. And feels like it could with so many of these pieces that we're reading on the show. Here I am again saying it could have been written today, and it would be just as relevant, I feel.
Tori, Etc (01:56.854)
Mmm... Mm-hmm.
Tori, Etc (02:11.48)
you
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. There's, like I said, there's so many layers and we'll get into it, but just the work that she was doing was so... I don't wanna say ahead of its time, right? Because it should have been 250 years ago, right? Like this stuff should have been in the constitution, black women are people, ergo we have rights, right?
That's not complicated, but in terms of how America works, right? Yeah, it very ahead of its time and very relevant to today.
Becky Mollenkamp (02:55.726)
Well, certainly, I mean, you know, again, I'm the white woman in the room, so my experience will be very different in my relationship with the work, I am sure. And for me, thinking back to 1989, you were probably not alive, my sweet youngster. Okay, all right, all right, so not that much. But so I was like old enough to have some awareness of...
Tori, Etc (03:09.944)
I was, I was, I was five, I think, 89.
Yeah
Becky Mollenkamp (03:21.262)
feminism and the concept I was reading Sassy magazine by Jane Pratt back in those days and like the alternative to like I wasn't a Cosmo girl or a Vogue girl or you know, teen beat I was like, I wanted to read the real stuff. Right. So I'm, you know, ninth grade reading Sassy, putting black Sharpie on my nails, right, that kind of thing. But my understanding of feminism in 89 is most certainly now I realize very much white feminism, right, what we would now call just and
Tori, Etc (03:25.877)
Yeah.
Tori, Etc (03:33.772)
Yeah.
Tori, Etc (03:38.455)
Yeah.
Tori, Etc (03:47.008)
Mm, mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (03:50.094)
call it out as white feminism, which she addresses in this. So yeah, it was you're right in that it's probably not ahead of its time in that it should have happened. But when I think back to 1989, and the sorts of things that in the very like in my youth and mainstream, certainly not at a collegiate level, not at Kimberle Crenshaw's level at that time, but just my like very, like outsider or insider cursory understanding of feminism was, this was not the way people the average mainstream person was talking about.
So it does feel ahead of its time in that way.
Tori, Etc (04:21.464)
Okay, that is incredibly profound because, and I don't know how dark and dirty we want to get on this show, but I was, in 1989, at five years old, I was being taken to screenings of anti-abortion propaganda films.
Becky Mollenkamp (04:29.736)
We get as dark and dirty as you want.
Becky Mollenkamp (04:40.728)
That's right, you have a very deep religious background, if I am not mistaken. Yeah.
Tori, Etc (04:43.412)
Yeah, yep. And feminism was a bad thing, right? I grew up hearing Rush Limbaugh talking about feminazis.
Becky Mollenkamp (04:48.43)
and
Becky Mollenkamp (04:54.326)
Yes, I am from Rush Limbaugh's home state of Missouri. So it was everywhere in my youth as well. I just was lucky that I wasn't raised in religion or anything. So my experience is
Tori, Etc (04:57.566)
Okay. Yeah.
Right, right. so like, you know, and the, mean, what we're seeing today in our political sphere realm, whatever, and how it's impacting all of our lives, like that was the dream of my childhood being raised by an activist on the other side, on the other team. And so, yeah, the, you know, feminism was this really...
terrible thing, right? And it was causing all of the world's problems, which is just really funny when you look back and you look at the data and you look at who was in control of magazines, newspapers, media, culture, critiques, who got a voice in those spaces, it was all white men. Like even in the 80s, it was overwhelmingly stunningly like white men. And so
it's really interesting that that was the narrative that I was being given. And then there were other spaces like you're talking about. were like feminist outlets that had a very, I would say like small but mighty kind of following, right? And so the analysis there is a little bit different. And I think that wherever we found ourselves when we were growing up or whatever influences were around us as children, teens, young adults, that
the ability really to take a look at where you came from and say, hmm, let me examine this. did I, what was, what was, what was right? What was harmful? What was wrong in the context that I was raised in? Anybody, you know, I'm willing to have a conversation about this piece with anybody who's willing to ask those questions. And I do think that it is, it is a really powerful piece. And I think that that's probably why a lot of people would kind of struggle to
Tori, Etc (06:56.689)
engage with it, honestly.
Becky Mollenkamp (06:59.266)
Well, and I mean, it'll be interesting. I'd love to hear your perspective of how you might find it challenging. Certainly as a white person, it's challenging in that it's challenging assumptions and beliefs and things that I have been taught and indoctrinated into. And of course, also I recognize that it doesn't matter if you're white or not, we're all indoctrinated and brainwashed into these same sort of belief systems, right? So it's not like you're exempt from that, but I would imagine it lands differently in your lived experience than my own.
Tori, Etc (07:23.138)
Yup.
Becky Mollenkamp (07:27.986)
certainly for me, the piece feels challenging now, where I am at in my life now in the most beautiful and expansive way. Where I might have been in, you know, the time of this coming out or in the years following that, probably in a way that I would have led to lot of defensiveness and not me and, you know, all of this exceptionalism and those sorts of things that we tend to do when our vision of ourself is being challenged, right?
Tori, Etc (07:52.118)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (07:52.29)
before we have reached a place of saying, no, I welcome that because it allows for growth. But so for me, it did feel challenging in that I was reading this as somebody who has read so much. And I've read I've listened to Kimberle Crenshaw in the past, I've read some of her work. I don't know if I've ever actually read this in its entirety. But as I was reading it, some of the things she was talking about, I'm like, if I haven't written its entirety, I certainly have been I know these reference points about the intersection of the, you know, the roads. And then, although I didn't remember, we'll get to it, but the piece about the the
Tori, Etc (08:15.862)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (08:21.794)
on the floor, which was really awesome. even still, with all I've done, it still had me going like, shit, I know there are still times where I'm showing up and coming to that place of centering whiteness in my vision of feminism, even though I'm doing everything in my power not to. Like, it's just, it is my sort of set point. And it's that reminder of that in those ways that I'm like, it is really hard to break that pattern for me.
Tori, Etc (08:33.304)
Mm.
Becky Mollenkamp (08:51.0)
So anyway, I'm curious how it was challenging for you though. You know, obviously since we have different lived experiences, you as a black woman, me as a white woman, I know it probably hit us in different ways. So I'd love to know how it felt challenging to you.
Tori, Etc (09:03.34)
Yeah, I'm okay. So again, this is really interesting for me because I think that like the context that I came from, right, coming up was pretty, I understood as a very small child that my experience was incredibly unique, right? And that there were, there just were not a lot of like black kids being raised, homeschooled by really like very extremely far right.
parents, know, it was my mom was really wore the pants in the house, which was funny because gender roles and that wasn't what she was supposed to be doing. But that's a whole other, whole other topic. Or maybe it's not actually, but the, the, the way that I kind of came to this and like the challenges that, that it brought to me were kind of, I guess in a lot of ways they were sort of, I've, I've intellectualized them.
And I had to do a lot of personal work in myself because I came to a lot of, well, you know, really came to understand who Kimberle Crenshaw was about 10 years ago when I was leaving fundamentalism and I was leaving religion, but I was also, in that same time, I got a job at a neuroscience research lab here in Portland and
So there was all of this, I was surrounded by all of these incredible researchers and scientists doing all this really amazing work on
long story short, our lab was huge. There was, there were a lot of people doing work on maternal trauma and like fetal brain development and implicit bias and race and you know, how we respond to different things that we're not expecting when we're primed with certain imagery, things like that. And so I kind of came to
Becky Mollenkamp (11:00.717)
Yeah.
Tori, Etc (11:04.076)
Dr. Crenshaw's work through that avenue of trying to educate myself because I was very much, I'd heard her name, of course, but I wasn't exposed to anything that she really taught or thought. And this was in the wake of the Ferguson uprisings after Michael Brown was murdered. And so that was kind of, that was sort of a catalyst, I guess, for me in recognizing
I guess where I belonged in the cultural context. I didn't really get that as like a neurodivergent person. I was like, okay, you guys have all these weird like hierarchies and structures and I don't really know where I fall into that. And so coming from like a religious background and a, I'm just gonna say it like white supremacist lens because that's what evangelicalism was founded on.
functionally, was capitalism and white supremacy. so coming to this work was really interesting because I had to examine for myself as someone who doesn't really identify with gender necessarily. You know, I identify with women, but I don't identify as a woman, if that makes sense. And so I always thought that my, I always thought that the way that I,
Becky Mollenkamp (12:01.058)
Uh-huh.
Becky Mollenkamp (12:24.91)
Absolutely.
Tori, Etc (12:29.174)
This is really interesting. I always thought that the way that I was treated in church, which was not as an equal, which was not as a peer, which is not even as a woman, right, was because of race and racism. And so I always ascribed it to that. And I never, I didn't actually catch the sort of anti-woman, anti-feminist sentiments that were happening in church. You know, these stories that we were told about like,
Eve ate the fruit in the garden and was deceived, therefore women have this lower place in society because of this one thing one woman did one time, supposedly. And I was just like, that's not about me. And it was just like, they're not talking about me when they're talking about these stories, right? When they're dehumanizing women, that's not about me. And I thought that it was because of race and the racial hierarchy that exists.
in our country. And it took a while for me to realize that actually I had internalized, because I spent so much time in those spaces, I had internalized all of this like misogynist sort of, I don't know that it was like language necessarily, because I never used that language, because I, you know, I didn't like that. But like, I guess ideas, I'd internalized all of this.
sort of, yeah, that it was like this sentiment that was a narrative that was very like anti-woman, not in an explicit sense of, hmm, like women should be oppressed and kept down, right? But in the sense of, I'm gonna question your experience. You know, I'm...
not 100 % sure what you think here, or I'm going to assume that like if you say, oh, a doctor or an attorney walked into my, like, I think of a man, right? Things like that. And so I have really had to wrestle with unlearning that piece of things, right? And it's not, for me, it's not conscious at all. It's not like a, and I'm not going out and engaging in like bigotry.
Becky Mollenkamp (14:45.421)
Right.
Tori, Etc (14:45.568)
because I'm like, you're a woman, suck. But questioning my own assumptions and kind of going back upstream and figuring out where the pollutant got into the water, right? And has like had this downstream effect on me. And it like sincerely truly didn't occur to me because I was like, I don't really identify with this like womanhood stuff and femininity. And I don't like, I don't get that on a cognitive level.
And I never tried to, honestly. And so I was never out in the street necessarily being like, know, women shouldn't have rights or, you know, women shouldn't speak in church or, you know, a lot of the things that like I was told by individuals kind of coming up, right? But with this particular piece, I had to examine my own internalized narrative that again, I wasn't.
I didn't consent to being given any of this. I didn't consent to being raised in these contexts, but exposure, right? Which again, it's like we very much can't consent to, impacted my lens, right? And it impacted my assumptions. And so then obviously with Dr. Crenshaw's piece, she brings in the dual lenses, right? Using both of them at the same time. And also kind of people being...
Becky Mollenkamp (15:43.458)
Right? Yeah.
Tori, Etc (16:10.776)
offended, I suppose, at the existence of these like kind of dual identities and making these statements. Like she says in the piece about how like you're just you're trying to accumulate harm in this way that isn't real, right? And so it really I said this jokingly earlier, but the idea that like black women don't exist legally, right?
And so there's nothing, if you're harmed, there's nothing we can do. And so really kind of digging into the piece for me from that lens of having to pull back a lot of these layers, like I said, go further upstream and find out where this like came in and unpack that and like pull that out is something that I'm very cognizant of the fact I will need to be doing that work for probably the rest of my life.
Becky Mollenkamp (17:04.696)
Forever, forever, right? Yeah.
Tori, Etc (17:07.286)
And I'm okay with that, right? think that we need to embrace the fact that we need to be working on ourselves while we're alive, instead of being like, is...
Becky Mollenkamp (17:13.654)
Yes. Like there's not a finish line we're all trying to get to where we say I have now evolved. am now like I am above all of this. Like that doesn't happen. Yeah.
Tori, Etc (17:19.201)
Right?
Tori, Etc (17:23.608)
No, yeah, like I'm retiring from personal growth is like this thing that we aspire to. It's like, why? Why do that? Like, it's actually, to me, I think it's actually more fun to do the work and to sit in the mess and to go, okay, where did this come from? You know? Like, you don't have to be afraid of that. I know we're taught to be afraid of it, but we don't have to be.
Becky Mollenkamp (17:38.144)
Hmm
Becky Mollenkamp (17:42.434)
That's exactly, yeah. But it's so hard because we are taught that. think the puritanical kind of culture, evangelical culture you grew up, I feel like that's a space where that's taught. I think any white supremacist, patriarchal capitalist space or system very much reinforces that. That we are supposed to be perfect.
there is such a thing as perfect that we should be able to achieve it and that it is like an achievable thing. Like there's a finish line and that, I mean, I feel like we start learning this in school with grades, right? And all of the school systems, like they are starting to reinforce that and teach us and indoctrinate us into the system, this belief that like we are aiming for some thing, some perfect version of being a human and like what we can achieve it and the aim is to get there because then once we're there,
Tori, Etc (18:12.28)
Mm-hmm.
Tori, Etc (18:30.474)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (18:35.82)
Like everything's gravy, right? Like, then you'll coast through the rest of your life. It'll be amazing. I'm not sure what's supposed to happen when we get there because it's obviously not possible to get there. But so like, we're all so ingrained in that. I'm a huge fan, too, of like, it should be a lifelong journey. But I also understand how these sorts of things can be so confrontational for people when they are still in that place of believing that they're supposed to somehow get it all right. You know, I think
Tori, Etc (18:41.976)
Yeah.
Tori, Etc (18:53.802)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (19:00.3)
when people start this journey of unlearning, you when you start anti-racism work, when you start to unpack your internalized misogyny, all of these things, you're, you know, starting to deal with your own homophobia and all of these issues. We, when you start the journey, I think people often think they're supposed to, like there is a right way, quote unquote right way, and that once they get there, they will know that they are no longer racist. They are no longer homophobic. They are no, whatever the thing is.
Tori, Etc (19:18.882)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (19:26.31)
So they're looking for some line that they can cross to say, okay, I've done that now and now I know I'm right. Okay, I'm doing this right. And so when you're still in that place, you haven't unpacked that that is also all part of the white supremacist conditioning, then this stuff is so confrontational. And that's why we see all that defensiveness comes up because people want to believe, no, I'm one of the good ones, especially. I want to say people, again, I'm speaking through my own frame of reference, which is white.
Tori, Etc (19:42.519)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (19:54.648)
people and specifically white women, that we want to be right, we want to be good, we want to be perceived as good. And so like anything that challenges us, like this piece, which challenges you to say, sure, you've unpacked racism, you've unpacked sexism, have you unpacked where those overlap? And the answer is probably no, because it's never been, you've never been asked to. But because you're still in this belief that like, I have to have it all right, you get really defensive, like, no, of course I have.
Tori, Etc (20:00.674)
Mm-hmm.
Tori, Etc (20:12.13)
Right? Right.
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (20:21.538)
Yeah, no, of course, I would never. I'm not that person, right? And that's hard. That's really hard.
Tori, Etc (20:23.736)
Right.
Tori, Etc (20:28.446)
You know that I honestly I think that what you said is actually pretty profound that we are coded to be perfect. No, no, no, but listen, but listen, right? It is a profound realization for almost all of us. It really truly is that we are coded to be perfect. There is no room for imperfection. think especially for women and anybody socialized female, there was no room for imperfection and we have to come to this point.
Becky Mollenkamp (20:34.338)
Quit calling me profound.
Tori, Etc (20:58.688)
of accepting like, this perfect performance that I'm putting on, one, is probably going to kill me, but two, is it necessary? Like, this isn't real. I can unplug from that and come to this work in a way that is where I can be kind to myself, right? I can accept critique and...
you know, again, like because yeah, like white supremacy, capitalism, they are these, these perfectionist sort of structures, right? And, and they're self policing, right? So they instill inside of you this need, desire, impulse to police yourself so harshly, to dehumanize yourself so harshly. And so it is very liberating, like to come to this work when you can get past that.
And you really made me think about this is something I experienced in therapy. I've talked to some of my friends. They've experienced something similar to, right? But there's kind of this, I don't know what to call it other than like this ring of fire moment where you realize, wow, I was messed up, right? Am I allowed to swear on here? I'm like, I have been through some real shit. Don't know if I'm gonna make it to the healing point.
Becky Mollenkamp (22:13.294)
Yeah.
hell yeah, fuck yeah.
Tori, Etc (22:26.176)
Right? Like that end point, I don't know if I'm going to make it to that finish line. What do I do? Right. And you have to sit with yourself in what can bring up all these feelings of shame and humiliation and guilt and like feeling undeserving and like the overwhelm that I remember feeling in that moment in therapy. Right. Where I was just like, God, I don't know if I can do this. There are too many, there are too many scars.
Becky Mollenkamp (22:39.726)
Yeah.
Tori, Etc (22:56.46)
there's too much to eat, like what do I do, right? And you come to that moment also with this work, right? Of like the intersectional, anti-racism, anti-sexism sort of work, right? I think that you very much come to that same or a similar moment there where you're like, whoa, boy, okay. You realize the magnitude of the mess and it's so easy to...
feel afraid and to run away, right? It's so easy to shut down and go, can't deal with this, right? And so if you haven't, if anybody listening has not yet come to that point, totally okay, totally understandable. It's a process, it's a journey. But I do want to say if you get there, when you get there, like, please know that so many of us have come to that point too, right? And so when you're being challenged by this work, especially, but like any work that is really challenging, like,
the narrative that you were given or maybe the way that you were raised or et cetera, et cetera, right? When you come to that moment of feeling overwhelmed or defeated or down on yourself for whatever reason, or, you know, looking into the mirror for the first time and realizing that perfection was never there looking back at you, right? Please know that like you can get through that moment. It does feel really...
It feels impossible. I'll just, I'll just put it that way. Right. It feels very impossible. I'm like, God, I can't do this. This is too much. I want to run away. I want to shut down. I'm going to go do something fun instead. right. Right. Honestly though, people like people say that, right.
Becky Mollenkamp (24:32.098)
Life's too short. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (24:37.178)
For sure. mean, the white side of that I hear all the time is not all the time, but I have heard a lot, especially, especially following George Floyd's murder, where I feel like so many white people sort of had that wake up moment. Like you, my moment was actually Michael Brown as well, because I lived half a mile from where he was murdered. saw the fires that evening and like.
Tori, Etc (24:45.74)
Mmm.
Mm-hmm.
Tori, Etc (24:52.834)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (24:57.452)
you know, all of it, it just, hit home in a different way. And that was really the beginning of my unlearning of my white feminism and recognizing where I was at with my journey and starting to understand and embrace intersectionality. But for a lot of people, I think that happened in 2020 and we saw all the people sort of, let me put out my black square. I'm all, I'm in this, right? And then they started to realize, this is hard and this is challenging. And a refrain I would hear is I'm never, I can't get it right anyway, right? If I can't get it right, why bother? And I heard that from people like no matter what,
Tori, Etc (24:57.698)
Wow. Wow. Yeah.
Tori, Etc (25:03.544)
Mm-hmm.
Tori, Etc (25:24.401)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (25:26.178)
I'm going to get it wrong. I'm going to get called out. I'm going to be canceled, whatever. If I can't get it right, why bother? And I think it's exactly that. It's because you can't get it right. There isn't a right. It's a path. It's a journey. But you're right. Stick with it. And have you read My Grandmother's Hands, Resma Minicum? good, good, good. Well, it's really helpful in that journey in the somatic part of because, like you said, there can be all this stuff.
Tori, Etc (25:35.074)
Yeah, right.
Tori, Etc (25:41.228)
Yeah, yeah.
Tori, Etc (25:45.492)
No, I haven't. haven't. I just downloaded it. And yeah, I'm so yeah.
Tori, Etc (25:52.736)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (25:54.52)
that comes up like in your body and having something that helps you through that. And Resma's work, My Grandmother's Hand specifically addresses that of like, as you're beginning your anti-racism journey and talking to both sides of that, because it's a different experience for people who are black-bodied and have that experience of being on the oppressed side of that. And then there's also an experience for white-bodied people that doesn't always get talked about for good reason, because we don't want to center that in that experience. And...
Tori, Etc (26:14.306)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (26:22.88)
It is real that there is a lot of stuff that comes up as you go down the journey. And that is a beautiful resource on how to help yourself through it.
Tori, Etc (26:24.3)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mmm, that's great. Yeah, I'm excited to start that now. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (26:32.046)
Yeah, it's really good. Well, let's go back to this piece. I know everything we're talking about relates to the piece, but specifically with because I'm already like, oh, we're like halfway through it. I don't know that we really explained intersectionality or like what this is about. Obviously, you can read the piece. It's a little longer than some of the essays that we've done for the show. I think it's worth it. It's also very you can tell it's written by somebody with a doctorate. It's certainly a lot of like 25 cent words.
Tori, Etc (26:38.956)
Yeah.
Tori, Etc (26:45.399)
Mm-hmm.
Tori, Etc (26:58.242)
Yeah, yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (27:00.878)
for where you could have maybe used a dime. And that's OK, though. I understand why. But so it may be more complicated or tricky for people to read than sort of an essay written for a lay person. But I do think it's really valuable. But with your reading of it, I know you said that you had come into this 10 years ago-ish and starting to understand intersectionality. Did this rereading of it or your original rereading of it, what did it teach you about intersectionality? Or what are your thoughts?
Tori, Etc (27:11.842)
Sure, yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (27:28.27)
for people who maybe are like, don't know what you're talking about where you say black women don't exist. I see you, obviously you do. So like, what does that mean?
Tori, Etc (27:33.782)
Right. Yeah. So what Dr. Crenshaw does incredibly well, she was coming from a background of law, right? And I know that for folks who know Derek Bell, who was a professor at, I think, Harvard for a while and did a lot.
of did a lot of work around like the law and blackness and how that when you come into this space as a black person as you know as as a defendant as if you're you know if you as a plaintiff etc right if you're coming into this space like what how does the law treat black people and Dr. Bell and Dr. Crenshaw were both really sort of monumental people in this in this
field of examining how does the legal system in this country treat Black folks, not necessarily Black folks who were accused of a crime, right, but Black folks who had been harmed and were seeking some sort of legal redress in the court system. And so, yeah, just the two of them are people that, you know, it's just...
look up to so much. And you know, the work that they've done, again, it could have been written, all of it could have been written yesterday, right. But, but Kimberle Crenshaw really comes to this question of how does the how does the legal system treat black women? And she kind of began to explain and explore how we're treated differently in the legal system, right. And
she references at the beginning of this. Was it a talk originally? I think she gave it as a talk, but it was all written out, et cetera. I believe. I guess I could go look that up.
Becky Mollenkamp (29:28.618)
Well, it's interesting because you said it was, but then I don't know it
Yeah. Yeah, because it's, I think, I mean, where we're reading it from is from the University of Chicago Legal Forum 1989. So I think it may have originally been a talk that, she then put into, at some point she said something about this talk, but it's very well cited. So that's interesting for a talk, but yeah.
Tori, Etc (29:45.046)
got published, I think.
Tori, Etc (29:50.792)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, and you know, I know that scholars do that a lot is they'll like write out a piece and then give it as a talk or give a talk and then submit it as a piece. that makes sense. But there is, she references at the very beginning of this piece, this concept of all women are white, all black people are men.
But some of us are brave, I believe is what it's called. Yeah, and it was, it was, that was really striking, right? Because that is when you're going back and looking at, I'm obsessed with history, right? And so when you're going back and you're looking at US history, that is overwhelming. Like that is, that is the consensus, right? And so she's like, okay, where do I exist?
Becky Mollenkamp (30:21.304)
Yeah, it's a book or something, I think. A Black Women Studies book.
Tori, Etc (30:44.13)
Fair question, I would say, for anyone to ask if they don't see themselves represented. so, you know, kind of examining the legal system and like, how does the legal system treat black women? And there are like all of these kind of complicating factors and excuses that judges would give.
when ruling on these cases of like you're, you know, you're asking for too much to be seen as a black woman by the court system is acting for too much. you harmed as a woman or were you harmed because you were black? And it's like, whoa, okay. Yikes, how do we deal?
Becky Mollenkamp (31:19.288)
How do you separate that for yourself? How do I know, right?
Tori, Etc (31:22.164)
Well, and how, yeah, and like, why does the court get to make that delineation or distinction for me? Like, one of the quotes that I wrote down from it, from kind of the very beginning of the piece is, she said, because the intersectional experience is greater than the sum of racism and sexism, any analysis that does not take intersectionality into account cannot sufficiently address the particular manner in which Black women are subordinated, which is just like,
really perfectly sums it up, right? That it's like, you can be harmed as a woman or you can be harmed because you're black, right? And that was kind of what these judges were saying. And she examines, I think five specifically legal cases and is like, hey, let's look at these things very specifically and see how black women are treated. And...
Becky Mollenkamp (32:06.819)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (32:18.572)
because at the time, protect, you know, and still we have protected classes, right? That we, you can't discriminate against these protected classes and you can't discriminate based on sex, meaning someone who identifies as male or female. You can't discriminate on race. The, and there are other protected classes, disability and things like that. But, and her point is,
Tori, Etc (32:23.329)
Right.
Tori, Etc (32:30.314)
Mm-hmm.
Tori, Etc (32:38.37)
Sure. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (32:40.866)
You okay, so if I am, you as a black woman were to say, I've been discriminated against, right? Like you've seen, no, one of the examples was there were no black women being elevated into positions of management. And the point was, I can say that there's this discrimination happening, but how do I, how do I prove it? Because if I say I'm being discriminated as a class of, because of women, well, there were white women being elevated. So it's not sexism in theory, right? Because
Tori, Etc (33:06.464)
Mm-hmm. Right. Right.
Becky Mollenkamp (33:09.462)
women are being elevated. And if I say, it's because I'm a black woman, because I'm black, well, there's black men who've been promoted. So I can't claim it as racism, yet we can see it's clearly discrimination. There's a pattern happening, and yet it doesn't fit into the classifications that were given to judges. And so I think the judges obviously could have done better. And also the systems were designed in a way to almost to tie the judges' hands to some degree. Not that they couldn't change things, and certainly Supreme Court could.
Tori, Etc (33:15.426)
Yeah. Yep.
Tori, Etc (33:20.578)
Mm-hmm.
Tori, Etc (33:36.128)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (33:39.16)
But the point being like operating within the system as it existed, they weren't technically being discriminated against, even though they obviously were. And that is where she's like saying we have to examine where these overlapping pieces come up. Because like, as you said, then that just basically leaves black women saying, so do we do we not count? Do we not exist? this it's this gaslighting of what I'm seeing happening to me? You're telling me, is it?
Tori, Etc (33:49.847)
Right.
Tori, Etc (34:06.87)
That was honestly like gaslighting was the word that came to mind, you know, from the very beginning of this piece that it was like, yeah, I can't see where you're being discriminated against. And it's like, well, yes you can.
Becky Mollenkamp (34:23.648)
Right? Anyone looking at this can see.
Tori, Etc (34:25.892)
Right. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it's like, well, you know, it's like, and the, the, the allegations of, you know, that like black women bringing legal, legal cases about discrimination, we're just like making things up because they wanted to be treated better than everybody else in the system. Right.
Becky Mollenkamp (34:49.282)
Well, and that's where she got into, because I think, and I'm sure you have to, like even if before ever having read this, I do remember in college, like learning a little bit about this idea of intersectionality and that idea of here's these two street corners, right? Like here's race street and here's gender or sex street, depending on what terms people were using at the time. And where they overlap, if you got hit in the middle of those by a car,
Tori, Etc (35:02.381)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (35:12.504)
Well, did you get hit on race street or on sex street? Which street did you get hit on? I got hit on both. It was at the corner. And so if we can only say, well, you can only sue the driver if it was on one street or the other, you're now in the middle saying, well, I was still hit. And now what? So I had seen that and it makes so much sense. She brings that example into this. But the part that I hadn't really heard that I thought was so interesting was this idea of the trap door. She's like, if we examine oppression,
Tori, Etc (35:12.546)
Mm-hmm.
Tori, Etc (35:16.194)
Right.
Tori, Etc (35:24.791)
Right.
Tori, Etc (35:28.321)
rates.
Tori, Etc (35:39.394)
Mm.
Becky Mollenkamp (35:42.198)
as this idea of these like stacking oppressions and the people who have the most oppressions. So whoever is oppressed, whoever has one less oppression gets on the shoulders of the person who has more oppression. So like if I have all the oppressions, I'm down at the bottom. The person who has one less gets on my shoulders, one less gets on theirs and so on so on up to the place where we now hit the ceiling. And then above there are the people who don't have oppression, right? So white men, white able-bodied men, whatever.
Tori, Etc (35:54.904)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Tori, Etc (36:07.712)
Yeah, yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (36:08.694)
And what they said was basically the law, how it was set up then was, we'll say then what we want to help are the people who could have feasibly gotten to the next level if only they had been given this hand to pull them up to that next level. Well, that's only the person at the top of that human chain because then once that person's gone, we can't get to the next person. So the thing being then, the laws weren't designed to protect any of those people below them.
Tori, Etc (36:30.103)
Right.
Becky Mollenkamp (36:34.912)
ever. was only about, and I can't remember what term she used, but the sort of like lifting up into like the idea being you're only discriminated against if it's something you could have feasibly gotten. And what a fucked up way of describing discrimination is, well, only if you could have gotten it anyway. So if you were down at the bottom, you were never going to get that. So it wasn't discrimination. It's just you were never going to get it. Wow. And that really sort of cracked open my brain in a new
Tori, Etc (36:41.208)
Mm-hmm.
Tori, Etc (36:51.612)
huh.
Tori, Etc (36:58.006)
Right. Right.
Yeah, absolutely. One of the other quotes that kind of struck me along those lines, although I think she talks about it a little bit earlier, she says, the refusal to allow multiply, multiply, multiply? can't, I'm not sure how this is, multiply disadvantaged class, a multiply disadvantaged class to represent others who may be singularly disadvantaged defeats efforts to restructure the distribution of opportunity and limits remedial relief.
Becky Mollenkamp (37:16.792)
It was multiply,
Tori, Etc (37:29.804)
to minor adjustments within an established hierarchy, right? So right there along those lines of, well, we really have to police how much oppression you have and whether or not, yeah, you could feasibly reach this next level, or if you were just gonna be so disadvantaged and so discriminated against that you couldn't have possibly made it. So like, what difference does it make to the courts? Man, it's like our whole system was so...
Becky Mollenkamp (37:53.94)
Right. Right.
Tori, Etc (37:59.872)
was just, the whole system was based on dehumanization, like systemic dehumanization of almost everybody. And then it's like, and then they have the audacity, they call it the land of the free. What? Like.
Becky Mollenkamp (38:10.702)
8.
Becky Mollenkamp (38:16.148)
Right. Well, maybe it's the home of the brave, which goes back to the part you read about the all the women are white, all the black people are men. And then the rest, some of us are brave. Those are them. The home of the not free, but the brave. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. And it is so frustrating because it does feel like there's this within what she's saying to you. There is this little bit of, Hey, eventually
Tori, Etc (38:23.766)
Yeah. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (38:40.59)
The floor will lower the floor a little bit. So the trap door will get closer to the next person. So then we'll pull that next person up. So like in the idea of these people who are sitting up there saying, I'm not really sure what you're complaining about. It's all nice up here. I mean, we're going to get you up eventually. And look what it'll be once you get here. You'll get up eventually, because it goes back to this thing that's coming up again and again in this podcast when it comes to a lot of this sort of feminist thought, which is you'll get yours when we say you get yours.
Tori, Etc (38:57.256)
yeah.
Tori, Etc (39:10.272)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (39:10.382)
Calm down, hold on, it's coming. And there's this idea that you're supposed to be grateful that eventually it's coming. And what I love is he said somewhere towards the end, I think I wrote it down. I think it was the very end. She said, okay, so I'm gonna read the whole last paragraph. I think basically it was so good. It is somewhat ironic that those concerned with alleviating the ills of racism and sexism should adopt such a top-down approach to discrimination.
Tori, Etc (39:17.174)
Right.
Tori, Etc (39:23.938)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (39:33.366)
If their efforts instead began with addressing the needs and problems of those who are most disadvantaged and with restructuring and remaking the world where necessary, then others who are singularly disadvantaged would also benefit. In addition, it seems that placing those who currently are marginalized in the center is the most effective way to resist efforts to compartmentalize experiences that undermine political collective action. It is that idea that if...
Tori, Etc (39:46.284)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (39:58.464)
We instead of the people like us, everything being so hierarchical, including liberation movements, which remain this hierarchical thing like, well, no, we got to address this first, going back to the suffragettes, right? Okay, black women, we'll get to you too. But first us, obviously, right? And then, and then you, and it's continued in all the ways, I mean, to trans women now, right? And trans people now.
Tori, Etc (40:04.098)
Yeah.
Tori, Etc (40:15.052)
Yeah.
Tori, Etc (40:19.436)
Yep. Yep.
Becky Mollenkamp (40:20.738)
this experience of you're gonna get yours when we determine, when those of us with power who've now acquired power determine we will now help you get power, instead of saying the whole thing should have been turned upside down from the beginning to say, how do we get the power to the least? Because if we get the power to the quote unquote least, and please know I don't mean the least, but the people that have been viewed as the least, if we get the power there, everything else is taken care of, you know?
Tori, Etc (40:29.485)
Mm-hmm.
Tori, Etc (40:37.591)
Right.
Tori, Etc (40:44.224)
Yeah, yeah, everybody else's just basic needs are met. know, like I love that. And I think, you know, something that I've been really challenged by is, you know, I'm glad that you, I'm glad you brought up trans people and trans women. Like that's, that's incredibly important too, right? I have been again, trying to like train myself to think about this in terms of disabled folks and what their experiences are, right? And something, you know, something that's really
important to point out in these discussions is that when we make things, when things are accessible for disabled folks, they're better for everybody, right? And we forget about that, right? We forget about the, just the little things of like the difference that a ramp can make until you have to like, until you're rolling something along, right? And then it's like, wait a second, like this would be really helpful here, right? And so, yeah, absolutely thinking about things and like in trying to completely invert that, that.
pyramid structure, like the hierarchy is so essential to this work. you know, she very rightly and bravely calls out like the entire fucking legal system and goes like, wait a second, what, wait, so what are you all doing here? Exactly. Right? Because like functionally, you're policing our humanity by saying that we're not experiencing discrimination when we are. And, you know,
that whole thing of like, well, you've got to wait for the appropriate time and you've got to wait for your turn. And, you know, that's, that's a sentiment that like black people have heard for centuries at this point. wow. What, what, what timeline are we on? Cause it's not, it's not an individual lifetime. So like, who's, who's, who's time are we on? Right. And so, you know, and I, you know, I love that. I love that she really like kind of
Becky Mollenkamp (42:28.43)
Thank
Becky Mollenkamp (42:33.174)
Right? Time's wasted here. Yeah.
Tori, Etc (42:40.562)
zeroes in on that piece of things because, know, she, you know, within like the legal system that we have, you know, Black women are basically seen as such a complicated construction that like the framework that the founders came up with can't even deal with us, right? And if like that when she was talking about that, it made me think of
this really incredible woman. So I'm going to tell just a little bit of a story because I think it applies and it like US history is I'm kind of a nerd about that. But during during the Civil War, Jefferson Davis, who was the president of the Confederacy, was like freaking out and apoplectic because he was like, every time I say anything to any of my generals,
like the Union Army knows immediately. It's like there's a ghost in the room that is just taking this information and just delivering it to them. What like what is happening here? And it turned out that one, it turned out that like one of his wife's slaves had essentially like a photographic memory and could look at the maps that were on the table in the, he didn't consider her a human being, right?
and she was taking everything that they were saying in those meetings, planning, and giving it to the Union army, essentially. And he couldn't even fathom. Because it wasn't that he didn't see her as human, which he didn't, right? But his ability to conceptualize her as a human being was like...
just didn't exist and he couldn't figure it out. And he was trying to figure out like who, there's clearly a spy in the room and like, we started like having these really like shut down meetings, right? And he's just like, I can't figure out who it is. Like who on my team is actually on the other guy's team, right? And you know, it turned out that it was this woman who had been intentionally, became a slave again, had been emancipated and.
Becky Mollenkamp (44:37.624)
Mm-hmm.
Tori, Etc (45:04.822)
went undercover as an enslaved person to work for Jefferson Davis's wife and was hugely instrumental in helping the Union win the Civil War, right? And so it's really, that was what that made me think of when she's talking about this kind of the way that like the legal system is just like, can't conceptualize of you as a human person.
Becky Mollenkamp (45:08.589)
Wow.
Becky Mollenkamp (45:22.818)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (45:33.484)
Right?
Tori, Etc (45:33.78)
in the system because your identities are so beneath what I think of when I think of, you know, and like these judges, like just, judges in this country. just historically.
Becky Mollenkamp (45:45.336)
But she also gets into things like politics, talking about the Moynihan Papers. Anybody who doesn't know what the Moynihan Report was about, it's very well known from 1965, I think, somewhere back in there, where he was talking about the, I don't know what word he used, but basically the problem of single Black women-led households. Basically, the question that we continue to hear of like,
Tori, Etc (46:05.848)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (46:10.904)
Where are the black dads? Why are black dads not around? Why is this nuclear family not showing up in that way? And this one thing I thought was really interesting too, for me even, like knowing all of these things, she talks about rape as well and the ways that the differences in how rape is viewed amongst white women and black women. And just some of the questions she brought up that still, again, like it's easy for me to get into my like.
shame space of like, should know these things. But like, yeah, it's still there, right? Where I still have moments of going like, I hadn't thought of it in that way. Because, I mean, part of it is we are all white, like we are all just going to see the world through the eyes we look through. Like that is just natural and normal, because you can only see the world through the experience that you are living. And it's important for us to understand by listening and learning how our experience is different than others. The problem becomes when the
Tori, Etc (46:40.568)
Right.
Tori, Etc (46:44.194)
R.A.P.
Tori, Etc (46:49.911)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (47:03.874)
dominant voice, power, the voice that has power to be heard is then taking their experiencing, making it universal. And yet I find places where I do that because I remember I've had discussions with black women who I will talk about things like imposter syndrome or confidence issues where I'll say, well, women are conditioned to play small, to be small, to be, to placate others, whatever. And I've had black women call me in and correct me to say white women.
Tori, Etc (47:28.928)
Hmm.
Tori, Etc (47:32.813)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (47:32.864)
Yes, you're speaking about your experience and that is a fairly universal experience inside of white circles of white women that we are taught these certain things. She's like, and I've had women say to me that that may or may not be true for black women. Right. We may have a different conditioning. And some of the things that they she was talking about this piece around, you know, experiences of what a house, what a family should look like, you know, and and what rape, how we frame rape and things like that of chastity versus coercion and things like that. I would just have me again going
Tori, Etc (47:49.078)
Hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (48:02.816)
It is so easy to re-center your own experience if you aren't actively trying not to. And that's why I think it's really important for white women to read a piece like this on a regular basis to get that reminder of what it looks like when we continue to center ourselves.
Tori, Etc (48:07.48)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Tori, Etc (48:22.418)
yes. man, it, it's, it's super, I appreciate you saying that, right? Because there is, yeah, I think that we all have this default, right? Of looking through the lens that we've, we've been given from, from the, you know, the, the way, wherever we happen to be or whatever intersection we happen to be at, right? that we are, you know, we're handed this.
We're handed this lens and we're like, Hey, this is what you use. This is how you see the world. These are the experiences that we're going to give you to treat, to train you, right? To code you to see the world this way and to see your place in it as being X, Y, or Z, right? And you don't get to leave there. And so really, you know, I, and that's what I think I love about this piece is that it is kind of in a way it's kind of a ladder of like, here's how you combat.
those narratives, right? For me, at least, from my perspective, it feels like a hand up of like, here's how you combat these narratives when you are confronted with them at work, right? In the legal system, in society, in your community, that we can help each other, we can help build each other up, right? And we can, and we have to.
Right. And I think that this is especially in the moment that we are in now, right. And we like going back and looking at the ways that like where fascism has succeeded and where it has failed that we are actually much safer when we stick together instead of throwing people off of the bus, instead of turning our backs on marginalized identities and saying, we're not going to protect you. They can take you. That's a fair trade.
I keep myself safe, right? And so, yeah, I mean, I very strongly urge everyone listening to read this piece because I think in the moment that we are in, right, there is this safety of like protecting one another. Like that really does actually sincerely come back to you if we can stick together, right? We are all going to be safer. And I think that...
Becky Mollenkamp (50:20.302)
Yeah.
Tori, Etc (50:48.032)
Again, this is just my feeling and my perception reading it this time. And I'm sure that next time I read this piece, it'll be different, right? But that like, if we can continue to stick together to advocate for one another, to engage in like flocking behaviors, how I've heard people say it, that all of us will be safer from this machine that actually sees none of us as humans, right? And I know that like white women get elevated to this special spot of proximity to power.
right, because of closeness? Totally, yeah, yeah, absolutely. But like, that's still a lie, right? You're still being dehumanized. You're still, yes, you're still seen as disposable or exploitable or free labor or et cetera, et cetera, right? And so like, I really do sincerely believe that if we can all choose to...
Becky Mollenkamp (51:17.474)
We're the closest to the trap door.
Becky Mollenkamp (51:25.24)
Well, and you're still under the door, right? You're not up there, right?
Tori, Etc (51:44.736)
recognize the existential threat that white supremacy and cis hetero patriarchy are to all of us. And we're seeing that very acutely within the construct of fascism, right? That all of us will be safer. And if we can collaborate, we can actually build a world where all of us are treated as human, as fully human.
Becky Mollenkamp (52:10.2)
why I wish like, you know, the 50 whatever it is, 55 % of white women that vote for Trump, like if we could get that understanding. I just think that that trapdoor visual and read it because it was just so powerful to me anyway, is that exactly what you're saying of sure, we're the closest, we're the first ones that can get pulled up out of there, but also we're not in control of the door. They are, right? And they get to shut on us, shut it on us whenever they want. And who are we actually with? Everyone else who's under the door, not them.
Tori, Etc (52:19.478)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Tori, Etc (52:37.026)
Right, right.
Becky Mollenkamp (52:37.836)
Sure, if we fawn, if we do all the right things, if we show up and model perfect femininity, all the things we're supposed to do, they might yank us up. Yay, then we get to be up there. But they're also the first ones who can shove us back down or shut the door on us entirely. And that's why it's important for us to remember who are we actually in the fight with? And that's why I think it's so frustrating with white women who just keep getting lured by that possibility of being pulled up out of that basement or whatever, that cellar.
Tori, Etc (52:40.813)
Mm-hmm.
Tori, Etc (52:51.394)
Yeah.
Tori, Etc (52:56.097)
Aha.
Tori, Etc (53:03.928)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (53:06.55)
and not realizing like, we're in the cellar. And those people that we're in the cellar with, if we were fighting for them, we would be fighting for all of us. And then all of us would be there. And isn't that a beautiful thing? So I think if no other reason, read this piece just to read that part about that visual, because it's such a, like for me, was just such a powerful way. Because we've all seen the thing about the fence and equity and people having different amounts of steps that they're staring on or whatever, but.
Tori, Etc (53:16.652)
Yep. Yeah.
Tori, Etc (53:24.052)
Mm-hmm.
Tori, Etc (53:31.297)
Right.
Becky Mollenkamp (53:33.612)
The way she made it like this, it was just such a human experience that I don't know, it really touched me. Yeah, so you think people should read this? Who should read this?
Tori, Etc (53:38.072)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah.
Tori, Etc (53:46.04)
I would say anybody who is interested in, not retiring, not punching out from, the work, right? If you want to continue to work on yourself, if you aspire to see your community become a safer, healthier, stronger place, if you want, if you think that accessibility, right. And safety are for everyone. Yeah.
I would strongly recommend that you read this and maybe, you know, maybe add it to your rotation and read it every year or so.
Becky Mollenkamp (54:22.158)
And I'm curious because I think obviously folks who have more privileged identities, especially in the way I show up in the world as a white woman, I think we have a responsibility to read this and pieces like it on a regular basis. Again, like I said, to get that reminder. But I'm curious what you think, because I could also see where an argument might be made that you as a black woman live it so you don't need to read it. But then I also think, but.
Tori, Etc (54:33.461)
Mm. Yeah. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (54:45.74)
You still, like every one of us, regardless, like you still have places where you have privilege because you brought up ability, right, and disability. And if this is the kind of thing that helps with that reminder as well, then I could see it be valuable for everyone. But curious what you think.
Tori, Etc (54:59.65)
think that if we're looking at it through a racialized lens, I don't necessarily see it as me saying, all black women should read this. It's not necessarily, it's to see your own humanity, right? To have somebody standing and affirming your full humanity. And sometimes we need those reminders if we spend a lot of time, not everybody does.
But think most of us don't have much of a choice in spending time in spaces where our humanity is questioned or ignored. And so from that perspective, like from, if, if you are a black woman or a woman of color, right. Just more broadly that has reading things that, that, that where people, where someone is making that statement about your full humanity and your
inclusion, right, in the complexity of the human story where you have been systematically kind of ignored. To me, I think that's a good thing. I don't necessarily think that as Black women are like, everybody should read this so you can learn something. But I think that it's worth reading for that statement of we deserve full humanity and inclusion. And
reading something that is so clearly presented as to be an argument for inverting that hierarchy, like hell yeah, there's no downsides as far as I can tell.
Becky Mollenkamp (56:38.764)
Yeah, I love that. love, I just love anything that affirms, like helps people feel affirmed and validated. Like that's beautiful. So thank you for that. That's a great framing of it. And thank you for doing this with me, Tori. I hope you enjoyed reading it. Yeah. And I hope you enjoyed our conversation. I know I did.
Tori, Etc (56:46.477)
Yeah!
Tori, Etc (56:52.566)
Yeah, thanks for having me on.
Tori, Etc (56:56.984)
This is lovely. Thank you.