1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:13,760 Welcome to the We Are More podcast. 2 00:00:13,760 --> 00:00:15,640 My name is Alyssa. 3 00:00:15,640 --> 00:00:16,640 And my name is Bri. 4 00:00:16,640 --> 00:00:20,640 We are two sisters passionate about all things faith and feminism. 5 00:00:20,640 --> 00:00:25,520 We believe that Jesus trusted, respected, and encouraged women to teach and preach His 6 00:00:25,520 --> 00:00:26,520 word. 7 00:00:26,520 --> 00:00:28,720 And apparently that's controversial. 8 00:00:28,720 --> 00:00:36,200 Get comfy. 9 00:00:36,200 --> 00:00:42,000 Welcome to episode one of We Are More Sisters Talk Faith and Feminism. 10 00:00:42,000 --> 00:00:43,000 I am Brianna. 11 00:00:43,000 --> 00:00:44,880 And I'm Alyssa. 12 00:00:44,880 --> 00:00:46,880 We are, in fact, sisters. 13 00:00:46,880 --> 00:00:47,880 Yes. 14 00:00:47,880 --> 00:00:49,760 We're going to talk about faith and feminism. 15 00:00:49,760 --> 00:00:52,760 From the same womb. 16 00:00:52,760 --> 00:00:53,760 Yes. 17 00:00:53,760 --> 00:01:00,360 Today we wanted to talk a little bit about ourselves, which sounds a little self-centered, 18 00:01:00,360 --> 00:01:02,480 but you don't know us yet. 19 00:01:02,480 --> 00:01:03,480 That's true. 20 00:01:03,480 --> 00:01:05,280 But you don't know us yet. 21 00:01:05,280 --> 00:01:09,760 So we're going to tell our stories and why this is something we've become passionate 22 00:01:09,760 --> 00:01:10,760 about. 23 00:01:10,760 --> 00:01:17,160 And yeah, then you can kind of get to know where this is headed a little bit. 24 00:01:17,160 --> 00:01:18,160 Yeah. 25 00:01:18,160 --> 00:01:19,160 So go ahead. 26 00:01:19,160 --> 00:01:20,160 All right. 27 00:01:20,160 --> 00:01:21,160 Yeah. 28 00:01:21,160 --> 00:01:22,160 I'm going to start because Bri's being a wimp. 29 00:01:22,160 --> 00:01:26,280 So my name is Alyssa. 30 00:01:26,280 --> 00:01:33,680 And whenever I think about doing this introduction, because I rehearsed it in the shower and stuff, 31 00:01:33,680 --> 00:01:40,360 I always think about I'm going to introduce myself as Alyssa and I'm a mom and I'm a wife 32 00:01:40,360 --> 00:01:41,360 and blah, blah, blah. 33 00:01:41,360 --> 00:01:47,840 But Bri and I have been working through a book called The Making of Biblical Womanhood 34 00:01:47,840 --> 00:01:49,600 by Beth Allison Barr. 35 00:01:49,600 --> 00:01:54,200 And she actually talks about that, about how women, particularly in the ministry space, 36 00:01:54,200 --> 00:02:00,960 but kind of anywhere, define themselves by their relation to their husband and their 37 00:02:00,960 --> 00:02:01,960 children. 38 00:02:01,960 --> 00:02:09,760 So I'm not going to do that because I think I hold value on my own too. 39 00:02:09,760 --> 00:02:12,080 So I'm sure you'll hear about my family as time goes on. 40 00:02:12,080 --> 00:02:18,520 But I guess just sort of my, I'll start with my faith journey a little bit. 41 00:02:18,520 --> 00:02:24,880 Bri and I grew up in very conservative Baptist churches in a pretty conservative Baptist 42 00:02:24,880 --> 00:02:25,880 family. 43 00:02:25,880 --> 00:02:32,160 And when I say family, I mean like our whole family, like not just mom and dad. 44 00:02:32,160 --> 00:02:36,680 Like my big fat Greek wedding, like large family. 45 00:02:36,680 --> 00:02:38,800 Big family. 46 00:02:38,800 --> 00:02:44,000 And so we just, we grew up in that space and that impacted both of us. 47 00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:47,080 And I know Bri will talk about that as well. 48 00:02:47,080 --> 00:02:53,160 But the way that that really impacted me as a kid was just like not often in conservative 49 00:02:53,160 --> 00:02:58,560 spaces talked about as like this loving, wonderful being. 50 00:02:58,560 --> 00:03:01,600 He's more talked about as like authoritative. 51 00:03:01,600 --> 00:03:03,080 Yeah, authoritative. 52 00:03:03,080 --> 00:03:07,840 Like if you mess up, God's going to be mad. 53 00:03:07,840 --> 00:03:13,320 So from a very young age, I learned about God as like angry God. 54 00:03:13,320 --> 00:03:18,720 Like anything you do, anytime you step out of line, you're going to piss God right off. 55 00:03:18,720 --> 00:03:21,440 And good luck with that. 56 00:03:21,440 --> 00:03:23,480 Grandma listens. 57 00:03:23,480 --> 00:03:27,160 She's going to cry. 58 00:03:27,160 --> 00:03:28,160 She's going to cry anyway. 59 00:03:28,160 --> 00:03:29,160 Have you heard the topic? 60 00:03:29,160 --> 00:03:30,160 We put feminism in the title. 61 00:03:30,160 --> 00:03:39,360 But anyway, it was just, it was very much don't break the rules. 62 00:03:39,360 --> 00:03:46,640 That was kind of where my faith landed for a really long time in my life. 63 00:03:46,640 --> 00:03:52,240 And as we got older, you know, we went to maybe slightly less conservative churches. 64 00:03:52,240 --> 00:03:53,240 Still like non-denominational. 65 00:03:53,240 --> 00:03:54,240 Still very conservative. 66 00:03:54,240 --> 00:03:59,600 Yeah, but pushed the boundaries a little bit more. 67 00:03:59,600 --> 00:04:05,880 Bri and I went to public schools through high school, but then I ended up at a pretty small 68 00:04:05,880 --> 00:04:06,880 Christian school. 69 00:04:06,880 --> 00:04:11,720 So what some people would consider one of the more conservative Christian schools, not 70 00:04:11,720 --> 00:04:17,600 the most, but one of the more conservative Christian schools. 71 00:04:17,600 --> 00:04:20,420 I could wear pants. 72 00:04:20,420 --> 00:04:25,480 There were, boys were allowed in the girls dorms for like one hour a week with monitoring 73 00:04:25,480 --> 00:04:27,520 doors had to be open. 74 00:04:27,520 --> 00:04:36,960 But it was kind of there that I started to see God as more than just angry God. 75 00:04:36,960 --> 00:04:44,520 Like, Oh, Hey, we can talk about God as like being loving, like as wanting to have a relationship 76 00:04:44,520 --> 00:04:47,360 with me, whether I sin today or not. 77 00:04:47,360 --> 00:04:53,040 And that the goal for me isn't like be perfect or God will hate you. 78 00:04:53,040 --> 00:04:59,760 Just love God and love others and God will be right there with you. 79 00:04:59,760 --> 00:05:01,920 And so I kind of started to develop that. 80 00:05:01,920 --> 00:05:06,680 I had to take, I had to take a lot of Bible classes in college. 81 00:05:06,680 --> 00:05:13,200 And so like I learned a little bit more of the history of my faith and what, I don't 82 00:05:13,200 --> 00:05:18,320 know what I was not taught, I guess, when I was younger about God. 83 00:05:18,320 --> 00:05:25,680 So fast forwarding a little bit, I got married in between my junior and senior years of college, 84 00:05:25,680 --> 00:05:27,560 which yes is very, very young. 85 00:05:27,560 --> 00:05:28,560 You were a baby. 86 00:05:28,560 --> 00:05:30,200 I was a baby. 87 00:05:30,200 --> 00:05:35,720 But if you haven't been to a Christian college, they push marriage like you just would not 88 00:05:35,720 --> 00:05:36,720 believe. 89 00:05:36,720 --> 00:05:40,280 I feel like it's abnormal if you don't get married either in college or right out of 90 00:05:40,280 --> 00:05:41,280 college. 91 00:05:41,280 --> 00:05:42,280 It is almost. 92 00:05:42,280 --> 00:05:48,480 And so I like I remember the president of my college getting up in chapel one time we 93 00:05:48,480 --> 00:05:54,480 were required to go to chapel and saying like, look at all these beautiful Christian women 94 00:05:54,480 --> 00:05:56,400 out here, boys, what's wrong with you? 95 00:05:56,400 --> 00:05:59,520 How are all of you not married and blah, blah, blah? 96 00:05:59,520 --> 00:06:02,520 Did you look around and say where? 97 00:06:02,520 --> 00:06:04,520 I was beautiful. 98 00:06:04,520 --> 00:06:05,520 Thank you. 99 00:06:05,520 --> 00:06:11,800 But I mean, like he's saying this to like 18 year old kids. 100 00:06:11,800 --> 00:06:12,800 But I did get married. 101 00:06:12,800 --> 00:06:13,800 You did. 102 00:06:13,800 --> 00:06:14,800 I did do that. 103 00:06:14,800 --> 00:06:15,800 I listened to him. 104 00:06:15,800 --> 00:06:16,800 I did. 105 00:06:16,800 --> 00:06:20,760 I was 21, which yeah, very young. 106 00:06:20,760 --> 00:06:28,640 And so my husband and I, Nathan and I moved off campus and kind of like that's when things 107 00:06:28,640 --> 00:06:34,360 really shifted for me because I went from, you know, when you're a kid and your parents 108 00:06:34,360 --> 00:06:36,760 go to church, you got to go to church. 109 00:06:36,760 --> 00:06:38,640 What else are you going to do? 110 00:06:38,640 --> 00:06:39,640 You don't get left home alone. 111 00:06:39,640 --> 00:06:40,640 Pretend to be sick. 112 00:06:40,640 --> 00:06:41,640 You could pretend to be sick. 113 00:06:41,640 --> 00:06:42,640 We did that sometimes. 114 00:06:42,640 --> 00:06:47,360 But like for the most part, like you're stuck. 115 00:06:47,360 --> 00:06:49,580 You go in there whether you like it or not. 116 00:06:49,580 --> 00:06:54,560 And then when I went to college, like we literally were required to go to chapel and to church 117 00:06:54,560 --> 00:06:56,360 and they checked. 118 00:06:56,360 --> 00:07:00,640 Like if you didn't have so many chapel credits, you didn't graduate. 119 00:07:00,640 --> 00:07:01,640 You didn't get credits. 120 00:07:01,640 --> 00:07:02,640 Like it was... 121 00:07:02,640 --> 00:07:03,640 You nearly didn't. 122 00:07:03,640 --> 00:07:07,640 Yeah, I nearly didn't the last year. 123 00:07:07,640 --> 00:07:11,680 And then all of a sudden like we moved off campus and there's nobody monitoring this. 124 00:07:11,680 --> 00:07:13,940 Like nobody's making sure we go to church. 125 00:07:13,940 --> 00:07:17,680 So my faith definitely took a dip there. 126 00:07:17,680 --> 00:07:23,560 But Nathan is just, he's someone that he's the complete opposite of me. 127 00:07:23,560 --> 00:07:25,680 As you'll find out, I'm very like introverted. 128 00:07:25,680 --> 00:07:29,680 I very much like my own space and my own company. 129 00:07:29,680 --> 00:07:32,640 My husband is the most extroverted human alive. 130 00:07:32,640 --> 00:07:35,160 That's really rude of him. 131 00:07:35,160 --> 00:07:39,040 He will become friends with anyone he comes across. 132 00:07:39,040 --> 00:07:42,080 And so he wanted that like church community. 133 00:07:42,080 --> 00:07:45,240 So we wound up in a much bigger church than I had ever been to. 134 00:07:45,240 --> 00:07:49,160 And he got super involved really, really quickly. 135 00:07:49,160 --> 00:07:59,600 He was in the worship band and he was, I think, he was a small group leader in the youth group. 136 00:07:59,600 --> 00:08:01,800 Which was things that he had done growing up too. 137 00:08:01,800 --> 00:08:04,200 So this was right up his alley. 138 00:08:04,200 --> 00:08:12,560 But I started to like notice people really wanted to know him, but didn't care that I 139 00:08:12,560 --> 00:08:13,560 was there at all. 140 00:08:13,560 --> 00:08:17,560 Like people would come up and say hi to him and he'd introduce me and they'd be like, 141 00:08:17,560 --> 00:08:20,440 oh hey, and then turn immediately to Nathan and only talk to Nathan. 142 00:08:20,440 --> 00:08:21,440 Moving on. 143 00:08:21,440 --> 00:08:22,440 Yeah. 144 00:08:22,440 --> 00:08:25,240 Like I just was not important in that space at all. 145 00:08:25,240 --> 00:08:30,120 And so I, I, it wasn't a church I liked. 146 00:08:30,120 --> 00:08:36,000 And we struggled there after a while. 147 00:08:36,000 --> 00:08:39,840 I don't know how to say that without getting into like a lot of details. 148 00:08:39,840 --> 00:08:45,360 But after some time, Nathan had gotten close with someone that he was in the worship band 149 00:08:45,360 --> 00:08:49,460 with and they kind of bait and switched him. 150 00:08:49,460 --> 00:08:56,320 We were in a really bad financial position and essentially they offered him a job. 151 00:08:56,320 --> 00:09:01,440 And after he had worked towards that job for a while, was really counting on it. 152 00:09:01,440 --> 00:09:02,720 We had a baby on the way. 153 00:09:02,720 --> 00:09:05,400 It was right before Christmas. 154 00:09:05,400 --> 00:09:10,840 This person was like, yeah, no, I'm not going to give you this job. 155 00:09:10,840 --> 00:09:16,880 And I have never seen someone so broken ever in my life as when he came home and had to 156 00:09:16,880 --> 00:09:19,480 tell me that. 157 00:09:19,480 --> 00:09:25,640 And that was like, that could have been the end of my faith right there. 158 00:09:25,640 --> 00:09:27,520 I mean, I was done. 159 00:09:27,520 --> 00:09:28,520 I was out. 160 00:09:28,520 --> 00:09:31,360 I was never stepping foot in a church again. 161 00:09:31,360 --> 00:09:34,480 Cause I think it's something different. 162 00:09:34,480 --> 00:09:40,600 It hits different when people in a church who you're supposed to think like, oh, I can 163 00:09:40,600 --> 00:09:47,640 trust them and they are followers of Christ and then they hurt you. 164 00:09:47,640 --> 00:09:48,840 It hits different. 165 00:09:48,840 --> 00:09:50,000 It does. 166 00:09:50,000 --> 00:09:53,340 And this was someone too that was like a leader in the church. 167 00:09:53,340 --> 00:09:57,880 And so I'm sitting there going, okay, God, like you're letting this person lead the church. 168 00:09:57,880 --> 00:10:00,480 This person is probably still leading at that church. 169 00:10:00,480 --> 00:10:01,480 Smite them. 170 00:10:01,480 --> 00:10:02,480 Smite them. 171 00:10:02,480 --> 00:10:03,480 Really? 172 00:10:03,480 --> 00:10:04,480 Like that's what you want. 173 00:10:04,480 --> 00:10:07,480 You're like, I want some revenge. 174 00:10:07,480 --> 00:10:09,680 But that didn't happen. 175 00:10:09,680 --> 00:10:12,200 And so we spent a couple of years completely out of church. 176 00:10:12,200 --> 00:10:13,840 I was just done. 177 00:10:13,840 --> 00:10:19,280 Eventually we moved back over kind of near my family, near Bree, cause she had left me 178 00:10:19,280 --> 00:10:20,280 at that point. 179 00:10:20,280 --> 00:10:22,840 She was living with us for a while and then left me. 180 00:10:22,840 --> 00:10:23,840 So sorry for your loss. 181 00:10:23,840 --> 00:10:24,840 It must have been devastating. 182 00:10:24,840 --> 00:10:25,840 It was. 183 00:10:25,840 --> 00:10:30,840 I have a picture of us holding hands. 184 00:10:30,840 --> 00:10:34,880 Very depressing. 185 00:10:34,880 --> 00:10:36,520 And so we moved back over here. 186 00:10:36,520 --> 00:10:39,800 We had a little girl at that point. 187 00:10:39,800 --> 00:10:42,800 She was three or four when we moved. 188 00:10:42,800 --> 00:10:50,040 And I got it in my head that like, God, I believed God existed, but I did not believe 189 00:10:50,040 --> 00:10:51,040 God was good. 190 00:10:51,040 --> 00:10:56,480 Like I sincerely believed that God played favorites and that the Bible was essentially 191 00:10:56,480 --> 00:10:57,480 like propaganda. 192 00:10:57,480 --> 00:10:58,480 Yeah. 193 00:10:58,480 --> 00:11:01,600 Like are you on the nice list or the naughty list? 194 00:11:01,600 --> 00:11:02,600 Exactly. 195 00:11:02,600 --> 00:11:05,680 And that I was not, I was not on God's favorites list. 196 00:11:05,680 --> 00:11:08,680 I thought that. 197 00:11:08,680 --> 00:11:14,720 But I thought at least my daughter could be on God's favorites list if nothing else. 198 00:11:14,720 --> 00:11:16,800 What do I have to do to get her there? 199 00:11:16,800 --> 00:11:23,680 So we started going to this really big, well-known church in our area. 200 00:11:23,680 --> 00:11:25,440 Just because it was honestly somewhere to get lost. 201 00:11:25,440 --> 00:11:27,680 It was the easiest place to go. 202 00:11:27,680 --> 00:11:28,680 I didn't have to talk to anybody. 203 00:11:28,680 --> 00:11:31,280 I didn't have to get to know anybody. 204 00:11:31,280 --> 00:11:33,680 Small churches are hard. 205 00:11:33,680 --> 00:11:35,800 You go in and people ask you questions. 206 00:11:35,800 --> 00:11:37,840 They want to know you. 207 00:11:37,840 --> 00:11:38,840 They want to know you. 208 00:11:38,840 --> 00:11:40,560 They want to know people. 209 00:11:40,560 --> 00:11:44,280 Big churches, you can sit in the back row and no one's going to talk to you. 210 00:11:44,280 --> 00:11:48,720 And that's what I do think like big churches for all the crap they get. 211 00:11:48,720 --> 00:11:51,600 I think they have their place. 212 00:11:51,600 --> 00:11:54,080 For me, it's just a little harder to grow there. 213 00:11:54,080 --> 00:11:56,440 But anyway, so we went there. 214 00:11:56,440 --> 00:11:59,240 We got so involved. 215 00:11:59,240 --> 00:12:01,480 Like, you know, you drank the kool-aid. 216 00:12:01,480 --> 00:12:02,480 We did. 217 00:12:02,480 --> 00:12:04,520 And it was really good for a while. 218 00:12:04,520 --> 00:12:08,560 Like we had a really good community for a minute. 219 00:12:08,560 --> 00:12:10,120 And I mean, we volunteered. 220 00:12:10,120 --> 00:12:11,740 We were in a small group. 221 00:12:11,740 --> 00:12:13,520 And this was, like I said, I'm an introvert. 222 00:12:13,520 --> 00:12:16,600 So this was like weird, weird for me. 223 00:12:16,600 --> 00:12:19,280 Nathan was once again in the worship band. 224 00:12:19,280 --> 00:12:21,600 We were helping out in kids church. 225 00:12:21,600 --> 00:12:25,000 Like, I mean, we were, I think we were there more than we were home. 226 00:12:25,000 --> 00:12:27,520 We were there all the time. 227 00:12:27,520 --> 00:12:30,080 And we live like half an hour away. 228 00:12:30,080 --> 00:12:32,040 So it was a commitment. 229 00:12:32,040 --> 00:12:35,560 But I did, I saw God a lot at that time of my life. 230 00:12:35,560 --> 00:12:42,040 I felt like I was growing a lot and just, I don't know, trying to trust again and in 231 00:12:42,040 --> 00:12:48,960 a different way and recognizing that God can fix situations and work through things that 232 00:12:48,960 --> 00:12:51,760 we had dealt with up until that point. 233 00:12:51,760 --> 00:12:54,560 But I have a lot of church hurt in my life. 234 00:12:54,560 --> 00:12:57,760 And that kept right on. 235 00:12:57,760 --> 00:13:03,760 You may find as we go on that it is a miracle that I'm still in church. 236 00:13:03,760 --> 00:13:11,100 Because of what, maybe two years after we started going there, it all happened again. 237 00:13:11,100 --> 00:13:14,080 And I'm sure we'll get into more details on that story eventually. 238 00:13:14,080 --> 00:13:17,760 It's not something I'm quite ready to share about. 239 00:13:17,760 --> 00:13:24,400 But I started actually working for that church, like as an employee. 240 00:13:24,400 --> 00:13:30,800 And a situation happened that made it very difficult for us to attend anymore. 241 00:13:30,800 --> 00:13:34,360 Something with someone that, again, we trusted. 242 00:13:34,360 --> 00:13:39,000 And I went to the proper people to talk about it and nobody wanted to hear me and nobody 243 00:13:39,000 --> 00:13:40,000 wanted to fix it. 244 00:13:40,000 --> 00:13:42,560 They wanted to put it on you. 245 00:13:42,560 --> 00:13:43,560 Exactly. 246 00:13:43,560 --> 00:13:46,680 So I felt very unsafe in that situation. 247 00:13:46,680 --> 00:13:51,480 So despite being employed by the church, I was no longer actually attending the church. 248 00:13:51,480 --> 00:13:53,960 You're so sneaky. 249 00:13:53,960 --> 00:13:58,480 Which was, interestingly, part of my contract. 250 00:13:58,480 --> 00:14:02,960 So the end of the year came around and you know, it's a big church so nobody noticed. 251 00:14:02,960 --> 00:14:03,960 That was kind of the bummer. 252 00:14:03,960 --> 00:14:07,240 It was nobody as involved as we were. 253 00:14:07,240 --> 00:14:11,680 We stopped attending right after I had my son. 254 00:14:11,680 --> 00:14:18,800 And it was like a good eight months before anybody noticed we didn't come back. 255 00:14:18,800 --> 00:14:21,280 And that was pretty heartbreaking. 256 00:14:21,280 --> 00:14:28,880 Yeah, because people who you have like almost become family to you and then all of a sudden 257 00:14:28,880 --> 00:14:32,120 they don't see you and they don't notice. 258 00:14:32,120 --> 00:14:34,560 I think big churches, that's just the attitude. 259 00:14:34,560 --> 00:14:36,680 Like people come and go and... 260 00:14:36,680 --> 00:14:38,680 No one's going to check in on you. 261 00:14:38,680 --> 00:14:43,440 So once someone finally did notice that we weren't attending... 262 00:14:43,440 --> 00:14:44,440 Really rude. 263 00:14:44,440 --> 00:14:45,960 Yeah, it was rude. 264 00:14:45,960 --> 00:14:53,720 I got a sit down chat with my boss who honestly is a lovely person. 265 00:14:53,720 --> 00:14:56,760 But he had to sit me down and say like, hey, this is in your contract. 266 00:14:56,760 --> 00:14:57,760 You have to be here. 267 00:14:57,760 --> 00:15:00,800 And I was like, I just, I explained it to him. 268 00:15:00,800 --> 00:15:04,400 But at that point there was just nothing the church was willing to do. 269 00:15:04,400 --> 00:15:08,120 And additionally, the church was going through a lot of financial issues. 270 00:15:08,120 --> 00:15:13,200 So we were headed into like three rounds of layoffs. 271 00:15:13,200 --> 00:15:17,680 And I was an easy target because here they had all these problems with me now. 272 00:15:17,680 --> 00:15:22,360 So I got laid off and I lost my church. 273 00:15:22,360 --> 00:15:23,360 I lost my family. 274 00:15:23,360 --> 00:15:24,360 I lost my job. 275 00:15:24,360 --> 00:15:25,360 I lost everything. 276 00:15:25,360 --> 00:15:27,360 All in one swoop. 277 00:15:27,360 --> 00:15:30,600 Yeah, from something that wasn't my fault at all. 278 00:15:30,600 --> 00:15:35,800 And it took me a while to feel like it wasn't my fault because if God's going to let that 279 00:15:35,800 --> 00:15:39,760 happen it's got to be my fault. 280 00:15:39,760 --> 00:15:44,280 So we, this was a shorter time away from church. 281 00:15:44,280 --> 00:15:47,720 We spent a few months just out of church entirely. 282 00:15:47,720 --> 00:15:51,520 But I really started to realize that like that wasn't working for me. 283 00:15:51,520 --> 00:15:56,240 Like, all right, every time you get mad at somebody, you can't just like say, forget 284 00:15:56,240 --> 00:15:59,720 you God, I'm done. 285 00:15:59,720 --> 00:16:02,680 So we tried a couple more churches. 286 00:16:02,680 --> 00:16:04,760 And that's kind of where we're at now. 287 00:16:04,760 --> 00:16:07,960 I don't know that we're really settled anywhere specific. 288 00:16:07,960 --> 00:16:11,760 We've we've found a place we've been attending for a while. 289 00:16:11,760 --> 00:16:13,080 We're semi happy with it. 290 00:16:13,080 --> 00:16:18,440 We have some doctrinal differences specifically related to feminism that we'll talk about 291 00:16:18,440 --> 00:16:20,160 in a little while. 292 00:16:20,160 --> 00:16:24,560 But that's kind of like my faith journey and where I am. 293 00:16:24,560 --> 00:16:30,040 I'm just getting to know God in a different way now and a God that loves me and a God 294 00:16:30,040 --> 00:16:37,680 that is still gonna hang on and chase me even when I run away 5000 times. 295 00:16:37,680 --> 00:16:38,680 And you're a runner. 296 00:16:38,680 --> 00:16:39,680 I am quite a runner. 297 00:16:39,680 --> 00:16:46,840 Not like literally, but no, if I tried to really run, I would probably die. 298 00:16:46,840 --> 00:16:49,840 All right, your turn. 299 00:16:49,840 --> 00:16:55,960 Um, I think jumping off of what you said from the beginning, like people always like a lot 300 00:16:55,960 --> 00:17:02,080 of women introduce themselves based on their kids and their husbands. 301 00:17:02,080 --> 00:17:04,640 And it's different when you don't have that. 302 00:17:04,640 --> 00:17:08,520 And you almost feel like you don't have value right from the jump. 303 00:17:08,520 --> 00:17:11,440 When you introduce yourself like, oh, my name is Brianna. 304 00:17:11,440 --> 00:17:15,360 I'm single and alone. 305 00:17:15,360 --> 00:17:17,720 I'm childless. 306 00:17:17,720 --> 00:17:19,960 And then people ask like, what do you do with your time? 307 00:17:19,960 --> 00:17:20,960 Well, I work. 308 00:17:20,960 --> 00:17:23,000 You don't take care of my kids. 309 00:17:23,000 --> 00:17:32,360 But yeah, we grew up in very conservative spaces where the goal was always marriage for 310 00:17:32,360 --> 00:17:37,640 women and that's where I feel like most of the value is placed on women in my life and 311 00:17:37,640 --> 00:17:39,060 surrounding me. 312 00:17:39,060 --> 00:17:47,300 And to not have that is harder, I would say to build up your own confidence and make yourself 313 00:17:47,300 --> 00:17:51,200 seem valuable just for who you are. 314 00:17:51,200 --> 00:17:55,520 And so I went through a lot of times, like I didn't get married in college. 315 00:17:55,520 --> 00:17:59,640 I didn't really date that much in college. 316 00:17:59,640 --> 00:18:03,760 When I also went to a small Christian school. 317 00:18:03,760 --> 00:18:07,960 Yours was a lot bigger than mine. 318 00:18:07,960 --> 00:18:13,800 But just I've been on this journey of like finding my faith for myself because you're 319 00:18:13,800 --> 00:18:14,800 right. 320 00:18:14,800 --> 00:18:19,120 And we just, it was something that we always did. 321 00:18:19,120 --> 00:18:24,920 We had to go to church and I remember counting the tiles on the ceiling and I remember making 322 00:18:24,920 --> 00:18:27,920 up stories in my head. 323 00:18:27,920 --> 00:18:34,200 I never made my faith my own until probably I went to college and I had to. 324 00:18:34,200 --> 00:18:38,920 And you go through those areas of depression and you're wondering if God really exists. 325 00:18:38,920 --> 00:18:42,540 And at my school, actually, we weren't required to go to chapel. 326 00:18:42,540 --> 00:18:44,960 So that was an easy out for me. 327 00:18:44,960 --> 00:18:49,320 How many times did you go to chapel? 328 00:18:49,320 --> 00:18:53,280 We would go to church sometimes on Sundays, but not regularly. 329 00:18:53,280 --> 00:18:57,960 You know, you're out hitting the bars on Saturday and going to church on Sunday. 330 00:18:57,960 --> 00:18:59,480 That was the life. 331 00:18:59,480 --> 00:19:01,520 Or sleeping in on Sunday. 332 00:19:01,520 --> 00:19:02,520 Yeah. 333 00:19:02,520 --> 00:19:03,960 Hungover on Sunday. 334 00:19:03,960 --> 00:19:08,960 The trick was at my school, because my school required that you go to church, you turn off 335 00:19:08,960 --> 00:19:12,880 all the lights, you turn off anything that makes sound and you hide under your blanket 336 00:19:12,880 --> 00:19:16,160 so if they look, it doesn't look like anybody's in your room. 337 00:19:16,160 --> 00:19:17,160 Geez. 338 00:19:17,160 --> 00:19:18,160 I know. 339 00:19:18,160 --> 00:19:21,160 So that's what I did for smoke alarms. 340 00:19:21,160 --> 00:19:22,160 Safety. 341 00:19:22,160 --> 00:19:23,160 Safety. 342 00:19:23,160 --> 00:19:28,120 Don't come for me college. 343 00:19:28,120 --> 00:19:35,720 But yeah, right now I've been on this journey of, especially with the book that we're reading, 344 00:19:35,720 --> 00:19:42,440 I feel like I didn't realize that I wasn't feeling the love of God until I experienced 345 00:19:42,440 --> 00:19:46,120 the love of God, if that makes sense. 346 00:19:46,120 --> 00:19:53,600 Because I felt like so much value is placed on having kids and being married and all of 347 00:19:53,600 --> 00:20:01,640 these rules that are placed on women that I was not following and I did not embody. 348 00:20:01,640 --> 00:20:08,600 And it's been like this slow burn of learning about feminism and learning about God and 349 00:20:08,600 --> 00:20:13,920 who he really is and what he really wants for me and that he loves me just because I'm 350 00:20:13,920 --> 00:20:14,920 me. 351 00:20:14,920 --> 00:20:17,920 So yeah, that's been my journey so far. 352 00:20:17,920 --> 00:20:23,880 I know that mine's a lot shorter than yours. 353 00:20:23,880 --> 00:20:25,880 I don't have a lot of milestones. 354 00:20:25,880 --> 00:20:28,800 I feel like mine was too long. 355 00:20:28,800 --> 00:20:33,560 I went to a Baptist church and I went to a non-denominational church and then I went 356 00:20:33,560 --> 00:20:34,560 to school. 357 00:20:34,560 --> 00:20:39,560 So let's talk about our feminist journeys now. 358 00:20:39,560 --> 00:20:40,560 Yeah? 359 00:20:40,560 --> 00:20:41,560 Yeah. 360 00:20:41,560 --> 00:20:42,560 Okay. 361 00:20:42,560 --> 00:20:43,560 I'm a woman. 362 00:20:43,560 --> 00:20:44,560 Good. 363 00:20:44,560 --> 00:20:45,560 Thank you for that information. 364 00:20:45,560 --> 00:20:51,520 Alyssa and I have been learning about feminism for a while and it's kind of a topic that 365 00:20:51,520 --> 00:20:56,720 Alyssa brought up to me because honestly, I didn't really ever think about it. 366 00:20:56,720 --> 00:21:04,360 I was just like, yeah, I guess if I get married along the road, the man is the head of the 367 00:21:04,360 --> 00:21:08,880 household and that's probably why I am not married currently. 368 00:21:08,880 --> 00:21:15,720 It feels like it's going to be this natural thing that just happens that even though you're 369 00:21:15,720 --> 00:21:19,360 independent and strong, you're going to get married and you're just, it's fine. 370 00:21:19,360 --> 00:21:21,640 You don't need to be independent or strong anymore. 371 00:21:21,640 --> 00:21:24,240 You'll be fine. 372 00:21:24,240 --> 00:21:27,080 It's a lie. 373 00:21:27,080 --> 00:21:29,960 As Miley Cyrus says, I can't be tamed. 374 00:21:29,960 --> 00:21:30,960 That's true. 375 00:21:30,960 --> 00:21:34,040 Neither can my hair today. 376 00:21:34,040 --> 00:21:35,040 Yeah. 377 00:21:35,040 --> 00:21:41,960 But slowly learning about this and realizing maybe all these things that we were learning 378 00:21:41,960 --> 00:21:48,600 about when we were kids about women and what God thinks about women, maybe we're reading 379 00:21:48,600 --> 00:21:50,560 it wrong. 380 00:21:50,560 --> 00:21:55,480 And I was thinking about subliminal messaging for Christians. 381 00:21:55,480 --> 00:21:58,320 The other day I had this epiphany. 382 00:21:58,320 --> 00:22:00,120 She wrote it down. 383 00:22:00,120 --> 00:22:01,120 I did. 384 00:22:01,120 --> 00:22:04,520 Back in the day when I was in high school, it was really popular to watch these videos 385 00:22:04,520 --> 00:22:10,040 and all of a sudden a bottle of Coke would flash on the screen and all of a sudden you'd 386 00:22:10,040 --> 00:22:14,840 be like, oh, I really want some Coke and I don't know why. 387 00:22:14,840 --> 00:22:18,760 I think in some ways the church does that to women. 388 00:22:18,760 --> 00:22:24,240 You don't see a lot of female pastors or women of the Bible being talked about except for 389 00:22:24,240 --> 00:22:25,960 maybe on Mother's Day. 390 00:22:25,960 --> 00:22:26,960 Almost mother. 391 00:22:26,960 --> 00:22:27,960 Yeah. 392 00:22:27,960 --> 00:22:30,440 Value is placed on women as mothers and wives. 393 00:22:30,440 --> 00:22:35,680 And so you don't think about how important women are. 394 00:22:35,680 --> 00:22:38,960 It's like their background characters. 395 00:22:38,960 --> 00:22:39,960 Yeah. 396 00:22:39,960 --> 00:22:44,920 And it's like you don't even think about it because they're just not showing you that 397 00:22:44,920 --> 00:22:45,920 aspect. 398 00:22:45,920 --> 00:22:50,240 I think it's major indoctrination too. 399 00:22:50,240 --> 00:22:57,360 For me, I remember in junior church, and if you're not a churchy person, junior church 400 00:22:57,360 --> 00:23:02,200 was back in the day, I don't think they do it anymore. 401 00:23:02,200 --> 00:23:09,920 It was when the adults would go to main service, the younger kids had their main service. 402 00:23:09,920 --> 00:23:13,120 You went to Sunday school and then you went to junior church and it was your main service. 403 00:23:13,120 --> 00:23:19,840 I remember them talking about, well, your dad is the head of your household and he's 404 00:23:19,840 --> 00:23:22,320 the leader and he's the spiritual leader. 405 00:23:22,320 --> 00:23:27,080 And when you get married, your husband will be the spiritual leader and he will guide 406 00:23:27,080 --> 00:23:28,680 you and show you God's love. 407 00:23:28,680 --> 00:23:30,320 And they make it sound like a nice thing. 408 00:23:30,320 --> 00:23:31,320 Why? 409 00:23:31,320 --> 00:23:33,360 I mean, yeah, but I was like six. 410 00:23:33,360 --> 00:23:37,680 And I think about that, these little girls at six. 411 00:23:37,680 --> 00:23:38,680 That they're not very important. 412 00:23:38,680 --> 00:23:44,040 Well, I think it comes down to, and I saw this in many aspects of my life, but I think 413 00:23:44,040 --> 00:23:51,520 it comes down to like, if you tamp these girls down early, if you squish them so much that 414 00:23:51,520 --> 00:23:56,480 they think, yeah, I really don't have any value outside of my husband or outside of 415 00:23:56,480 --> 00:24:04,740 how clean my house is or how good of a cook I am or whatever, they're less likely to rebel. 416 00:24:04,740 --> 00:24:07,040 Or that's the theory. 417 00:24:07,040 --> 00:24:13,920 And if you let them get to sixth grade or something like that, thinking, well, I'm an 418 00:24:13,920 --> 00:24:17,160 independent woman and I can do whatever I want. 419 00:24:17,160 --> 00:24:19,760 And then you try and squish it. 420 00:24:19,760 --> 00:24:21,280 That's a lot more difficult. 421 00:24:21,280 --> 00:24:23,440 So let's get them when they're young. 422 00:24:23,440 --> 00:24:26,040 Let's indoctrinate them from the start. 423 00:24:26,040 --> 00:24:27,180 And then maybe they won't rise up. 424 00:24:27,180 --> 00:24:33,720 I remember it was always when we were growing up so taboo that you specifically, you always 425 00:24:33,720 --> 00:24:34,960 said, I don't want kids. 426 00:24:34,960 --> 00:24:37,240 I want to be a career woman. 427 00:24:37,240 --> 00:24:40,280 And that was very unheard of. 428 00:24:40,280 --> 00:24:43,880 To this day, I get crap about that. 429 00:24:43,880 --> 00:24:51,200 I mean, I was a very outspoken, independent child. 430 00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:54,440 I did not fit the quiet. 431 00:24:54,440 --> 00:25:00,040 I've said I'm very introverted, but when I'm around my family specifically, I'm not so 432 00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:01,720 much that way. 433 00:25:01,720 --> 00:25:06,960 And so I'll be very outspoken about opinions and I'll I have all these political thoughts 434 00:25:06,960 --> 00:25:08,520 and thoughts about religion and whatever. 435 00:25:08,520 --> 00:25:09,520 And I would say these things. 436 00:25:09,520 --> 00:25:15,040 And I remember people in my life, women in my life would tell me things like, well, you 437 00:25:15,040 --> 00:25:20,960 need to not be so vocal about that stuff because your husband might not like that opinion someday. 438 00:25:20,960 --> 00:25:24,920 Now, mind you, I'm like 10. 439 00:25:24,920 --> 00:25:27,120 Nowhere near a husband, but he might not like it. 440 00:25:27,120 --> 00:25:30,760 I'm not really in the business of being a child bride. 441 00:25:30,760 --> 00:25:35,080 But even like all the way up into college and even after I get married, like that was 442 00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:39,440 just always the question is like, well, how's your future husband going to feel like that 443 00:25:39,440 --> 00:25:40,440 when I got a new piercing? 444 00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:43,480 How's your future husband going to feel like that? 445 00:25:43,480 --> 00:25:46,620 So now like my body, my body doesn't belong to me either. 446 00:25:46,620 --> 00:25:48,920 Not just my thoughts, but like my body doesn't belong to me. 447 00:25:48,920 --> 00:25:51,400 It belongs to someone I haven't met. 448 00:25:51,400 --> 00:25:56,980 So I always like I, I, the reason I said I wasn't going to get married or have kids was 449 00:25:56,980 --> 00:26:02,440 because I saw God asking submission of married women and that's what I believed. 450 00:26:02,440 --> 00:26:07,400 It's what I was raised to believe and I knew I couldn't do it. 451 00:26:07,400 --> 00:26:08,660 I knew I couldn't do it. 452 00:26:08,660 --> 00:26:11,080 So I said, all right, well, God's not asking that of single women. 453 00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:14,960 So I'll trick the system, just not get married. 454 00:26:14,960 --> 00:26:19,600 But then, you know, I got married when I was 21. 455 00:26:19,600 --> 00:26:25,880 And then, you know, junior year, Nathan proposed and here we are. 456 00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:28,560 I remember people saying stuff like that when I was in college too. 457 00:26:28,560 --> 00:26:33,840 Like you don't actually have to major in anything of importance because you aren't going to 458 00:26:33,840 --> 00:26:34,840 work for much longer. 459 00:26:34,840 --> 00:26:38,840 Like you're just going to get married and birth all the babies. 460 00:26:38,840 --> 00:26:44,480 Well our mom, she went to the same college that I went to and she picked a major for 461 00:26:44,480 --> 00:26:48,280 no particular reason because she had zero intention of finishing college. 462 00:26:48,280 --> 00:26:54,720 Because that's just how, how women were raised to be, you know, like, well, your goal is 463 00:26:54,720 --> 00:26:56,040 to be a stay at home mom anyway. 464 00:26:56,040 --> 00:26:59,200 And there's nothing wrong with being a stay at home mom. 465 00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:04,280 But the fact that like, that's just, that's what you're supposed to do. 466 00:27:04,280 --> 00:27:06,600 If you do anything else, it's a little shameful. 467 00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:10,920 I think the danger is saying like, and we were told this too, like, isn't that something 468 00:27:10,920 --> 00:27:11,920 that you want? 469 00:27:11,920 --> 00:27:12,920 You want to be taken care of? 470 00:27:12,920 --> 00:27:13,920 You want to blah, blah, blah. 471 00:27:13,920 --> 00:27:14,920 As a woman. 472 00:27:14,920 --> 00:27:16,920 As a woman, don't you want that? 473 00:27:16,920 --> 00:27:19,520 And it's like, well, maybe some women do. 474 00:27:19,520 --> 00:27:20,520 And that's fine. 475 00:27:20,520 --> 00:27:21,520 And that's fine. 476 00:27:21,520 --> 00:27:28,280 But saying that of all women and saying that that's what God wants for you is very dangerous. 477 00:27:28,280 --> 00:27:32,760 That's the big thing I think is assigning, and we'll go into this in future episodes 478 00:27:32,760 --> 00:27:43,000 too, but assigning God to your own thoughts and feelings and saying, well, God says this. 479 00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:47,700 And I hate to tell you guys, but there is nowhere in the Bible where God says the proper 480 00:27:47,700 --> 00:27:49,080 woman is a wife and mom. 481 00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:50,300 And that's it. 482 00:27:50,300 --> 00:27:52,880 Because you think about the women in the Bible and they are not. 483 00:27:52,880 --> 00:27:53,880 They are not. 484 00:27:53,880 --> 00:27:57,280 They are so strong and incredible. 485 00:27:57,280 --> 00:27:58,280 Pushing boundaries. 486 00:27:58,280 --> 00:27:59,280 Yeah. 487 00:27:59,280 --> 00:28:05,200 Funding Jesus's ministries despite their husbands not wanting it. 488 00:28:05,200 --> 00:28:06,760 And those are stories that you don't get to hear. 489 00:28:06,760 --> 00:28:12,600 And I think that's a big part of what we'll explore as we move forward and in future episodes. 490 00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:13,600 Yeah. 491 00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:18,240 I mean, I couldn't tell you how many sermons I've heard on Paul, but I have yet to hear 492 00:28:18,240 --> 00:28:19,560 a sermon on Phoebe. 493 00:28:19,560 --> 00:28:20,560 Yeah. 494 00:28:20,560 --> 00:28:21,560 Not ever. 495 00:28:21,560 --> 00:28:28,440 And honestly, let's forget about the women that are only talked about for a short period. 496 00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:32,800 What about Esther and Ruth who have entire books named after them? 497 00:28:32,800 --> 00:28:33,800 Or Mary? 498 00:28:33,800 --> 00:28:37,240 Have you ever heard a whole sermon preached on Mary? 499 00:28:37,240 --> 00:28:40,000 Maybe once on Mother's Day. 500 00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:43,840 And how many sermons do you hear preached on Esther or Ruth? 501 00:28:43,840 --> 00:28:45,880 It's every so often. 502 00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:49,960 But it's like maybe we throw it in as a token once or twice a year. 503 00:28:49,960 --> 00:28:56,440 And I think that's again, subliminal messaging and gaslighting women into thinking you're 504 00:28:56,440 --> 00:28:57,840 not part of this story. 505 00:28:57,840 --> 00:28:58,840 Right. 506 00:28:58,840 --> 00:29:01,120 You're not worthy of this. 507 00:29:01,120 --> 00:29:06,080 So I think this podcast is going to be really exciting because we're learning too. 508 00:29:06,080 --> 00:29:09,440 This is like a never ending journey, just like the songs. 509 00:29:09,440 --> 00:29:13,560 We'll sing the song that never ends at the end. 510 00:29:13,560 --> 00:29:15,400 But it's exciting because... 511 00:29:15,400 --> 00:29:24,000 I think as we grow together and learn together, you know, Bri and I, our lives have changed 512 00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:27,440 because of diving into this topic. 513 00:29:27,440 --> 00:29:30,360 And we might not change everybody's mind. 514 00:29:30,360 --> 00:29:31,400 We might not reach everybody. 515 00:29:31,400 --> 00:29:36,640 We know the backgrounds that a lot of conservative people are coming from. 516 00:29:36,640 --> 00:29:38,440 We came from there too. 517 00:29:38,440 --> 00:29:47,080 But if we can affect one family, if one couple can come out of this and say, hey, that was 518 00:29:47,080 --> 00:29:49,960 a really good point, and maybe we should reevaluate. 519 00:29:49,960 --> 00:29:53,080 Or one person just cannot feel so alone. 520 00:29:53,080 --> 00:29:54,080 Yeah. 521 00:29:54,080 --> 00:29:59,240 And I mean, for me, that's how this all started. 522 00:29:59,240 --> 00:30:04,760 When Nathan and I got married, and Nathan is not stereotypical, like man is the leader 523 00:30:04,760 --> 00:30:06,440 of the household kind of guy. 524 00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:08,600 He's not who he is. 525 00:30:08,600 --> 00:30:12,160 But I felt like I had to fall into this mold. 526 00:30:12,160 --> 00:30:16,920 Like if I wasn't the submissive wife and he wasn't the leader, we were a bad Christian 527 00:30:16,920 --> 00:30:17,920 couple and God was gonna hate us. 528 00:30:17,920 --> 00:30:18,920 He was gonna smite you. 529 00:30:18,920 --> 00:30:19,920 Yeah. 530 00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:20,920 And I really tried. 531 00:30:20,920 --> 00:30:24,640 I really tried to fit myself into that mold. 532 00:30:24,640 --> 00:30:27,560 And it just didn't work. 533 00:30:27,560 --> 00:30:30,200 And we were miserable. 534 00:30:30,200 --> 00:30:35,000 Until finally, like I said, I don't want to do this anymore. 535 00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:36,240 And I felt so alone. 536 00:30:36,240 --> 00:30:39,880 I felt like I was the only woman in the entire world that had ever dealt with this. 537 00:30:39,880 --> 00:30:41,880 Like Christian women don't deal with this. 538 00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:47,440 Or even I think, too, like in instances where you may have had to step up and be the leader. 539 00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:52,160 In so many situations, I feel like a lot of women say, well, you don't want to offend 540 00:30:52,160 --> 00:30:54,300 his manhood. 541 00:30:54,300 --> 00:30:57,440 Even though like, you have to step up and that's okay. 542 00:30:57,440 --> 00:31:03,240 Well, and there were plenty of times where emotionally, when we first got married, he 543 00:31:03,240 --> 00:31:04,660 was going through a lot of stuff. 544 00:31:04,660 --> 00:31:06,000 He couldn't have stepped up. 545 00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:13,400 For me to ask him to step up and be the leader would have been cruel because he just didn't 546 00:31:13,400 --> 00:31:15,880 have anything more to give. 547 00:31:15,880 --> 00:31:16,880 And so I did. 548 00:31:16,880 --> 00:31:20,560 I stepped up and I was the leader because he needed that. 549 00:31:20,560 --> 00:31:24,360 My partner or my husband needed that from me. 550 00:31:24,360 --> 00:31:29,360 And yet I was told that I was wrong. 551 00:31:29,360 --> 00:31:36,440 And I think where this started for me, too, I got a gift card to Barnes and Noble. 552 00:31:36,440 --> 00:31:37,440 I don't know why. 553 00:31:37,440 --> 00:31:39,440 I don't know why I had this gift card. 554 00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:44,480 God gave you the gift card? 555 00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:47,480 Someone's going to remember that they gave that to me. 556 00:31:47,480 --> 00:31:48,480 They're like, that's me. 557 00:31:48,480 --> 00:31:49,480 But I had it. 558 00:31:49,480 --> 00:31:54,880 And I was like, there's got to be somebody else out there feeling like this, right? 559 00:31:54,880 --> 00:32:00,960 Like I can't be alone in thinking that my husband and I are equal partners. 560 00:32:00,960 --> 00:32:03,000 Like, it can't just be me. 561 00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:07,880 So I did a little bit of digging and I found what is a lot of people's first book when 562 00:32:07,880 --> 00:32:11,800 they start down this sort of Christian feminist path. 563 00:32:11,800 --> 00:32:15,840 And that was Jesus Feminist by Sarah Bessey. 564 00:32:15,840 --> 00:32:17,440 And I bought it. 565 00:32:17,440 --> 00:32:22,560 And then pretty quickly, I went on a trip with my grandma and my aunts and my cousins. 566 00:32:22,560 --> 00:32:26,840 And I brought it specifically to like annoy people. 567 00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:29,920 You're such a brat. 568 00:32:29,920 --> 00:32:34,200 Because feminist was a dirty word in our family. 569 00:32:34,200 --> 00:32:37,720 The word feminist is like very taboo. 570 00:32:37,720 --> 00:32:45,520 Well, I think Christian media did a really, really great job of making the feminists look 571 00:32:45,520 --> 00:32:47,800 like crazy people. 572 00:32:47,800 --> 00:32:48,800 Burning our bras. 573 00:32:48,800 --> 00:32:49,800 Right. 574 00:32:49,800 --> 00:32:50,800 Sometimes. 575 00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:52,800 I would like to. 576 00:32:52,800 --> 00:32:55,840 Those things are expensive. 577 00:32:55,840 --> 00:33:01,080 You know, they essentially took the really extreme people that are like, I think all 578 00:33:01,080 --> 00:33:03,040 men should disappear. 579 00:33:03,040 --> 00:33:05,160 Things like that. 580 00:33:05,160 --> 00:33:06,880 And applied that to everybody. 581 00:33:06,880 --> 00:33:08,420 Just like people do with Christians. 582 00:33:08,420 --> 00:33:12,440 You take the really extreme conservative crazy people. 583 00:33:12,440 --> 00:33:14,440 And put them on blast. 584 00:33:14,440 --> 00:33:15,440 Yeah. 585 00:33:15,440 --> 00:33:17,240 And like, this is what Christianity is. 586 00:33:17,240 --> 00:33:18,880 And that's what Christians did to feminists too. 587 00:33:18,880 --> 00:33:22,480 But yeah, I read Jesus Feminist and then I tried to get Brie to read it and she still 588 00:33:22,480 --> 00:33:23,480 hasn't. 589 00:33:23,480 --> 00:33:24,480 I read half of it. 590 00:33:24,480 --> 00:33:25,480 I'm illiterate. 591 00:33:25,480 --> 00:33:26,480 You have the audiobook. 592 00:33:26,480 --> 00:33:27,480 No, I don't. 593 00:33:27,480 --> 00:33:28,480 I have the audiobook. 594 00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:37,320 But it just like ignited something because it was just like, oh my gosh, there's other 595 00:33:37,320 --> 00:33:38,640 people. 596 00:33:38,640 --> 00:33:42,080 There are other women saying the same things I've always been saying. 597 00:33:42,080 --> 00:33:43,520 Finding biblical backing. 598 00:33:43,520 --> 00:33:44,520 Yeah. 599 00:33:44,520 --> 00:33:46,040 And I think that's off topic. 600 00:33:46,040 --> 00:33:50,280 This is what I love so much about the making of biblical womanhood is, it's not only diving 601 00:33:50,280 --> 00:33:55,360 into the history of the Bible, but she's telling you how it should be read. 602 00:33:55,360 --> 00:33:57,240 You think about like poetry. 603 00:33:57,240 --> 00:34:02,400 The poetry has different rules of how it, like inflections that you put on certain words 604 00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:03,960 and how you should read it. 605 00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:06,280 So does the Bible. 606 00:34:06,280 --> 00:34:11,920 And if you just read the words alone without knowing the history, without knowing how you 607 00:34:11,920 --> 00:34:17,720 should put inflections on certain words and whatever, I think it can be very dangerous. 608 00:34:17,720 --> 00:34:24,640 Well, and she talks a lot about translation bias too, and that's so important. 609 00:34:24,640 --> 00:34:27,020 And I know we'll talk plenty about that. 610 00:34:27,020 --> 00:34:32,320 And just how, you know, we all want to say that the Bible has been preserved, but the 611 00:34:32,320 --> 00:34:36,000 reality is it was not written in English. 612 00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:40,280 Translators had to choose, like there isn't a one-to-one translation for every single 613 00:34:40,280 --> 00:34:44,440 word and so it gets changed a little bit and it gets changed a little bit. 614 00:34:44,440 --> 00:34:50,480 And it's important to know those things and to be aware of them as you're studying because 615 00:34:50,480 --> 00:34:56,160 you don't want to change what God said. 616 00:34:56,160 --> 00:35:02,840 And I think one of the biggest critiques that most people that talk in this space get is, 617 00:35:02,840 --> 00:35:05,440 well, you're just reading into the Bible. 618 00:35:05,440 --> 00:35:07,840 You're making the Bible say what you want it to say. 619 00:35:07,840 --> 00:35:08,840 So are you. 620 00:35:08,840 --> 00:35:13,600 Well, that's the thing is I think Jesus left us with the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit 621 00:35:13,600 --> 00:35:19,200 is supposed to guide us and move us towards wherever it is we're supposed to be. 622 00:35:19,200 --> 00:35:25,960 And that does mean that as you read the Bible, as every single person reads the Bible, they're 623 00:35:25,960 --> 00:35:28,600 going to read a little bit of their own story into it. 624 00:35:28,600 --> 00:35:32,520 You can give the same verse to 10 different people and they can get 10 different things 625 00:35:32,520 --> 00:35:33,520 out of it. 626 00:35:33,520 --> 00:35:34,520 Right. 627 00:35:34,520 --> 00:35:37,920 So I just always think it's funny when that's the criticism. 628 00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:40,960 Like, well, you're making the Bible say what you want it to say. 629 00:35:40,960 --> 00:35:42,440 Well, so are you. 630 00:35:42,440 --> 00:35:43,440 So is the next person. 631 00:35:43,440 --> 00:35:44,680 So is the translator. 632 00:35:44,680 --> 00:35:45,680 Right. 633 00:35:45,680 --> 00:35:49,480 So sometimes we'll do a segment, not always, because I'm not going to commit to that. 634 00:35:49,480 --> 00:35:50,480 I don't read the news. 635 00:35:50,480 --> 00:35:55,520 I do, but I'm still not committed to that. 636 00:35:55,520 --> 00:36:01,000 About just like something that's current, that's happening in the world that we want 637 00:36:01,000 --> 00:36:02,000 to talk about. 638 00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:07,320 And it's our podcast, so we can do that. 639 00:36:07,320 --> 00:36:10,880 That could be our thing. 640 00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:13,920 It's mine, not yours. 641 00:36:13,920 --> 00:36:20,320 So one of the things that I've been watching in just news stories this week, you know, 642 00:36:20,320 --> 00:36:22,520 Taylor Swift is everywhere. 643 00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:23,520 Literally everywhere. 644 00:36:23,520 --> 00:36:25,200 Absolutely everywhere. 645 00:36:25,200 --> 00:36:31,400 And she wore, I'm sure a lot of you have heard about this, but she wore this really incredible 646 00:36:31,400 --> 00:36:34,720 chief's jacket to one of the games. 647 00:36:34,720 --> 00:36:35,960 Beautiful. 648 00:36:35,960 --> 00:36:38,760 And the designer who made it was a woman. 649 00:36:38,760 --> 00:36:44,320 Her husband, apparently under every time that this was posted, like that Taylor Swift was 650 00:36:44,320 --> 00:36:47,760 wearing this jacket, he would comment underneath it and just like hype his wife, right? 651 00:36:47,760 --> 00:36:50,040 Like, oh my gosh, my wife made that. 652 00:36:50,040 --> 00:36:51,040 She's amazing. 653 00:36:51,040 --> 00:36:52,040 Look at her. 654 00:36:52,040 --> 00:36:53,040 I'm so proud of her. 655 00:36:53,040 --> 00:36:54,040 You know, whatever. 656 00:36:54,040 --> 00:36:55,040 That's great. 657 00:36:55,040 --> 00:36:57,000 I think that's wonderful. 658 00:36:57,000 --> 00:36:58,000 Love that. 659 00:36:58,000 --> 00:37:04,080 However, every single news story that I have seen about it, the only reason that I know 660 00:37:04,080 --> 00:37:11,520 that this jacket existed is because every story is about, look at this wonderful man. 661 00:37:11,520 --> 00:37:13,520 He loves his wife so much. 662 00:37:13,520 --> 00:37:15,320 He's so great. 663 00:37:15,320 --> 00:37:18,640 He's hyping her and that's so cute and blah, blah, blah. 664 00:37:18,640 --> 00:37:22,000 And look, I'm not saying that he's done anything wrong in doing that. 665 00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:23,320 I think it's great. 666 00:37:23,320 --> 00:37:26,720 I think that's what he should be doing. 667 00:37:26,720 --> 00:37:34,640 However, once again, despite the accomplishments of two really cool women, who are we talking 668 00:37:34,640 --> 00:37:35,640 about? 669 00:37:35,640 --> 00:37:36,640 A man! 670 00:37:36,640 --> 00:37:38,900 Talking about her husband. 671 00:37:38,900 --> 00:37:45,960 Because despite the fact that she has cultivated years of skill and marketing and who knows 672 00:37:45,960 --> 00:37:52,480 what else, to be able to create this thing and get it to Taylor Swift, for goodness sakes. 673 00:37:52,480 --> 00:37:55,200 Like how do you, how does that even happen? 674 00:37:55,200 --> 00:37:57,200 A lot of prayer, I think. 675 00:37:57,200 --> 00:38:02,000 This is a Christian podcast after all. 676 00:38:02,000 --> 00:38:08,200 Despite all of that, like all of the labor and the time and the love that she's put into 677 00:38:08,200 --> 00:38:13,120 this, he made some comments on Instagram and so now we're talking about him. 678 00:38:13,120 --> 00:38:18,920 And I think we need to be talking about her and her skill and how cool this is. 679 00:38:18,920 --> 00:38:25,440 And how common that is though, that we just minimize her. 680 00:38:25,440 --> 00:38:30,920 Well have you seen, there's a lot of, this happens a lot in the media, where if a woman 681 00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:40,400 is married to say a major sports person, major athlete, I forgot the word athlete briefly. 682 00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:41,920 Sports person! 683 00:38:41,920 --> 00:38:44,640 We love sports over here. 684 00:38:44,640 --> 00:38:48,680 We are number one fans of sports. 685 00:38:48,680 --> 00:38:49,680 Yeah. 686 00:38:49,680 --> 00:38:56,720 They, like it doesn't matter what her accomplishments were. 687 00:38:56,720 --> 00:39:01,960 So like there was an Olympian athlete, female Olympian athlete. 688 00:39:01,960 --> 00:39:04,040 She won a bronze medal. 689 00:39:04,040 --> 00:39:10,200 And the title of the article was like, wife of this athlete wins bronze medal. 690 00:39:10,200 --> 00:39:12,680 They didn't even bother to say her name. 691 00:39:12,680 --> 00:39:17,760 I mean I'm sure in the article somewhere they did, but in the title, she's not even there. 692 00:39:17,760 --> 00:39:20,480 She's defined by who she's married to. 693 00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:23,280 So I think we need to, we need to call that out as a society. 694 00:39:23,280 --> 00:39:27,920 That's not even really necessarily a Christian society thing, but as a general society, like 695 00:39:27,920 --> 00:39:32,880 we need to stop just looking at women from the point of view as like, who's your, who 696 00:39:32,880 --> 00:39:33,880 you're married to? 697 00:39:33,880 --> 00:39:35,800 Who are your kids? 698 00:39:35,800 --> 00:39:38,520 What accomplishments have they made? 699 00:39:38,520 --> 00:39:40,120 My accomplishments are important. 700 00:39:40,120 --> 00:39:42,000 Drop the mic. 701 00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:47,480 For a conclusion too, I want to talk about like, so I'm in a lot of therapy. 702 00:39:47,480 --> 00:39:56,440 Um, and when I was talking this podcast through with my therapist, we talked through like, 703 00:39:56,440 --> 00:39:58,320 what if nobody listens? 704 00:39:58,320 --> 00:40:01,320 Like what if absolutely nobody listens to this? 705 00:40:01,320 --> 00:40:04,560 We'll get two listens and just, that's what it is. 706 00:40:04,560 --> 00:40:06,120 And a few judging comments. 707 00:40:06,120 --> 00:40:07,120 And a few judging comments. 708 00:40:07,120 --> 00:40:08,120 But that's fine. 709 00:40:08,120 --> 00:40:13,200 But one of the things that she said that was really impactful, if no one listens, if no 710 00:40:13,200 --> 00:40:18,640 one hears you, at least your daughter will hear you. 711 00:40:18,640 --> 00:40:23,760 And so that's a big part of why I'm sitting here doing this. 712 00:40:23,760 --> 00:40:30,120 Because if no one else hears, when my daughter grows up, I don't want her internal voice 713 00:40:30,120 --> 00:40:36,960 to be all of these pastors that have told her she's worthless and told her that all 714 00:40:36,960 --> 00:40:41,960 she can do is get married and push out 20 babies and clean her house. 715 00:40:41,960 --> 00:40:42,960 Oh my gosh. 716 00:40:42,960 --> 00:40:43,960 Are we just going to wait? 717 00:40:43,960 --> 00:40:44,960 20 babies? 718 00:40:44,960 --> 00:40:45,960 I don't know. 719 00:40:45,960 --> 00:40:46,960 Ew. 720 00:40:46,960 --> 00:40:49,960 You've seen the TV shows. 721 00:40:49,960 --> 00:40:51,640 Ow. 722 00:40:51,640 --> 00:40:59,440 But I would rather her internal voice be this, telling her that she does have value, that 723 00:40:59,440 --> 00:41:06,660 she's defined by who she decides to be as a person and how she follows God and how she 724 00:41:06,660 --> 00:41:08,320 cultivates that relationship. 725 00:41:08,320 --> 00:41:09,320 And that's it. 726 00:41:09,320 --> 00:41:10,320 That's the end of the list. 727 00:41:10,320 --> 00:41:12,320 Go preach. 728 00:41:12,320 --> 00:41:13,320 Hallelujah. 729 00:41:13,320 --> 00:41:19,080 I think that could be the transition. 730 00:41:19,080 --> 00:41:24,680 Because girls can preach. 731 00:41:24,680 --> 00:41:31,400 I think that leads into maybe us talking about our whys. 732 00:41:31,400 --> 00:41:36,800 Mine is because I truly believe that men and women are created equally in the image of 733 00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:37,800 God. 734 00:41:37,800 --> 00:41:40,720 And so far no one has convinced me otherwise. 735 00:41:40,720 --> 00:41:42,400 They'll try though. 736 00:41:42,400 --> 00:41:43,400 They'll try. 737 00:41:43,400 --> 00:41:45,400 But I have earplugs. 738 00:41:45,400 --> 00:41:49,960 Maybe cut that out. 739 00:41:49,960 --> 00:41:55,240 And like in the book that we're reading together, she says that Jesus did more for the liberation 740 00:41:55,240 --> 00:41:56,480 of women than anyone ever. 741 00:41:56,480 --> 00:41:58,480 And I truly agree with that. 742 00:41:58,480 --> 00:41:59,480 Absolutely. 743 00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:00,880 You think nothing else? 744 00:42:00,880 --> 00:42:01,880 Yeah. 745 00:42:01,880 --> 00:42:07,880 Because Jesus trusted and respected and encouraged women to teach and preach his word. 746 00:42:07,880 --> 00:42:10,040 And you can see that throughout the Bible. 747 00:42:10,040 --> 00:42:12,560 Because I believe that Jesus sets women free. 748 00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:13,560 All right. 749 00:42:13,560 --> 00:42:19,720 So parts of my why, I don't know if this is all of it, because I agree with Breeze too. 750 00:42:19,720 --> 00:42:26,120 But another part of it is honestly because I'm tired of seeing women taken advantage 751 00:42:26,120 --> 00:42:28,040 of in the name of my God. 752 00:42:28,040 --> 00:42:29,040 I'm tired of watching. 753 00:42:29,040 --> 00:42:34,640 I just almost broke out in a song. 754 00:42:34,640 --> 00:42:39,120 I'm sick of watching people say, well, God wants this from you. 755 00:42:39,120 --> 00:42:40,680 God wants this from you. 756 00:42:40,680 --> 00:42:47,080 As they abuse women, as they tell them they're worthless, as they say, well, you have so 757 00:42:47,080 --> 00:42:48,080 much value. 758 00:42:48,080 --> 00:42:49,840 It's just less value. 759 00:42:49,840 --> 00:42:50,840 Yeah. 760 00:42:50,840 --> 00:42:55,640 God loves, God has a special place in his heart for women. 761 00:42:55,640 --> 00:42:57,200 Just not a good place. 762 00:42:57,200 --> 00:43:04,600 But a special one, we're all part of the body of Christ, but you're more of the butt. 763 00:43:04,600 --> 00:43:07,600 The butt can be important. 764 00:43:07,600 --> 00:43:10,840 Cut that part out. 765 00:43:10,840 --> 00:43:12,840 No, we're just, we're a stream of consciousness. 766 00:43:12,840 --> 00:43:13,840 I'm sorry. 767 00:43:13,840 --> 00:43:16,840 I don't know how to edit this crap. 768 00:43:16,840 --> 00:43:20,640 Only because we don't know how to edit. 769 00:43:20,640 --> 00:43:21,640 Okay. 770 00:43:21,640 --> 00:43:26,560 And the second one is because we, because we talked about this, so both of us believe 771 00:43:26,560 --> 00:43:30,480 men and women are created equally in the image of God with no discernible differences in 772 00:43:30,480 --> 00:43:33,760 purpose, power, or ability. 773 00:43:33,760 --> 00:43:35,960 So that's pretty much what you said, but I added adjectives. 774 00:43:35,960 --> 00:43:37,960 You added a really good adjective. 775 00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:38,960 Thank you. 776 00:43:38,960 --> 00:43:39,960 I thought they were beautiful. 777 00:43:39,960 --> 00:43:40,960 Wow. 778 00:43:40,960 --> 00:43:44,960 It's like you opened up a dictionary. 779 00:43:44,960 --> 00:43:47,520 All right. 780 00:43:47,520 --> 00:43:52,200 And in conclusion, that's us. 781 00:43:52,200 --> 00:43:55,760 I think conclusion, yes. 782 00:43:55,760 --> 00:43:58,760 And therefore, and such as. 783 00:43:58,760 --> 00:43:59,760 The end. 784 00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:26,760 Now we need some background music.