To the We Are More Pod cast. My name is Alyssa. And my name is Bree. We're two sisters passionate about all things faith and feminism. We believe that Jesus trusted, respected, and encouraged women to teach and preach his word.

And apparently, that's controversial. Get comfy.

Bonjour and good day. Well, hello.

I'm French today. Just today. Mhmm.

Good to know.

Yeah. You're welcome.

Unfortunately for all of you, we are both lightly depressed because we're home from Disney. But plus also,

we're both sick. Yeah. I feel like being on a plane and then also just lack of sleep and life in general has kicked our booty holes.

It has.

And now we're both under the weather.

Plus it's the beginning of the school year, and I feel like everybody's sick. Mhmm.

All those kids, all those germs.

I know. They all get together and slip petri dish. It's bad time. Yuck. So if we sound a little weird or sniffly or, you know, you hear someone hack up a lung, ignore it.

Ignore it. Pretend that didn't happen. We'll be back to regularly scheduled programming next week. Maybe. Perhaps.

Unless this is the actual plague, and then I don't really know what happens.

Take me now. Jesus, I'm ready.

I think if you get the plague, you get, like, big sores under your armpits or something.

Well, mean, that is the bubonic. Well, that's what I'm thinking. The plague. The plague. That was brought over by some, you know, fleas on rats.

To be entirely fair, it

wasn't really brought over because we didn't exist yet. Like you and I? Like the country. Oh, there was a case of bubonic over in the West.

It does happen every like, it's mostly gone. It's just that they can treat it

now. There's a YouTuber called Ask a Mortician. I think she's changed her name, and we may have referenced her before.

We have. It's just Caitlin Doughty now.

Yeah. But she did make a whole episode on the plague in The US.

Oh, yeah, she did. Mhmm. That was interesting. Channel is so good. Go check her out.

You know what? I was talking this is really not on any kind of topic.

What topic are we on?

But I was talking about death with my coworkers today. Obviously. And we're talking about the funeral industry and how crazy it is. Like all of the embalming and all of the things that I've learned from watching way too much YouTube crap on the death industry, I need to cool down.

Did they enjoy that topic?

I think it it was a topic. I don't know that anybody enjoyed it. Good to But I did tell them about my funeral plans. And those are? For I

know them, but for the group. For the group,

this has been planned out for quite some time. But I want a natural burial in a wicker casket, and I want my headstone to say, you are standing on my head.

This has been the headstone, at least, has been

the plan since, like, eighth grade. Oh, yeah. It's been here a long time. Hilarious. Can you imagine walking through a cemetery and being like, oh, so sorry.

I'm standing on her head.

I feel like the people that just peruse cemeteries probably wouldn't be, like, alarmed by that.

They'd find think they'd get a chuckle. Because there are people that just peruse cemeteries. Our parents. Our parents. When we were kids, our parents would find an old cemetery and be like, all right, let's get up and walk around and go look at the old gravestones in the dead people.

And all three of us, me, Alyssa, and our brother, we would lay down on the ground of the car. Of the car.

Not the outside ground. No,

no, no. Just the car. So no one would see us.

It was very embarrassing, and we did not enjoy it. Okay.

I just need

to say, though, frankly, so we start these episodes I know we've said this before, but we start these episodes with no particular plan for the intro. Mm-mm. We just start talking because we like to talk. Yeah. And if you paid me a million dollars,

I would never have predicted that we would be here right now. How do we get to the places that we get? I've said this once, and I'll say it again. I'm as surprised as you are with what comes out of my mouth. I don't filter things.

Things just happen. And here we are, the bubonic and death and death industry, cemeteries, childhood.

Well, thank you for that train of thoughts. You're welcome. Choo choo.

Well, I hope you all enjoyed that.

I don't know how to transition into the next thing other than oh, wait. Here's train of thought. YouTube, social media, reacting to social media. Oh. How's that?

The Gilmore Girls React. Did you see that Lorelei and Rory did the Emmys?

I didn't know they did the Emmys. I thought there were some kind of, like, anniversary special.

They did do an anniversary special. Although, Lauren Graham was not on it. What? I know. She, like, explained why she wasn't.

But Because she's against them. I don't I don't know. She had the bubonic plague.

She That that was it. Full circle. Yep. No. They did, like, a presentation at the Emmys.

Well, that's cute. It's been

all over the Internet. Internet. There's a Gilmore Girls Festival in a town near us Mhmm. This summer. And they did it, I believe, last summer as well.

But it drew so many people. Like, 15,000 people Yeah.

Were in one small section For like one weekend.

Of downtown. There was like a forty five minute wait to get into a bookstore. They sold out of books. What what has to happen for you

to sell out of books? Like, there were no more books to be had? Amazon couldn't overnight ship? Like, what happened? They ran out of books.

I am not big on

that kind of stuff.

I'm not someone that wants to go into a giant crowd of people to deal with that. Some people love that stuff.

It's I think good if you want it to be like Gilmore Girls. Gilmore Girls, the town of Stars Hollow had like, what? 45 people? And they could have their little silly town hall events. And the whole town would show up and there were still only 45 people.

But 15,000 people?

I'm just not in for that. That's not

a good time for me. I don't like I don't wanna figure out where to park. Parking can't

be bothered. Having to wait in line to go around a corner.

Not being able to walk anywhere because there's people like, okay. We go to Disney.

We do go to Disney. But we're used

to crowds. Yeah, I I can't

no. No. I'm not in. How'd you get here? We I don't know.

We need to get on a topic.

Well, we're just reacting to things.

We are reacting to things. So that's what we're doing today. If you listened last week, I think we did say this was what we would be doing. We did. I'm proud of us.

We're staying on track multiple weeks in a row now. We've stayed on track.

And throughout the last couple weeks, we both have been taking screenshots and sending things around from the social medias because my algorithm is furiously feminist. That could be a good name for this episode. Furiously

feminist? Furiously feminist algorithm. So in our furious feminism then, we have been collecting many a thing.

And I've sorted them into albums on my phone. I'm so proud.

I know. You're more organized than I am this week. You're welcome.

To be fair, I did that thirty minutes ago. But

what I love about this type of episode is it pulls in stuff from the last good while because we're doing this for weeks on end. Mhmm. And so it it's kind of like a nice snapshot of things going on in the world today.

So my categories, my albums on my phone are entitled this colon. This? No. What? I was getting ready to continue.

Oh, there's just a long pause. Well, I had to think if the word colon was right. Women's news, quotes, hot takes, and facts. I'm it's beautiful. Beautiful Thank you.

Thank you. What would you like to start with?

Oh, it's like Jeopardy.

Mhmm. Women's news. Good. Because that's the first album and the first one I said. Okay.

Here's in the news. Did you know our good friend Taylor Swizzle has donated $14,000,000 in bonus and sponsorship earnings to fund housing initiatives for homeless families across America, creating 140 transitional units and two twenty shelter beds for parents and children in need.

I actually had heard about that, and I also heard that Travis Kelce donated, I think, all of his bonuses or something along those lines Mhmm. To a similar type of organization. I don't know if it's the exact same one. But what a cool way to to be as a couple. Mhmm.

Now, obviously, they have a bajillion dollars.

Okay?

They're not hurting for money. Mhmm. But we we talked about Mackenzie Scott several episode episodes ago. And she was Jeff Bezos' ex wife, or she is, I guess. And she's donated like an insane amount of her fortune

Mhmm.

To various charities. And I'm hoping that we start to see that more and more because Taylor Swift is a billionaire.

I think something interesting to compare and contrast is she's a billionaire. And there are other billionaires. Some of the other billionaires are claiming to be Christian. Right. But along with their claiming to be Christian, they're known for not being so generous.

Right. Not being so loving, not being so giving. Whereas, I do not believe that Taylor Swift claims to be a Christian. But she is known for being outrageously generous. Right.

She's also known for being a boss and amazing, but very generous Mhmm. With the billions that she has. Mhmm. Because 14,000,000 to her It's nothing. Nothing.

Right. But to a charitable organization

Mhmm.

That changes how many people's worlds does that change. So one that I wanted to talk about, mine are not divided by topics. So don't expect the beautiful uniformity of Brianna's presentation. Yeah. But one of the moments that I wanted to talk about first and honestly, so this was a TikTok.

I did not watch this man's whole video. Just full disclosure. But he used the word on his title page, churchianity instead of Christianity. And I thought that was so interesting. I've never seen that used.

Maybe you have. I don't know what your algorithms look like. But the modern church is such a far cry from what Christ asked for it to be. Mhmm. And so instead of saying Christianity and ascribing all of the atrocities that the church is committing to Christ, he's taking all of that and just pinning it on the church.

I love that. Taking Christ's name out of it.

Right. And often we say, you know, taking Christ's name out of things is a negative. Mhmm. In this case, I appreciate that he did that.

Well, I really like when people say, don't use the Lord's name in vain in reference to things like this. Mhmm. Don't slap God's name onto things He didn't say Mhmm. Or things He would never have intended. That, to me, is taking the Lord's name in vain.

Right.

And I

like that, changing the narrative. Mhmm.

I think we have turned the church itself into an idol. Mhmm. You have to be here every Sunday, every Sunday night, every Wednesday. Mhmm. You have to volunteer.

You have to do this. You have to do that. Not because it's what God asked of me, but because it's what the pastor asked of me, because it's what my small group leader asked of me. I'm not actually in service to God. I'm in service to this church.

Mhmm. And coming from we've been in both bigger churches and very, very small churches. And I would say it's all so businesslike. Mhmm. If you were like, bigger churches, they don't ask you to become a member.

I'm not saying all of them, but the ones that we were at. Mhmm. But if you consider yourself a member, you have to be volunteering your time. Right. And if you do volunteer your time, they're gonna take advantage of you.

Mhmm.

And keep asking more and more and more of you. And then plus also, even though you're volunteering your time, you also have to give your money. And we're gonna guilt trip you into this because we have to make sure that our pastor has this magazine subscription. And if he doesn't, you won't be serving the Lord.

Right. I've said this before, but when we were at this big mega church that Brie's talking about, there was a time because, like, we bought in, at least my family Brie did too, but my family, like, really bought in. And there was a time where we were probably in the physical church twenty hours a week. Mhmm. Maybe twenty to thirty hours a week because we were volunteering at multiple services.

I was supposed to be working from home, but half the time I was there because that's what they wanted Mhmm. My husband was volunteering on multiple teams. We were leading a small group. We were part of a small group. You're still even though you're volunteering on teams, you're volunteering for extra little things and whatever.

Like, we were there absolutely all

the time. And it's not just about volunteering because it makes you feel good and you're serving God. Right. It's almost a status thing. Mhmm.

And so you become kind of like a church celebrity.

Right.

And that is intoxicating for people. Mhmm.

It's the inner circle. Mhmm. You're in now. You have a social group.

Well, you're walking into this giant church, and people know who you are. Mhmm. And people are seeing other people know who you are. And they now wanna know who you are. And it's you're right.

You're like a church celebrity. Mhmm.

And when you're doing these things, like, when you're volunteering and things like that in service to Christ instead of in service to the church, a, you have a totally different motivation. It's not about you. It's about God. But also, you probably wouldn't be volunteering just in the church.

Think about your community. Think about the food banks and the homeless shelters and the women's shelters and all of the other areas who could use these really dedicated Mhmm. Volunteers rather than just

in church. But the church so often does not encourage you to go out and serve elsewhere. Like, I remember in our small groups, they did this program called Rooted. And they told each group, like, hey, for one night of your group, go out and do service to somewhere in the community. It could be whatever.

But that was the only time that that was ever encouraged.

Mhmm.

Because they don't actually want you to get to be like a an established volunteer elsewhere. Mhmm. They need you in the church because the church has so many systems that need hundreds of people every week to function because these megachurches are just so massive.

Or I do see like, sometimes when they do go out into the community, it's just to pull other people back into the church. So you're gonna give out water bottles with the church's name on it to get more money into the church Right. Not into the community. Right. So you're doing it with a motive.

Yeah. It's transactional. Right.

And people know. Yeah. Everybody knows. Yeah. When you're walking the parade route and you're, yeah, you're handing out those water bottles, you're

handing out a Frisbee. Or even when, like, you do get those new families in church, and maybe we're harboring on this too much, but you get those new families in church and the first thing they hear is just, we want your money. We want your money. We want your money. And if you love God, you'll give us the money.

Mhmm.

It can be overwhelming. Yeah. It just seems like any kind of outreach that the church often does. Like, I'm thinking about trunk or treats because we're getting to Halloween. Mhmm.

We've been to many a trunk or treat. And a lot of them are at churches. Mhmm. And that is a cool community outreach event. But I've been to some where it's very clear that we do this so that when we see a stranger show up, the pastor's gonna come talk to you.

Mhmm. Not so that we can create a relationship with you, but so that the pastor can stand there and say, well, where do you go to church? Mhmm. Are you involved in a church? We'd love to see you here on Sunday.

Oh, you're a young family?

Mhmm. Yeah. Yep. Alright. We've talked about

this one for a long time. This came across on my Instagram. Another post that I saw was Doctor. Jessica Wade, I believe her name is, made over 2,100 Wikipedia pages for women scientists who never received any recognition. Oh, wow.

Isn't that fun? Like, what a legacy that this lady has Right. She's just solely putting other women's names out there and other facts about women and celebrating women. I really

like that. It's amazing how easily women are forgotten. Mhmm. Our contributions just aren't celebrated in the same way. They aren't acknowledged in the same way.

Mhmm. And so you do need some it's sad that you need somebody like that, obviously. Yeah. But you do. You need someone that's gonna say, like, nope.

We're done.

We're done with this. And we also need to teach women to toot their own horn too. Because men are very comfortable doing that. Mhmm. Men are very comfortable saying, this was my contribution.

This is what I've developed and thought of. And look at me. Hoo hoo Wow. That's the sound they make? But women so often are told to be like, oh, don't put the spotlight on me.

Right. Even though they did X, Y, Z. Yep. So we need to teach women to take ownership of the wonderful and beautiful contributions they've made to the earth. I think Christians too are taught this as just part

of our faith. Never have any pride. I saw a TikTok, I think. And the woman was like, I grew up as part of she called it a cult. And it was essentially The occult?

No. The occult. She's a witch? No. Maybe.

I don't know. No. But, like, a very conservative church space. And I don't know if it was a Christian church space or whatever. But they were never allowed to use the word proud.

Because proud implied that you were proud of yourself. Mhmm. And you can't take pride in anything that you've done because you have to give all glory back to God. Mhmm. I'm not saying that God didn't give you the abilities that you have, but I think it's okay to be proud of yourself.

The Bible never says, and make sure you feel like crap at all times. And actually make sure everyone else thinks you're crap. Like, that's not furthering the kingdom of god. Mhmm. Yes.

God gave you your initial abilities, but you took them and did whatever you did with them. Mhmm. You made whatever impact you made. So be proud of that impact. Mhmm.

Also tell people, I'm able to do this because God gave me the ability to do this. And then I took it and I ran with it. Mhmm. And here we are. Yep.

Because God and I are collaborating. Okay. So this one I actually found today. And I thought so I watch this girl a lot. And she says, instead of saying women slept their way to the top, why don't we say men withhold promotions until they receive sexual favors?

Because that is what it really is. I've been talking a lot in my journeys, in my travels. Oh. My travel from here to the next city up, you know Oh. About DEI.

And if you're not in The US and you don't know about that, it's diversity, equity, and inclusion. And it is a set of guidelines and laws that used to require companies to have a diverse employment. So whether that's in your leadership, whether it's in your general employees, whatever it is, that you have diversity involved. Mhmm. And it was a legal requirement.

Now that has been revoked under the current administration in almost every way. But what DEI did, and I I've heard a lot of criticism of it as I've grown up, because the conservative approach is that DEI forced people to hire the less qualified person. Mhmm. But what it really did was force them to hire someone that they didn't agree 100% with. Mhmm.

When you sit in a room with someone that you that reflects exactly what you say, that looks exactly like you look, that sounds exactly like you sound and remember, leadership in most of these companies still today, white men. Mhmm. So when they sit in a room and they're interviewing someone and it's another white man, they're gonna be like, wow. We're gonna get along so well. We're gonna get so much done.

It doesn't matter if he's more qualified or not. What matters is that he's a white man. Check that little box. And so DEI forced them out of their comfort zone. Mhmm.

All the studies show that companies that embrace DEI, that have women on their leadership board, that have people of colors on their leadership board, that diversity makes those companies significantly more successful.

I think it forced companies to be a little less racist. Mhmm. And racism has become so embedded in the culture of specifically The United States that having DEI seemed un American. Mhmm.

Because we're so racist.

And so we're so racist. It's a lot easier to go through Indeed and only want to talk to the people who have a name that is easier to pronounce for you Mhmm. Or that you're familiar with. But opening up your eyes to other people and other people's stories and their experiences, you're right, makes a stronger business. And a better work environment overall, I would think.

Well, you hear different voices. Mhmm. You see things that you wouldn't otherwise see. It's like food. Right?

It adds flavor. It adds flavor. So for example, there's this commercial out right now. I can't even remember what it's for. But it's this little girl and she's brushing her hair.

And some of her hair falls on the floor and it's they're sweeping it up. It's whatever the swift it's like a Swiffer. I don't know. They're sweeping it up. Might be a vacuum.

And the girl has curly hair. Okay? Now I have super curly hair. This girl is taking a normal brush. Any of you out there that have curly hair.

Rage with me. She's got a normal brush on dry curly hair and she is brushing it. That could be good. And it's coming out the same. There's no frizz.

There's no no one with curly hair

Mhmm.

Was consulted. And that's what you miss when you don't have different people. Mhmm. You miss the things that are outside of your own bubble Mhmm. That you don't understand.

When you don't have women's voices, you don't see what they would see. Mhmm. And that is a detriment. When you don't have the voices of people of color, you don't see what they see. And your product won't be as good.

It won't help as many people. Mhmm. Your software won't make sense in different cultures. Mhmm. Like, you have to think of these things.

You're limiting yourself. Exactly. So all you have to do is oh, hey. Open it up

just a little bit.

Like, the tiniest bit. I also think last note. When it comes to both DEI and what this is saying where women are sleeping their way to the top, We put boundaries on pretty much non white men. We put rules. We stop them from doing certain things.

We don't give them the opportunities to do those things. We say, you can't study here. You can't get this promotion. You can't whatever. And then we punish them for it.

We tell them, you're not as qualified as this guy over here who got to do the thing that we told you you couldn't do. Mhmm. It's such a weird set of double standards. And it's something that obviously, like, we frame conveniently. Mhmm.

Women are sleeping their way to their top. Not, oh, hey. There's sexual abuse going on in all of our companies.

Yep. Yeah. Flip the script.

Mhmm.

Something that I saw, it's not necessarily in the news, but it's here's your daily reminder. In the land of the free, a man's body is his own in all 50 states. A woman's is not. I had that in here. Hey.

Look at us go.

It was something about, yeah, men's rights don't vary by state. Mhmm. For women in The United States, my rights change when I cross the border. Mhmm.

And then another thing that I saw, which is not from The United States, but this said, from now on, women in Saudi Arabia will be able to decide what they wear without male permission, says Prince Mohammed bin Salam. Interesting. So just think about that. These women are just now being able to decide what they want to wear for But The United States, I think, is slipping the opposite direction. We're taking things away from women one by one by one

slowly, hoping we won't notice. Well, it's just like we've both Brie and I have had conversations where people will tell us we were talking about repealing how they wanna repeal the nineteenth amendment, which we just did an episode on.

Which we knew was coming for a long time, but everyone said it was fear mongering.

Right. Exactly. And still, still we're getting this response of, well, where'd you hear that? That's crazy. They could never.

And yet here's national news Mhmm. Showing that that's exactly what's going on. That that's on the floor. Mhmm. That they're talking about it.

That these are real conversations that are going on with people of importance. People that make decisions. Mhmm.

It's not crazy. It's true. And it may sound crazy if it doesn't personally affect you.

Mhmm.

But when it personally affects you, you have to take that fear a little bit more seriously.

Mhmm.

You have to take things you have to open your eyes to what's going on in the world today. And that's what's going on in the world in The United States today.

I think that's why you have to have multiple voices in your circle. Mhmm. Because if all you have are people repeating back to you the same things that you believe, you may not be aware that this is happening. It might be easy to dismiss it. You have to believe other people when they tell you their story

Mhmm.

And what they're afraid of. Mhmm. So another one that I saw I don't think I referenced this in the last one. But it was an image Sabrina Carpenter apparently did a interview with Gale King, who is Oprah's best friend, in case you didn't know.

She went to space. She did. I forgot about that. Mhmm.

So Sabrina Carpenter is a relatively, like, controversial singer at this point. I don't agree with everything that she does, but I really like what she said. So Gail, the interviewer, asked her, do you worry about men saying I'm afraid to mess with her? Because we're not supposed to like that. Right?

Mhmm.

I had a guy tell me once that I was intimidating, and it was supposed be an insult. And I wish I could like, the looks on her face, it shows her three kind of reactions that she cycles through.

Mhmm.

And it's like confusion, shock, and then she starts laughing. Mhmm. And she says, I'm not scared of men in that sense. I'm scared of men sometimes, but not in that sense.

And I think repeat what Gail said again.

She said, do you worry about men saying I'm afraid to mess with her?

And again, we're putting the focus on men.

Mhmm.

Oh, no. You don't wanna lose the gaze of a man.

Mhmm. Who cares? Mhmm.

If one guy doesn't like you because you speak out against his misogyny or his stupidity

Mhmm.

You don't need him. Mhmm. Move on. Darn. Oh, no.

What will I do? Her new song so she just came out with a new album. I think it's called Man's Best Friend. It's controversial. Mhmm.

And one of the songs on there is called Tears. Don't recommend. Mom, don't listen to me. But I think it's hilarious because she's talking I took a screenshot of it, the lyrics. The whole point is her saying, like, I really like it when men act like normal adult people.

That's what that's what turns me on, is when you can, you know, use your phone. And it's like being a responsible guy.

-Mm

-That's what turns me on. Being able to use your phone. Mhmm. Acting like a normal person.

Yep. Woo hoo. I the bar is on the floor. Okay. The bar has never been lower.

Mhmm. All you have to do to be very attractive is to respect me. That's what she says in the song. On the floor. Mhmm.

And I think it's sad too to realize that, like, this is not just a Christian problem. Mm-mm. Because I it's easy for me from where I sit to say, this is a religious issue because this is something that the church has perpetuated. Mhmm. But because I believe people when they tell me their stories, I recognize that this has seeped out into broader society.

Mhmm.

Now do I think it's the fault of the church? Yes, I do. But it's still out there.

Mhmm.

And frankly, I believe Brie when she tells me her story about online dating. So There's that.

Girl haven't been on there in a while. Maybe I should get back on so we can have more stories. You know what?

It'd be good for content.

That would be. Dating with Brie. Here's A little a little meme that I saw. Is it a meme or a GIF? A GIF moves.

This is a meme then. It says that some of you are sitting at tables you were meant to flip. Well, it says you were sent to flip. Oh, I like that. Jesus has a calling for you.

Mhmm. Women, Jesus has a calling for you. And sometimes you have to disrupt. Jesus occasionally disrupted things. And I think that's what Alyssa and I are doing.

We were sent on a mission with these two little microphones sitting on my bed. And we are disrupting the misogyny and the patriarchy, specifically in the church, but also, you know, the world. 35 countries, baby. And I'm a find a table, and I'm a flip it. Today?

I'm really tired today, so I'm not thinking I'll flip it today, but maybe tomorrow.

All right. I'll make it I'll put it in the calendar.

And maybe make it a light table, because I'm feeling I'm feeling a little weak. Alright. We are sick. Yeah. So Yeah.

I actually was having a conversation with my husband about this today. About how when you go against the church, as a person of faith, it gets very lonely. There doesn't really feel like there's a community.

Yeah. Because the people who are not in the faith are like, well, why are you still there Right. If you have so much of a problem with And the people who are in the faith are like, why are you trying to sabotage us? Uh-huh.

Get out. Yeah. But I think, you know, Jesus did not stand in defense of the church.

No. He, I think, very much did not.

He flipped the table in the church. And I don't think we're supposed to stand in defense of the church. Mhmm.

Ever. I think we're supposed to stand in defense of love because that is our greatest calling. And His people. The things that He loves. He loves His people.

All of the people. Not just the people that look like you. Not just the people in the church. All of the people.

Mhmm. I think it's really telling of the idolatry of the church. Mhmm. What we're willing to give up to defend the church versus what we're willing to give up to defend the love of God. Mhmm.

People will go to the mat to defend the church. They will argue with you. They will destroy relationships. They will give money. Mhmm.

They I mean, look at what's happened in the last couple of weeks. I know. They will do anything to defend the institution of the church. Mhmm. But when it comes to defending the love of God, they're willing to step away.

Hands are up, and they're walking away.

They're out. There was, like, a docu series. I don't know if it's still going on, but I had Leah Remney.

Mhmm.

And she was a Scientologist. And she's very outspoken about being against Scientology because she left it very dramatically sometime long ago. Some amount of time ago. Some amount of time ago. But one of the things that happens in Scientology, when you either speak out against it or you leave it, they kind of blacklist you.

Mhmm. So all of the people who are still in Scientology, be that your friends or your family, can no longer associate with you at all. Right. And I think that's kind of how our experience has been with the Christian church as well. Mhmm.

If you leave the church or you speak out against the church, you're kind of blacklisted. And you can watch that on Leah Remney's show and just be like, oh my gosh. That is wild. But then not realize that it's happening in the more mainstream churches also.

I'm seeing a lot. I'm seeing good things happening because I'm seeing people our age start to recognize this. And I think what's happening is you know how they say, like, in your family. If you're the one to stop the cycle of abuse, it hurts. Mhmm.

You are in pain. You are fighting not only against your family who caused that cycle of abuse, but also your own instincts that came from that abuse. Like you're you're standing in the way of all that and it hurts. And that's what I think we're doing. That's what I'm seeing a lot of other people that are speaking out against the church but that still have faith are doing, we're standing in the way of the abuse.

We're trying to stop the abuse from hitting the next generation. I'm trying to stop the abuse of the church from hitting my kids and from hitting anyone in the next generation that comes after me. And it's hard and it sucks because you don't have a community. You're fighting your family. Mhmm.

I saw I have a screenshot of a now I know meme. I guess it's a meme. It might just be, like, a quote. I think that's just a quote. It's just a quote.

It's not a meme. It says, you are the ancestral disruptor, the one your bloodline has been waiting for.

I think we need to take a lot of inspiration from that. Mhmm. Because it sucks. It sucks to be that person that stands in the middle and stops it all. It's hard.

It's painful. If you don't, what happens? It's a lot easier

to turn a blind eye. Yep. Kind of like what we were talking about with revoking the nineteenth amendment. It's a lot easier and more comfortable to close your eyes to that and pretend it's not real and it's not happening. But nothing's gonna change if you keep your eyes closed.

You have to take action. And we say that too. When you want to change your life, pray about it and take a step. Uh-huh. Pray about it and take a step.

Don't just pray. Mhmm. There's nothing wrong with praying. Highly encourage it. Jesus will love it if you had a conversation with him.

But you also have to take steps.

Right.

If you want to make significant changes in your life or the lives of others in your bloodline Mhmm. Or next to your bloodline.

And if you don't have the strength to stand against that abuse yourself or for yourself, think of think of who it impacts. Maybe it's not your kids, but maybe it's your friends. Maybe it's your coworkers. Maybe it's whoever whoever comes next.

You have to find the reason and the why. Because sometimes you're right. It's hard just just do it for yourself. Because you think, I can just put up with this. Right.

I can handle a lot of crap. I can just put up with this. Right. But think about, you're right, your child, your friend, Your dog.

Yeah. Your dog specifically.

Yeah. Your dog has experienced a lot

of spiritual abuse. Pull it together.

It needs to know the love of God. You know? Sure. Our dogs go to heaven. I heard.

I believe. I believe.

We can't we've we've been over this.

We can't sing the songs from that musical. Mom told me to sing more. When? You sing all

the time. That's what I said.

I was like, don't I do that enough?

I it's enough. We're good. No one needs more. I'm gonna get some mean comments on social media. They'll be

like, I wanted her to sing all the time. And I love that musical.

It was an exciting musical. I it I just feel that we probably shouldn't reference it. So here's one that I found. It is a screen or a picture of a bumper sticker. And it says, the reason you should care is not that it could happen to you, but that it is already happening to others.

Again, stepping outside of yourself and not worrying about, like, will this affect me someday? I only care if it's gonna affect me someday. Because even for us, like, yes, we're women and certain things are gonna impact us. But there are things going on that won't impact

us. Mhmm.

That will never impact us. Mhmm. There are things going on in our country impacting immigrants that will not impact our tiny bubbles. Mhmm. But that's not the criteria for why I should

care. Because we probably should be living our lives the way that Jesus did. And he cared about more than just his little bubble of people. Think about when he talked to the woman at the well. She was a woman from a different culture than his own, who his people were known to despise.

And she was a woman on top of that. So talking to her at all was like a no no. But he said, Hey, let me show you the love of God. So that then you can go tell the love of God to your people and their kids and their kids and their kids and their kids. That's what we should be doing.

We should be stepping out and talking to people that are different from us. And you're right, listening to their stories.

And fighting for their rights too. Mhmm. You shouldn't only care about things when it impacts you and your family. You should care about things because God cares about people. Mhmm.

And if God cares about that person, then you should care about that person. And I've always said fight for your right to party. You could sing that one too. I don't know that one. I'm so sorry.

Fight for your right to party. Is that a song? Did I make that up?

I hope you made it up. I thought it was a song. But then as I said it, I was like, is it just a slogan? This

is from before our time, boys and girls. Or it was of our time, but we weren't of it.

Well, that's true. We were listening to VeggieTales for a really long time.

And Disney on cassette. But only certain Disney. Like Hercules was out and The Goofy Movie. Oh, The Goofy Movie was out. And All Dogs Go to Heaven.

Yeah. Because we who knows? And I don't remember Oliver. Billy Joel? Was he a no no?

Mom? I love when we get your stream of consciousness. It's my favorite. But Aristocats was in. Aristocats was your favorite.

And Robin Hood. You're very into Robin Hood.

I was very into the romance of Robin Hood and Aristocats. But I also apparently liked Aristocats because there was, like, this very wealthy woman who was just single and living her best life, and she was gonna leave all her money to her cats.

You know what?

That's Hilarious. What a wonderful storyline. I want that to

be mine. Well, speed along so we can be rich and go to Disney.

Okay. Hello. Are there any rich old gentlemen out there? No.

You need to get your voice nice and deep. Hello. Oh, no. No.

No. That was too deep. Hello. We might need to work on your sexy voice. I'm not one of those, what do they call them?

Sex talkers? Phone sex operators? Yeah, I'm not one of those. I'd be like singing in my stream of consciousness. Consciousness would be confused.

Like right now, here's another screenshot that I have. It says, No more girl bossing. I want to girl rest, girl sleep, girl lay down on the forest floor and be absorbed by nature. I want girl moss. Wow.

And I felt compelled to screenshot that and share that with

you today. Did it speak to your soul?

I wanted girl moss. You know what? I get it. I think that actually speaks

to something really interesting. Women have to prove themselves all the time. All the time. You are either constantly pushing forward, and I've felt this a lot recently. You have to be in order to be important, in order to be seen, you have to be shoving your way forward absolutely constantly.

You cannot take a break. The men can take a break. You cannot rest. The men can rest. You cannot lean back on your education.

The men can lean back on their education. And so, yeah, you have to kinda girl boss all the time. Mhmm.

And right now, the world today is talking a lot about burnout in your career, where you just you literally burn yourself out. And you don't even realize that that's happened. But you go to work and you're tired and you're drained and you don't find any joy in life ever again. And I think you can definitely burn out just from being a woman. Just from trying to be everything to everybody all the time.

And that's why we go crazy sometimes.

Sometimes we do, man.

This little quote says, patriarchy wants women educated but not opinionated, working but not independent, pretty but not proud. And I feel that.

Yeah. I feel like we've referenced the Barbie movie quote about 4,000 times now.

Because it speaks to my soul in such a way.

But it's just there's no winning. Mhmm. As women, you will not win with people who are against you anyway. Mhmm.

Because they don't see you as a person.

Right.

They don't value your life. Right. So why do they care?

When someone tells you that they believe in patriarchy or whatever politically correct version of that term they use, they are against you. Mhmm. They believe that they are better than you. They'll use all, again, the politically correct phrasing to say, it's not that I'm better than you. It's that I have a different role than you separate but equal

it's just that all my roles are leadership and being better and yours are not how convenient

You will never win with those people. Mhmm. You will never be enough. If you work, you're wrong. If you don't work, you're wrong.

If you have kids, you're wrong. If you don't have kids, you're wrong. There's there's no there's no winning. Mhmm.

So don't try. Don't let them.

Let them be buttholes. But also speak against them. Like, let them live in their corner of stink. So something else that I wanted to talk about is this is a little bit old now, but I still think it's interesting and relevant. So the Vikings, which are a football team, which I would not have known.

Would you like me to continue a song? Okay. We're Vikings. What do you know? The terrors of the sea.

We're Vikings. Where we go pillaging happily. Do you want me to continue? And that's Smedgy Tales for you.

Anyway. So the Vikings is a football team, I think. I'm pretty sure. And they pretty recently hired two male cheerleaders. Mhmm.

And it has been the end of the world. Hey, men can cheer. It's the funniest thing that I've ever seen because it's absolutely all over the internet. Or it was. Like, it's again, this is not, like, the most recent news.

But this is

a quote that I found.

And it says, pretty weird that some straight men believe male cheerleaders are inappropriate, but have no problem ogling sexy women cheerleaders in front of kids. Mhmm. It's almost as though the problem isn't sexy cheerleaders or the presence of kids, but right wing male hypocrisy and discomfort.

Oh, strange.

I think it's a major flaw of society that we put such a strong box around what women can and cannot do, who women can and cannot be, and what men can and cannot do, and what they can and cannot be. When you put a strict box around people and you say, this is what you have to look like to be a man, and this is what you have to look like to be a woman, not everybody's gonna fit that mold.

And God didn't create us to be that way. Right. He had all freaking little snowflakes. And if we were all meant to be exactly the same, we wouldn't be going very far in this world. We're not going very far at the moment.

Oh. We need people who are engineers. Yes. We also need people who are more artistically inclined. Yes.

We need people who want to study the sea. I don't want to do that. We also need people who are into ballooning.

We need them all. We need the ballooners? Yeah. It's like a critical part of humanity? Mhmm.

Good to know.

I watched the movie Around the World in eighty Days, or however many days

it was. It was eighty.

I know it. And they needed that balloon.

I mean, they yeah. I sure. That tracks. Anyway. I just if God didn't say it, you don't get to make it biblical truth.

God didn't say, and men cannot be cheerleaders. He just didn't. He also did not say, and women must be cheerleaders. Mhmm. He did not say men have to be stereotypically masculine.

And in fact, sent Jesus here in a very non stereotypically masculine role with a very non stereotypically masculine personality. So why do we do it, and why do we

make it biblical truth? This was a TikTok I saw, and it said, males praise religion because religion praises them. If your religion talked about males the way it does about women, no males would follow it.

Mhmm. Organized religion. Very rarely respects women. Next to never. Now I say organized religion because it's not Jesus.

Mhmm. It's not God. It's what we turned it into. Of course, men are gonna follow it. Of course, you're gonna have people going to colleges and convincing young people who are very vulnerable to follow a god that in theory gives them a 100% power.

And if they do something wrong, it doesn't matter. They can do something horribly wrong. God will forgive you. It'll be fine. Mhmm.

No accountability. Of course, those kids are gonna follow that person. But they're not following them to Jesus.

Yep. It sounds really enticing when you can have all the power and control and slap God's name on it. Mhmm. It also sounds horrible for women when you say you have no power and control and God wants it that way. It doesn't sound like something my God would say.

It doesn't sound like a religion I would follow. That's why you and I started a podcast. I

think that's why Brie and I are really struggling right now with the whole concept of church. And we had a conversation this week about it, and I said, I can't go somewhere until I see that it reflects Jesus. Now, again, the bar is on the ground. But until a church space that I'm looking at reflects Jesus, there's no reason for me to interact with it. There's no reason for me to be there.

Because if you're not reflecting Jesus, then then this is just a

space. Mhmm.

So what was the point? Now I'm not saying that no churches reflect Jesus. The ones in our space. I have yet to find one. I have yet to find one that I'm like, okay, I

see the love of God here. I have faith that there are churches out there that do reflect the love of Jesus. We live in a smaller, more conservative area. Right now, it's really hard to find safety in a church. Now, have we both been to services where we have felt the love of Jesus?

Absolutely. Mhmm. But it's not every Sunday. And I think it's

not the overall culture of those churches.

Yes. And a lot of times guest view. It's a guest speaker.

Yeah. We fit in really well here in this small conservative community. It's we we don't stand out at all.

Well, I mean, we're not

that tall. It's true. We're quite short. Okay. So the last one that I wanna do now we have many more that we would like to talk about, but we're just gonna have to do this again.

Darn. Darn. Because you hate hearing us talk, as is evidenced by the 70 that you've listened to us talk. But the last one that I wanna talk about for this episode, it just says things Jesus never said. Women, make sure there's always a man in charge of you, your father, your brother, your husband.

I'll give you living water and set you free from every chain except that one. That chain stays. Their authority comes before mine. This is the message.

Well, even and if you don't believe that's the message, we have church leaders like Bill Gothar, where Jesus is at the top and then your husband and then the wife, and then the kids. So any time, in theory, a woman wanted to go to Jesus, she has to go through her husband. And that's just not what God ever intended. When He had Jesus die on the cross, He said, You know what? Nope.

Everybody has equal access to me. You don't have to go through a priest or a pastor to get to me. You have direct access to me.

And yet you see, still to this day in our culture, it being odd for a woman to live by herself without a

man. Mhmm.

Even outside of faith, to live by herself, to be independent, to not have any particular association to a man. Well, oh, here. I have a screenshot for you. Alright. I'm

ready. Okay. This is my last one, I promise. But it it's timely for what you just said. It says women get addressed by miss, missus, or miss because society deems it important to know if she is single, married, or widowed.

Men are only addressed by mister because their relationship to women does not affect their social status. Mhmm. That's very interesting to me.

Well, it's kinda like if you if you're at a bar, for instance. All women know this. If a guy comes up to you and starts flirting with you and you say, thanks. I'm not interested. Mhmm.

Please leave me alone. He is less likely, significantly less likely to accept that and leave you alone than if you say, I have a boyfriend. Mhmm. Because he's not gonna respect you as a woman. He's gonna respect your relationship to a man before he'll respect just you as

a human being. Well, also, he's so full of himself in that moment that you're just simple, no, I'm not interested, is not valid to him. Mhmm. Of course, you have to be interested to me. The only reason you would not be interested in me is if you were already in a relationship.

I

I saw a bro podcast, again, in clips with other things. And a lot of them will give advice on this. And they'll be like, if a woman says no, here's how to convince her anyway. Just a full lack of respect of you as a human being. Mhmm.

Just your autonomy as a person.

No is not enough. No is not a full sentence to them. And that's

why we have miss, missus, and miss. That's why we wear wedding rings. Mhmm. And if you go out and you're not wearing your wedding ring how many movies have we all seen where a guy goes up to a girl and she's like, oh, I'm married. He's like, well, you should wear your wedding ring.

Mhmm. Because you don't matter unless they know if you're available or not. So everything about us, including our names, including what we wear every day, is related to a man. Mhmm. It's wild.

It's wild times out there, girls.

It's a rodeo of hell. Another name for this podcast. Rodeo of

hell. I wonder what sort of listeners that will get.

Some from the occult. Oh, hey.

Hello. Full circle again. We've made yet another circle. Proud of us. Okay.

So next week on the podcast, we are actually going to be talking about online dating. Another full circle.

I forgot we were doing that. I was like, I'm not prepared.

So in my travels

Mhmm.

I found a dating app. Not not my personal travels. I'm married. But in my

work travels in her online journey, in

my work travels, I heard about an app. And I think I talked about it before, but it is for right wing conservatives to date other right wing conservatives. And I just wanna talk about that. We're gonna talk about that app, about another app for conservative people and dating and their children dating. So that's exciting.

Mhmm.

And we'll go through that and talk a little bit about that. And yeah. So maybe we'll get some online dating stories from Brie. Should I get back on the apps? Yeah.

Between now and next week, I think.

Willing to do it for you. Willing to do it. Good to know. I'll add some really cute pictures.

Good. Because that's what you need,

not just to be a girl. No. I need yeah. To be visibly a girl. I don't know what I'm saying anymore.

Definitely a problem. See you. So we'll talk to you

guys about that next week. In the meantime, follow us on social media. We're on TikTok and Instagram for the most part. And we're very funny over there, so Yeah. You'll have a good time.

I'll go through and share to our story a bunch of

the stuff that we talked about today. Hey. Look forward to sometime this week. There's gonna be a picture of a tree

in a bikini. Oh, sexy. Yeah. We'll see you then. Okay.

Love you. Bye. Love you. Bye.