We Are More: Sisters Talk Faith & Feminism

Ever felt like you're doing all the heavy lifting while your partner conveniently 'forgets' how to help out or acts like you're the queen of all things domestic? In this episode, we dig into the fine art of weaponized incompetence. Why do some partners seem so helpless, and is that really okay? Come hang out with us as we talk about unhealthy relationship expectations and ask why so many of our Christian sisters are stuck with these dynamics. Let's all find the answer to the question: is he really that helpless?

What is We Are More: Sisters Talk Faith & Feminism?

We are Alyssa and Bri, two sisters who believe God wants more for women than we've been taught. Join us as we dive into the intersection of faith and feminism, learning together as we go.

Welcome to the We Are More podcast.

My name is Alyssa.

And my name is Bri.

We are 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.

Hello.

It's us.

If you're wondering why Bri's going to get sued, it's because she was singing a Taylor

Swift song a second ago.

And I asked if we could record it.

She said no.

Alyssa's the problem, it's her.

Not me.

Hi.

I'm your national treasure.

I don't think you'll get sued for that.

I think you're okay.

Maybe Nicolas Cage would sue me.

I don't think he like owns the copyright to those movies.

Think he could find a way?

Maybe.

He did find a way to steal the Constitution.

He did.

He found a way.

With Disney's help.

Oh, Disney could sue me.

Oh no.

Speaking of Disney, we're getting ready right now.

When you listen to this, we'll be back from Disney, we'll be really, really severely depressed.

We'll be in a state of despair.

That sounds so dramatic, but she's not kidding.

I'm not kidding.

But right now when we're recording it, we are, what, two days away?

Two or three days away, yeah, from flying out.

Yes.

So we're very excited.

And we're also incredibly stressed out.

Yeah.

I was going to say, I'm not, but I am.

You are.

We all are.

We're trying desperately to get packed, get my kids packed.

My husband is somehow already packed and I hate him a little bit for it.

I think we should do a whole podcast on packing boys versus girls.

It's like trading spaces.

Boys versus girls.

That was a good shot.

Trading suitcases.

Oh, yeah, I wouldn't be able to survive.

It's just so frustrating.

So he got his suitcase completely packed the other day and it was just his clothes.

He got all his clothes packed and he was like, oh yeah, I'm almost done.

And I said, well no, you just have your clothes packed.

And he was like, yeah, I'm almost done.

I just have a couple things left.

And I was like, can you imagine women out there, your clothes are in your suitcase and

you're just done?

You're good to go.

No, I have probably an entire suitcase just of extra crap that I need.

Clothes are an afterthought.

Wait, when I put my clothes in, I have to assume that I need at least half the suitcase

left to put the other crap in.

Yeah.

Speaking of which, I need to go to Target later if you want to come.

I'll come to Target.

So if you're playing your drinking game today, check that little box.

Two basic girls want to go to Target and Starbucks.

Wow.

Are we shocked?

We're not shocked.

We're not.

But we're trying to get everything ready.

We're trying and like in the midst of this, Bri and I are working and Nathan is working

and yesterday, so two days ago, we had a terrible, terrible storm.

Terrible, terrible, terrible.

It was really, really bad wind.

I think they said somewhere in Michigan was like 65 mile per hour winds.

I don't know if that was here.

A terrible, no good, very bad storm.

How many references can we back in the first five minutes?

I've never seen that actually.

Well, it's probably okay.

It's a children's movie.

Is it a movie or is it a book?

It started as a book.

And now it's a movie.

Yeah.

Anyway, so there was this really bad storm.

We didn't lose power.

We very rarely lose power here.

We didn't lose power.

And then the next day, I had just gotten out of the shower, like two minutes before.

And we're on a well, so like the water shuts down and the power goes out.

And it went out the whole rest of the day.

It was very inconvenient.

Yeah.

So we had to go over to our parents' house, hang out there all day, which is fine.

But then we didn't get to pack and get stuff done.

Yeah.

If it had been like another day, it would have been kind of fun, you know, watch movie,

which we did anyway.

We watched movie, had popcorn.

We watched Coco.

We did.

So we're getting into the Disney spirit.

The Disney who-do-woon spirit.

We're a bunch of freaks.

We are very strange, but we're a great time.

Yeah.

I would go say all of those people out there who spend so much of their time with us.

At this point, let's see, this will be episode 22.

Taylor Swift!

Here we go.

Don't sue me.

So that means if you've listened to all of our episodes, now some of them are a little

bit shorter, but you've spent close to 22 hours with Bree and I.

I'm sorry.

Do you need help?

Do you need therapy?

Are we your therapy?

Maybe we are.

Dr. Bree.

Hey, it's coming full circle.

Full circle.

You can be Dr. Alyssa.

That's okay.

That sounds more like sort of like a TV therapist and I don't really like those people.

You're right.

I'll be your TV therapist.

This is not the TV Bree, this is a podcast.

What?

I thought they could see us this whole time.

We joke about that, but we do act like they can see us.

I know.

We talk to the computer directly.

Hello, friends.

I point at the computer, I reference the computer.

It's a mess.

We're a mess.

But we're a fun mess.

So today...

Today I feel like is going to be a little bit informal episode.

Episode?

Yeah, that's what we're calling them.

As opposed to what?

I don't know.

We're just mostly going to be chatting.

So pretend, pull up a chair, grab your coffee and your will to live.

And we're just going to have a chat about weaponized incompetence.

Nice light topic.

Light, airy, breezy, easy, beautiful cover girl.

Yet another reference, but we're outside of the five minute mark so I don't think that

one counts.

Darn.

Yeah, so weaponizing competence has been kind of like a hot button buzzword topic for up

in the past, I would say, like year and a half.

Yeah, it's been around for a while.

Especially on social media.

Where on social media, Bri?

TikTok.

We love TikTok.

We have a problem.

Mostly you.

I love TikTok.

I'm on there a lot.

I'm just trolling.

I'm also in charge of the TikTok for our office and lately I've been such a troll.

I don't think you can say that.

Like part of building your audience on your business's social media is also like engaging

with other whatever.

And I've just been commenting on like one of the restaurants that's in downtown Fenton.

I was like, they posted a picture of a burger.

I was like, oh, looks like you would need some floss after that guy.

I commented on someone's picture of their dog.

I'm like, can I pet that dog?

Can you imagine just some dental office commenting that?

My goal is to be like Wendy's.

Honestly, that's terrifying.

Wendy's social media is great.

They are great.

They're so funny.

Are they on TikTok?

They probably are.

I don't know, but they were on Twitter or X, whatever you want to call it.

Yeah, they were really good on there.

All right, tell me about weaponized incompetence now that we've gone over your TikTok history.

I just think social media in general is cool because it's opening up avenues for people.

We're a feminist podcast, so women specifically talking to each other, seeing is what they're

dealing with common.

Is it normal?

Should they be concerned?

Have you ever been on Reddit?

That's a nightmare.

Oh, that's a frightening space.

But you can find out anything.

Right.

Well, I think it's back in the day, whatever day that would be.

Back in the day.

It was easy to wind up in your little box, especially as women because in the past women

weren't working as much, things like that.

They were very isolated.

What they were experiencing, they didn't know, are other people dealing with this too?

Right.

Weaponized incompetence is one of those things that you're like, oh, this isn't okay.

Yeah, but it takes a minute.

It does.

So the definition, if you're unfamiliar with what that means, I looked it up on, what did

I say it was on?

The internet.

Oh, I forgot the word.

I think it's on like psychology today or something like that.

It says weaponized incompetence, also called strategic incompetence, is when someone knowingly

or unknowingly demonstrates an inability to perform or master certain tasks, thereby leading

others to take on more work.

This generally occurs in two domains, in the household between partners and at work between

colleagues.

Consistently weaponized incompetence leads to an unequal division of labor.

But it's not just husbands and men that do this.

Women do it too.

So I don't want to give too much hate on all the men.

I think stereotypically it is attributed to men more than women, but it definitely is

not gender specific.

So I think situations like doing the dishes, knowing how to cook.

The household kind of stuff.

Yeah.

If a man doesn't want to take care of it, he's either going to pretend that he's bad

at it or just be like, but you're so great.

Your cooking is so good.

It's just delicious when that really puts a lot of pressure on your partner and you're

knowingly or unknowingly, you know, abusing them.

Yeah.

I remember that that makes me think back to my childhood.

So when we were kids, mom would say, Alyssa, can you vacuum for me?

And I despise vacuuming.

Okay.

I don't know why, but it was just one of those things I just did not want to do.

She made me do it like every day.

And I'm sorry, mom, that was totally reasonable of you to ask, but I just really hated it.

But the way she would get me to it, because I would be like, mom, why can't Bree do it?

Why can't Brandon do it?

Why is it always me?

And she was like, you're just the best at it.

You're just so good at vacuuming.

That positive reinforcement.

That's what totally offshoot, but that's what that makes me think of.

There was someone I worked with way back in the day that hated vacuuming at the office.

And at the office, we have to vacuum every single day.

One would hope.

And she would purposely run the vacuum into the baseboards and scuff up the baseboards,

knowing that our previous employer hated that.

Pet peeve.

Like you would have died.

So then she didn't have to vacuum anymore because she was so terrible at it.

But I think that happens so often in households where it's like you can and you are able to

complete a task or learn how to complete a task, but you actively choose not to or to

be terrible at it to manipulate the other person into doing more work.

Well, you think of laundry in particular, and I can't tell you how many times I've

heard, my husband just doesn't know how to work the washer.

He doesn't know what buttons to push or what washer fluid to put in or whatever, like what

soap to put in.

And it's like this person is like a high ranking employee.

They can figure it out.

Like, I'm sorry, they have an engineering degree.

They can figure it out.

My question is always what happens if the spouse that does all the work, whether it's

the husband or the wife, what happens if they die?

Yeah, you're screwed.

Like if they die, is that other person not going to figure out how to do the laundry?

No, they are going to figure out how to do their laundry.

They're currently choosing not to.

And if it's worst case scenario, let's say that you really don't know how to work your

washer or dryer.

That's just not ever been on your radar.

I still don't think it's great to put on your partner, like you have to teach me how to

do all of these things that a normal adult would do.

But I can also almost guarantee that your partner would rather you come to them and

say, hey, could you teach me one time how to do this so that in the future I can take

this on?

I can almost guarantee they would prefer that over you just saying, well, that's just beyond

my comprehension.

That's outside of my bubble.

No, thank you.

I was listening to this podcast earlier where this girl was talking about her growing up

experience.

Her mom was in the military, so she would get deployed for seven to 10 months at a time.

And when she had her mom deployed, it was her dad who was taking care of everything.

But there was such a difference with mom being there taking care of things and dad being

there and taking care of things.

It was like hamburger helper every single night.

And she had to take on several of the roles because she was the oldest girl sibling.

She had to take on doing laundry and making sure her siblings made their lunches or make

their siblings lunches.

I just feel like that's not fair.

There shouldn't be too much of a difference because you both should be fully capable of

handling yourselves.

And that's not to say that you have to be like this spectacular cook or anything, but

you can, I think most people can follow a recipe if they try a few times.

You can have a list of five things that you can make.

Or just like, you know that your kids need vegetables.

Feed them vegetables.

Yeah.

Even if it's cut up a raw vegetable, okay.

I think when that, I hear about that so often.

Oh, when mom is doing bedtime or whatever, all these things get done.

It's almost the opposite for me.

Nathan is a lot more detail oriented with that stuff.

But when mom puts the kids to bed, they get their face washed, they get their teeth brushed,

they take their shower, they get their pajamas on, they go to bed, they get their story,

they get whatever.

And when dad puts them to bed, it's like, go to bed.

And that's it.

And obviously that's not the case for everyone's household, but that is weaponized incompetence.

That is you doing a poor job when your partner's not around or when your partner is not able

to do the job so that you don't get asked to do it next time.

It's like that episode of Bluey.

We love Bluey.

So, everybody knows what Bluey is.

I'm not going to explain it, but the kids, they're going to the pool without their mom,

right?

Yes.

Oh, yes.

That's a good example.

The dad takes the kids to the pool and he forgets the sunscreen and he forgets the water

wings and he forgets the snacks.

All of this stuff, they pretty much just were able to get themselves to the pool.

And then mom showed up with all of the things that they forgot.

It actually wasn't even that he forgot them.

He intentionally said, that stuff's no fun.

Let's just go.

And the kids were like, yeah, mom's no fun.

She makes us pack all these things and whatever.

And I do think Bluey is, as a rule, a really good example of a good marriage and a good

family.

But it is interesting to see those dynamics.

Real life situations on a kid's cartoon.

Yeah, about dogs.

If you've never seen Bluey, it is a treasure.

Oh my gosh, it's a national treasure.

Just like Nicolas Cage bringing it full circle.

Just like myself.

Full circle, circle.

We've got so many things going on.

There's a song called Labor, actually, by Paris Paloma.

I don't know for sure that I'm pronouncing her name correct.

I think you got Paris down, probably.

It could be Paris.

Paris Paloma.

Is that offensive?

Probably.

At the end of this, we're not going to ask them to share this with the people in France.

Don't share this with the people in France.

Or Canada.

Also fair.

But still looking for Australia.

Bluey, hey.

Bluey takes place in Australia.

Did you know?

Anyways, one of the quotes from that song.

It's a very good song.

It cusses once.

I'm just putting it out there.

It's a super depressing song.

Oh, it's very depressing because it's like just a mirror on society.

But one of the quotes is, I know you're a smart man and weaponize the false incompetence,

dominance under a guise, which I think is so powerful.

Like, oh you're just so much better at planning vacations.

Oh, you're just so much better at packing the kids lunches than I am.

It's asserting dominance by acting passive.

Well it's like those things are not important enough for me to figure out how to do them.

So I'm going to let you take that on.

And I think the guise that that comes under is, I'm going to give you control.

I'm going to give you control and then you can do whatever you want.

You do whatever you want.

You fold the clothes however you want.

You do it great.

So you do whatever you want.

You plan the vacation however you want.

You're just so good at it and you'll figure it out.

I know you will.

And so the idea is like the spouse that's behaving that way is giving the other partner

the freedom to do what they want, but really they're giving them the bondage of having

to handle all of these decisions.

And that's exhausting.

It's not fun to have to make every decision every time.

No.

And also you're concerned not just about yourself at that point.

You're like, I want to make sure that this is done well for everybody.

I want to make sure everybody is happy in this situation, not just me.

Well, I mean we can talk about our Disney trip.

I like to plan our Disney trips.

I have a fun time doing it.

But it can be really exhausting when I'll be like, oh hey, what does everybody want

to do for dining reservations?

And people will say, oh, I don't care.

Whatever you want to do.

You pick, you know, whatever.

I'm guilty of this for sure.

And it's just because they just don't want to think about it or deal with it.

But in not thinking about or dealing with it, now I have to take everybody's voice that

they're not even using.

I have to take my knowledge about Bri and mom and dad and Nathan and everybody and think

about, well, what might they like?

Well, I don't want to decide on something they don't like.

And it's like it all falls onto your shoulders.

It's super exhausting.

And that's just one small example.

Everybody helps plan Disney, okay?

It's fine.

But that's an example of how it can for sure be.

I watched a TikTok.

I watched the TikTok.

Alyssa!

I know!

Oh, is this on your bingo cards, everybody?

No, it's you watching TikTok that's on the bingo cards.

But this could be something new and different.

Oh yeah, add this one to your bingo cards, folks.

Bri, that could be part of our merch.

That would be very funny.

Printable bingo cards.

And if you get a bingo, I'll send you a TikTok.

Sounds great.

That's a great price.

It's really motivating.

I have a really good sense of humor with TikTok, so I won't say it.

Anyway, so I watched a TikTok.

And I follow this guy.

I need to look him up.

Something on relationships.

And basically what he does, and he does this on YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, all over the

place.

And he does these little skits, right?

And he'll play the part of usually like he goes very stereotypical.

So it'll be like the stereotypical husband and the stereotypical wife.

And he puts on his little red wig when he's the stereotypical wife.

And it's very funny.

I know who you're talking about.

Yeah, I think it's Jimmy on relationships.

I think that's what it is.

Oh, Jimmy.

So he goes through these scenarios and what would be a detrimental conversation between

a couple.

And then he usually sits down as like their therapist or something and explains why that

didn't work and what they could do better.

So it's really good.

I highly recommend it.

But he did one where he was talking about essentially weaponizing competence.

I don't think he said that, but basically.

And so this couple had decided between them that dishes is going to be a shared chore.

And the husband just wasn't doing it ever.

And so she was doing them all the time, had asked him several times if he please could

do what he had committed to doing.

And he just, oh, I'm so tired at the end of the day, whatever.

So it all kept falling on her, falling on her, falling on her.

And finally, he comes up to her with his cup, like his apparently his one cup.

Favorite cup.

It was not a Stanley, which is a little upsetting, but you know, embarrassing for him.

And he goes, hey, how come my cup's not clean?

And first of all, it was very accusatory.

Why didn't you do this for me?

And she was like, well, I say she, it's still Jimmy.

He's just in a wig.

But Jimmy has the wife.

Is he, she says, well, you know, I, we decided that this was a shared chore and you haven't

been keeping up your end of the deal.

So I've decided only to wash my dishes and you can wash your own dishes.

And the husband got very, very upset and was like, are you kidding me?

This is so petty.

It would take you 10 seconds to wash this one cup.

It's just one cup.

It wouldn't do that much damage to you.

How come you can't just do this one thing for me?

And so it goes on until like how it's not okay to then blame your partner.

And I think that's a huge part of weaponized incompetence is to turn around and blame your

partner for not doing the things for you that you could easily do for you.

It would take her three extra seconds.

Correct.

It would also take you three seconds.

So you are fully capable of doing it.

And if you're not willing to share that burden with her, then you have to take care of yourself.

Exactly.

And I think that's where the partnership aspect comes in and where marriage is a partnership.

A little tit for tat.

Thank you for that.

You'd think a lifetime watching us.

Might have taught her that.

Where's that one from?

The Corpse Bride.

You reference it all the time and I cannot remember it.

I think that's where Christianity has played a big role in this because Christianity has

told men your roles are not in the house.

You don't have to do anything in this space.

You walk in, you sit down in your easy chair, you open up the newspaper.

This is a dated reference.

You work so hard, nine to five job and then your job stops.

Yes.

Whereas her job started from the moment she woke up and whether she's working outside the

home or not, her job is not going to end until she collapses in bed at night and sometimes

not even then because the kids wake up.

And I think we've spoken about this before, but in today's society it's very hard to have

only one working parent.

So more often than not you do have two working parents, but still all of the housework and

taking care of the kids, all of that still falls on the wife.

And most marriages for sure.

Even though they're both working.

Which is crazy to me.

I've seen so many examples of that and I'm just like, do you think it's beneath you to

help make dinner?

Not even help, to make dinner because it's your responsibility too.

Well and it's like, I'm going to do her a favor and order a pizza tonight.

No, no, no, no, no.

That's not a favor.

And it's also your responsibility.

Not that helpful.

No!

Make the dinner for goodness sakes.

But I think that's where Christianity has, like I said, played such a huge role even

in broader society to say this is a woman's role and this is a man's role and a man can't

possibly be expected to learn how to clean a bathroom, to learn how to vacuum the floors

or whatever, fill in the blank.

And not to say that women aren't doing this sometimes too, it's just from our vantage

point that's what we're seeing.

I will say definitely it's, and like the definition said too, it's not just in relationships,

it's also at work.

And it's also women too.

You can pump your own gas.

Or you can learn to check your oil.

Or you can paint the walls.

You need your windshield wipers replaced.

I can only think of car examples right now.

But you can figure it out.

You can go into an auto zone, you can ask the questions.

It doesn't all have to be like, I just don't know how to do that silly old me.

Brie has had car trouble for the 40th time this year, so that's why all of her examples

are car related.

Both my examples are car related, and I'm not in a relationship, so I do have to figure

out a lot of this by myself.

Even though I call dad a lot.

You call me too.

Yeah, help me!

My car is cursed, everybody say a prayer.

There's a ghost in it.

I think we should name it.

Another term that's floating around in there, which is not to be used interchangeably with

weaponized incompetence.

It says who?

What if I wanna?

You can't!

Oh no.

It's learned helplessness.

Would you like me to read a definition of that as well?

No.

Long pause.

I'm gonna anyways.

Learned helplessness occurs when an individual continuously feels a negative, uncontrollable

situation and stops trying to change their circumstances, even when they have the ability

to do so.

The perception that one cannot control the situation essentially elicits a passive response

to the harm that is occurring.

Okay, so give me a practical real life example of that.

So when I read this on Psychology Today, it said think of a smoker trying to quit smoking.

They've tried all the gum and they've tried all the whatever, and they just feel like

nothing's working and I can't help it anymore.

I cannot stop.

Even though they can stop, they have the tools at their disposal to help them stop, but they've

decided that they can't control the situation anymore and they cannot.

My example would be in very, very, very fundamental Christian relationships.

A lot of the times, because they think the wife needs to submit to the husband, they

also think they need to break the wife's will.

This is abusive, this is not okay, but that person who quote unquote needs to be broken

eventually thinks, I can't control my situation.

There's something wrong with me.

It's my fault that he's acting this way.

I can't change.

I'm stuck with him forever because what good would I be on my own?

The reality is you have every tool at your disposal to change your situation, to go forth

and be free.

You're smart and you have people surrounding you that will help you.

Even if you think that you don't, you do.

You know?

Me personally, in my job, in my career, I am a dental assistant.

I do some other stuff, but right now I'm a dental assistant.

Be the director of operations.

Let's take a few steps back here.

I started out as a dental assistant at a dental office after I graduated college.

I thought because I had been there for so long and this is all that I know how to do,

that this is all I can do.

I'm stuck in this situation now because I don't have any experience doing anything else.

I'm just stuck in this bad situation.

Y'all don't need to hear all the ins and outs.

I'm still at the same office.

There was a time where that office was a very abusive situation.

In my learned helplessness, I thought that I couldn't change my situation.

The reality is I could go somewhere else.

I have a brain.

I can learn how to do something else.

You do too.

Out there, I'm looking at the computer again like it's you, our audience.

You know who you are.

You can change your situation.

Is that a self-limiting belief?

If you say self-limiting belief one more time.

That's been my words.

Phrase.

This has been my phrase of the week and everybody at work has been like, shut up, Brianna!

Because I use it.

Joking.

You use it constantly.

Is that a self-limiting belief?

I just want to kill you sometimes.

Are you being a bottleneck?

Bri's been to a few too many seminars.

I've been learning a lot about leadership and growth.

This is more as a result of either abuse or an extremely stressful, difficult situation,

like a PTSD response.

As opposed to someone who's choosing not to do something because they don't want the responsibility

of doing it.

Absolutely.

Since we are a Christian podcast.

We are?

We are followers of Jesus Christ.

How do you respond in the situations where you know you're being vaguely manipulated

by someone?

Also say, oh, you're so good at doing the dishes.

I can't do them as well as you.

Maybe you come back and you say, Philippians 4.13.

I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

I believe in you.

And then you run away.

I believe that God will give you the strength to do the dishes and you are competent.

I beg of one of you.

I beg of you.

Do this.

Record yourself.

Post it on TikTok.

Tag us.

We want to see it.

Please.

She doesn't want to check her own oil.

The paper towels freak her out.

She's confused.

You say Psalms 46.5.

God is within her.

She will not fail.

God will help her at the break of day.

You sound like one of those pastors, like the evangelists.

God will help her.

Amen.

Look how loud we are.

My windows are open too.

The neighbors probably know that.

Yeah, people think we're weird.

I'm just practicing my Baptist preacher impersonation.

You can't be a Baptist preacher.

You're a girl.

Silly me.

I'm not even Baptist.

That would make it tricky.

You had a third verse.

I'm absolutely sure of it.

I have two more.

Do you want to hear them?

I do want to hear them.

Psalms 73.26.

Wait, I need to have an example for this.

So here's the example.

I hate taking out the trash.

I absolutely hate it.

It smells and there are flies and it's gross.

Well, Psalms 73.26 says, my flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of

my heart and my portion forever.

You can do it.

I believe in you.

Thanks.

It may be icky yucky.

What if I touch a bug?

That bug will not kill you unless you live in Australia.

Hey, Australians.

Are you looking for a podcast that makes you laugh, cry, moves you, Bob?

Wait, we're on VGTales again.

Australians, look no further.

Listen no further.

This is the podcast for you.

Is this offensive yet?

But I don't think to the Australians.

I think potentially to us.

To that I say, 2 Corinthians 12.9.

My grace is all you need for my power is the greatest when you are weak.

Are you feeling weak?

Every day of my life.

That's a good one.

I need an example for that.

I can't help you put together that IKEA furniture.

My bones don't work.

I don't have muscles.

Her arms would cut off.

Her legs would cut off.

This is a potential problem.

I don't know.

This is potentially the most spazzy of the episode.

I can't move around my furniture in my room.

I'm just a little girl and too weak.

No my grace is all you need for my power is greatest when you are weak.

Did you read the reference for that one?

This one does come from that.

Yeah, 2 Corinthians 12.9.

I'm proud of you.

All biblical.

The words of God.

I'm literally weeping over here crying or laughing.

You want a tissue?

No, I don't think you have a tissue.

I have a makeup wipe.

No, thank you.

Oh, so I just also like as you're reading through the Bible here, I want to point out

that the Bible gets used to justify weaponized incompetence in a huge way because I don't

really know why.

I don't really know why because the Bible at no point says and the woman will be responsible

for all the laundry.

Yeah, and the man shall sit in his easy chair and smoke his pipe and wear his slippers like

that's not in there.

There's no part of the Bible that says the woman is responsible for all the child rearing

and all the things within the home.

Like it's not it's not there.

We've made that up.

I think we've confused Bible times with the United States in the 1950s.

As a church, yeah, and actually our good friend Beth.

Beth, our bestie Beth.

Yeah, Beth.

She talks about that in her book, The Making of Biblical Womanhood, where she says around

that era, like I think I think it's like the 1920s ish era up through the 50s.

How they pulled kind of all of these stereotypes that they wanted to pull for women that really

had nothing to do with the Bible, had nothing to do with Bible times.

Like if you want to look at what a biblical woman looks like, and I know we harp on this

all the time, but I'm gonna do it again because you might not have listened to the other ones.

It's our podcast, not yours.

Yeah.

But like the women in the Bible, some of them, just like the disciples, dropped everything

to follow Jesus.

Now this is controversial, but they dropped their kids.

They dropped their husbands.

There are like hot potatoes.

Yeah.

I mean, some of the women that were following Jesus had families and they walked away to

follow Jesus because their greatest calling was not to be a wife and mother.

Now I know we love our husbands, we love our kids, we love our families.

Regardless, whatever role you find yourself in women, your highest calling is not to be

a wife and mom.

It's to follow Jesus.

And so in those scenarios with those biblical women, they were asked to drop everything,

everything that they loved, everything they knew, everything that they were, and follow

Jesus.

And that doesn't mean that it's easy.

No.

But I think when we make these really stereotyped gender roles, you kind of have to throw all

those women in the trash.

You have to forget that they ever existed.

Yeah.

Bree, sing that song.

I forgot that you existed.

Thank you.

Taylor, you're here again.

My gosh.

It's like you never left.

It's like the third one.

We've done a great job this time.

But there are other women, you look at Deborah, who we did a whole episode on, and it's really

good.

You guys should go back and listen to it.

Go back and listen to it.

Deb is a beast.

I think it's called Our Biblical Sisters.

It's one of our earliest episodes.

And we talked about how Deborah was a judge in the Jewish culture, which didn't mean that

she was sitting up there with her gavel and whatever.

She was a military leader.

Her job was not, I'm going to do the laundry, I'm going to be the best at cooking, I'm going

to whatever.

Or like, I know I have other male judges right alongside me, but really I'll just take a

step back and I'll take care of them.

Exactly.

They do the big boy jobs.

No, she was right alongside them.

Not beside them.

She was way out in front of them.

Yeah, she's kicking their booties.

She's doing stuff they couldn't do.

So when someone tells you as a Christian woman, well, this is your role.

So you're supposed to be better at this than him.

You're supposed to know how the oven works and he doesn't need to.

You're supposed to vacuum all the floors before he comes home because you're better at it.

You're supposed to whatever, you know, fill in the blank.

We've all been told it.

You're supposed to do those things because you're the woman, because that's your role,

because that's your job, because his tiny little man brain apparently can't figure it

out.

It's not true.

It's not biblical.

God gave him the same size brain as you have.

And it's offensive to both of you.

It's not just offensive to you.

It's also offensive to him.

If he was single, if your husband or your partner, whoever he is, if he was single,

he would have to figure this stuff out, right?

At the very least, he'd have to go to a laundromat or I guess maybe go out to eat every night.

Like he'd have to do something.

This podcast that I was listening to was talking about dorm rooms too and the difference between

a girl's dorm versus a boy's dorm.

And she was like, I would go into the boy's dorm and it just stank like disgustingness

and nothing was taken care of because so often personal hygiene is considered too feminine.

Like they don't want to seem like gay or something because they have skincare or because they

have a breeze to their room.

It's just silly.

Take care of yourself.

Gosh dang it.

Take care of yourself.

I do see that trend changing in younger generations and thank goodness.

You see this expectation for men changing in their looks and this is a little bit off

topic but the trend now for boys is to get perms.

I heard it's called the flow.

Oh, like our periods?

Maybe I'm wrong?

Am I wrong?

That can't be right.

I don't know.

Anyway.

Don't listen to me.

I don't know what the youths are doing.

But I think it's actually really cool because it's this breaking of gender norms where it

says men can't care about their hair.

Men can't care about their skin or whatever.

It's a self-limiting belief if I've ever heard it.

Shut up.

And it allows younger men and boys and whoever or older men to kind of break that standard

and say like, no, I would love to have a perm.

I would love to try that out.

I'm just a person.

Yeah.

I'm just a person and I might have wants and needs that are different from the other people

around me.

So I think if we can break the gender norms, if we can break these weaponized incompetence

so closely related to gender expectations, it opens up a whole world where you get to

be just a person.

If you're a boy and you want to wear cover stick to cover up your acne, that can be okay.

Or if you want to wear eyeliner because it makes your eyes pop, have a super time.

And for girls, if you want to be more interested in cars, something that's out of your gender

norm, that can be okay.

I think maybe this could be an entire podcast, but mom was sharing with me today.

She was like, back when I was a young youth girl, she was very smart in school and no

one necessarily told her this, but she made it.

She felt less feminine because she was book smart, which is such a crazy idea to me.

And we were trying to dive deep into this in the car, like why did you feel that way?

Why did it make you feel less feminine or less girly to be?

What part of gender roles made her feel that way?

I think that's actually something a lot of women experience.

I think it comes down to you're never supposed to be intimidating to men.

You're never supposed to make them feel less than you are.

And you should never make anyone feel less than, but it's so put upon women never ever

seem smarter than him because it'll hurt his ego, whatever.

And it's even become a little bit of a manipulation tactic for women because you say, well, I'm

going to act not as smart, but I'm going to behind your back.

I'm going to do whatever.

Just be as smart as you are right up front.

Be real.

If you're smart, be smart.

If you're dumb, be dumb.

I just see if we could get rid of so much of this, such a partnership society.

And I know that that seems like a big ask of the whole of society, but if I could ask

it of just the people listening to this podcast, find out where you can be in a partnership,

whether it's in a relationship, whether it's at work, wherever it is, find that space because

you'll be happier.

The other people will be happier.

And life can be a lot easier in that space.

Be real with each other.

Quit trying to put on this facade of fakeness or caring too much about what other people

think of you or whatever it is.

You are a strong, confident individual.

And wrap this up, you can do the dishes.

You can change your oil.

You can.

Well, I'm not going to change my oil.

I'm going to check it.

I'm going to take it somewhere to get changed.

You can check your oil and you can take it somewhere.

You can ask those people at the gas station.

Not the gas station.

YouTube and TikTok has a wealth of knowledge.

Just a wealth of knowledge.

If you wanted to learn how to do anything, if I wanted to learn how to amputate my own

toe, I could figure it out.

Please, please don't.

Guys, don't listen to my sister.

Sometimes she's real smart.

Sometimes she's real dumb.

If you're smart, be smart.

If you're dumb, be dumb.

I'm just saying.

But yeah, like you are fully capable.

Each one of you, man, woman, child, you are well, maybe not the children.

You are fully capable of figuring stuff out.

But using and abusing your partners.

And on that note, shut up.

Goodbye.

We can't shut up.

Goodbye.

We have to do other things.

What?

Australia?

All right, guys, try to share with Australia because Brie will be really sad if you don't.

Bluey, can you follow us?

I think we've actually forgotten to do that like the last two episodes, so we've failed

a little bit, but we've jumped back right, right on time.

Jump on it.

Next week we will be back with I don't know what yet.

We haven't decided, but we will have the Disney saddies.

So expect a lot less energy.

Expect depression just there.

Wallowing, self-loathing.

So since you definitely want to hear all of that, make sure to tune in next week to have

so much fun here with us.

Everybody get like a bottle of wine and some chocolate and just put on your sad clothes

and we can cry together.

All right, guys, we'll see you next week.

I'm going to edit this in like the next two hours, so we'll see you later.

Love you.

Bye-bye.

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