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This isn’t your average podcast—it’s a radical little book club for your ears.
Each week on Assigned Reading, feminist business coach Becky Mollenkamp invites a brilliant guest to read and unpack a feminist essay. Together, they dive into the juicy, nuanced, sometimes uncomfortable questions these texts raise about power, identity, leadership, liberation, and more.
If you’ve ever wanted to have big conversations about big ideas—but without having to get dressed, make small talk, or leave your introvert bubble—you’re in the right place.
🎧 This show is for the nerdy, the thoughtful, the socially conscious.
💬 It’s for people who crave deeper dialogue, new perspectives, and human connection in a world full of sound bites.
📚 Think of it as a feminist book club you don’t have to RSVP for.
Assigned Reading is here to help you feel less alone, more seen, and newly inspired—with accessible essays, warm rapport, and the kind of smart conversations that stay with you.
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Becky Mollenkamp (00:00.76)
Hi Faith, how are you?
Faith Clarke (00:02.613)
Hey, Becky, I'm pretty good. pretty good. Yes, because I've been listening to, some reason, Labor, that song has been in my head. And perhaps that's aligned with the exhaustion, the overwhelm, the burnout feeling, and just kind of see how much that feeling is a part of what society has offered to me versus, what, you know, we do the Feminist Founders.
Becky Mollenkamp (00:04.878)
You're contemplative, you said earlier.
Faith Clarke (00:30.605)
podcast and I didn't quite go into it but the idea of there was a trauma to inflammation. There was a chart that I, I'm gonna send it to you so we can put it in the show notes, but there was a chart that I referred to that just talked about the impact of colonization, supremacy, and basically just led into trauma and inflammation. That even the inflammation in my body right now. 80 % of it at least is just tied to systemic stuff, you know? And so that was just kind of sobering.
Becky Mollenkamp (01:04.981)
I can feel that in my joints quite literally. So I know what you're talking about. Well, we're talking today about Chimamanda. And I just thought, looked up how to pronounce her last name. Hold on. Adichie. Chimamanda Adichie. And we should all be feminists. I believe that's what it's called. Now I feel bad like I'm, yeah, right? That's right. Which I had actually, most of these essays we're doing for this I've never read before. So they're new to me. This I actually listened to the audio book version. It was turned into a book, even though it's very short, it's 30 minutes. And so I've listened to it a few years ago, but I rewatched the Ted Talk today. It's also, think there's a print version available, but I'll link to the Ted Talk and if there's a print version, I'll link to that in show notes. So I just rewatched it right before we got on. And I'm curious, like I'll share my high level thoughts too, but I wanna know kind of just that 2000 foot view of what do you think of this?
Faith Clarke (02:00.043)
Yeah, I really enjoy listening to Chimamanda because she's centering African continent Nigerian culture, which is very similar to Jamaican culture. that, so that was often when I'm in conversations about feminism, what's centered in this country is whiteness. And it's not because it's centered, it's invisible. You know, we talk about feminism as if it's not white feminism. And so there's, was something beautiful about listening to her narrate the stories that I'm familiar with, even though it's different versions of those stories. It may not be that she talked about the fact that the, um, the guy, paid the person and the guy thanked the waiter or whoever thanked, um, the male, the male, her male contemporary. And I just, having seen that, different versions of that, just growing up, that kind of difference assumption and stuff like that. So I quite enjoyed it. I recognized it also as dated, meaning, you know, in terms of the article, the essay itself, she did this talk, then she wrote the essay, and then she's been refining, you know, her perspectives all along. And like everything else, you know, as she said in the talk, people shape culture. And so it's our own shaping of our experience that then even creates the change that makes different elements of the conversation relevant to us now in 2025, perhaps then she was referring to in 2017 or whatever it was. And so I was just also, there's something hopeful about that. Some of those shifts while at the same time, the really long tail, the the slowness of change and how much maybe power resists change. So how it snaps back at you and kind of tries to recover itself, you know, thinking about the 1 % increase in black women's unemployment in the month of last month in this country. know, so just like you think about that there's progress and then there's a snapback and always and just so recognizing that things have changed and also recognizing that yeah it's the change is long and hard.
Becky Mollenkamp (04:32.077)
I want to go into all of those things that you talked about more in depth. But first, I want to correct myself. It was 2013. The reason I said 2017 was because I also want to address just sort of upfront that in 2017, Chimamande had made a statement, trans women are trans women. And that was definitely, especially in the time, very much interpreted as saying trans women are not women, but they are trans women. She later clarified that was not at all what she meant. And that, in fact, she was saying trans women have a unique experience as women. And so we need to honor the fullness of their unique experience. And so I read more about, cause I had just heard this sort of like rumbling that, not Chimamanda cause she's a turf and let's stay away from that. Having done a little more research for this conversation, I realized that I don't believe that is all at all the case. I think that what she was saying was probably not the best way to say what she was saying. And was then also taken and sort of spun out as she was correcting that that's not what she believes. She's fully in support of trans women, do believe trans women are women, just that that's a unique experience different from a cis woman's experience, which is a valid thing to say, I think, right? So I wanted to point that out really quickly too. So that was in 2017, but I think it's reflective of what you're saying that, you know, this was in 2012, 2017, she sort of put her toe into the trans conversation, went through that experience of, I need to be more, careful or more clear about what I'm saying and that learned more. There is this evolution because I had the same feeling when I watched it of this feels dated in a way and yet still present in a way, right? Some of the references even felt a bit dated, but then also like that reference that you said of giving the money to someone, you giving the money and then looking at someone else. I thought, does that happen? Now, of course, this is my white American experience, right? Which we'll talk about, but I was feeling like, that dated. And then there's a part of me thinks every time my husband and I go to the restaurant, the waiter still puts the check in front of my husband, never in front of me. So it does like, you know, there are the things that sometimes in some way when I'm listening to it, I'm thinking this does feel of its time a bit. But then also, there's a lot of it that still feels fairly relevant now.
Faith Clarke (06:40.619)
Yeah, I think, I mean, there's something I appreciated that she centered the conversation in the African continent and in Nigeria. And I think that the conversations that we're having that are not contextualized, what are we even saying? What are we even saying? So I am not a woman, I'm a black woman. I'm a black Afro-Caribbean immigrant woman. am a woman whose mother, right? I think all of the contextualization is important and I also think that, you know, the moment we, I think this kind of speaks to some of what she talked about with misogyny that women are pushed back on because we're women and we push back, we hold women to a higher standard of the same perfectionist supremacist ideology that harms us all. So there is a, an automatic checking. I felt myself do it. Is she correct? In a way that I wasn't aware of doing, if you say it was Trevor Noah, right? And then so I'm saying that I am aware, I remember I did a presentation and completely overlooked. was using, coming up with some examples of people who modeled the characteristic that I was doing. And I chose a black man and in the night after kind of processing, some of how the workshop went. I was like, my goodness, there is this black woman who outshone this black man as a model of this thing, but I overlooked her completely. So in my own work, I have to acknowledge that when I am asking a question, she right? Or when I'm kind of saying it's dated or whatever, there is a critique to it. I accept the datedness of men speaking. Whereas I'm there like, is this right? And I think that that's part of what she's talking about, that the oppression of women is so much in the water that we ourselves do it just.
Becky Mollenkamp (08:46.99)
For sure. And I mean, for me, too, as a white woman and a white American woman specifically, like looking, there's that same thing of me saying, well, this feels does this this feels a little dated or is those things relevant or this isn't my experience? And then that's that checking in of like, well, no, it's not meant to be my experience. Right. Exactly. But it's being so accustomed to things big, especially these conversations around feminism, which is the problem.
Faith Clarke (09:05.739)
Yeah, it's not your experience, yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (09:15.738)
Right? That's a huge problem. But I'm so accustomed to my experience being this experience that is centered that when it's not, it can feel not even challenging, but almost it's easy to dismiss it. Right. Which is exactly the problem. Yeah.
Faith Clarke (09:28.205)
Right, right, right. I think too, yeah. And I think too, just even, you know, it's impossible. I was in a conversation this weekend past that, you know, this person said, it's impossible to separate my woman-ness from my blackness, you know? And so it's, when I think about even whatever, I didn't do the research on what she said about trans women, but I do think that the quickness of our reactions to everybody's stuff is part of the drive towards perfection is our to look perfect, to say the right thing. And it's the very thing that stops us from actually being able to bring the equity and equality that injustice that we need, because everybody has to perform feminism or perform, you know, restorative practice instead of being, you know, and if we can understand within the context of relationship. I hear us saying, somebody asked me this, do we hold people who have large platforms to a higher standard? Yeah, maybe. And also we should hold ourselves to the standard of listening through the lens of the thing we actually want, you know, versus, yeah, anyway, I could go off on that.
Becky Mollenkamp (10:49.464)
Well, I think it's a great avenue to go down because I think you're right. And this has come up more than once in this podcast because, you know, we're reading a selection of essays that go way back in time to much more current. And, you know, the older the essay is, the more through our current lens we see all of the glaring errors, right? And especially when we're looking at feminism, we're very often a lot of the early work and we're taught we're reading things from all types of folks. But some of the things that we're reading from white women are very clearly missing so much of the context you've talked about. They are falling well short of what we would want them to be and what they should have been. And it's like, can we, it's this whole separate the art from the artist thing of like, can we appreciate the pieces that are helpful, that helps shape a new narrative while also critiquing the parts that are not without it being this like, I have to throw, I hate this expression, but throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Like, why do we say, do we want to get rid of an entire collection of work because it doesn't fit through today's, through, not even today's, what should have been then, right? But because it wasn't, do we say, well, then none of this matters. And that is, cancel culture is such a hard thing because, you know, I do agree with people who say it's accountability, right? It's not cancel culture, it's accountability. And someone like Chamamanda has since said, like that is not what I think. And I think there are still people who harbor that ill will. And it's like, where do we allow that grace? And I love what you said, like where are we holding ourselves to a different standard?
Faith Clarke (12:29.473)
Yeah, I really think that what we've set up here is a quick hits information about a thing and make a judgment, which is so far from what's required to actually build spaces where all genders have equity and justice. And yes, absolutely, there is going to need to be focused work. The more we understand the more contextual information we build in. Can I celebrate these people who as blind as they were, did this body of work? Can I not make them bad? Yes, they had racists that white, all kinds of things that we are now exploring. No, let us hold ourselves accountable to that, but let's not hold them accountable for what we know now. You know, just let's just take what we can and keep it moving. But that's the same thing that stops us from keeping moving because we're kind of busy with did they perform it right? According to who? It's according to me, no. So again, I'm not integrating anybody else's context. I'm just kind of centering myself.
Becky Mollenkamp (13:48.206)
Yeah, exactly. As you're saying that I'm thinking that's just yet another way we're centering ourselves. And I hope that 12 years from now, that's how old this piece is. I hope 12 years from now, I'm seeing the world differently. Right? I mean, I hope so. I hope that I look at I go back and listen to these podcast episodes 12 years from now and think, I could have I could have probably done that better. And my understanding around that issue has definitely changed. And it's not because I want to like shame myself now, but that's growth and evolution, should always be looking for that.
Faith Clarke (14:21.133)
celebrating me then for getting me now here right so that's these people who came up with this framework flawed as it was we wouldn't be here having this conversation so it's just like and like a person I follow who is like no that was faith 2.0 that was faith 3.0 today is faith 8.0 and it's okay for me to honor 2.0's version of of this thing and this particular person is an artist and
Becky Mollenkamp (14:23.736)
Yeah. Right me now wouldn't exist without her.
Faith Clarke (14:50.881)
they don't even rewrite their songs. They're like, that song was written by my 1.0 version and it is the art of that person. And I think that in this conversation about, what did she say? It was one version of feminists is social, political, economic equity for everyone. Who's everyone? That person too. And just like, yeah, good. And also let's pay attention to the things that are in front of us right now.
Becky Mollenkamp (15:22.476)
Yeah. mean, so this concept of we should all be feminists feels it in a way really sort of simplistic, right? It feels like when I was listening to it, it feels sort of like this very simple concept because some of it, like even the crowd kind of laughs. And that makes me a little uncomfortable when they're like, she's sort of saying things about women or men, you know, these perceptions of feminists as man haters and the people in the audience kind of laugh. And it's several other things where they kind of laugh. And I don't think that she was meaning them as jokes, but you can tell there is this discomfort around some of what she's saying, or it seems so extreme that they're laughing. But I don't know, because that concept feels a little outdated. Again, but this is 2012. But it all feels a little simple. And yet, I think what you're saying, like these things that we're saying about the way she chooses to center a different experience than is normally included in this narrative, the way she talks about gender even.
Like there are things about it though, although the concept I think feels pretty simple, like, well, yeah, we should all be feminists. Yeah, okay. Everyone should be treated fairly and equally and equitably. Okay. But I feel like there's more depth to it when you really start to examine it than I think I probably my first reading gave it credit for. Cause my first reading of it, was just kind of like, duh. You know what I mean? Like, duh, yeah, we should all be famous. Okay. But this time listening to it thinking, no, there is so much more to this piece and I think it was important, is important.
Faith Clarke (16:51.947)
Yeah, think, first of all, didn't take the laughter as discomfort. But again, I have an entirely different cultural awareness. was the use of humor in recognizing pain is a thing black folks do all the time. And so I saw it as, yeah, I'm looking at these faces and it is an ouch, but it's also we laugh about our pain.
Becky Mollenkamp (16:56.778)
How did you take it?
Faith Clarke (17:21.069)
And I remembered being in a workshop where it was a primarily black audience facilitated by white people. And I was helping with the organizing and the facilitator came to me like, why is everybody laughing? I said, yeah, that's one of our processing languages. And so that was kind of how I took that in. And when she said we should all be feminists, I remember the first time I heard her say that I was also just getting into his name anti-racist book yeah and his work yeah and his own expression of you have to be anti-racist there is no not racist I think her statement of we should all be feminist tied to her own comment about men say I just don't think that way is about a man a person who's not woman I'm not a man
Becky Mollenkamp (17:53.587)
Ibram X. Kendi
Faith Clarke (18:20.031)
and especially a white man must own feminism to begin to unearth the ways that they have marginalized women. say, so you must claim it. You must claim this recognition of it has not been equal and I'm complicit. Just the same as we all have to claim the, I have racist thoughts. The only way to kind of heal that is to say, I want to be against my racist thoughts.
I want to be against my misogyny. And so when I heard her say it, that was how I took it in as a, yeah, if it's easy for me as a person who's actively experiencing the oppression, people who have power can't just say, no, I don't do that. And that's kind of.
Becky Mollenkamp (19:07.98)
Yeah, I love that part where she was saying that about it's not because she like, can feel you in the audience men sort of saying, I don't think that way. That's not me. This isn't about me because I'm not one of those men. Right. In the same way that we recognize all the time with white folks who are like, no, that what you're talking, that's not me. This isn't about me. I don't even have to participate in this because I'm one of the good ones. And you can feel these men sort of I'm one of the good ones. And she addresses that head on. And I love that because the more that I've been leading into
using the word feminist and most of what I do, the more I am being confronted by and really understanding how much men are afraid of that word. They don't believe that they can own it. They don't believe that they are that, that they're allowed to be. Like, I think even the good ones have all of this misunderstanding around the label feminist because, and the number of women also who think feminist means woman, right? Like when I, in Google,
thinks feminist means woman. Whenever I search for something feminist, it brings me back all of this women's stuff. I'm like, women and feminists are two different things. And feminists can be men and should be, right? And yet men feel reluctant to own that and to claim that. And I think part of it feels like it's because they don't think they're allowed to, as in it's our term. And I think there's some worrying about like, am I sort of appropriating that if I do that? Am I stepping where I shouldn't? You don't think that's why men are like that? Okay, good, tell me what.
Faith Clarke (20:29.387)
I don't think so. I don't think so. Not at all. Not at all. Not at all. No, I think it is completely, this thing does not center me. And they're not gonna own that. It's too hard. It's too painful. So then it's like, I'm not like this. Why are you trying to put this thing on me? And so there is discomfort in owning that word because of those things. And then the structures of maleness,
Becky Mollenkamp (20:33.496)
I'm giving, am I giving them too much credit?
Faith Clarke (20:59.093)
I mean that you have to really, that the people that the patriarchy have harmed the most are men. Women have been harmed a ton, but the freedom to rethink, reorganize, that there's a way that we've had to be active in thinking about it. So many men, because it's a position of privilege and they've benefited from it, are blind completely to it and to the harm to them. So yeah, they haven't thought about it at all and to kind of own the word be to even think about it. And yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (21:32.446)
Interesting and probably very true. I think maybe I'm giving a little too much credit to some men of being generous. She does talk about the ways that patriarchy, misogyny harm men. And I think that that was really valuable and interesting because I do think as much as we don't want feminism can't and shouldn't center men. And there is this part of me I rarely can tap into where I think we also have to find ways to help men understand that it is also about them, right? That this is not just about saying women and it's about all people as she's saying, all people should be feminists because feminism is about equity for all people. And so if that's the case, then that includes men. And one of the ways I think men start to see that is when they can begin to understand how misogyny and sexism and all of that harms them as well. But yeah, I don't know. I'm not the person who's gonna educate men.
Faith Clarke (22:28.013)
But even that, right, is we can only get you on board when you see it harming you. Now you can't attend to the fact that 50 % of the population is being harmed and you're benefiting until we say, but you also are harmed. And so I think part of the whole, you I told you, I'm listening to labor in my head. Part of the whole thing has to be that I let men do men's work. And so I am like, who do I center and be focused on what I'm voicing and trust that everybody kind of gets a hold of their work because it's the previous model that says we take away the labor of people higher up by trying to help them understand that we are being harmed, know. Yes.
Becky Mollenkamp (23:22.338)
Yeah. I mean, I'm not one to do that work. And I know that is not my lane. It's not a lane I will ever be in. I do not have the patience or spirit for that. There are women who do that work, and in the same way that there are Black folks who are willing to do that labor to help white folks. Should they have to? Should they? Like, no. And there are those folks who do that. And I'm deeply grateful for the folks who do. So I'm sure there are men for whom it is they are grateful that there are women willing to step in that lane and do that work. But I agree with you 100 % we shouldn't have to. It's not our job. We shouldn't have to take on that labor. But it also gets frustrating, I guess, to an extent of like, how long do we wait for men? Because men have made it clear they have no, like, they're not interested in taking up that mantle. They're not gonna do the work. So I guess maybe the thing is just getting more, and this is probably where it comes down to, is like, we need to get the white women who aren't understanding intersectionality, understanding how all of these issues affect them and why they need to start actually making choices based on their interests and not just proximity to power. I guess that's where the work is.
Faith Clarke (24:40.811)
Yeah, I think that for all of us who are in the work, we have to own our place in the work. And yes, men or white women in my case will listen to me. And I find myself uniquely maybe positioned because I also don't have a Black American lens on this in particular. So I'm just different in some aspects.
I think we have to own our place and be willing to tell our own vulnerable stories to whoever, right? that's different from, I'm here to make you change your mind. There's a way that the centering has been about a single story and been about the application of this single story to everyone. And then, you know, and, I, I am an advocate for everyone getting into the nuance details of their own story and making that visible in whatever ways feel safe to do so. Recognizing that people with multiple marginalized identities are more unsafe in telling their stories than others. And I encourage folks, the more privileged identities you have, the safer you can be in telling your story. So get good at listening to what's really going on for you and not telling a story that's kind of like a broad brush stroke of the situation and I think like I saw, and I listened to Chimamanda, I hear a personally specific story. And I do think that, in this country, people listen to it. She's the one who said a story is just, it's a story. It's an individual story. Right. And I think in this country, there is so much need to take everything and make it into a broad brushstroke versus an individual human story. And, challenging our own selves to say what's my relationship to this story versus is this person right or wrong in saying the thing that they're saying because that's the same thing hierarchy power over and you know on all the stuff
Becky Mollenkamp (26:48.182)
Yeah, I'm curious because so my relationship to the story when she's talking about these ideas around being people starting to use this word feminist about her and her work and the sort of the confusion or the not understanding and then learning more about it and sort of owning that and all of it. My relationship to that is and this is a lot of privilege and I recognize that is I never once really I don't remember a time where I questioned the word feminist for myself or felt uncertain or uncomfortable or any of that. Like it just felt like, yeah, that's just how I am. Right. Like that is just how I'm are. And a lot of that has to do with one, my upbringing with my mom and the fact that she had left a part left a world that was deeply not feminist. And because somehow she got college educated. That's really what it comes out. She got college educated and that changed her worldview. And she raised us very differently than she would have been raised. So it's just sort of in the air I breathe. Plus, it is a term that I now at the time I wouldn't have understood this, but I now understand is just a label that has been applied more comfortably and liberally to white women historically. And so of course it would feel more natural for me. I'm curious your relationship with that part of the story, that discovery of the word feminist of stepping into and owning it, because I know that there are still many, and again, this will be just your story. I'm not trying to make this universal, but I know there are a lot of black women for who that word to this day still is really uncomfortable. And I can understand all the reasons for it, but I know you're someone who actually feels, I think, comfortable with that term. And I wonder what your relationship with it is.
Faith Clarke (28:24.289)
Yeah, well, I mean, for me with words, I'm pretty comfortable claiming, reframing, defining words for myself. But my kind of awakening, so I was feminist before I called myself feminist, but my awakening to stuff in college was about, my awakening was to the harm of enslavement on black men. Because there's something about noticing how the system crushed black men, that was new to me. So the word feminist as a word that emasculated, she used the word emasculate, black men, I was against that very idea. So when I'm introduced to the word as a way, as a philosophy that continues to harm black men, that doesn't help them to kind of heal and doesn't give proper space to the journey that they'd been on, descendants of enslaved men that were bred, that were made into studs, that were separated from their families and used to propagate the peopling of plantations. That had me separate from the idea, the idea of hating men, yet no. Right? And again, this is from a position of not having interrogated the word specifically, but I am, I was like, no, I think that recognizing the harm to all the people. in particular, not saying to men, you are also horrible, but to recognize what's leading to that. Some of that's horrible. And in my, when I was referring to black Caribbean men, that was important to me. No, that I have that, that feels intact. I understand that. No, I'm recognizing I am as a woman also conditioned to save men. And so that doesn't make my recognition bad, but I am conditioned to save men. even my resistance to ideas around feminism, which I haven't interrogated, was tied to it doesn't save men, which is about misogyny. It is about undervaluing what I might want. Chimamanda said it's about protecting a woman's right to want.
So I now claim the word as a word that says, let's center women. And for me, if I'm centering women, just like when I'm centering neurovariance just like when I'm centering the story of immigration people, people who are immigrants, when I center marginalized people, everybody is served. And I know that. So for me, feminism is currently a way to center women.
Because as a woman, I know that I have the tendency to mistrust women. I have a tendency to mistrust black women. I have a tendency to critique black women's voices more, to see it as harsh, to see them as unfriendly. I do that. And it was funny to me, another black woman said that we refer black women, so we black women refer black women so much less than we refer other groups of people.
And so just to own the misogyny in the water and to heal that, I claim the centering of women. To start fundamentally with the centering of my own self so that I can want what I want and not judge that.
Becky Mollenkamp (32:07.276)
I first of all, want to go back to the part that the beginning of that P of what you were saying there, because there's so much and that was so beautiful because it speaks to why the black woman's experience is different than the white woman's experience and why feminism needs to be able to understand that evolved to like encompass all of that, right? To say that this under this umbrella is all of us. But it's that massage noir. And you may know, I'm not sure who coined that phrase. I should know.
I'm sorry, I can't think of it. I feel like it's a Kimberly somebody, but no, that might be just Kimberly Crenshaw I'm thinking of. Anyway, but massage noir, which is this, that very intersection you're talking about where your own relationship with feminism is not just about your relationship as a woman or your experiences as a woman, as it is for me, which is why it may have felt easier. Cause it's like, oh, it's about women. Okay, great. I'm a woman that makes sense. I love it. Where yours has this added layer of your relationship as a Black person and how that term has affected black folks and then that overlapping. that's where that like, of course there's conflict there, right? Where for me, it becomes so much easier to say, why wouldn't anyone be a feminist? Right? Well, there's reasons why for other people, there's more conflict there because there are these like, I mean, I think the way you express that about black men is just so powerful because that's something obviously that white women it probably doesn't even as they're examining their relationship with the word, that's not a part of their experience.
Faith Clarke (33:39.117)
I think that part of what we just have to own is that in this country anyway, whiteness is made to be this kind of thing that has no definition. So everything has a definition in contrast to whiteness. And because of that, how do you hold onto what is happening for other people? Because you can't hold onto what it is for yourself yet. And there's a way that I think it's harder for white folks, people who have been called white, who have benefited from being called white, to hold onto what their specific story is. Because it is like a bland wall with, you know, and I am the painting on the wall. And do you like this painting? Do you not like the painting? It's a whole conversation about me. And so I think that, like, it has to… I don't know that feminism needs to take on the nuance of everything. I think all of us who are framing what feminism is like now need to do the work. And I think it's harder work for white folks to frame ourselves in this story. And so when I'm, it's easier for me when I'm doing anti-racist work to talk to white women about framing their story because they're used to woman.
They know, right? And so I can kind of lean into that and then expand it over into what happens for Black folks or BIPOC folks around oppression and stuff like that. But I do think that there is a unique challenge and opportunity to be like, what is my, what, if there is any such thing as a background wall, what's me as a picture on that wall and what's my story of
power and oppression because we all have one. All of us. And when we can own our story of power and oppression, it'll be so much easier for us to do some of this work of like, how do our theories include all our stories? I think there's a way, yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (35:47.767)
I was just saying as a white person, will say like, that is very challenging for a lot of white folks, right? And I think we often hold on to the oppressed identity we hold because it's in some ways easier than having to confront the power position that you hold, right? And having to look at that white wall instead of saying, oh, but I'm also a woman and look at that pretty art and oh, but I'm queer, look at this art, right? Like if someone was ask me the things, like the identities I hold, white would not be the first one I go to. In fact, it would probably be one of the last, right? I think of myself as a woman. I think of myself as queer. I think of myself as a mother. Like these are all identities that I hold that have some oppression to them. And those, and I think there's something about that experience that does feel it's the othering. And that is because, and what you're saying is like, we can't have othering if there isn't the what's the not other. And that is the whiteness. And that is really hard to confront because it's not something I can change. Like this is how was born. I can't change how I was born. And having to confront that, like I hold this identity that causes other people to feel othered, causes myself even to feel othered. And I can't change it. I have to confront it. Like that is really, it feels icky, right? It feels icky. And yet we have to do it. But so I, and I just think that way of like, I love that framing of the blank space. The white wall.
Faith Clarke (37:17.773)
But here's the thing though. You have been oppressed by your whiteness, by your whiteness. And there is a way that when we like all, I have been oppressed by my neurotypical passingness, right? I have, I have been oppressed by that because we live in a world where we've done this hierarchy and it doesn't matter where we land. We land in a prison, that it's not us, it's a prison, right? And so how has whiteness been a prison for you? And it's not, mean, how does neurotypicalness a prison for me? How is being smart, how is going to an Ivy League school a prison? It's that's the work of framing ourselves as a painting on the backdrop versus just being the backdrop that then is in contrast to everything else. That's part of what creates the saviorism, I think, in any identity where we're trying to do, I'll help you, because we are not, you know, kind of just owning our own complex story of oppression and advantage. And I think all of us have that story and some of us have more of the oppression on others and, know, but I do think that it's, that then will tell feminism as a different story, as a story of like, there is this complex interweaving of oppression and advantage for all of us. And how do we kind of be with that when we're in a moment with another human being with a different balance of oppression and advantage? And how do we hold that like as a sacred thing versus, you know, trying to have rules about how this is how, you know, this is how justice work is done. We will forever fail. We will forever fail. This is how this is, you know.
Becky Mollenkamp (39:12.482)
That piece right there makes me feel like I can start to see, and thank you for this, because it's not an exploration I think I've done enough of, which is how is my white, how have I been oppressed by my white identity? And I can see that prison in a way in what you're just saying, like this is how it's done, the rigidity of whiteness, the rules of whiteness and the ways that those have made me show up in ways that aren't fully me that have made me sort of repress, suppress real parts of me because they don't fit the rules of whiteness. the way I'm, just as you were talking about earlier, within black culture, it's common to laugh at the pain or something, right? And maybe that feels good. And I've missed out on that because the rules of whiteness haven't given me that space to do that. Like, it's just a small example, but it's just that thinking of like, what is the prison, the box inside of that I've been forced to stay inside of because of whiteness. And I think when you start doing so much of this, like unlearning and all of this work as a white person, the invitation feels like to not deny your whiteness, but to in a way, like try to the saviorism piece, probably trying to make amends for it, right? Like, how do I make amends for this thing that I didn't want that I have and like that is causing harm to others, without it being that piece of how's it causing harm to me? And how do I fix that within me? Because if I can fix that within me, then that changes my relationship just in this very example of like this piece. If I were having that freedom to laugh at trauma, to laugh at pain, as just a very small example, when I watched that, I would have had a different relationship with that, right? Like that would have opened something up for me. So it's just such a beautiful invitation.
Faith Clarke (41:01.549)
Yeah, I think that even like as an example, how have my own prisons informed what I believe about other people just in my, in a micro moment. You know, I know I'm not supposed to judge people in the big things, but just in a micro moment, how's my prison informed that? Yeah, there's so many of these pieces I've thought about. I've heard Black folks talk about the relationship to some of the history that some people want to repress. And it's like, why don't our white friends align with the people who helped with the Underground Railroad? And there's so many people who have been powerful advocates of all kinds of stuff.
What's the thing that says, my goodness, I am so ashamed of being white? Yes, there is a, yes, you benefit. I'm not denying that, but there's just something that goes straight to shame. That's a prison. And if we can kind of interrogate that a bit and understand, break it apart, then it just gives us some more space in all this work. What are our prisons?
And how does that help us have compassion? Because then what power does, not whiteness in this case, but what power does is instead of looking at how we've had a prison, you're just like, I don't want to look at the prison, so I'm going to put you in prison to make sure you don't let me look at my prison. Because that's what power does.
Becky Mollenkamp (42:44.782)
What's happening right now, right? In this culture with the reaction to DEI, right? Is exactly that. And it's like, but what you have, what you're saying has me thinking, I don't know how to say this in a way that doesn't sound like I'm saying in any way that Trump is right, because I'm not. But it has me thinking the way that we have taught about racism, slavery, these kinds of issues within America has perhaps not been the best approach to it.
The answer isn't to do what we're doing now, which is instead let's hide it all. Let's just go back, like let's step 20 steps backwards. But the piece that I feel is missing that you're speaking to is as a white person learning that it does feel like it was shameful. And it is shameful. It's a shameful past, but it's not my shame today unless I make it my shame today. And how could we instead teach what do we do?
How do you examine the ways that it's harmed you as a white person? Like that was certainly never discussed, right? Because I think it is grounded on the shame. we can't, if we were to, if as a white person, I'm to say, how has slavery that the history of slavery in this country, how has it like caused a prison for me? That feels so wrong. And yet I think you're like, I hear that. Like there is something there to explore that would change everyone's relationship to these things.
The answer is not put it in that box, throw it away and hope we just don't ever have to talk about it again. But I would like if I had had a teacher talk about slavery in the ways that you're talking about that, I can't imagine how that would have shaped my life moving forward, how that would have changed me for the better.
Faith Clarke (44:23.393)
But you wouldn't have had that reinforced in the society around you, right? What's... Yeah, so what has happened is that as people have liberated themselves and told their stories, then it shows up that other people haven't told their story properly. And so there is an opportunity to tell a different story for white folks and not to tell it in a way that is repressive of the facts of the story, but also to own the fullness of the story. And that's what Black folks have done, to own the fullness of the story. it's a horrible story because the story that was being told before, you know, is a story that says, hey, we saved Black folks from, you know, their stuff and brought them here to civilization. And I think that there's something about this. This story of shame is a story that was invented by whiteness and by power and needs to be deconstructed by whiteness and by power, you know, in a way that embraces what's really going on versus to say, have nothing to be ashamed of because this is the other extreme. It wasn't you. It was your ancestors or whatever it is. So you have you, you're not racist. You're not, you know, misogynist. You're not whoever. And it's like, it's also a way to not own the whole story. And I think all of us back to this, let's own our own stories and, tell our stories and listen to each other's stories and own that they're different stories and that we're all being harmed by the same thing, the hierarchy that we've created with story and with value.
Becky Mollenkamp (46:01.634)
Yeah. Well, I've always said that shame is the sharpest tool in the oppressor's toolkit. And I do believe that. I mean, even if we take it outside of issues around race and stuff, we look just at like abusive relationships, interpersonal relationships, a time. And again, you see an abuser using shame as a way to keep their victim from leaving. Right. Because if you can make someone feel so bad about themselves, they will not take action.
And that is exactly what it feels like where whiteness uses shame as a way to protect whiteness, right?
Faith Clarke (46:34.701)
It's fear though, it's really fear. Shame is covering fear. I think the oppressor's tool is the biggest tool is the fear. And for white folks and for people higher up in power, the shame acts as a way to keep you from acknowledging, I don't want to lose my place. This is scary. I see what happens to black folks. I don't want that to happen to me and my kids. And so it's, you know, it's fear and can we kind of like, fear in common, like we all have this fear in common, but some of us, you know, get to feel it out front
Becky Mollenkamp (47:14.892)
Well, because some people don't have as much privilege to not have to be with the fear, right? To find ways to avoid the fear. And that's, yeah. I wanted to make sure because I know our time's coming up here, but I want you mentioned at the start and the quote that I pulled out from this essay on my little quote board is people do not make our culture does not make people people make culture. And I to do because I really loved it. And you mentioned it as well. And it feels like as we were just saying, you were like, well, one teacher teaching you something isn't going to change anything because you're going out in these waters. but the point of sort of, but if we all start to make these changes and we are doing it, you're right at this individual level, but I'm just envisioning a world where it could happen inside the schools as well. But that's how we change these things, right? But I'm just curious what you felt like, cause you wrote it down as well. It must've meant something to you. What did that bring up for you?
Faith Clarke (48:04.545)
Yeah, well, you you know that my work with culture in organizations, I, I'm always, think maybe it's the systems person and I'm always asking the question in a system, where do we intervene? Like people come to you with complex stuff and you're just like, I believe we intervene in groups of four and five and eight people. So if I were working in health and whatever, I'd be intervening on whatever people call family. And in organizations, I intervene on wherever we call team.
I think culture shaping needs to happen in tiny pockets. We do not shape culture in 2000 to 10,000 people. And so when she said that it's people shape culture, I was like, there are people who must own their power to influence, who must own their ability. Yeah, we can protest and we can work on policy. That's just not my work. My work is in this group of five people between me and Becky.
What's our culture of being with difference? What's our culture? What's our practice? What's our ritual? What's our equivalent of dancing? What's our paraphernalia around celebrating the individual story? What's our way to kind of say, hey, this is you kind of hiding behind this power identity. How do I lean into that? So when she said people shape culture, just, I see the people as.
a catalyst and I'm like, where are you catalyzing a pocket of change? And every teacher in every classroom, every, you know, person in a family, every we have, we're either reinforcing culture. It said, she said, and I wrote this down, she said unlearn the prison of gender. I'm like, yes. But she said that culture is for preservation and continuity. And so in my mind, I must as a person own, I'm either preserving and continuing or I'm disrupting in my little pocket of four and five people. How am I doing that?
Becky Mollenkamp (50:10.158)
Yeah, because when I read or heard that culture doesn't make people, people make culture. It made me think just this feeling that we sometimes excuse ourselves from being part of the change because it feels too big. It's culture. It's the culture. can't change the culture. I can't change the systems. It's just those are the way they are. That sort of feeling of like, how do I as one person affect any change? And my thought was exactly in going with what you're saying too of like,
Yeah, but groups of people are what form and begin to change culture. Culture doesn't, we don't have to just accept culture as this monolith thing that exists and there's nothing that can ever change it. It is changed and is shaped by us. And that to me, it felt like this, permission slip of sorts to say, yeah, you do, this is you, that you get to make this decision by owning this word feminist, by understanding these values, by expanding your understanding of what that means, all of that, you get to be a part of shaping a new culture.
Faith Clarke (51:05.963)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. not to undervalue your own, like what did they say that we're six degrees of separation from anyone? You know, so it's not like I could, I can, I am in proximity to six people who are in proximity to, you know, and so what's my intention back to, know, so far we've talked about what's my intention of practice around this shaping in the spaces that I'm in, you know? How do I kind of keep myself awake to how I want to be in the world, even in protest to, you know, what's being reinforced around me?
Becky Mollenkamp (51:46.572)
Yeah, and we have and stop underselling, undervaluing that the work that we as individuals who then are in contact with other individuals who become a web of people who become the culture like to not undersell and undervalue the importance of the work you do and that that work does have meaning and that we can't excuse ourselves from the fight just because it feels too big because it like you said, it's one person at a time and Faith, you've affected me. So there's at least one of your six, right? That you know you've affected and hopefully people listening, cause I can't imagine any white person anyway listening to us today who's not going to be thinking a little bit differently about their relationship with whiteness, their relationship with oppression. And that is part of that, right? The more that we do this, then we're starting to create these webs that become culture. That is culture. Like you said, even that group of six, it's a culture.
It's not maybe the greater culture, but it's a culture and those begin to, yeah, which then begin to affect the culture. I wanted to mention one other thing before we go, which is, cause you just said like, that's not my lane or like, know, activism or whatever the thing is. The ways that we show up and helping in one way, like do we help men or not? This book, and you've probably read it, but it's called Social Change Now from Deepa Iyer. And it is the social change roadmap. And inside of it, I wonder if I can find it for people who are looking on YouTube, but I highly recommend people look at it because it talks about these different ways that we, here it is. There's this wonderful little guide here that shows like in the center basically is activism, it's change, it's equity, liberation, justice, solidarity in the middle. But there's all of these little paths that help to get there and all of those together are what create change. Some of that looks like being the storyteller. You mentioned storyteller.
Chimamanda, like that is storytelling and it is a part of getting us there. It's not just the people who are out on the front lines. It's not just the people who are specifically and explicitly educating people. It's the people who are healing those people. It's the people who are telling their stories and contributing to the conversation. There are so many ways that we can be a part of creating the change. And I think too often we think it has to look a certain way. So I like that you mentioned like you're identifying where's your piece of that puzzle.
Faith Clarke (53:56.523)
Yeah, and I think to also just drop an intersectional lens on that, that your piece of the puzzle can depend on which fight you're in. Yes, the overall fight is equity, justice, and liberation for all. And in the space of neurodiversity, I may be in an educator type role, whereas in the space, you know, there are, again, back to perfectionism, we have a way to be judging people's engagement in the fight. This is what you should be doing. You should march or not march. And I'm just like, listen, I have the immigrant thing. I have the queer thing, the trans thing. I have the woman thing. have, right? Like, what am I doing in what lane? And again, as a Black-bodied woman who sits really on the bottom of the totem pole of how, you know, so rest is like, and am I working on my resting? resting is the revolution. Like we all want to really pay attention to where we sit in that circle. And if your thing is not listed in that circle, claim a thing and call it. This is the way I engage in this thing. My birthday was last week, as you know, somebody sent me a poem and you know, they're saying black folks don't celebrate a birthday, they celebrate a birth week, a birth month. For so many of us, we're here longer than they thought we would be. And so my existence is the celebration. And my existence is the protest, is the pushback. And can I own that as enough? Because for so many of us, women in particular, our sense of enoughness is not. know, it's not. I have to be, right? So I, again, Where did it come from that I have to be protesting and working on equity in a particular way? Who said that?
Becky Mollenkamp (55:55.83)
No. And what Deepa also talks about is the ways that that can change your relationship. Just as you said, in one space, it might look like one part, another it's another. In some places, it's more than one. So it's not, there's nothing prescriptive about that model either. It's very much like you're saying, like figure out, it's more about it being expansive and allowing yourself that invitation to say, activism looks different for different people. And we have to be okay with that because like you said, too often, there's this judgment that comes up, especially like the far left is just as guilty as the far right of these sort of black and white thinking all or nothing my way or it's wrong. And we have to say, like you said, like for many people, existence is resistance. For many people, rest is resistance. Like that is how they're participating in the resistance in a world that says they're not allowed those things, right? So yeah, I think I just love that you brought it up in a way too. And I just wanted to point that out because I think it's an important piece of all of this puzzle.
Faith Clarke (56:48.129)
I love that graphic. I've shared it with people.
Becky Mollenkamp (56:50.638)
Yeah, that's so good. Thank you, Faith. I think this conversation, I don't like playing favorites, but it is among my very favorite because it's really cracked my brain open to think about things in a new way. And I'm to sit with that for a while. And I know with certainty it will affect the way I parent. And that's huge, you know, because I am parenting a white man, future white man. And I think a lot about that. And I want to really re-examine some of the ways I talk about issues with him to make sure that I am not creating a future savior that instead I'm creating somebody who can examine things and understand the ways that his oppression has also been his own oppression. So thank you for that and thank you for all of this. It was wonderful.
Faith Clarke (57:34.861)
You're welcome. You're welcome.