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- [00:01]
A
Doctor Naomi Wolf, thank you so much for joining Pod Force One.
- [00:06]
B
It's such a pleasure and an honor to join you. I have admired your work for so long. Thank you.
- [00:11]
A
Well, and likewise, you know, I think the beauty myth in 1991 just burst onto the scene and I think we're about the same vintage. And it was such an eye opener for women of that time. I mean, you were the sort of arbiter on the left. You were a darling of the left and of sort of what was called third wave feminism. No more hairy legs and hairy underarms. This was a more palatable form of feminism, I guess. I, of course, didn't call myself a feminist in those days. And so we had quite different trajectories. But in a funny way, I think we both moved somewhat, or I certainly moved. You. You may not. You may say that you didn't move, but certainly you are now no longer a darling of the left, let's say that. So, Dr. Wulff, I just wanted to explore your trajectory. I think it's one of the most interesting things about the age we live in. And I think you are the perfect person who sort of personifies what's happened to the left and what's happened to the Democratic Party that you once helped and I presume, loved. So let's start there.
- [01:36]
B
Sure. Wow. A huge opening question. Let's see. Well, to answer your question about, or your implied question about what I, you know, how I identify. Now, it's true that I was a lifelong Democrat and, you know, solidly liberal. My dad was a card carrying communist in his youth, you know.
- [02:03]
A
Really?
- [02:04]
B
Yeah. But I mean, everyone in that kind of garment worker world was for, you know, coming from Romania, et cetera. But we were like bourgeois mainstream liberals by the time, you know, I was born. And I guess I did love, you know, that side of the aisle. I recognized its many flaws. I was a consultant, as you referenced, for Clinton's reelection campaign and for President Gore's run for the presidency. I was a White House spouse, you know, for a speechwriter in the Clinton White House, with a speechwriter in the Clinton White House. And that was the, you know, the party of fdr, the party of, you know, the labor movement, the party of feminist, you know, women's rights, gay rights. It was the party of Social Security and an eight hour work day and, you know, progressivism. And then of course, I mean, people who don't follow my work that closely may not know, but I was totally a darling in the sense that I, you know, was Interviewed all the time in every major news outlet and published in every major news outlet. And a very. Had a very secure and comfortable perch in the world of commentating.
- [03:28]
A
18, just to interrupt for a second, I think it's 18, isn't it? International bestsellers, New York Times bestsellers.
- [03:35]
B
Gosh, if you count foreign editions, probably. I'm only aware in English of like 7 or 8, but still 7 or 8. Very good run, you know, very good.
- [03:46]
A
And.
- [03:46]
B
And, you know, republished worldwide, which is, you know, they were also bestsellers elsewhere. But I guess my, you know, I thought that, that I would, you know, I kind of done enough to be kind of secure.
- [03:57]
A
Yeah.
- [03:58]
B
Is that all recognized, you know, credible journalist and nonfiction writer. So many books, so many footnotes. And in 2021, I did what, as you know, from being aware of my work from the start, I've been doing for 40 years plus, which is writing about women's bodies and women's issues and specifically letting women speak for themselves. Because as a feminist, you. You take as given, especially feminist writer, that when multiple women independently report something the same thing about their own bodies, there could be a story there. That's how we found out about thalidomide. It's how we found out about, you know, silicone breast implants being dangerous and so on. So women were reporting menstrual problems with the MRNA injection. And I reported that on X and or Twitter at that time, banned worldwide smear campaign, you know, coordinated, it seemed, which I didn't even understand because AI hadn't been rolled out yet. But, you know, the same attacks in newspapers all over the world all at the same time, and no one in the legacy media would talk to me after that. You know, I committed some kind of sin even though it turned out I was correct. So how did that.
- [05:16]
A
Was that shocking to you? I mean, was that upsetting to you?
- [05:20]
B
Well, it was shocking because I still naively thought that, you know, our. Our world. Right. Journalists, you know, serious publications that if you had the facts, that was the ultimate arbiter. You know, like, it's one thing to plagiarize or, you know, and I'd been accused of getting something wrong in 2019, which was actually a subject of debate of many scholars. So I had survived an attempt at being canceled at that time. But, you know, but that was arguably, you know, there was an argument there. This was no argument. It was just like you, you know. Yeah. So it was shocking because there was no evidence. No one said, hey, Naomi, there are questions being raised because there weren't it was just like, you're gone, right? Gone. Misinformation, disinformation, you know, words that didn't used to exist in journalism, you know, outside the Soviet Union. Right. Certainly not in the West. So it was shocking. And I guess after that, you know, Steve Bannon, who, whom I had been raised to, you know, or trained to believe was the devil, did give me a platform and I did do more work convening 3500 very serious doctors and scientists to go through Pfizer papers released under court order. They found many things wrong, horrible things wrong with the MRNA injection that Pfizer knew. And you know, conservatives were willing to talk to me. I still don't think that I'm a conservative. I think I'm a classical liberal in, in most ways now with a libertarian bent and probably inching conservative on some issues. Like now that there's, you know, a resurgence of true communism. You know, I'm ever more capitalist than I've ever been. But I, I, I still feel like it wasn't I who left the Democrats, they left me.
- [07:17]
A
Yeah, that's a familiar refrain from a lot of former Democrats, some of whom I've interviewed, Alan Dershowitz being one in particular, who's a sort of should have been a cradle to grave Democrat, absolutely loved the party and you know, it breaks his heart what's happened. But he says exactly as you do, that it's deserted him, not the other way around. So I mean, you were advising Bill Clinton on his re election about how to appeal more to women voters. You were, I guess, the woman whisperer for male politicians or Democrats at that point. And then after he won re election, of course, the Monica Lewinsky scandal blew up. And I don't want to dwell on it too much, but what would you do today if you were advising the Democratic Party about how to appeal to women because, sorry, not appeal to women, how to appeal to men. Because what they seem to have done is to have alienated men. And there's a huge gender gap in voting and in party affiliation. And what they seem to have done during, I guess the Kamala Harris election attempt was to lurch to find these sort of fake conservative men who are Democrats, like Tim Waltz, I think they started with, and then Graham Platner being their final iteration. There's another one, James Talarico in Texas, but I think Platner is the one more than anything that the final kind of avatar of their attempt to appeal to red blooded working class men who've deserted the Democrats. And of Course, that's been a disaster. So what would you advise the Democrats to do to appeal to men? And what went wrong with Platner?
- [09:31]
B
Wow. Well, just for the record, I didn't advise Bill Clinton directly. I advised his advisor, Dick Morris.
- [09:39]
A
So
- [09:41]
B
just a note there. Well, so much has degenerated in our culture in terms of gender issues since the Democrats could last rely on the votes of especially working class men and, you know, men of color, you know, especially African American men who are fleeing the Democratic Party now. And so the. If I were advising the Democrats, which would be a big if, because it would, you know, that, that contract negotiation would be like, okay, you gotta leave the, you know, communists over there and ship out the jihadis, you know, but,
- [10:24]
A
well, they need help, though.
- [10:26]
B
I couldn't. They need help.
- [10:28]
A
Yeah.
- [10:29]
B
I guess what I'm trying to say, to be very frank, is that I don't think that. I think the Democrats in their current iteration pose a national security threat to the country. And I don't want to see them reelected right now. I think the civil war going on within the Democratic Party is necessary, and I'm waiting to see who wins because history, you know, unfortunately shows that it's the young Bolsheviks who cannibalize, you know, the older mainstream, you know, moderate boomers. But say I were advising them, you'd have to unroll like two decades of the liberal war on masculinity. And this, you know, was it a version of feminism that I had no responsibility for? It followed the third wave, but it basically criminalized men for being masculine. Masculine. It invented terms like toxic masculinity. It demonized the male gaze, you know, even if they're not doing anything but looking at appreciatively fetishized. It's. It demonized marriage. It. It demonized men's protective role and capability. It, it bombarded and propagandized young women in a way that as a feminist, I find horribly, you know, misogynist with, you know, movies and songs and ads proposing that marriage is a trap and babies are a drag and, you know, you will never have fun again if you, you know, have a nuclear family. And it's really bad. And so I don't think the Democrats, as they're currently constituted, except for a handful, know how to talk to men because they've spent 20 years, you know, demonizing masculinity. And, and a lot of men who are, who are left in those weird little bubbles have bought into that and are full of self hatred. So it's, it's a Deep, like, psychological problem. It's not just a political problem. But say, say I were. I would say, you know, stop selecting these fake. You know, I'm a fisherman. I, you know, I cut down trees. You know, it's like something out of a Monty Python song. Everyone can see through it. And the only way I think such candidates have won in the past is through the kind of cheating that President Trump is making more and more difficult. I would say you've gotta stop demonizing family life, and you have to cultivate, you know, new young moderates from the African American, Caribbean American and Hispanic American communities. You have to start talking to religious leaders again and have events, you know, welcoming, like Stop, Stop making war on God and war on religion. You know, you definitely have to marginalize these lunatics who clearly represent other countries, you know, on the far left, who put Somalia first or, you know, Palestine first. I mean, as, you know, as important as that issue is, we are Americans, and there's this huge wave of America first. I'm part of it. You know, I care about the Middle east, but care about America first and, you know, recognize that that's real. I guess my, My biggest message would be, I mean, here's a perfect example. I was reading the Free Press this morning on my phone, one of the few legacy news sites I still read, because the rest are so bad. And they, they were talking about exactly this, and they were saying, what should the Democrats do? You know, what we can learn from a real. An ordinary firefighter. And I'm like, you know, you still don't get it, right? You don't get that language is elitist and alienating. You know, would you say an ordinary stockbroker, an ordinary lawyer. You get it? So they have to shed, you know, not only the war on God and the war on family and the war on men, they have to shed the class blinders that are so disgusting. And honestly, the last thing I would say is Americans are so sick of identity politics, you know, and a lot of people are finding out. I was amazed that conservatives tend not to be racist. You know, they actually treat people like individuals. I mean, we've been told that they're all walking around in Ku Klux hoods, Ku Klux Klan hoods. But I think that identity politics and cancel culture run their organic path route and, you know, go back to supporting meritocracy, which we used to be so good at.
- [15:15]
A
You mentioned that the Democratic Party is in the middle of a civil war, but I see it more as just a coup. I don't see much fight back from the moderates as the Mamdanis and you know, the El Sayeds and the Ilhan Omars and I guess Bernie Sanders sporn take over, right? I mean, Bernie Sanders was cheated out of his, I guess, I think, rightful nomination. And they're probably the chickens are coming home to roost for the party for the trickery that they've engaged in and you know, foisting Joe Biden on the country, which was bad for the country, but it's, I guess being devastating for the party, their party and you know, the Nancy Pelosi's and the Chuck Schumers, all they did was appease that insurgent left faction. Do you see the Democrat Party, the establishment actually coming back from this now that, I mean, they're a small rump, the Mamdanis and so on, but they're very powerful. As you say, they're the Young Bolsheviks.
- [16:33]
B
Unfortunately, this is right out of the Marxist playbook, right? The, these tiny groups make themselves seem bigger than they are and through bullying and intimidation and infiltration, they, you know, do disembowel the parties they infiltrate. And you're absolutely right to see that happening. Now. I have been amazed. You know, I've lived in New York for decades and I know a lot of wealthy people in New York. And I will just say it because I'm Jewish, I know a lot of wealthy Jews. But also, you know, I'm familiar with how the old guard, whether Jewish or Anglo or whatever, protected its rights and privileges. And it's like we're in Sleeping Beauty's castle, like everyone's hypnotized or asleep, you know, or before could I have imagined that a red green alliance, you know, someone who's so full of hateful policies toward Jews but also toward rich people, you know, who's willing to dox a, you know, a multimillionaire or billionaire and drive, you know, giant companies out of the city, take aim at capital, take aim at property rights. I would never have imagined that people who have, you know, sequentially kind of changing demographics generation after generation, still like maintaining that that upper echelon would have just been so passive in letting it all happen without lawyers and without resistance and without, you know, launching new parties or new candidates. No, no fight back at all. And I don't understand it in New York, especially with the amount of cheating that we're uncovering. No, I mean, just total passivity. So you're right that it's an existential threat. I honestly wonder because people are Hinting about this, if there's intimidation or compromise of some moderates because they're so frozen, I don't know why Nancy Pelosi would roll over and let people who clearly don't have policies that are organically going to sway the electorate. You know, if you're relying on not cheating in the future, why she would let that happen. So you're right. I don't know what to say. Like, it is an existential danger. I guess I'm feeling a little bit heartened because I'm starting to see the silence. Like the trouble with cancel culture, right. Is that sooner or later the left cancels itself. And. And I'm starting to see the silence be broken on the left. So Bill Maher said, if they keep going like this, I'm going to vote Republican. And I saw a commentator on the left make that case this morning. And the Free Press even, which is right down the middle, is covering a civil war. And so people are starting to feel like it's okay to, you know, voice their aversion to these young Marxists, but it is very dangerous still, because I don't think younger people have been educated properly about the danger of Marxism, the failures of Marxism, the, you know, Stalin and Mao, and the fact that, you know, these. These people are monsters. With. With monsters.
- [20:16]
A
20 million deaths in the 20th century due to communism.
- [20:20]
B
Yeah. So they could. And look at Britain, you know, how quickly it fell. Look at Australia. I mean, no disrespect to your. The beautiful country where you are, but I never would have thought during COVID that a country like Australia peopled with, you know, dissidents and outsiders. Right. People who were starting all over, who had been ejected from a class structure and from a country expatriated, very strong people with strong national identity would have totally been passive in the draconian COVID lockdowns and mandates.
- [20:58]
A
Well, it was also a country of the jail wardens, so maybe the jail wardens were ascendant for some time.
- [21:06]
B
Yeah.
- [21:07]
A
I mean, it was shocking to me, living in America, living in New York, as I have been for eight years. I come back once a year for a visit, and it's a changed country every time I come back and very sad. I think everywhere in the world apart from America has succumbed to these assaults on freedom. And America still, you know, it has that revolutionary spirit. It has very strong constitution and I mean, fought a war for its freedom and fought a civil war for, you know, values and to end slavery. So there's a lot of bloodshed that's gone into America's strength and courage now. But as you do, I see that it's buckling a little bit at the assaults now that have come since COVID I guess, and with the deliberate opening of the borders and as you say, I mean, identity politics has really destroyed social cohesion. Yeah, hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month is back.
- [22:31]
B
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- [22:33]
A
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- [22:44]
B
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- [22:55]
A
I just wanted to just get back before we go on onto Platner because I think, I mean, he's gone, but he represents something pretty important in terms of the sort of embrace suddenly of toxic masculinity by the left or what they said was toxic masculinity. They seem to be so desperate now that they'll grasp at anything to try and appeal to their lost voters. And you wrote something brilliant. I mean, you write lots of brilliant things, but a little while ago that struck a chord. You talked about the kind of almost eroticism of the white liberal women who are at anti ice demonstrations and just going crazy at the big burly ice ages. Many of them, or most of them are men. Many of them are military veterans. They're ex cops, they're patriots. They really believe that what they're doing is making their country safer again. I believe they are too, but they've been so demonized. And you just picked up this feminine sort of craziness around hating them. Can you flesh that out? Sure.
- [24:25]
B
Although I kind of wish I had my, my post in front of me so I don't make a mistake because it's, it's kind of minefield. But there was a period of several weeks in which a number of white women were kind of, yeah, like possessed with hysteria around these big strapping men and almost saying like, ooh, lock me up, you know, ooh, put me in handcuffs, you know, ooh, don't hurt me in this very, very provocative way. Like they were flirting hard, you know, to almost provoke a, a takedown, a physical takedown by these great Big men and to be dominated by them. I'll just put it that way. And it was like, very dummy subby. You know, it was very, like, eroticized. I mean, that you're. You're right to use that verb in to me as a woman. You know, looking at this, it wasn't like, you know, an objective clash of ideologies or a physical clash with a goal other than getting him to handcuff me and put me on the ground with, you know, the. The ICE conflict as the larger, you know, rationale or excuse. I'm not saying these women were conscious of those motivations, but it relates to what we were talking about earlier, Miranda, of, you know, gender relations are so poisonous and weird on the left. And. And there are very few kind of alpha men around. Right. On the left. And there are other issues that are probably biochemical, like, you know, estrogen disruptors in the environment. And, I mean, men are losing masculinity. I don't know why it's more prevalent on the left. That's an interesting question.
- [26:19]
A
But low T, they're called. Like.
- [26:22]
B
Yeah, or. Or maybe it's self selecting, you know, effeminate men, you know, head in that direction ideologically. And more masculine men, you know, want nothing to do with it. I don't know those studies should be done. But I did see this kind of, you know, it's also taboo on the left to say, ooh, that big strapping man with that weapon, you know, is, you know, really attracted. You can't say that on the left. You'll exiled for not invited to the coven, you know, for the.
- [26:54]
A
Even though evolution has made women attracted to strong men, and that can't be subsumed forever without some sort of problem.
- [27:04]
B
Exactly. Well, and there's the answer. Like, it's. So it leads to a perverse outcome if women have to kind of suppress those instincts and there are no men anyway to fulfill them. You know, you kind of get. You get these shrieking videos on TikTok, or you get, you know, women taunting these ICE agents to, you know, take them down, put them in handcuffs. I'm not blaming the victim, God forbid, you know, but we can't be stupid about these deep evolutionary needs. They do surface.
- [27:42]
A
And a sort of a rage, too. Could that be? I mean, this is me thinking it, but a rage of these women, that they know that these men are not interested in them is sexually.
- [27:57]
B
That's really interesting. There's a whole book there that I hope you will write. I can only speculate, but I have A beautiful relative. She's 26 and she's on the left and she, you know, does like ballot distributions and so on and you know, voter registration and she, she wears makeup and she's just a beautiful girl and a feminine girl traditionally and young lady. And she reports the venom with which, you know, kind of blue haired peers say to her, why are you trying to look pretty? Like, you know, in our generation people might have thought that, but, but you wouldn't actually say it like it's a political choice that is nefarious to want to be attractive, especially attractive to, to men. Um, but, but that is an ideology now on the left. How dare you. And again, lots of propaganda went into making young women. You know, it's one thing to have acceptance of your body, you know, that is healthy. It's quite another to glorify obesity or to glorify, you know, ill health, glorify, you know, tattoos all over your face and piercings, you know, things that are just going to limit your options in the, you know, reproductive pool.
- [29:26]
A
Right.
- [29:28]
B
And, but that's what's happened to these poor young women, you know, in addition to horrible problems with birth control, which is much more disruptive than it used to be in our generation, but leaving
- [29:39]
A
that aside, which disturbs their fertility and ensures that they won't do the thing that, you know, most women just evolutionarily have found to be the most rewarding.
- [29:56]
B
Yeah, all of it. So to answer, to go back to your question, is there rage? I think there must be rage because all the things were programmed deeply to want. I want a baby, I want to nurse a baby. I want an orgasm. You know, I want a family. I want love, I want protection. You're, you're not allowed to want those things from men anymore on the left in that way. I mean, I was listening to pop music and, and there's so many love songs sung by men, almost no love song sung by women. They're all like, I'm fine. Wow, F you. You know, I don't need you. I, I, you know, I give myself flowers. I mean endless. So there. And, and I guess, let's be honest, you and I can vouch for. Well, I'm not going to put words in your mouth. I wrote a book called Vagina about female sexuality and, and the mind and the reproductive and sexual system in women and as in men. Right. But differently are very directly biologically aligned. So when women are having good sex, you know, having orgasms, they're more confident, they're more risk taking, they have More dopamine in their brains. You know, when they have babies, they have more oxytocin, which is calming. I mean, it's, you know, real hormonal benefits from sex and babies and. And, you know, when they're touched, women need touch differently than men do. You know, if they're not hugged and stroked, they kind of go crazy. I'm sorry. It's, you know, oh, wow. Studies that I, you know, I say I should. It's an overstatement to say they go crazy, but they. They need hug, hugging, and caressing in a different way than men do.
- [31:46]
A
Well, that would explain a lot of. I mean, none of that is happening, really, to these women. They're going out of their way to push away and be hostile to men who provide all of that.
- [32:00]
B
Yes. But also, look at how men are being propagandized. They're bombarded from their earliest adolescence with hardcore pornography.
- [32:08]
A
Look.
- [32:09]
B
And even in, you know, mainstream movies, I don't know if you've noticed, but the sex scenes, I don't even want to watch them anymore. I just find them so alienating. Yeah, they're so, like. Like, violent or, like. Like this or, you know, positions that no woman would find particularly gratifying and. And, like, no seduction. Right. None of the seduction that women biologically need in order to feel happy and fulfilled. And so if girls are growing up thinking, well, that's sex, you know, I better provide that. They're going to be very, you know, angry and frustrated or that sex.
- [32:48]
A
I'm scared of it. I don't want to be part of it. It's not. It's alienating. I mean, my children were growing up, born in the 90s and early 2000, and that was an era, and I was writing about this, about sexualization of young girls was really taking off. And so those young women are now in their 20s and even heading into 30, and maybe they just were so traumatized by being treated like sexual objects from a very young age that they. That turned them off. Sex and intimacy and men, I'm sure, you know, there.
- [33:36]
B
There's a lot there, I think. I think becoming nubile is terrifying. Now and then, in steps the counselor, you know, with no knowledge of the parents, to say, well, maybe you're transgender. Maybe you really want a boy. I wouldn't want to come of age as a woman now. There's no safe space. And this brings up the grooming in the schools. If adults are talking about your sexuality all day long under the guise of being inclusive, school is not a safe place, especially if 21% of women, I'm one of them, have been assaulted in their childhood or adolescence. So by the time they get to high school or college, a quarter, nearly a quarter already sexually traumatized. And then you have teachers talking about, you know, are you gay? Are you bisexual? You know, maybe you're trans. I mean, it's so unsafe. It's not a way to heal. So I think all of this is. Is very deliberate, and a lot of money is going into it, by the way. I don't know if you've tracked the money flow, but the Pritzker foundation is, you know, dumping money on policies that. And I see it everywhere. I'm in blue Massachusetts, and it's like I had to quit the local YMCA because they were getting rid of bathrooms for boys and girls. It was all going to be changing in one big space, you know, with adult men. And it's like, are you insane? And you see this, you know, everywhere here, just getting rid of safe spaces. I think the kind of whole, like, fetishizing of transsexual or transvestite men, you know, seeking access to women's bathrooms. I mean, big supporter of LGBTQ rights, but that's not what the movement has been about. And there's, again, another agenda. Just making sure that women and girls are, you know, traumatized and have no boundaries. Don't get to say no because of. Of this goal. I think it's part of this much larger, very sophisticated goal of destroying heterosexual relationships. Destroying relationships, really destroying the chance of family life. And we're seeing the results, right? Like the reproductive replacement of babies in. I'm sorry, the reproductive rates in the west are tanking below replacement levels. And in the countries. We haven't talked about immigration, but in the countries that globalists are shipping people, you know, from those countries in the millions and millions into Western Europe, Australia, Canada, and to some extent during the Biden era, the United States, they're having, you know, four times the number of babies on average that Westerners are having. So there is a very big mosaic here that is all heading in one direction.
- [36:38]
A
You mentioned that it's a part of a larger scheme or program. I agree with you. I can't really see the details of it, but it certainly does seem that there is some sort of an intelligence or a hive mind or certainly there's an ideology behind destroying heterosexuality, destroying the nuclear family. I mean, that was a Marxist idea about the family, because I guess there's nothing more bourgeois than family. And they're very independent of the state. But what do you think is driving it? Who's controlling it?
- [37:24]
B
Who's controlling it?
- [37:26]
A
Or is there not one single person? I think I asked Jordan Peterson this once, and he described it more as a hive mind.
- [37:33]
B
Interesting. You know, I sometimes honestly think it's Satan, like I didn't used to that way. But it does seem sometimes so metaphysically coordinated beyond the power of normal human politics. The COVID response seemed to be metaphysically beyond human capability. You know, all these countries reacting in exactly the same way. But again, that could have been AI just before it was announced.
- [38:00]
A
But also that was, you know, I remember Jane Fonda saying at the very beginning of COVID when people were still dying, she said it's God's gift to the left because she could see it as a way of getting control, whether it be of, you know, the ballot box or just people's lives and business
- [38:20]
B
man, who's behind it. Well, it does seem, and I wrote about this in a book called the Bodies of Others. I did track the money and propaganda flow to some major players. And basically big tech in China merged in the COVID response. And so there was a group called the COVID 19 Project in 2020 into 2021, which was Microsoft, Bloomberg, Amazon, Facebook, you know, all the big tech major players. And they were. They coordinated their messaging. So first they coordinated the messaging of stay home, stay home. You know, be scared, be scared. They would amplify stories that turned out to be totally baseless. Like the famous New York Times story about the Chinese restaurant outside of Wuhan where, you know, people, these. All these people died or got sick after they had their soup. You know, they would amplify stories that turned out to have really big flaws. Like the biker group in North Dakota that, you know, dared to convene and have fun and they all got sick. You know, just like these very flawed stories would have global import. You remember, you know, don't. Don't see Grandma at Hanukkah. Don't see Grandma at Christmas. Don't see Grandma and you'll kill her. It was the same message all over the world. Don't see grandma at Ramadan. Don't see Grandma, you know, at Holi. You know, same message in 192 languages.
- [39:57]
A
So, but that was Fauci. And, you know, the Biden administration were the worst in the. I mean, they had a. Fauci had a huge impact in Australia. People paid attention to what he said.
- [40:10]
B
Totally. But who was amplifying Dr. Fauci? He couldn't have done that all by himself. So what you saw in that kind of messaging, and the messaging that kicked me off of social media and kicked any number of smart, important people like Dr. J. Bhattacharya, Dr. Peter McCullough off social media was in this. I was a co plaintiff with President Trump in a lawsuit against Twitter and Meta, which eventually became Google. And we won. So in discovery, we found that the Biden administration was putting pressure on the social media companies to, you know, amplify this messaging and vice versa. Right. So that's one set of coordinates. And then I also found that the MRNA injection came from China and the IP switched over to China in 2021 for Pfizer at least. And China was manufacturing, you know, a billion doses for export, but not manufacturing the same flawed injection for its own population. So I saw that as definitely an act of war. And I think it's the same kind of conglomerate that you see with the revelations President Trump is making now with, you know, who disrupted the vote, like China flowing through all these cutouts, right, that then, you know, buy up or, or flow through all these nonprofits that then affect all this. And they buy journalists, right. And, and you know, the money flowing to news outlets, I mean, I tracked some of the COVID stay home Covid get vaccinated money flowing to the BBC and the Guardian and all these places that won't talk to me anymore. They took the money and sometimes like $55 million, you know, in, in one stretch from, you know, programs like a Bill Gates program to explain public health. Well, that's a way for news outlets with tight profit margins, as, you know, you know, working in legacy Media, you know, 55 million is a lot of money. A million is a lot of money
- [42:18]
A
for, well, all the big pharma advertising, I don't think. I mean, television wouldn't survive without it totally.
- [42:27]
B
Indeed. So these are like not the same people, but it's like a Venn diagram, I'm sure. You know, now we've got the jihadis, right? We've got Qatar money flowing through our universities and through Congress, you know, and a bill to make sure that congressional interns have background checks, which I can't believe they don't.
- [42:49]
A
You know, how is that possible? And that Qatar was sort of placing these interns into congressional offices. There's so many scandals. We mentioned Qatar. Let's talk about the Red Green alliance that you mentioned before. And again, you know, this is sort of Islamism combined with socialism, communism. I mean, I don't, I think they've morphed into the same thing. But you know, the young women that are such die hard DSA fans, you know, Democrat Socialists of America, Mamdani fans, don't they realize that it's their freedoms that their, you know, short term comrades are going to take away first after they've thrown the gays off the rooftops? Why are young women so susceptible to this DSA madness?
- [43:57]
B
I wish I understood it.
- [43:59]
A
I mean, is there something attractive about Ahasan Piker who said that he doesn't care if women were raped on October 7th in Israel? You know, is there something, you know, again, we're talking about that same pathology that they love to be dominated by ICE agents. Is there something that attracts them to the sort of macho chauvinism of Islam? Right.
- [44:27]
B
Wow, this is deep. I wish I had like any studies or interviews at all because I think you're onto something. I just don't have evidence. I can speculate. I mean, first of all, there's historical ignorance, right? They, I believe that a huge part of the reason for the inrush of every kind of, you know, sexual identity into public education is to take up space that would otherwise be devoted to civics and history. You know, just even as China is educating in India, are educating their kids very, very, you know, assertively in like engineering and architecture and math and science. Um, so they may, these young women literally may not know, you know, they may not know how women are treated in Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia or. Yep. Or Yemen or they may not know. Like, I had to write an essay about, you know, the many millions of Somalis imported to the United States to point out that 98% of Somali women have been infibulated or had clitoridectomies forced on them. Like they are traumatized, you know, and, and it's a, it's a criminal society. And that's not a racist thing to say because they do that to every little girl. You know, they, they do. Egypt does, you know, over 90% of the women are, are sustained clitoridectomies. So that's the culture, you know, we're importing. And I love a lot of Muslim people. I've traveled widely in Muslim countries. I've studied that, you know, the Holy Quran, you know, I don't want to generalize about a major religion, but they're, you know, fundamentalist Islam, it has a criminal orientation toward women and girls. It's that simple. And these young women may not know, but you may also be onto something because the, you know, the Estrogen disruption and the dialing down of testosterone that is happening in the west with men doesn't seem to be happening in the Middle East. So on college campuses you've got these very virile young men from Muslim countries and they do have a forceful way of seeing the world. You're right. And maybe this movement, in addition to legitimate problems in the Middle east between Israel and Palestine, but maybe there is an attraction to, to I will submit to this Islam. Doesn't it mean submission on some level? And I can definitely see that the, you know, freedom doesn't look that great to young women right now because it, we've kind of ruined freedom for them. It looks like one night stands and you know, antidepressants and like, you know, a joyless future, solitude. You know, here's Islam. You'll be taken care of forever. You'll know what to do. There's a way to be, you know, live right. And I will tell you from having visited those countries and gone to Friday services Juma to show solidarity with the Muslim community in the wake of all these attacks on the Muslim community after 9 11, I would go to Juma a lot. And um, you get so. It's kind of beautiful. You get so love bombed when you show up and cover your hair, you know. Yes, just show up and cover your hair. You know, like, we love you. We love you. And it's. It, you know, it is a community and it is a way of life. And there are many beautiful things about the Quran because it derives from Judaism and you know, same root as Christianity. And I can see, I can see the appeal to a lot of these young women. I don't think they have any idea what they're getting into or what they're welcoming into our communities. They don't understand that, look, Jews for Palestine. And I have loved ones who are Jews for Palestine. I used to be a Jew for Palestine. Before October 7th, you know, I wouldn't have called myself a Zionist. I was very vocal about Palestinian human rights and you know, Israeli human rights. And I really believed, you know, we could have a partnership for peace in the Middle East. I no longer believe that. I'm afraid. I want to, but I do not think Hamas is it and the kind of, you know, radical Islam that you have to subscribe to in Gaza and many places on the West Bank. I don't think it will let there be partners for peace. I don't think it will let there be. Let's build up our society side by side. I think that time is gone, unfortunately, you know, from the river to the sea is a shift in discourse. You know, it didn't used to be like that. It was a two state solution. Well, that's, oh, no one is saying two state solution. So I, I, I don't know when these young women will realize the kind of fire they're playing with, but I hope they do soon because it's definitely them who will be losing their rights in a Sharia dominated culture.
- [49:34]
A
Yeah, I remember back when the Afghanistan war was happening and there were these terrible stories about warlords who used to take little boys from villages and treat them as their sex slaves, their tea boys. And I know Australian soldiers were disgusted, and American soldiers too, by having to sort of break bread with these warlords and have them as their allies. But I remember thinking, because I had young boys, I remember thinking, if I was a mother in one of those villages, I would embrace the Taliban and happily put on a burqa just to protect my son from being taken by a warlord. There are things worse than submitting.
- [50:27]
B
Well, Miranda, you've touched on something that people in the west do not understand. That in many parts of the world, that's the reality. You know, you have to align with one gang or another because there is no rule of law. There is no, you know, uncorrupted judiciary. There is no police force that isn't going to bribe you or rape you if, take your bribes or rape you and take your daughter if, or son if you don't, you know, pay them off. So those are the choices, you know, and, and that's why Islam, fundamentalist Islam is, is spreading so fast. I fear this is why, baby, Marxism is going to be spreading so fast. Because if you don't, like, as my husband likes to say, if you don't, it's like prison. If you don't choose a gang, you're completely vulnerable. You have no protection at all. And people in the west do not understand that. They think, oh, I can, you know, I can dabble in Marxism or I can dabble in, you know, wearing the keffiyeh and saying death to America and there will be no blowback. And that's just not true.
- [51:28]
A
What do you mean that? Baby, Marxism is something that people embrace because they're afraid. What are they afraid of if they don't? Of being ostracized by their peers or,
- [51:41]
B
Well, I guess right now, you know, the fear of like calling it out, as the left says in it, you know, in its extremism, the fear is that you'll be Cancelled. Right. I mean, I hear from people I love who are active in. On the Dem side, like, if you raise any issue with, you know, men and girls, sports or any kind of. Or, you know, the Marxists or, you know, it. You're just done. You, you can't. I mean, it's, it's a circular firing squad. You can't raise any issues at all. You just have to go along with all of it or else you're exiled. Right. But I think I was thinking kind of further down the road than we've reached. And honestly, I'm thinking about the hints we're getting that elected officials are being threatened or, you know, compromised in some way. And just my intuition as an observer of politics, that all these people don't roll over like this unless there's something else that we don't know. And, and I keep thinking, I think there's a story we don't know yet, right. That, that is a lot, you know, opening the door to the Trojan horse, right, of the dsa. I'm thinking about the massive electronic compromise of our voting records by China in partnership with Microsoft. Well, all the illicit emails people might send, all the dick pics, all the, you know, instructions to their accountants. That's also often Microsoft. Right? So China could have all of that. We don't know. I mean, if, if, if there are all these unvetted interns, you know, maybe they're honeypots. Like, I don't. We don't know. Right. But for reasons we don't know, the elite are not acting like normal elites, defending their rights and prerogatives, defending their castle against the insurgents. They're just letting the insurgents in. So I guess I was also just thinking about history in addition to whatever that is, which we don't know, and maybe it's nothing, but that's what it looks like when Marxists get a little further. And this is happening in New York, where I live most of the time in Brooklyn, there's so much. And National Socialists did this. Mussolini did this. Like the Brown Shirts and the Black Shirts, right? The gangs outside of the synagogues. Right. These are informal, so not informal. The gangs throwing, you know, snowballs with glass in them at the police. You know, the lone arsonist setting fire to all the churches. And, you know, somehow the churches don't have sprinkler systems that are activated. You know, like, I call it memo. On social media, when there's stuff happening all over the west and all over North America all at once, that looks like spontaneous chaos. But is really, you know, very, a very predictable set of stages of early fascism or early totalitarianism executing itself.
- [55:06]
A
Fascinating. I mean, Antifa, of course, is the classic example of that with the Summer of love in 2020 and that, you know, the eruption, the seemingly spontaneous eruption of street violence and arson and looshing in poor neighborhoods after the George Floyd incident, which.
- [55:28]
B
Well said. Sorry to interrupt. Go ahead.
- [55:31]
A
Well, I mean, just. That's it. I mean, antifa. And I mean, we've only just had the Trump administration with some fantastic speeches from Marco Rubio and Scott Besant and Steve Miller about the threat of communism, but also talking about left wing terrorism being suppressed and ignored deliberately by particularly the Biden administration. But the FBI, all that national security apparatus which is supposed to keep us safe, just ignored one of the most dangerous threats.
- [56:11]
B
Yes, unless they were all hired by the same people. I mean, the, the evidence was compromised by taking $3 million from a high level Chinese intelligence asset. And you know, I, I felt you could see the fingerprints of China all over that administration. I believe that. I believe it's been documented in this wave of revelations that China flowed money to Black Lives Matter. And you know, my husband, Brian o', Shea, an investigator, has done a lot of work again, tracing the money flow. He's gone undercover at DSA meetings, which is hilarious.
- [56:52]
A
Really. Wow. Yeah, good on him.
- [56:55]
B
He comes back with, you know, I mean, terrifying explanations for why it's spreading so fast, but.
- [57:02]
A
And what are they?
- [57:03]
B
Well, I was just going to say China is, is flowing, you know, vast sums into disrupt, creating division and disruption through these movements and through these nonprofits. Well, what he says is that they take young people who are just what you're kind of gesturing at, right? Like isolated, lonely, have no real status. And they give them a complete, very admirable, you know, 360 degree social life and community life. Here's the DSA knitting circle, let's go bowling, let's have tea with comrades. You know, take your pet, the petting zoo or to the dog run with the dsa. And so you can literally do something every day of the week. And living in Brooklyn, I see how, you know, the churches are closed, the synagogues are closed because they never really reopened after Covid. They're open for like one hour a week. It's hard to meet people if you're a young person. It's expensive. You know, you have to go to bars and I mean, young people say it's really expensive and difficult to find community. And here's the dsa, like with something for everyone. And it looks really, really wholesome. You know, like clean up Prospect park with the dsa, you know, and let's have, you know, French fries afterwards. So that's their, like, no one, apart from Tipping Point usa, the Democrats, moderate Democrats and the Republicans aren't doing anything like that for young people.
- [58:42]
A
That is so interesting. So what you do is you destroy people's, you know, these young women and some of the young men, their ability to attract the opposite sex, to feel good about themselves, to have any kind of a social life. And part of that's economic, I guess, in New York. And then you fill the vacuum. Totally.
- [59:09]
B
And look at early, the early Nazi party, right? And people, if they don't read a lot of history, really are unaware of it. It didn't start out with goose stepping in the streets. It started out with, you know, the, the summer camps and the choral groups and the housewife groups and the professional groups, like exactly this. You know, if you want to be plugged in and have a network and have a sense of belonging, well, the National Socialists will have a group for you. It was that, you know, before it was the goose stepping and the concentration camps. They knew what they were doing. Introducing Meta Glasses.
- [59:50]
A
Hey, Meta, any last minute tables for two tonight? Sure.
- [59:54]
B
There's a great Italian restaurant 15 minutes away.
- [59:57]
A
Hey, Meta, where's the nearest flower shop?
- [60:01]
B
Five minutes away. Straight down Broadway, past the bodega. Their lilies are trending on Instagram.
- [60:06]
A
Just saying. Hey, Meta, am I forgetting anything else?
- [60:10]
B
How about setting a calendar reminder for next year? Meta Glasses. Available in more than 20 styles.
- [60:19]
A
How did you end up not succumbing to the peer pressure and, you know, the status, everything that you had built in your career. You know, the books, the newspaper columns, the media profile. You were it. And yet you really gave it all up just because you told the truth and you refused to, you know, not lie. I guess you could have gotten away with it if you just stopped telling the truth. So what gave you that ability to withstand peer pressure from when you had so much to lose?
- [61:08]
B
Well, first of all, thank you for your kind words. It means a lot to me, especially from someone of your distinction, because, you know, sometimes you sort of do think. One, I. Sometimes I do think. Well, you know, I had a place in history and now I have been thoroughly erased and no one will. No one will ever know.
- [61:27]
A
Right.
- [61:28]
B
So thank you. But I guess it's three things. One is that my. I lost. Well, not lost. I never knew eight great aunts and uncles because they were murdered by the Nazis. And so I. I know what early fascism looks like, you know, and I've. I've studied it and written a book about it called the End of America. And so when you see it, you know, there aren't a lot of ways, like, there's a blueprint. There really is a blueprint for closing down an open society. So I, you know, I. I recognize that the second reason is that I believe in God. And I kind of do feel like I. I'm more scared of not having done what I could to tell the truth and even save lives if I could, you know, in this lifetime when I die. Cause I'm sure I'll have to account for myself. I'm more scared of that than, you know, being yelled at by the New York Times. And the last reason, you know, you mentioned having children. I have children, and I have stepchildren, and they haven't had their children yet, you know, and I couldn't. And there's like, it's not just them. Like, there's young women and young men who haven't had their children yet. I had my children, but, you know, this damage that this injection did was aimed directly at reproductive health. So I had to be a mom, you know, and I had to speak up for. So the people could have a choice at least, and know what the risks were.
- [63:10]
A
Yes, that's such a good reason. I mean, all of them are good reasons, but the fact that, you know, things that were so important. We trusted doctors, and they betrayed us. So many of them betrayed us because they were cowards. So good on you for not being a coward. And can we just now go back to your childhood? And I read that you, I think, told someone that you had the ultimate liberal childhood, that you could do whatever you liked. And there was. Your parents wouldn't have cared.
- [63:53]
B
Well, I hope they would have cared. But there were no boundaries really placed on us. Gosh, what can I tell you? My dad was an English professor and a poet and a bohemian before the hippie movement. He was kind of hanging out with the Allen Ginsbergs of the Bay Area. And so he was a free spirit. And my mom was also a free spirit. And it was the times. Right. I was born in 1962, so I was raised in the Haight Ashbury, you know, above the Haight Ashbury in Central. Yeah.
- [64:32]
A
Yes.
- [64:32]
B
So in the middle of all of that, and I, you know, their.
- [64:38]
A
Their.
- [64:38]
B
Their philosophy was to give us a lot of books to read and to have really interesting conversations and otherwise. Pretty much to trust us. And so I think it's insane now, looking back, but I.
- [64:54]
A
Is that how you brought up your kids?
- [64:56]
B
No. I mean, not the limitlessness. I was allowed to hitchhike. I was allowed to, you know, travel across the country by myself. At 15, I was allowed to travel to Israel, you know, by myself. During the summers When I was 15, 16, 17, I was on city buses. And my brother, you know, when we were, like, five and seven, I mean, it's crazy. It's a miracle we weren't abducted, but it does.
- [65:21]
A
There is something to be said for a little bit of free ranging, though.
- [65:25]
B
We were free ranging for sure, and it worked out. You know, my brother's a really distinguished earth scientist, and, you know, I became a writer. I think there are many advantages. But we weren't being helicoptered. We weren't being shepherded from playdate to play date. We were really, you know, free to explore a lot of things. So that is, I guess, the answer to your question.
- [65:52]
A
And, I mean, you mentioned that you were raped, I think, when you were a child. Are you comfortable with just fleshing out a little bit of what happened and what impact that had on you?
- [66:05]
B
I mean, I'm not comfortable with it, but I think it's important to talk about, you know, for women to hear people talking about it because it's such a common experience and so often shrouded in silence. My parents were being very right on, so they got a male babysitter for us when they went away for a weekend. And he. He was a violent sadist. And when my brother was out of the house visiting his friends, this guy took me to the basement and showed me a short knife that he had in his possession and raped me.
- [66:49]
A
Oh, my God.
- [66:50]
B
And then he was there for two days. So the next day, he raped me again in my. In my bedroom and threatened to kill me if I told anyone, which is, again, very common. But I guess the only other thing. And so basically, I was like a hostage for two days because, you know, my parents weren't coming home till the end of that weekend. And I couldn't tell my brother. You know, I kept trying to be alone with my brother to tell him, you know, that we were in danger. And this guy always, like, showed up, you know, right when I was trying to communicate with my brother. So it was a very.
- [67:32]
A
Was your brother older or younger?
- [67:34]
B
Two years older. Two years older.
- [67:36]
A
And how old were you?
- [67:37]
B
I was 7.
- [67:38]
A
Oh, my God. You poor thing. How awful.
- [67:42]
B
Thank you.
- [67:44]
A
And. And did you tell your Parents or you had to keep that all secret?
- [67:48]
B
Well, this is the part that I think did have a very big impact on my psyche. He. This guy gave me great detail about how he would kill my family, you know, that he knew Helsing, you know, if I. If I didn't keep his secret. And so for all the subsequent years that I was growing up, I felt like I had to be a good soldier and, you know, not tell
- [68:19]
A
the.
- [68:19]
B
I guess blessing in disguise is that nothing really scared me after that.
- [68:25]
A
And, I mean, that must be because of. You had a lot of inner resilience. Because I can't imagine a trauma like that. I mean, I just can't imagine at that age what a horrible thing. And so what. I mean, what impact did that have on you? I guess kids are pretty resilient. You know, they're in war and all sorts of horrendous.
- [68:48]
B
No, they're not resilient. They just, you know, have to absorb
- [68:51]
A
the trauma because they have no choice.
- [68:53]
B
Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to contradict you. I just know that sentence resilient because children are. So Many children are traumatized. They just keep going. Yeah.
- [69:05]
A
Yeah. Well, I mean, they don't have any choice, and they don't endlessly emoji about it. They just get on with it and absorb the. The trauma, I guess. And, I mean, did you resent your parents for that?
- [69:20]
B
Oh, no, they had no idea. I mean, no, they had no idea. This was a student of my father's. You know, he was right. God, they had no reason to believe that this guy was dangerous. But, I mean, I can't stress enough. I've worked at a rape crisis center, and I've, you know, read a lot about sexual assault. It's so common. Like, the person who's going to be the danger to the little girl or the teenage girl or boy is, you know, in that family circle, a trusted coach, a trusted babysitter, you know, a stepfather, someone, you know, in a position of trust.
- [69:57]
A
I mean, priests.
- [70:00]
B
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
- [70:02]
A
Teachers. Yeah, I guess. And.
- [70:05]
B
Sorry, go ahead.
- [70:07]
A
No, no, go on. So what? So you had that great secret and that trauma inside you, how did that manifest as you grew up?
- [70:19]
B
Well, one thing I do want to say, especially on behalf of many other survivors of assaults by adults in childhood, is that something people don't think about enough, especially in sentencing predators, is how physically violent it is for an adult body to violate a small child's body. I had physical damage, you know, I couldn't talk about. And that stayed with Me, you know, for my whole life. So, because I. I was born the spina bifida cultist. So this guy injured, you know, me. And like, children are fragile, you know, and adult men are, you know, more than twice their size. And. And I just wish that in sentencing people would think about that. You can't rape a child without breaking a child.
- [71:18]
A
You know, it used to be such a taboo, you know, and now we're actually entertaining the idea of, you know, what is it that it's not pedophilia anymore, it's another sexual fetish or another way of being another identity we've forgotten to protect children.
- [71:46]
B
I don't think we've forgotten. I think there's been such an effort to blur the boundaries that used to protect children. And look at what's happening in Britain. You know, girls are being. I know two women who were part, you know, victimized by grooming gangs. Dozens of men, you know, raping them and grooming them and raping them. And they've survived to be fierce advocates. And the whole judicial system in Britain seems to have been hijacked to protect these predators. And they all, again, memo, they all say the same thing. Oh, in my culture, it's. There's nothing wrong with it. There's some truth to that. But, you know, rape is illegal in Muslim fundamentalist Muslim countries, even though child marriage is often not child marriage, but they're getting no penalties at all. There's. It's open season on women and girls in, in Britain and a lot of Western Europe. And I think, I think these things are. Work together in a very profound way because I've written about the role of rape in war and in subjugating populations. There's a reason soldiers are kind of set loose to sexually terrorize the, the women of the enemy. And it's because that's how you break a society. And with the kind of, you know, carte blanche that predators are being given in Britain and in Western Europe, and it's going to be increasingly in the United States unless we push back. That's the goal is to break the women, you know, of the west so that they, they can't be the backbone of, of resistance that, you know, they are in an intact family. Intact women, intact little girls are much more difficult to subjugate.
- [73:38]
A
That's right. Destroy innocence and purity and, and sully everything.
- [73:44]
B
Yeah, but also just trauma. You know, traumatize them, terrify them, terrorize them. You know, like when you've been raped. I mean, there are two ways to go Right. Like, you can just fight against any bullying because you recognize, oh, here comes a predator. And I can survive that. Right. Or I've seen this over and over in young women and like, I had to work through some of it myself. Or you freeze, you know, and this is a fight, a physiological response. You know, there's fight flight and there's freeze. But so many, you know, women, the minute that there's a gesture of aggression, and I'm not blaming them, it's, it's literally a trauma response. They, they freeze and then they submit. And what a great thing to do, a culture, if you want to take over and subjugate that culture to make sure half the population's just like, okay, okay.
- [74:40]
A
Well, I mean, I can't believe recently the story about Governor Tim Waltz pardoning and his attorney general and a couple of other people on that panel pardoning a child rapist. And he said, oh, you don't want to judge people on their worst moment or their worst day, but this little girl, 13 year old girl, was being raped continually for a couple of years by this monster. How can we have got to the point where that attitude is at all defensible?
- [75:15]
B
I don't think it's organic, Miranda. I think his links to China have been thoroughly done. And I think it's part of a theater of humiliation that's all, you know, woven together by our enemies. It's. That sentence didn't come out of his brain organically. Like you have to be a lunatic to say something like that. It's, it's to it, it's of value to our enemies because of the impact it has on, you know, the 25% of women who are not that little girl who are listening and who are like, okay, now the rule of law is gone. No one will protect me. I should just give up. Like, that's what it's about. It's our demoralization of the United States to make statements like that.
- [76:03]
A
Well, I mean, that also goes for having the transgender, you know, the men going into women's spaces, going into, you know, girls locker rooms at schools. You mentioned the ymca. That's all part of it too, that there's no safe space for women, no separate space.
- [76:25]
B
Absolutely. I mean, I'm thinking about those poor female athletes who had to change, you know, in changing rooms with fully, you know, mature men claiming to be women. 20, 21 to 25% of them have already been assaulted. Right. So, yeah, they're going to be traumatized over and over or even just their description of, you know, I went into a, a broom closet in order to, you know, change with a door to shut between me and this guy, you know, like this. It's all about making women rapeable again. You know, making girls not able to trust their gut, not able to recognize when they're in danger and re traumatizing them.
- [77:14]
A
You were a brilliant student. You ended up, you wrote the Beauty Myth. I think you were. How old were you?
- [77:23]
B
26 when it was published.
- [77:24]
A
26, right. Huge international bestseller. So how did you get to that? How did you become so successful so quickly?
- [77:35]
B
Good question. Well, I worked hard and you were smart. Yeah, yeah. But you know, I'm not gonna, the, the whole like liberal or left wing thing now is privilege. And I will say it. What, you know, it wasn't privilege. It wasn't, I didn't inherit, you know, those advantages. Without hard work, I don't think I, I would have, you know, had a best selling book or been a Rhodes scholar. But I did work hard in school. I came from a, you know, economically lower middle class background, culturally middle class certainly, but there was no extra money for graduate school or anything. So if I was going to go to graduate school, I would have to win a scholarship. So I think the Rhodes did a lot to teach me about how to operate on a larger stage.
- [78:29]
A
The Rhodes scholarship to Oxford.
- [78:31]
B
The experience of being at Oxford but also being in the Rhodes community, which kind of grooms. Trains you. Not grooms, that's not the right word. Acclimates you into thinking, I'm going to be a leader. I'm going to, you know, I have this network of people around the world that I can turn to. And then I have an uncle, Dan Goldman, who wrote Emotional Intelligence, who had an agent and he connected me with the agent. And I'd been writing about beauty for my doctoral thesis at Oxford, you know, in the 19th century novel. And my agent and my uncle said this should be a book set in the current moment. And so my agent got me a contract. And then I would say the huge success of that first book, that was luck because I think it came out at just the right time that people, you know, people of yore and my generation were being told, feminism is dead, there are no more battles to fight but our lived experiences. There's a lot that still needs to be done. And so I think the book addressed something people wanted to read about. And you know, Also I was 26 and it's always, you know, the media is always looking for the next new thing. You know, 26 year old who can talk about social problems is always desirable. That's my best understanding of how I got so lucky with my first book.
- [80:00]
A
And last question, how is feminism, since you wrote the book in 91 to today, how do you see feminism or women's position having improved? Or I think you're gonna say the opposite?
- [80:16]
B
Well, no, many, many things have improved for sure. I mean, we're not fighting the battles we had to fight then. And even though I've been bemoaning the dearth of sort of fully masculine men, when I wrote that book, you know, date rape was rife. And there was no critique of, you know, no, no, didn't mean no, and you know, people were being roofied and so there were correctives, you know, that needed to happen between the genders. Things went too far. But, you know, the initial critique was legitimate. Many battles got one. But I'm very, very disappointed in women and women's women leaders and feminist leaders, Particularly in an essay I haven't written yet is like, what was the point? You know, like I helped liberate all these women and empower them just so that they could collude in and be the biggest cheerleaders on lockdowns and stripping, you know, stripping other people of their liberties and the biggest cheerleaders and mandates without recognizing. This is a section in my book, the bodies of Others. You know, these two women on the Supreme Court arguing in favor of my body, my choice in abortion rights cases and against my body, my choice in, you know, mandated injection to keep your job cases and not seeing the hypocrisy there. You know, the biggest colluders with sharia law, you know, and with jihadi sensibility turning a blind eye to women, getting, you know, 73 lashes for singing in public in Iran, turning a blind eye to all the things they used to care about, like child marriage and, you know, rape of, of women, systemic rape of women in Pakistan, in rural Pakistan, turning a blind eye to the stripping of rights of women in fundamentalist Muslim countries. Like, where are they now? You know, not speaking up about the cratering of women's fertility as a result of this injection. Nowhere are they being coherent or consistent or brave. And I just feel like I just empowered a bunch of monsters in some ways.
- [82:34]
A
I don't think so. I think that you're more than making up for it now. And I think that history will look very kindly on you eventually. And I look forward to your next installment of the adventure of your life.
- [82:48]
B
Thank you so much. How wonderful to speak with you.
- [82:51]
A
You too. Thanks for watching Podforce One. Don't forget to like and subscribe below and leave a comment. I always like to read them. See you next week.
- [83:04]
B
Evening. Buyer's remorse. Buy a new car. I'll be moving in. Let's get started.
- [83:10]
A
Sorry, I think there's been a mistake. I bought it from Carvana.
- [83:14]
B
You what?
- [83:14]
A
Yeah. Great price. I even have seven days to love it or return it.
- [83:18]
B
So there's no.
- [83:19]
A
No. No. Buyer's remorse. More like Buyers rejoice.
- [83:23]
B
I guess I'll let myself out. Congratulations. I mean it.
- [83:27]
A
Buyers rejoice. Buy your car today on Carvana.
- [83:30]
B
Limitations and exclusions may apply. See our 7 day return policy at carvana. Com.