Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E198: Should Wives Submit to Their Husbands? w/Erika Bachiochi

Transcript

E198: Should Wives Submit to Their Husbands? w/Erika Bachiochi · The Lila Rose Show

• 0:00
  While I was there, I made my home directly in the Women's
• 0:03
  Center, women's studies courses, but especially my home in the
• 0:07
  rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. Religion was very much out of
• 0:10
  the picture and just a sense that Catholicism especially is
• 0:13
  the most patriarchical religion on the planet.
• 0:16
  I went back to my dorm room. I got right on my knees because
• 0:18
  that's what I've been taught to do in AAI.
• 0:19
  Think the very easy key of what the mutual submission looks like
• 0:23
  on the woman's part is. Your work was instrumental in
• 0:27
  overturning Roe V Wade. Women can get pregnant, men
• 0:30
  can't. They engage in the same act.
• 0:32
  There's a fundamental inequality here.
• 0:34
  What do we do? Well, Christianity says.
• 0:39
  Hello everybody, Welcome back to the Lila Rose show.
• 0:41
  Today I'm sitting down with my friend Erica Baki Aki, who has a
• 0:45
  big piece out this week in the Wall Street Journal called this
• 0:49
  little edgy John Paul the second the feminist Pope.
• 0:52
  Erica was a Bernie Sanders supporting feminist in college
• 0:55
  and ended up becoming a passionate pro-life advocate and
• 0:58
  a married mother of seven children later on in her life.
• 1:01
  And she has an incredible personal story.
• 1:03
  We're going to wrestle with some really fascinating themes in
• 1:06
  this episode today about feminism, about the growing
• 1:10
  toxic masculinity and toxic femininity in our culture, where
• 1:14
  they kind of connect back to when it comes to human nature,
• 1:18
  the history of thought around the roles of women and men and
• 1:22
  so much more. I think you're going to find
• 1:23
  this episode absolutely fascinating.
• 1:25
  I know that I did. Also, don't forget to subscribe
• 1:28
  to the show if you haven't already.
• 1:30
  If you're listening on podcast app, make sure you're
• 1:32
  subscribed. And if you are on YouTube,
• 1:34
  subscribe and ring that notification bell so you do not
• 1:36
  miss another episode and make sure to join our new exclusive
• 1:40
  community. Link in the description.
• 1:42
  Erica Vakiaki, welcome to the podcast.
• 1:44
  Thank you, Lila. It's so wonderful to.
• 1:45
  Be with you. I'm glad we're here in person
• 1:46
  because I got to do this with you on Zoom.
• 1:48
  I think a year or so ago, I don't remember if it was over a
• 1:52
  year ago, but it was a phenomenal conversation.
• 1:54
  I was like, now I want Erica in studio.
• 1:55
  So thanks for making it out here.
• 1:57
  Absolutely. It's beautiful here.
• 1:59
  Yeah, so you're an East Coaster. That's right.
• 2:01
  And mom of how many kids again? I have seven children, 23 down
• 2:06
  to six. Amazing, amazing.
• 2:09
  You are a hero. Thank you.
• 2:10
  And I've just admired your work for so long because it's such a,
• 2:14
  I mean, you've been absolutely instrumental in the pro-life
• 2:17
  space and helping even with the victory of over overturning Roe
• 2:21
  V Wade. I want to hear about that.
• 2:22
  But your story is so incredible because you come from this
• 2:25
  background of really the opposite point of view.
• 2:28
  And then you had this conversion process.
• 2:30
  So there's so much I want to get into with you, but I want to
• 2:33
  first start with how did you go from being a Bernie supporting
• 2:37
  feminist to a pro-life advocate? Yes, of course the story's a
• 2:41
  long 1, so we won't take all of our time talking about that.
• 2:44
  But I was raised in a family in which my mom was married and
• 2:47
  divorced three times. I had been baptized Catholic as
• 2:50
  an infant, received my first Communion, but then we didn't go
• 2:53
  to church anymore. So I was totally unformed and
• 2:58
  was a very good athlete and pretty decent student.
• 3:01
  Got myself into Middlebury College somehow, and while I was
• 3:05
  there, I made my home directly in the Women's center, women's
• 3:09
  studies courses and all that, but especially made my home in
• 3:13
  the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous.
• 3:15
  I had come back to where I'd come into Alcoholics Anonymous
• 3:19
  as a 17 year old. So in high school after those
• 3:23
  divorces, you know, found myself drinking, experimenting with
• 3:26
  drugs and all that, and all the things you can imagine that a
• 3:28
  young girl does when she's doing those kinds of things.
• 3:30
  And so kind of a lot of pain, suffering.
• 3:34
  But the other thing that happened that was probably, I'd
• 3:36
  say even potentially more kind of had more impact on me
• 3:40
  emotionally than even the divorces, at least in the short
• 3:43
  term, was that when I was 16 and then when I was 18, two of my
• 3:48
  male friends took their own lives.
• 3:51
  And so one of those sort of sent me into kind of a search, which
• 3:54
  led me into a A. And then the next one, I was
• 3:57
  already in a A but sent me really on my knees and a kind of
• 4:00
  profound way. And at that point I found like
• 4:04
  the most hard ass sponsor in the rooms, if I could say it that
• 4:08
  way. And she really kind of whipped
• 4:10
  me into shape by bringing me through the steps, the 12 steps
• 4:14
  and. Were you practicing a faith
• 4:16
  during this time? At all.
• 4:17
  No, no. So my faith was through a a
• 4:19
  Yeah. So.
• 4:20
  Yeah, Yeah. So I mean, I considered myself
• 4:23
  like, if you can, you know, spiritual but not religious.
• 4:26
  I think my sense as a woman studies student especially.
• 4:29
  And then just culturally, I mean, I was in Vermont at a
• 4:31
  small liberal arts college. I, you know, had this affection
• 4:34
  for our then Congressman Bernie Sanders, who I volunteered with
• 4:37
  at some point volunteered with kind of the unionizing effort on
• 4:40
  campus. My sense was just that institute
• 4:43
  all institutional religion was, you know, anti female.
• 4:46
  You know where. Did you get that sense?
• 4:48
  Where? Where do you think you picked?
• 4:49
  That I think very much through women's studies courses.
• 4:52
  Yeah, yeah. I think it's just, you know, the
• 4:55
  the sort of feminism that, you know, animated those kind of
• 5:00
  women's studies programs was a very much a kind of
• 5:03
  revolutionary effort by what I would consider, you know, second
• 5:06
  wave feminists. But the 1970s is when these
• 5:08
  1960s, nineteen 70s is when these women's studies courses
• 5:11
  came to be something and then became programs and now have
• 5:14
  like eaten away at themselves because they, you know, don't
• 5:17
  understand sort of sexual difference at all and have been
• 5:20
  really taken over, I think by trans ideology.
• 5:22
  But at that point, there was a revolutionary component to what
• 5:25
  they were doing. I mean, and they stated that,
• 5:28
  you know, it was definitely in terms of ideology.
• 5:30
  And so religion was very much out of the picture.
• 5:34
  And just a sense that, yeah, I mean, I think Catholicism
• 5:37
  especially is, you know, the most patriarchal religion on the
• 5:40
  planet, right. Or at least like that's the
• 5:42
  impression with sort of the all male priesthood and and the kind
• 5:47
  of other views that we're seeing to be retrograde.
• 5:49
  And so I think that was just what I was like sort of took in
• 5:53
  through the drinking water. Meaning you saw Catholicism as
• 5:55
  like that is the epitome of the the bad, the bad stuff that
• 6:00
  everything we're we're working against in our Bernie Sanders
• 6:03
  recruitment efforts. Right, right.
• 6:05
  No sense that there was any. You know what you see now with,
• 6:07
  I don't know if you've seen the work of Tom Holland and his
• 6:10
  incredible book Dominion. No sense of like that.
• 6:12
  Some of the the concern for vulnerability, the concern for
• 6:15
  the poor, the concern for migrants, the concern for all of
• 6:18
  those kind of populations is Christian at base.
• 6:22
  So no incredible, no sense of like healthcare education for
• 6:26
  women generally, like all these things, there's just no
• 6:28
  historical sense about that. And as we'll probably talk about
• 6:31
  later, a real memory holding of any type of kind of Christian
• 6:35
  impetus for the early women's rights advocates at all.
• 6:38
  And so it's just not in the literature.
• 6:40
  It's. Infuriating because and we're
• 6:41
  going to get into this, I know because you're very passionate
• 6:43
  about this, which I think is really important for people to
• 6:46
  talk about. But like you just said, you
• 6:48
  know, concern for the the foreigner, concern for the
• 6:51
  child, you know, children's rights, concern for women and
• 6:54
  elevating the status of women. These are not liberal ideas.
• 6:57
  These are Christian ideas that the liberal, the far left Co
• 7:00
  opted and turned into a disaster.
• 7:02
  And then now we have abortion and transgenderism and all this
• 7:04
  stuff. And I think, you know, tracing
• 7:07
  that back historically is a really important project.
• 7:09
  That's right, that not a lot of people are doing.
• 7:10
  So anyways, I, I, I digress. But so you're in this in this
• 7:15
  muck and mire of Bernie Sanders. Yes, Bernie Sanders.
• 7:18
  So in terms of my intellectual sort of what was feeding me
• 7:21
  intellectually, it was, yeah, it was kind of a feminism,
• 7:25
  socialism, that kind of thing. And I was really kind of
• 7:29
  passionate. Like I was, you know, sat in on,
• 7:32
  you know, one of the women's studies professors didn't get
• 7:35
  tenure, did a sit in for that, you know, like I was very much
• 7:38
  part of this, you know. And So what happened, well, it
• 7:42
  was partly through, I mean, really through it seems to me
• 7:47
  like very much God's hand in drawing me closer to him because
• 7:51
  of my anxiety, because of kind of the depression that I was
• 7:54
  suffering from my upbringing from.
• 7:57
  And so through, you know, a, a learning how to pray, like
• 8:00
  learning how well that my life had become insane, you know, I
• 8:04
  was insane, I was powerless. And then I needed to turn my
• 8:08
  life over to God as I understood God.
• 8:10
  And that was pretty good for me, not only because I didn't have
• 8:13
  to see God as like some, you know, grey bearded man in the
• 8:16
  sky, but also because God was acting in my life.
• 8:19
  There was no question. Like it was very clear that as I
• 8:22
  prayed each day for guidance, like simple prayers, like help
• 8:25
  me die to me. And I'll tell you, my sponsor
• 8:29
  would say things like get, you know, stop taking your own
• 8:32
  psychic temperature and go help another.
• 8:35
  And so she, you know, like I'd call her and she'd say, have you
• 8:37
  been to a meeting? Have you gone to help somebody
• 8:38
  else who's suffering more than you?
• 8:40
  I mean, this was like, get out of yourself, get out of
• 8:43
  yourself, get out of yourself and stop thinking so much about
• 8:46
  yourself. And so that was really
• 8:48
  instrumental. I mean, she in some ways, like,
• 8:52
  you know, doesn't know it at all, but like really changed my
• 8:55
  life profoundly. And I owe such a debt of
• 8:57
  gratitude to her. So what what happened, though?
• 9:00
  I mean, there's all sorts of ways to tell the story.
• 9:02
  But I spent a semester studying in Washington, DC, went down to
• 9:07
  DC, you know, instead of going abroad, I went down, went down
• 9:09
  as kind of this like hardcore women, you know, feminist
• 9:12
  advocate. And I was graced to be in a
• 9:16
  class with a man who was teaching among other kind of
• 9:21
  communitarian thinkers, kind of a big word, but basically just
• 9:24
  kind of critics of like libertarianism, kind of
• 9:27
  autonomy, like that being the core American value, the
• 9:31
  freedom, radical individualism was teaching people like
• 9:35
  Professor of Law Mary Ann Glendon.
• 9:38
  Wow. And so.
• 9:39
  I was introduced. We gotta have her.
• 9:40
  She, she, she's very special. She is very special.
• 9:44
  And she has become, you know, first through reading her her
• 9:49
  really important books, write her sort of the the most popular
• 9:52
  book of hers would be Rights Talk, which I read in that class
• 9:56
  and fundamentally like shifted my thinking.
• 10:01
  It, you know, isn't a thorough going pro-life book in any
• 10:05
  explicit way. But she made very clear that the
• 10:08
  way we think about rights in our country as kind of, you know,
• 10:11
  free of obligations, free of solidarity, free of community,
• 10:15
  all of that, that like autonomy is the, the main goal that we
• 10:19
  in, in her words, like leave women alone with their autonomy
• 10:23
  in terms of the abortion, right. And it got me thinking.
• 10:25
  And here's what happened. Lila is like me having this
• 10:28
  enormous help from a, a, from a community of people who are
• 10:31
  willing to like, give their lives to me, like give their
• 10:33
  time, time, like hours spent with me when I did my 4th step,
• 10:37
  when I, you know, prep made preparations. 4th step being a
• 10:40
  moral inventory takes a long time to go through your life,
• 10:43
  figure out what your resentments are and all that.
• 10:46
  Who'd given my, you know, who'd given me so much time and
• 10:48
  thinking about like, how do I make amends to those who I
• 10:51
  thought had harmed me, but that I'd held grudges to?
• 10:53
  Like, how do I seek forgiveness? How do I forgive, you know, like
• 10:56
  I had to forgive my mom. I mean, that was an incredible
• 10:59
  moment. Forgive your mom for forgive my
• 11:00
  mom. Without getting into too much
• 11:02
  detail, she's, you know, living and has her own beautiful path.
• 11:07
  You know the way in which I was raised was a focus for her on
• 11:13
  like herself in some sense, right?
• 11:15
  And that's the divorces. And so the divorces, yeah.
• 11:18
  And some other things that happened as well that were
• 11:20
  really, really hard for me in terms of my formation as a young
• 11:23
  woman. And so here I was like these
• 11:26
  people who had, like, given their lives to me.
• 11:28
  And I thought, yeah, like, this community has been what has
• 11:30
  brought me up, like, has helped me.
• 11:32
  And I'm realizing, like, wait, there's a pro-life community.
• 11:34
  So you're. So what Mary Ann helped me to
• 11:37
  see was that these pro lifers who I've been like fully
• 11:40
  against, right? It's not that they're just like
• 11:42
  leaving women alone with this individual, right?
• 11:46
  They're going to their her aid like And so the fact they
• 11:50
  existed, the fact that like a pro-life, not only like
• 11:54
  political movement, forget that like the people on the ground,
• 11:57
  grassroots people helped women and help them with children and
• 12:01
  try to like call men back to responsibility.
• 12:04
  Like I had no idea this existed. And here she is in these pages
• 12:08
  explaining this in her way. And it just shook me.
• 12:12
  And so I went back to college, having had this experience with
• 12:15
  backed up to Middlebury College. And I came back not as an
• 12:18
  ideologue anymore, not as like an activist.
• 12:21
  I came back wanting to learn and I had, and this is like, you
• 12:25
  know, from the grace of prayer, like I was praying all the way,
• 12:27
  like God prayer was opening me up, right.
• 12:30
  So I went back and lo and behold, Middlebury College, one
• 12:33
  of, you know, this great liberal institution had a whole month
• 12:36
  symposium on religion. And so here we're religious
• 12:40
  thinkers who came. One Stanley Howerwest, very
• 12:42
  famous Protestant thinker, told me.
• 12:45
  I went up to him afterwards, told him I'm going to, hey,
• 12:47
  trying to figure out should I go to church?
• 12:49
  I, you know, I don't really, he's like, what church were you
• 12:51
  brought up in? And I said, well, the Catholic
• 12:52
  Church. And he said, well, you should go
• 12:53
  back there. And I was like, oh, not that,
• 12:55
  not that. Not the Patriarch.
• 12:57
  Not the patriarchies. Everylife.com is America's
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• 13:54
  The product is amazing. I have already started to use
• 13:57
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• 13:59
  Use the code Lila, not the patriarchy.
• 14:01
  Not the patriarchy so but what happened is that I one of the
• 14:06
  talks was given by someone from the Catholic Worker movement and
• 14:10
  the talk was called the Catholic Worker Movement and Recovery
• 14:12
  from Drug Addiction. And so seeing Catholic and
• 14:15
  recovery next to each other, I was like, ha, ha, you know, like
• 14:18
  one of these Catholics know about recovery from anything.
• 14:20
  And I went and for anyone who knows like the ministry of
• 14:23
  Dorothy Day and like living among those who are suffering,
• 14:27
  the poor, those who've been abandoned by others like those
• 14:30
  in the streets, her herself, having had experienced abortion,
• 14:32
  experiencing the effects of abortion, wanting to minister
• 14:35
  those her houses of hospitality. Hearing this man recount all
• 14:39
  this and really seeing that like this was real wisdom.
• 14:42
  And I could detect that at that point, just because my heart was
• 14:46
  being moved by prayer. And so I wanted to spend more
• 14:49
  time with him. I didn't go in.
• 14:50
  I like right away. I wasn't a critic, right?
• 14:52
  You know, I came in and I wanted, I was like, can we have
• 14:54
  coffee? So he brought me, we had coffee.
• 14:56
  There was a a Catholic gentleman who had brought him to campus.
• 14:59
  They brought me to the Newman Club meeting that night.
• 15:02
  And so I was introduced to the Catholics on campus.
• 15:05
  And sorry, this is getting to be a long story, but basically what
• 15:09
  happened to me in that room, and I still can picture it now, is
• 15:12
  that they were talking about all of the deep like spiritual
• 15:17
  truths that I would go down the hill to the town of Middlebury
• 15:21
  to talk with my a, a friends, like humility, like prayer,
• 15:27
  like, you know, concern for others that need to get out of
• 15:30
  ourselves, you know, just kind of a desire to be close to God.
• 15:36
  All of those things I heard in that room, but I also heard
• 15:38
  Jesus and the church and Mary and the cross and sin and
• 15:42
  redemption and all these words that were entirely foreign to me
• 15:45
  because I was totally unchurched.
• 15:47
  And so I went back to my dorm room.
• 15:48
  I was like, thanks, see you later.
• 15:49
  And I was kind of like, you know, I went back and I got
• 15:52
  right on my knees because that's what I've been taught to do in a
• 15:54
  a wow, got on my knees and I said so.
• 15:57
  And I again, remember this as I was yesterday and I said, OK,
• 16:01
  God, you and I are good friends. Like you keep me like sane
• 16:05
  throughout the day. Like I come to you.
• 16:06
  And I mean, I had an intimacy with him.
• 16:08
  Like it was something I didn't share with others because I
• 16:11
  didn't know how to like, you know, but I like all throughout
• 16:14
  the day, I just had a habit of going to God, going to God, like
• 16:17
  help me. And so I said, do you have a
• 16:19
  son? Just point blank went right at
• 16:24
  it. I'm a very direct person for
• 16:25
  those who know me, and I went direct to God.
• 16:28
  And so, I mean, you could say the rest is history for those
• 16:31
  who know how like God works. But the very next thing that
• 16:34
  happened is that one of those people brought me Mere
• 16:37
  Christianity by CS Lewis, a book that was also a lot of great
• 16:40
  deep impact on my husband. My own children, adult children
• 16:44
  have read and and adored. And the last thing that I'll say
• 16:48
  that happened was that one of the men who was at the Newman
• 16:51
  club meeting was also on the soccer team, men's soccer team.
• 16:54
  I was on the women's soccer team and he, his dad had been in a A
• 16:59
  and so he took me to lunch. We went to the cafeteria and he
• 17:02
  said, I'm going to translate for you.
• 17:04
  Like how you think about the world in a A and Christian
• 17:07
  understanding. Just basics, just basics, not
• 17:10
  ecclesiology, not soteriology, not like, you know, just basics.
• 17:14
  Like when you think when we say the word sin, he said we just
• 17:18
  mean separation from God. When we say the word grace, we
• 17:21
  just mean like the outpouring of God's love into your heart that
• 17:24
  enables you to act the way you, you know, and be free to act as
• 17:28
  you would as you know. That is good, That is right.
• 17:31
  And so he just little by little helped.
• 17:32
  And I just thought like by then I had like, because I hadn't
• 17:36
  been drinking for so long by then, I wasn't acting out the
• 17:39
  way I had been. So I was living a chaste life.
• 17:42
  I was, you know, I'd already been healing from all of that.
• 17:46
  And so I just was like realizing like I'm living like a Christian
• 17:49
  and I didn't even know it. So I basically would leave my
• 17:51
  theater, women studies friends and I'd go and find the
• 17:54
  Christians. And again, for anyone who knows
• 17:56
  me, I just interrogated them and I just came at them like, what
• 17:59
  about this? What about this, what about
• 18:01
  this? And I spent a whole week, you
• 18:03
  know, painting. They were, you know, doing
• 18:04
  reforms on a house renovations, on a house for the poor.
• 18:08
  And I stayed with them and we painted and I asked all the hard
• 18:11
  questions and I started going to Christian churches, Protestant
• 18:15
  churches. And I guess I said the last
• 18:17
  thing I'll say, but this is the last thing I'll say to get to
• 18:19
  Catholicism after going to a couple of them.
• 18:21
  And, and there were, there was a pretty active intervarsity group
• 18:24
  at Middlebury, which is pretty awesome.
• 18:26
  Some really great people, deep faith of the among these
• 18:29
  Protestants. But I just, nothing was sitting
• 18:31
  right. I would go and I'd be like, you
• 18:33
  know what? And so I went back to my dorm
• 18:35
  room again and I got on my knees again and I was like, show me
• 18:38
  which church you want me to go to.
• 18:39
  And in the back of my head, I literally reserved, but not the
• 18:41
  Catholic Church, not the Catholic Church.
• 18:44
  And the phone rang and it was my dear friend who's still a dear
• 18:47
  friend who is an Orthodox Christian and a Big O Orthodox
• 18:50
  Christian. She said, you know, Eric, I'm,
• 18:52
  I'm just not feeling it with these Protestant churches.
• 18:54
  I think next week I want to go to the Catholic Church with our
• 18:56
  friend who had done the translation for me, our soccer
• 18:59
  friend. And I was like, and I loved her.
• 19:03
  She was like a super charismatic, lovely, smart,
• 19:07
  wonderful. She was like the one I connected
• 19:09
  with both. And I was like, all right, and
• 19:10
  I'll come with you. And I went in that church and I
• 19:13
  saw the crucifix and I cried the whole mass.
• 19:17
  And then I studied with the priest there who had was
• 19:21
  studying, had studied in some sense what I had come back from
• 19:23
  DCI started studying political theory instead of political
• 19:26
  philosophy, instead of women's studies.
• 19:29
  I was studying Aristotle and Plato and really starting to
• 19:31
  understand the Western tradition.
• 19:33
  And he was a student of political theory.
• 19:35
  So we like, he merged these worlds for me and and I said to
• 19:39
  him basically like, why are you Catholic?
• 19:41
  And he said, because it's the easiest road to heaven.
• 19:45
  And by that, you know, it's like all the help, all the help
• 19:48
  Catholics get through the sacraments, through the Saints,
• 19:52
  through all that. It's it is a deeply Christian
• 19:55
  life, but it's one where we're like given help we need because
• 19:58
  we're so broken, right? And so.
• 20:01
  Because at that point you were already believe Jesus is the Son
• 20:04
  of God. Jesus, Jesus, you know Jesus is
• 20:06
  death right on and and on the cross.
• 20:09
  You brought me the gift of salvation through repentance.
• 20:12
  And the grace. You got the gospel.
• 20:15
  It was now a question of, OK, how do I live out my
• 20:17
  sanctification here on this earth before before death and
• 20:21
  serve the Lord and serve his people And you felt this it was
• 20:24
  the. Catholic Church.
• 20:25
  That's right. And I think too, like right away
• 20:27
  seeing like there's the cross and the crucifix there and then
• 20:31
  being brought into confession, which as you know, I kind of
• 20:34
  mimicked in my 4th step. So like doing it in the
• 20:37
  confessional and receiving the graces from that.
• 20:39
  And then being brought through like the beautiful depth of the
• 20:44
  long intellectual history of Christianity through the
• 20:48
  Catechism, the Catholic Church was just magnificent.
• 20:52
  And then the cherry on top as this like woman who had called
• 20:57
  herself a feminist who was trying to figure out, well, what
• 20:59
  about women? And that was, I mean, believe
• 21:01
  me, when I'm there painting the walls with these guys, I'm
• 21:03
  asking a lot of questions about women.
• 21:06
  Was learning about John Paul the 2nd.
• 21:07
  And that, I think, was amazing because he was or was around
• 21:11
  that time that he, you know, was talking about this.
• 21:14
  Quote was he the Pope at that? New feminism.
• 21:15
  Yeah, that's right. What a special what a special
• 21:17
  time. So it was really so right,
• 21:19
  right. Then I went and I studied.
• 21:21
  I went and got a masters in theology and I wanted just like
• 21:24
  and here I am like new, but like I got to put myself deep into
• 21:28
  here. So when and studied like, you
• 21:30
  know, the church fathers, patristics, Agustin, Thomas
• 21:32
  Aquinas, and then all the way up through and and just was it was
• 21:37
  an incredible time. And that was probably the best
• 21:40
  two years in terms of my studies, although I love all my
• 21:43
  studies, but really beautiful time falling in love with the
• 21:47
  church and falling in love with Christ more deeply through the
• 21:50
  church. I mean, one thing this is, you
• 21:53
  know, you got to get to the husband because.
• 21:55
  I know it's because I haven't got to minded he show up.
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• 23:19
  So there was this beautiful Chapel, beautiful stone Chapel,
• 23:23
  and I would go there. So what happened is this is in
• 23:26
  Boston and Boston College, so. And this is your graduate.
• 23:29
  This is your legal your legal and graduate studies.
• 23:31
  First graduate studies. Yeah, yeah.
• 23:33
  And so I'm still going to AA, but I start to realize like, I
• 23:38
  love AA, but I need more. And I and I was trying to help.
• 23:42
  I'll tell you, I was being the sponsor of young women and you
• 23:44
  would, I think, appreciate this. Young women were coming to me
• 23:46
  asking for sponsorship. They'd hear me in meetings and
• 23:48
  they would come to me and they'd have stopped drinking.
• 23:50
  They was really college students, but they'd still be
• 23:52
  sleeping around and they'd come to me and say, like, I'm
• 23:55
  depressed. I want to drink.
• 23:56
  And I'm like, tell me about last night sleeping around.
• 23:58
  And I was like, So what I realized is like, I couldn't
• 24:01
  sponsor these women because I, I was like, you got to stop doing
• 24:03
  that because that's what's breaking you up.
• 24:05
  Like, of course you want to drink right now, you know, And
• 24:07
  there was like this I, I couldn't get through And so.
• 24:11
  Is that because morally they thought sex is not a big deal?
• 24:13
  So me sleeping. Around, of course, it was
• 24:15
  expected to make me. Feel depressed and not make me
• 24:17
  want to go drink. Afterwards, yeah, they just,
• 24:19
  they couldn't. Connect the the reality that sex
• 24:22
  outside of marriage is right. It was killing their soul.
• 24:24
  It was killing. Them yeah, it was killing them
• 24:25
  and it was it was so difficult for me to see a woman who like
• 24:29
  it was and it and it's so broken because of her.
• 24:32
  You know what alcohol itself don't but the mix and it and it
• 24:36
  been, you know, like it was like a lubricant that'll that put her
• 24:40
  in the position. But then she expected she began
• 24:42
  to think so deeply, so so negatively of herself that she
• 24:45
  expected to just be used in that way.
• 24:48
  And so alcohol was alcohol was the lubricant and then she
• 24:50
  expected to be used sexually. And, and to also, I mean, of
• 24:55
  course there's some, there's the men and women in this broken way
• 24:58
  is like to also use herself and her, you know, sexual prowess
• 25:02
  to, to get men to look at her and all that and to feel loved
• 25:06
  by them. I mean, you know, you get in
• 25:08
  that situation and like, how do you get out?
• 25:10
  And from the perspective of a, a like, how could, I mean, I tried
• 25:13
  my best, but it was like I couldn't.
• 25:15
  And it was also like, I needed more.
• 25:17
  And so I had started going to daily mass and I'd realize like,
• 25:20
  I need daily mass, but I can't go to both daily mass and daily
• 25:22
  meetings. And so that kind of broke off.
• 25:24
  Daily a a meeting. Daily a a meeting.
• 25:26
  So that was so even before you understood Christianity.
• 25:29
  You weren't raised with, you know, in a deeply faithful
• 25:32
  household. That wasn't your background.
• 25:34
  A A was this kind of, you know, this really this life saving
• 25:38
  really like from alcoholism, from the pain of your childhood,
• 25:41
  kind of a way to connect to God. And it's, it's, it's crazy to
• 25:44
  look at AA and like the principles, right?
• 25:46
  The 12 steps is how many are very connected to our faith.
• 25:48
  But comes out of the Oxford Movement.
• 25:50
  I mean, comes out of. Yeah, yeah.
• 25:52
  If you go back to the history of AA, but so you were still
• 25:54
  faithfully practicing this and clean from alcohol chase living
• 25:59
  your clean life. But the more you got into
• 26:01
  Christianity, you saw, oh, it's all here and more why?
• 26:05
  So when did you stop doing? It so it's more that when
• 26:07
  you're, when you're like, I was at about 5 years a day at that
• 26:10
  point, you're meant to be serving others, right?
• 26:11
  So it's like you're giving back what you got.
• 26:13
  So it's not so much, yeah, you're going for yourself, but
• 26:15
  the way you're going for yourself is like you're
• 26:17
  practicing the last three steps, which is basically like prayer
• 26:19
  and meditation, helping others and like continuing to kind of
• 26:22
  do an examination of conscience. But right, I put those in
• 26:24
  opposite direction. But so like you're, that's how
• 26:26
  you're supposed to be living, which is basically the Christian
• 26:28
  life. But I needed more help, like I
• 26:30
  needed more grace and I knew that I was called to serve in
• 26:34
  another way and not through a A. And partly that's because I only
• 26:37
  drank for three or four years, you know, am I like full blown
• 26:41
  and alcohol alcoholic? Well, I'll tell you this is the
• 26:44
  part of the story is that I'm 30 years sober, haven't drank more
• 26:48
  than 30 years now 33 years sober.
• 26:51
  But what I did is something that people don't do in a A, which is
• 26:54
  like it's one day at a time. And I started seeing a spiritual
• 26:57
  director, a Catholic spiritual director.
• 26:59
  And I said, you know, I think this is going to be kind of hard
• 27:01
  for me. Like I'm so attracted to the, to
• 27:03
  the Catholic idea of marriage, but I have this like kind of
• 27:06
  broken history. Like how's this going to work,
• 27:07
  you know, and. Meaning the divorces.
• 27:09
  Yeah, the divorces. Yeah, like divorces, but my own
• 27:11
  behavior as well, you know, like how?
• 27:13
  And I felt like I was getting healed.
• 27:15
  But of course, there's like, still, you know, these are
• 27:17
  grooves that happen. Like you just really need so
• 27:19
  much grace and so many ways to change those habits.
• 27:21
  And when you say by my own behaviors, is it because, you
• 27:24
  know, you know, having sex outside of marriage, sexual
• 27:26
  exploration, whatever you want to call it, sexual sin,
• 27:28
  ultimately the divorces, you just felt like I don't have the
• 27:31
  right headspace or view or, you know, was it like a behavioral
• 27:36
  temperament thing when you said you didn't know that you could
• 27:38
  marriage was for you? When you're talking to the
• 27:39
  spiritual director, what, what was it?
• 27:41
  Was not that no marriage, definitely I wanted marriage to
• 27:43
  be for me. But it was like, am I going to
• 27:45
  be able to, you know, love a man as he needs to be loved as I
• 27:51
  ought to love? Am I going to be able to be a
• 27:52
  mother, You know, without the example.
• 27:54
  I think the example was it really important?
• 27:57
  And so like in my imagination. So I got, I mean, I'm an
• 27:59
  intellectual. So I got the teachings, I got
• 28:02
  the beauty and coherence of kind of Christian teaching on sex and
• 28:06
  marriage. And it was something I longed
• 28:08
  for and I had along the way, like beautiful examples of.
• 28:14
  Like there was a family I lived with for summer in Middlebury
• 28:18
  who was a beautiful Christian couple.
• 28:19
  They loved each other so much. They adored the way they
• 28:22
  respected each other. The way they loved each other
• 28:24
  was beautiful. So it was an image for me.
• 28:26
  I also had the image of my father, who's a really
• 28:28
  incredible man, and his second wife lived with them one summer
• 28:32
  and saw how they were together. And so though he was in a
• 28:35
  practicing Christian, like the way he treated his wife, the way
• 28:38
  she respected him was really beautiful.
• 28:41
  He's a like football star, very manly man and his like sacrifice
• 28:47
  for his own family. You know, he wasn't the one who
• 28:50
  walked out on the marriage. My mom was just really
• 28:52
  beautiful. So I had these examples, but
• 28:55
  still like, am I going to be able to live this, you know?
• 28:57
  And so I did again, what you're not supposed to do in a a.
• 28:59
  So if there are people out there who are like going to daily
• 29:02
  meetings, don't do this. I said, I'm going to give up
• 29:05
  drinking for life. I don't know if I, you know, I'm
• 29:09
  a full blown alcoholic, but I don't need to drink.
• 29:11
  I need and I'm going to give it up as a sacrifice for a husband.
• 29:14
  Wow. And Lila call Erica.
• 29:17
  I got the best husband around making me.
• 29:20
  Cry over here. Yeah, so.
• 29:22
  How soon after you made that yeah pledge of I'm not going to
• 29:25
  do alcohol for the sake of my future husband to pray for him?
• 29:28
  How did when he so he's very fast and so I the.
• 29:31
  Girls listening are like, that's it.
• 29:33
  So wait, there's the single girls listening.
• 29:35
  They're good. We're all giving up alcohol now.
• 29:37
  Well, they might not need to give up alcohol.
• 29:38
  Maybe they have to give up something else.
• 29:39
  But I think there is a way like giving up, making those kinds of
• 29:42
  what we call in the church mortifications, like, you know,
• 29:45
  giving up something that's that whatever is that important, you
• 29:49
  know. But the other thing I did is I
• 29:51
  gave up dating for Lent, that Lent.
• 29:54
  So Lent was around the corner. And my spiritual director said,
• 29:56
  what about if you meet like this lovely Catholic man during Lent?
• 29:59
  And I was like, well, he's just going to have to wait like I'm.
• 30:01
  And so every day I would go into that Chapel and I would put my
• 30:04
  heart in the Tabernacle, which is where of course, Catholics
• 30:07
  understand that our Lord is reserved.
• 30:08
  His body and blood, soul and divinity is reserved.
• 30:11
  Beautiful Tabernacle. And it had on the sides aura and
• 30:15
  labora. So pray and work and I would say
• 30:18
  like, what's I'm here to pray? Like what's my work?
• 30:20
  What do you want for me? I'm putting my heart in the
• 30:22
  Tabernacle to heal my heart. And while I, you know, see if
• 30:26
  marriage, maybe I'm not called to marriage.
• 30:27
  Maybe I'm called to religious life.
• 30:28
  I didn't know. So I met my husband in that
• 30:32
  Chapel during Lent and we he became friends during land.
• 30:38
  Of course I didn't want to. I got to ask what he what do you
• 30:40
  mean you met him? You're you're praying, you look
• 30:42
  over, you're like, oh, he's cute.
• 30:44
  Like what did that look? Like so my husband had graduated
• 30:49
  from BC, had gone down to the NSA to work for a year down in
• 30:53
  DC, and had missed his family. Deeply indebted, deep family man
• 30:58
  loves his family. So he'd come back up to work for
• 31:00
  IBM and had come to this Mass. That was the Sunday before Ash
• 31:05
  Wednesday. And he went because he was kind
• 31:09
  of back in town and he called a priest father to sell him.
• 31:12
  I'm going to name drop him because he's a great priest at,
• 31:15
  at BC. And he said, I bet I have a
• 31:17
  woman here for you. And apparently he had me in
• 31:19
  mind, but who knows? And so he came to this Mass and
• 31:23
  he came and he was there. And then afterwards there was
• 31:25
  this great like lively party, lots of baked goods and all
• 31:28
  those things like that. And so we met there.
• 31:30
  But of course, I, you know, I'm not flirting.
• 31:33
  I'm, you know. Did you think he was?
• 31:34
  I thought he was handsome. I liked him, but that was it.
• 31:37
  My roommate also seemed interested.
• 31:39
  So I was like, great chicken, you know, and.
• 31:41
  I gotta make space that came. Back when there are these
• 31:44
  beautiful Latin sung masses during Lent that that that year.
• 31:49
  And so he came back to one of those masses, and he accompanied
• 31:51
  like some philosophy and theology students.
• 31:53
  And I should tell this story. Sorry we're taking so much time.
• 31:56
  This is the meat. They're good.
• 31:58
  We're going to. Get into the other stuff later.
• 32:00
  This is the good stuff. So he was with us, these
• 32:04
  philosophy and theology students and, you know, bless their
• 32:06
  hearts, some of these men, I mean, great scholars, I'm sure.
• 32:09
  But there was a debate about pacifism.
• 32:11
  And I think, like, it's great that we have pacifists, just
• 32:13
  like it's great that we have celibate members of the clergy.
• 32:16
  Like some people should be pacifists, of course, right?
• 32:19
  You mean to just sort of temper think that there's people?
• 32:21
  That are more. Prone towards like punches.
• 32:24
  Lights out, right? Right.
• 32:26
  So maybe some people so, so this pacifist male theology student
• 32:31
  was giving his impassioned plea about pacifism, no guns,
• 32:34
  etcetera. And so my husband, who's a
• 32:37
  gentile, genteel kind of guy, like a real gentleman, he, he
• 32:41
  looked down at the table and he said, so you're telling me if a
• 32:45
  man like burst into your house or in other words, like was
• 32:48
  going to threaten your wife and your children, you wouldn't
• 32:50
  defend them against like potentially with a gun?
• 32:53
  And I, and I literally said to myself, like, there's a man
• 32:57
  here. And so we started chatting more
• 33:01
  and people kind of around noticed that we were.
• 33:03
  And so the person who had come with Dan, my husband, was like,
• 33:09
  I'm going to leave, I'm going to go take the train.
• 33:10
  And then my husband asked if he could bring me home.
• 33:12
  Not the password. I was like, I'm out of here.
• 33:15
  He drove me home and he asked for my phone number and that's
• 33:17
  when I said. Did you say there's a man here?
• 33:20
  Did you say that? No.
• 33:21
  OK in my mind. But we just got talking he.
• 33:24
  Was you are the man he was. Playing like intramural soccer,
• 33:27
  I was a soccer player. He in his free time, was
• 33:29
  teaching young children and catechism.
• 33:31
  Like, I just thought that was beautiful that this like tech
• 33:33
  guy would be. You were using his.
• 33:34
  Times you were you were both. It was beautiful.
• 33:37
  Yeah, it's. Very, it was beautiful.
• 33:39
  And so he so he asked for my number when he gave me a ride
• 33:41
  home and I said, I'm sorry, I've given up dating for Lent.
• 33:46
  And of course that was like super intriguing for him.
• 33:49
  And apparently he told his grandmother who he was super
• 33:51
  close with and she's like, they gotta keep this one.
• 33:55
  Collar on Easter. Sunday, Yeah, Yeah.
• 33:56
  So we became friends. And then it was a It was a
• 34:00
  while. We were really friends first, I
• 34:02
  would say, like we would go run for runs together.
• 34:05
  We got to know each other. And then over time, I think he
• 34:07
  really showed me, I mean, in a way that my father had, but more
• 34:12
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• 34:17
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  goodranchers.com. Just his kind of like his
• 35:28
  genteel heart, but with a real authority.
• 35:32
  And So what I mean by that is and.
• 35:34
  You're making me think of my husband.
• 35:35
  Yeah, yeah, just such a gentleman.
• 35:38
  But then I could tell you a story of one time when we were
• 35:40
  doing something and he said to me just very carefully, he said,
• 35:44
  Erica, we weren't talking about you just then.
• 35:48
  And I went, oh, you're right. Thank you for that correction.
• 35:51
  And it was that simple that like, I didn't want to be
• 35:53
  talking about myself. I wanted to be doing what we
• 35:55
  were doing. But I got like, wrapped up in
• 35:57
  something. And he said, we weren't talking
• 35:58
  about you right now, and that's all you had to do.
• 36:00
  And I was like, oh, OK, yeah, you're right.
• 36:02
  Meaning you personalized something and we're getting
• 36:05
  offended or feeling like the victim or something like poor me
• 36:08
  or just like the self absorption.
• 36:09
  Of like the self absorption of human, of being a human being.
• 36:12
  But I think what's beautiful about it was that I have a very,
• 36:15
  I'm very strong, Like I have a strong personality.
• 36:18
  I, I think have a lot of strength for my not only my
• 36:21
  upbringing as an athlete, but also my Christian faith that
• 36:25
  because of what I've been through and because of seeing
• 36:28
  like God bring me out of all that, like I, you know, I have,
• 36:33
  I don't know, like I'm, you know, I think I have a gift of
• 36:36
  courage, right? And so that strength, though,
• 36:39
  can turn as these things can to, you know, to to roll over
• 36:44
  people, right? Because and that would be
• 36:46
  something that I have to struggle with.
• 36:48
  And so, you know, when I'd go on dates, like men would be a
• 36:50
  little bit like, oh, you're like, this is a lot.
• 36:51
  And my husband didn't feel that way.
• 36:53
  Like he very much was excite, like excited to have a peer with
• 36:59
  whom he could wrestle with ideas.
• 37:02
  And he wasn't he wasn't sort of intimidated by it, I guess I
• 37:06
  would say. And there's something about him
• 37:08
  not being intimidated and me being like, I can trust.
• 37:12
  And he became so trustworthy. I mean, so trustworthy.
• 37:15
  I mean, when you're courting, when he's, you know, courting,
• 37:17
  you're you're chase. So you're not like sleeping
• 37:20
  together. You're not, you're you're trying
• 37:23
  to really like, you know, keep in a chase courtship as best you
• 37:27
  can going and get help. Go to confession, all these
• 37:31
  kinds of things. He was such a gentleman and to
• 37:34
  see that kind of self governance over what I know to be so like
• 37:39
  difficult for men in terms of like the testosterone blazing
• 37:42
  through them, especially a young man.
• 37:43
  I mean, he was, you know, mid 20s that point.
• 37:47
  It was just beautiful for me to see like that kind of governance
• 37:50
  over so that he could really like love me and I could begin
• 37:52
  to trust him. And I knew, you know, in, like
• 37:55
  it was it was that kind of trust I had that he was able to build
• 37:59
  up over time that I hadn't had with anyone else.
• 38:01
  Right. I mean, think of like, I just
• 38:04
  given my body away when I was a teenager.
• 38:06
  And here it is like a man who I can trust who doesn't want my
• 38:09
  body right now because, well, maybe you wanted my body.
• 38:11
  Do you know what I mean? Like, he was, he knew that the
• 38:13
  proper place for that was in this, in the solid bill bond
• 38:16
  that was going to be for life. And that he.
• 38:18
  Yeah. That he was willing to wait and
• 38:21
  that. That was beautiful and that was
• 38:23
  such a it's, it's that, you know, I have these incredible 7
• 38:27
  incredible kids and it's that kind of example of a man like
• 38:32
  that who's been able to, I think, show my daughters.
• 38:35
  I have 3 adult daughters who are all deeply devout Catholics, all
• 38:40
  different in their own ways. You know, one Division, One
• 38:43
  athlete, 1, you know, false off sort of in a masters of
• 38:47
  philosophy going to Med school 1.
• 38:49
  Like, you know, very much wants to be a Catholic therapist.
• 38:52
  Like all really want to be mothers have incredible
• 38:56
  boyfriends, all of them, all deeply devout Catholics who are,
• 39:00
  you know, have this have these kind of role models of men and
• 39:03
  women in their lives. And I think that has been such a
• 39:06
  beautiful way to raise children is in this deep love and respect
• 39:10
  for one another that we have in our marriage that I just like
• 39:13
  there's nothing other than my faith.
• 39:14
  There's nothing more sacred in my life that I just feel so
• 39:19
  grateful for everyday like the fact that I could come from such
• 39:22
  brokenness and like build a life with this man through the grace
• 39:25
  of God and have these incredible children who are going out to do
• 39:28
  these incredible things. But deep within their kind of
• 39:32
  mission as Catholics is just like, I, I everyday I'm just
• 39:36
  like, I can't even believe this. It's incredible.
• 39:37
  It's incredible. And so like, that little
• 39:40
  decision to give up alcohol for the rest of my life is like, who
• 39:43
  cares? They now have now an alcoholic
• 39:45
  beer. You know, it's pretty good.
• 39:47
  Well, and your family, I, I, my brother knows, has met your
• 39:51
  family, you know, Harris here in the studios, like anyone who's
• 39:54
  been around the Boston space and beyond, like they know the
• 39:56
  Bakayaki family. They know they met your kids or
• 39:59
  your husband or and there's this beautiful, you know, the the
• 40:02
  influence. You know, just by example.
• 40:04
  And then obviously your work is phenomenal, but in our school,
• 40:07
  yeah, in your schools. And it's, it's a really
• 40:09
  incredible fruitfulness. It's a fruitfulness.
• 40:12
  And there's two things you said. And we're going to get to
• 40:14
  feminist theory and all that crazy stuff.
• 40:16
  But you know, there's a couple things that you said that I just
• 40:18
  want to go back to because they're so beautiful.
• 40:20
  You mentioned the word self governance and your, you know,
• 40:25
  husband to be when you were dating him, his self governance
• 40:29
  as part of his leadership, that's right, was so inspiring
• 40:32
  to you. It felt safe to you.
• 40:34
  You wanted to be with this man. You wanted him to be the leader.
• 40:36
  You know, you wanted him to you wanted to marry him.
• 40:39
  You want him to be your husband. And I think that word self
• 40:41
  governance is such a beautiful one because you know, govern,
• 40:45
  you know, the leader, the king, you know, the king has a queen,
• 40:48
  but the king of the, of the land, the king of the home that
• 40:51
  you know, use the word patriarch, the patriarch, right?
• 40:53
  What is his first? What is this essential first
• 40:57
  step? Obviously serve God right, but
• 41:00
  you have to be, you have to be able to self govern, to direct
• 41:02
  your attention to Almighty God and then to be able to direct
• 41:05
  your attention to doing your dominion work.
• 41:08
  You know, that we're called to do, Adam and Eve were called to
• 41:10
  do, and we are called to do. And self-control is obviously a
• 41:14
  core element of self governance. You know, self knowledge is
• 41:18
  another core element of it. But I think there's so much
• 41:21
  today, emphasis, you know, and confusion about what it means to
• 41:25
  be a man, what it means to be a woman.
• 41:26
  And the idea of self governance, I think is largely lost.
• 41:29
  It's also tied to responsibilities.
• 41:30
  That's right. Well, people don't want to have
• 41:32
  any more, you know, especially when it comes to sex.
• 41:33
  No, it's all about what I want as long as there's consent
• 41:36
  instead of I have responsibilities to this person
• 41:39
  and to myself and to potential offspring I may bring into the
• 41:41
  world. Like that is all in a complete
• 41:45
  muddle today. That's right.
• 41:46
  And let me, can I just, yeah, let me, yeah.
• 41:48
  Because I think I think this is a really important point is this
• 41:50
  idea of kind of paternal maternal authority, like the
• 41:53
  word authority for, you know, we small D Democrats, smaller
• 41:58
  Republicans in America is really hard for us.
• 42:00
  Like, we have a hard time understanding, like, what is
• 42:02
  authority? And I think it's something that
• 42:04
  is so essential for us to understand, especially as
• 42:06
  Catholics, like right now, who obviously have a Pope who has
• 42:09
  authority, who have bishops who have authority, who has, you
• 42:11
  know, the text of Scripture that is authoritative, right?
• 42:15
  Like, what does authority mean? And I think, you know, the best
• 42:17
  thinker, it seems to me. There are probably others, but
• 42:19
  Hannah Rant is a philosopher who was really concerned with
• 42:22
  authority because she was a philosopher who was trying to
• 42:24
  understand totalitarian regimes. And so she has this great
• 42:28
  distinction between authority and power and persuasion.
• 42:33
  And this is a really interesting distinction.
• 42:35
  She wants to say that authority always comes from above. 1
• 42:40
  doesn't give oneself their own authority. 1 gets authority from
• 42:44
  above and authority by nature of authority.
• 42:46
  Position, that's where. We're so like, think about.
• 42:49
  A natural. It's a natural.
• 42:50
  Authority that comes from above, right?
• 42:53
  And that authority has with it responsibility.
• 42:55
  It's not there's no separate thing.
• 42:57
  And so what's hard for us, I think is in this kind of post
• 43:00
  enlightenment period, and this is kind of getting a bit into my
• 43:03
  work and political theory, but that we have.
• 43:06
  So Thomas Hobbes was like a Wrecking Ball over an older
• 43:10
  understanding of say, law. You know, so you say say Thomas
• 43:15
  Aquinas, who's a really important thinker for all of
• 43:17
  Christianity, but especially Catholicism.
• 43:19
  You know, we think of him as, you know, the angelic Dr. and
• 43:22
  his understanding of all law, not just, you know, positive
• 43:26
  law, which is human made law, not just natural law, eternal
• 43:29
  law. God's law is that law is the
• 43:33
  command of reason by one who has care for the community toward
• 43:38
  the common good. It's also promulgated.
• 43:40
  But that's too confusing. But like setting out that law,
• 43:42
  right? So, so the command of reason and
• 43:44
  sorry, I want to harp on this a little bit because reason for us
• 43:48
  is a participation in God's reason, right?
• 43:51
  We have a reason. We're rational creatures.
• 43:53
  This is what a human being is who are different from the lower
• 43:56
  animals because of our capacity to reason.
• 43:59
  And so law is a command of reason.
• 44:01
  Command sounds really scary to us.
• 44:02
  Why? Because of the intervention of
• 44:05
  all sorts of thinkers. I won't name all the names, but
• 44:08
  Occam, Hobbes, all these who basically put God's will above
• 44:13
  God's reason and had this idea that there can be kind of a
• 44:15
  detached way in which the will of God can be arbitrary and even
• 44:20
  capricious. Do you know what I mean?
• 44:22
  Like, even violent against reason, against goodness.
• 44:25
  Well, that was the, that was the obviously the Roman and the
• 44:27
  Greek gods. It's just they were powerful and
• 44:30
  not reasonable. They were deeply flawed, but
• 44:32
  deeply powerful. And then I mean, and to some
• 44:34
  degree the God of Islam, it's like this God is not, they don't
• 44:37
  seem as capricious, of course, they seem as perfect, but it's
• 44:39
  it's, it's. Power and willpower.
• 44:41
  And will and even if you don't like reason doesn't really
• 44:44
  matter. Like you either obey Allah or
• 44:46
  you do not and. So obedience.
• 44:49
  The only reason so much around the edges.
• 44:51
  That's right. And so obedience to God's will
• 44:53
  is obedience to something that appears to be arbitrary.
• 44:56
  That's not the Catholic understanding at all, right?
• 44:58
  Right. The Catholic understanding is
• 44:59
  that reason and will are in harmony in God.
• 45:01
  Reason is a capacity that God has, that we have, that he's
• 45:04
  given to us as Israel. And the implication here is so
• 45:08
  is so clear in that just like we're given free will as God's
• 45:12
  creatures, but also adopted as a sons and daughters made in his
• 45:15
  image, we're given free will and reason the faculties to be able
• 45:18
  to assent to God's will. You know, we can reject it or we
• 45:22
  can choose it, right? And that's.
• 45:24
  What it's always good and it's always beautiful and it's always
• 45:27
  true and there's no, you know, and I think that that's
• 45:30
  important. But now we have this idea that
• 45:33
  to like in the mind not of non Christian or not of Christians
• 45:37
  who kind of can get there, but some Christians, it's like to
• 45:40
  obey God is to somehow be a slave or or kind of slavishly
• 45:44
  submit without thinking. And that is not an account of
• 45:48
  law of reason that is given in kind of an older kind of pre, I
• 45:53
  would say pre Reformation time. I mean, Luther is a part of
• 45:56
  this, which we won't get into, but but there's but I think that
• 45:59
  because of that rupture that happens in our intellectual
• 46:03
  history, we have a hard time with the word obedience, which
• 46:05
  means which comes out of to listen.
• 46:07
  It's obedere, which is Latin for to listen.
• 46:10
  It's to listen, right, to listen, to heed, to hear, right.
• 46:15
  And so it's so so hierarchy is really hard for us.
• 46:18
  I mean, think of like the Trinity.
• 46:20
  The Trinity is both a hierarchy with equality.
• 46:22
  Like that's not, that is something that like as
• 46:24
  Christians should be pretty basic for us that there's equal
• 46:27
  dignity among the persons, the Trinity.
• 46:29
  I love where you're going with us because I think it directly
• 46:32
  translates to this question of men and women and the
• 46:35
  relationship between them, especially in a marriage and
• 46:38
  God's design for that. Because, you know, just as we
• 46:41
  are, you know, daughters and sons of God, you know, adopted
• 46:45
  into into the family of God. But God wants us to use our
• 46:48
  reason. God wants us to use our ability
• 46:50
  to choose, you know, the good, right, and to freely use our
• 46:53
  gifts and talents. Similarly, I think there's this
• 46:56
  understanding in, you know, aspects.
• 46:59
  And we're going to, you know, you had a phenomenal article in
• 47:01
  the Wall Street Journal that we I, you know, mentioned earlier.
• 47:03
  And I want to, you know, ask you about it because it just came
• 47:06
  out about John Paul the second, the feminist Pope.
• 47:09
  But the subtext is in today's Catholic, you know, podcast and
• 47:13
  sort of, you know, world of conversations online, a lot of
• 47:16
  it is online, some of its conferences, things like this.
• 47:18
  There are these sort of themes of what does it mean to be a man
• 47:22
  versus what does it mean to be a woman?
• 47:24
  And in the last two decades, there has been more than two
• 47:28
  decades, it's been decades been the makings.
• 47:30
  But definitely in the last, I would say 20-30 years, there has
• 47:33
  been this maybe intense feminization of America where
• 47:37
  anything that looks kind of strong or masculine is
• 47:40
  dangerous. And a reject.
• 47:42
  There's there's a trend that people feel of the rejection of
• 47:45
  the masculine and the upholding of the feminine saying, you
• 47:48
  know, women should get, you know, 5050 women in the
• 47:50
  boardroom. You know, women should be able
• 47:52
  to go to every place that a man goes, and they should be equally
• 47:55
  presented there in this push for, you know, Sheryl Sandberg's
• 47:58
  lean in literally saying. Equity market, I know that
• 48:01
  market equality. Market equality like stuff, the
• 48:03
  women, you know, even if they don't want to be there, the
• 48:05
  women and even if the men, you're bumping out women, men
• 48:08
  that are better than the woman at it, push the woman in this
• 48:11
  role. And men really have received a
• 48:13
  short end of the stick in many ways in the last few decades in
• 48:16
  the West. And there's a reaction to that
• 48:18
  of like you saying that everything about me as a man is
• 48:20
  wrong. Everything about a woman is
• 48:22
  good. Everything feminine is good.
• 48:24
  The masculine typically is not good.
• 48:25
  Or is it dangerous? And so there's a reaction,
• 48:28
  including among some good Christian Catholic men of like,
• 48:32
  well, I'm going to go out and be patriarch.
• 48:34
  I'm going to be man, you know, screw you, feminist.
• 48:36
  Basically. You know, again, I'm, I'm
• 48:38
  paraphrasing all of this horribly, but the point is there
• 48:41
  is a, a reaction to it. And I mean there should be a
• 48:45
  reaction. And there should be a reaction
• 48:47
  to it, because it's nonsense, right?
• 48:48
  Because, and I guess one thing I would say.
• 48:49
  The feminist extremism is not that is I.
• 48:52
  I don't like the idea of the feminization of because I don't
• 48:55
  think it's truly. You're right, it's not.
• 48:57
  And so there's something part where I yeah, yes, it's so true.
• 49:00
  And I think just, I mean, there is a way in which, and this is
• 49:02
  something that I think is really important in the Catholic
• 49:04
  traditions because we understand how God created us, then we
• 49:07
  understand the fall, right? And the way men and women war at
• 49:10
  each other and kind of fall in human nature.
• 49:12
  And then we understand redemption.
• 49:14
  And so there's not like a flatness of human nature, right?
• 49:17
  It's like a very, very, there's a lot of complexity there,
• 49:21
  fallen human nature, right? So fallen human nature is very
• 49:25
  much understood like we have Genesis 3 where it tells us
• 49:27
  about it. And there's a way that when men
• 49:31
  become vicious, and this is Edith Stein talks about the
• 49:34
  specific degeneracies of men. She says our brutal domination
• 49:39
  of others, specific degeneracy. This is not man's given nature.
• 49:43
  It is when man degenerates, right?
• 49:45
  Is not following Christ. Fallen nature can lead to
• 49:48
  brutal, you know, domination. We don't have to like go back in
• 49:51
  history too much to find men who are brutally dominating of like,
• 49:55
  you know, whole peoples, never mind their wives or something
• 49:57
  like that. And like an obsession over work.
• 50:00
  Those are kind of the degeneracies.
• 50:01
  Well, there's degeneracies of women too, right?
• 50:04
  What are those degeneracies, right?
• 50:05
  It's like the way in which our attention, which John Paul the
• 50:08
  Second got so well as this attention on the person, like
• 50:12
  the special focus on personal development, on kind of the
• 50:16
  needs of individual persons, gets sort of all twisted up,
• 50:21
  right? And so we get like, you know, we
• 50:23
  gossip and we pull down other women.
• 50:26
  And we trans our. Kids or we trans our kids and
• 50:28
  things right, right, right, right so and so right so like
• 50:31
  this. We don't heed truth right.
• 50:33
  We don't courageously heed the truth, but we think that like
• 50:36
  our real. Feelings excuse me because we're
• 50:39
  it's so navel gazing all about me, me, me, me, me.
• 50:42
  And so this baby's inconvenient. I'm going to kill this.
• 50:44
  Baby, that's right. And so they're, so these
• 50:46
  degeneracies are serious, seriously wreaking havoc in our
• 50:49
  culture right now. The problem is, is that each
• 50:51
  side is looking at the other and saying that's female nature,
• 50:55
  that's male nature. And so we're not, we're not
• 50:58
  making any progress because people start to see these and
• 51:01
  they like reify them. They like see them as this is
• 51:04
  what a man is, this is what a woman is.
• 51:05
  So the radical feminists will say men are brutal dominators.
• 51:10
  That's what men are. And the, you know, kind of far
• 51:13
  right kind of, you know. Red.
• 51:15
  Pill red pill guy will say women are, you know, whatever like.
• 51:20
  Weak. We not only OK, but weak, Yes,
• 51:22
  weak, but then also temptresses, right?
• 51:26
  Because actually, if they're sex workers.
• 51:28
  And the word sex worker, the word of we've talked about him
• 51:31
  on the podcast recently because of the lawsuit and other things.
• 51:33
  But you know the social media influencer Andrew Tate, his
• 51:36
  whole thing he literally had an ex post recently is like women,
• 51:39
  all women are sex workers, right?
• 51:41
  Like all they're all about just trying to get a man basically
• 51:44
  sexually. That's the entire plot of A
• 51:47
  Woman. Yeah, sorry, I'm I'm wanting to
• 51:49
  find this beautiful quote of Eda Stein again.
• 51:51
  St. Doctor of the Church Edstein.
• 51:53
  So woman's degeneracy she would put as the slave of the slave
• 51:57
  who must satisfy him. So in other words, like men
• 52:01
  become slaves to women who are slaves to them because they're
• 52:05
  slaves of lust. Wow, right.
• 52:07
  So women use that against men. So the degeneracy is the fallen
• 52:10
  nature of a man and a woman is for them to ultimately be slaves
• 52:13
  to each other, to each other because of their base impulse.
• 52:16
  Exactly. Instead of free lust, instead of
• 52:18
  free, which is the Christian freedom and what's in the in
• 52:21
  the. Line the toxic feminine and the
• 52:22
  toxic masculine and they're just.
• 52:24
  And they're just right now toxic together and we can't get out
• 52:27
  the other person because you just mentioned like, you know,
• 52:29
  Andrew Tate, seeing all these women, like think of this only
• 52:31
  fans woman. And I'm sure it's I don't even
• 52:33
  want to talk about what she did, but I'm just going to give the
• 52:35
  quote where she it's it's not where she talked about like men
• 52:39
  are going to use me and therefore I might as well
• 52:41
  monetize it. And it's so that's like the
• 52:44
  despair of be living in the fallen nature and thinking like
• 52:48
  I just have to they're. Going to use me?
• 52:50
  I'm going to use them. Back, I'm going to use them back
• 52:51
  and I'm going to make money from it because I got to pay my
• 52:53
  bills, right. And that's like the only fans
• 52:55
  approach, which now has been because the sexual revolution
• 52:59
  and feminism, those two have been like so tied together.
• 53:02
  That's how we think about feminism.
• 53:04
  And so of course, there's an uproar against it, especially by
• 53:06
  good like men who are like, what the heck?
• 53:09
  I don't want my, you know, children to get transed by.
• 53:13
  Teachers who think. Go on a Thor fan or Golden or go
• 53:16
  on only fans or why do? You think it is, though, easier
• 53:20
  because I think most like very sober minded, you know, good
• 53:24
  Christians, Catholics I talk to about this kind of stuff.
• 53:26
  They're like, yeah, they see the toxic on both sides.
• 53:29
  They see. And again, I'm not trying to say
• 53:30
  it's like there's an equal amount of toxic on the women's
• 53:33
  side, an equal amount of toxic on the men said, yes, there is
• 53:35
  in terms of like, you know, we all have sin, right?
• 53:38
  But in our culture, it's this weird mix where it's like, not
• 53:40
  sure. Like there's so much toxicity,
• 53:42
  like the feminine. Again, we're, it's, it's tough
• 53:45
  to use these words because we're not saying like femininity is
• 53:47
  toxic, but it's like a tug and pull of like who's more
• 53:50
  influential right now? And part of what's driving the
• 53:52
  toxic masculinity is like, well, the toxic femininity is too much
• 53:55
  in control. So we need to fight back to like
• 53:58
  make an equilibrium here. And that's kind of the argument
• 54:01
  for equilibrium. We're backlashing against this.
• 54:03
  And, and you kind of need both polar opposites to try to
• 54:05
  somehow bring us to the middle. What I'm trying to get at here,
• 54:09
  the excuses, ultimately, they're excuses that are being made for
• 54:14
  the brutal masculine approach. And I want to quote from your
• 54:18
  Wall Street Journal article here, which is very, again, very
• 54:22
  compelling. You wrote Tim Gordon, a
• 54:24
  podcaster and author of The Case for Patriarchy is a leading
• 54:27
  voice of this movement. And this movement is, you're
• 54:29
  saying, rather than the church's reflection on the sexes equal
• 54:32
  dignity, they'll often, and that's some young Catholics
• 54:36
  today find something more akin to the far right's misogynistic
• 54:39
  views, which have emerged from dark corners of the web.
• 54:41
  Popular Catholic influencers increasingly risk bringing them
• 54:44
  into the mainstream. Tim Gordon, the podcaster, is
• 54:47
  leading is a leading voice of this movement.
• 54:49
  Citing church documents from much earlier historical eras, he
• 54:52
  claims that the church prohibits women from working outside the
• 54:55
  home and that they shouldn't presume to leave their homes
• 54:58
  without their husband's consent. The men who subscribe to this
• 55:01
  view see their roles as husbands and fathers as paramount with
• 55:04
  that's that's good, very good. But but in Mr. Gordon's telling,
• 55:08
  women are naturally inferior to men and submission to their
• 55:12
  husbands directives in quote UN quote all things is their
• 55:14
  primary charge. Marriage is at best of
• 55:17
  friendship between unequals wherein women are encouraged to
• 55:19
  cultivate wifely obedience and domesticity only.
• 55:22
  And then you mentioned Mike Panteal, another Catholic
• 55:24
  influencer claims, and God bless him because I'm understanding
• 55:27
  he's converted recently, which is beautiful.
• 55:28
  So we're not, this is not to like, you know, disparage these
• 55:31
  people person talking about the ideas, right?
• 55:34
  Mike Pantel and other Catholic influencer claims that, quote,
• 55:37
  UN quote, Andrew Tate gets 90% more right than even the most
• 55:42
  mild feminist. And again, we're going back to
• 55:45
  this idea of like the toxic feminine, the toxic masculine
• 55:49
  Mike Pantel again, I'm not, I don't want to speak for him.
• 55:51
  I don't know. So I'm not going to speak for
• 55:52
  him. But in his in this quote from
• 55:53
  him, you know, he's seeing the toxic, I'm guessing he's seeing
• 55:57
  this toxic feminine and it is bad.
• 55:59
  I mean, abortion again, and I abortion comes from the toxic
• 56:02
  feminine. I would argue it comes from the
• 56:03
  toxic masculine too. So it's.
• 56:05
  All of my work is about both. Right.
• 56:06
  It's all it's all a mix and there's plenty of toxic
• 56:09
  masculine like Gavin Newsom defending men and women's
• 56:12
  sports. So it's just the thing about sin
• 56:15
  and the thing about the devolution of human nature after
• 56:18
  the fall. In some ways it doesn't make
• 56:21
  sense. There's not a clear logic to the
• 56:24
  toxic mass and the toxic feminine because it's all, well,
• 56:26
  because evil. It's evil and that's Agustin
• 56:29
  like it's it's irrational. And I would just and I want to
• 56:31
  use his word too libido dominandi, right?
• 56:34
  It's a lust for dominion. It's power on both sides.
• 56:37
  That's what it is. And that's why John Paul the
• 56:38
  second says, I want a new feminism that doesn't imitate
• 56:42
  models of male domination. Because that's what we're seeing
• 56:45
  now is like, it's a power struggle between now women who
• 56:48
  have this power and want to use it maybe against men, right?
• 56:52
  Or the men who have the power want to use it against women.
• 56:54
  And this is like literally, if you just, you know, fast
• 56:57
  forwarded from Genesis 3 and just this is what we're seeing
• 57:00
  right now very clearly, it seems to me.
• 57:02
  I think it's really important for folks to know and I, I'd
• 57:04
  love to hear about it, your work fighting abortion because, you
• 57:08
  know, this isn't just like critiquing the toxic masculine
• 57:11
  here or the toxic feminine here. You're out there actually
• 57:14
  advocating directly for the solution, which is, you know, re
• 57:17
  establishing the rights of the child and things like that.
• 57:19
  So can you speak briefly to what you have done in the probably
• 57:21
  space? Because it's really incredible.
• 57:23
  And your work was instrumental in overturning Roe V Wade.
• 57:27
  Your your legal scholarship. Yes, So thank you.
• 57:31
  So, yeah, I mean, it's funny because I've only recently felt
• 57:34
  like I've needed to pivot toward kind of talking to my fellow
• 57:36
  conservatives and fellow Catholics.
• 57:38
  It actually hasn't been something I've felt the need to
• 57:40
  do. I have felt like, you know, we
• 57:43
  the church is doing great. I mean, you know, there's
• 57:45
  beautiful teachings in the church that we can live by.
• 57:47
  There's all sorts of JP 2 inspired families who are in
• 57:51
  Benedict inspired families who are, you know, growing fruitful,
• 57:54
  you know, amazing. So it hasn't been a concern of
• 57:57
  mine at all. And so I've been looking
• 57:59
  outward, especially toward progressive, the left,
• 58:02
  progressive feminists. And so a lot of my work is
• 58:04
  trying to sort of, well, challenge them really.
• 58:07
  So the Rights of women, my book was written as a kind of a
• 58:10
  challenge to those who see autonomy feminism, the feminism
• 58:14
  that comes up from John Stuart Mill, that comes up from
• 58:17
  Elizabeth and Katie Stanton, that goes right into Ruth Vader
• 58:19
  Ginsburg, Friedan Ginsburg, all the way up as being, you know,
• 58:23
  sort of a corruption of an older account that was deeply inspired
• 58:28
  by Christianity. And a call to sort of, you know,
• 58:32
  virtue, virtue, a call to, you know, sort of the duties of both
• 58:36
  men and women to to develop themselves fully in, in virtue
• 58:42
  to care for, for children, to respond to the asymmetries of
• 58:45
  reproduction, which are of course, like, you know, women
• 58:48
  have children within them. Men, you know, can walk away.
• 58:51
  All of that has been the need to challenge them and say you're
• 58:55
  letting men off the hook. You know, you're not calling men
• 58:57
  to the task of fatherhood, but you're basically just setting up
• 59:00
  a whole system which basically says, since men can walk away
• 59:04
  from an unexpected pregnancy, irresponsible men can walk away
• 59:08
  and have done this callous men throughout human history.
• 59:10
  Since men can do that, we need to, for equality, allow women to
• 59:14
  do that too. Which is not walking away, of
• 59:16
  course. It's affirmatively ending the
• 59:17
  life of their own child. So that's been my work for a
• 59:19
  long, long time. And so I just have to shout it
• 59:22
  out. The rights of women were
• 59:23
  claiming a lost vision. Published by Notre Dame
• 59:26
  University Press. It is, it is an incredible book.
• 59:30
  It's incredible. And I think the, you know, the
• 59:35
  tracing that the, the, the, the history of the thought is a
• 59:39
  project. It's complicated.
• 59:41
  There's a ton that goes into it, but it's really essential to
• 59:43
  understand, you know what, where did this come from?
• 59:46
  What is good? What is, you know, horrible?
• 59:48
  What is the truth? And can we find the truth
• 59:51
  historically? Where was it?
• 59:52
  Where did it go wrong? I think that project most people
• 59:55
  don't take the time for, quite frankly.
• 59:56
  It's a complicated project, but it's an essential one to forge
• 59:59
  the path. Forward and prior to.
• 1:00:00
  Doing that work, I was, so I have a sort of a work that I did
• 1:00:04
  as a, you know, at home at a mom with five children, you know,
• 1:00:07
  lawyer, but at home with my children, reading kind of law
• 1:00:10
  review articles of feminist scholars while pushing kids in
• 1:00:13
  swings. And I wrote a a piece that ended
• 1:00:16
  up being important. It was something that I think a
• 1:00:17
  lot of people had thought but hadn't been written down, which
• 1:00:20
  was for the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy called
• 1:00:24
  Embodied Equality, Debunking equal protection arguments for
• 1:00:28
  abortion rights. And the back story, which I used
• 1:00:30
  to talk about all the time was the the fact that women like a
• 1:00:33
  Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but also all the leading, I mean, not
• 1:00:37
  even leading the entire legal Academy understands abortion is
• 1:00:41
  necessary for women's equality. So I was poking holes in that
• 1:00:44
  constitutionally. And so a lot of my work, from
• 1:00:47
  what I understood, like Lynn Finch when she was preparing for
• 1:00:51
  oral arguments, so she asked her whole team to read my
• 1:00:55
  scholarship, both, you know, I assume that article, but then
• 1:00:58
  other articles I'd written, which was, I mean, my book came
• 1:01:00
  out pretty great timing. Had an article in the Atlantic,
• 1:01:03
  article in Politico, article in different places making this
• 1:01:06
  case that really there was a deep male normativity is the way
• 1:01:09
  I would put it. Basically that the the reigning
• 1:01:13
  idea of feminism as being needing women, needing abortion
• 1:01:17
  as basic to the project of women's equality was basically
• 1:01:21
  imitating the worst kind of men. Again, this is something that
• 1:01:25
  like good kind of thinkers in the space have been saying for a
• 1:01:27
  long time, but it's putting together the constitutional
• 1:01:30
  pieces and the history is what my work is.
• 1:01:32
  Essential I was at Georgetown University doing a debate
• 1:01:34
  recently against this Rhodes Scholar, you know, law
• 1:01:37
  professor, Doctor Marianne Franks was her name.
• 1:01:39
  And her entire argument boiled down to will be because men
• 1:01:42
  can't do it, you know, or because men don't have to do it
• 1:01:45
  because men don't have to be pregnant, then women should not
• 1:01:48
  have to be pregnant. Even if they got pregnant and
• 1:01:50
  even if there's a baby there doesn't matter.
• 1:01:52
  It's all right because we're completely basing it was a
• 1:01:54
  completely male centric view of the world.
• 1:01:55
  You could argue that. And the human body.
• 1:01:57
  And the human body that because women don't have men's bodies,
• 1:02:02
  therefore we should be able to kill babies.
• 1:02:05
  I mean, that's the that's the radical bodily autonomy
• 1:02:07
  argument. That's right.
• 1:02:08
  And that's the one I've been sort of opposing for 25 years,
• 1:02:11
  right? And, and in all sorts of
• 1:02:13
  different places. And what I did in the rights of
• 1:02:15
  women was to go back and say, OK, so how did prior people
• 1:02:19
  think about prior, you know, Christianity itself, prior
• 1:02:23
  women's rights advocates, etcetera.
• 1:02:24
  Think about the response to asymmetry.
• 1:02:26
  So here it is. Women can get pregnant, men
• 1:02:29
  can't. They engage in the same act.
• 1:02:31
  There's a fundamental inequality here, fundamental asymmetry.
• 1:02:34
  What do we do? Well, Christianity says requires
• 1:02:37
  male chastity and asked for marriage, right?
• 1:02:40
  I mean, that's the basic thing. And that's exactly what the
• 1:02:43
  early women's rights advocates were doing too.
• 1:02:45
  They were saying, you know, chastity for men was like a
• 1:02:48
  primary thing, chastity for women, it was already expected,
• 1:02:51
  right? But that they'd hold.
• 1:02:52
  So it's like basically saying no men, you come up and like engage
• 1:02:56
  in and, and be part of the family as we are, you know, and
• 1:03:00
  and kind of invite them in to. The family, that's sort of the
• 1:03:03
  theme that's sort of growing, the rift that's growing as
• 1:03:05
  amongst the code of the red pillar third of the toxic
• 1:03:07
  masculine is that men, men be chased.
• 1:03:10
  Like what? Like that's stupid.
• 1:03:12
  You know, it's actually good for men to have lots of women
• 1:03:15
  provided that now they sometimes kind of put a conservative twist
• 1:03:18
  and it provided, yes, that they, you know, if they if there's
• 1:03:21
  children that they have enough money to pay for the children.
• 1:03:23
  So there's like this kind of Genghis Khan thing going on over
• 1:03:25
  there, but that this idea of male chastity is it is really a
• 1:03:28
  joke. Like you, you should have
• 1:03:30
  multiple women. If you're rich enough, you
• 1:03:32
  should do, you should do all of this.
• 1:03:34
  It's difficult. Do what you want.
• 1:03:35
  Difficult, right? Male chastity is difficult and
• 1:03:37
  that's why it's a Christian response, right?
• 1:03:40
  It's something that is hard and requires what we're talking
• 1:03:43
  about is self governance from when you're a child.
• 1:03:45
  It's not. I mean when people with like
• 1:03:47
  porn everywhere. Like it's a nightmare.
• 1:03:50
  I mean, and so when you see a man, I mean this is like when
• 1:03:53
  you see a man who is living in this porn saturated time, who
• 1:03:56
  has that kind of self governance, who is a gentleman
• 1:03:59
  who is chased and loves a woman in you know all.
• 1:04:05
  It is like remarkable thing and our two husbands and many others
• 1:04:09
  who are listening exactly. They're here.
• 1:04:11
  And my sons, my sons who are growing into these kind of men,
• 1:04:14
  Yeah, it's beautiful to behold. A man who says I am not like
• 1:04:19
  pornography is a poison and I'm going to become a virtuous man
• 1:04:22
  who who governs my appetites because they know that that's
• 1:04:25
  what's necessary. I would also put this out there,
• 1:04:26
  this might be a little edgy or controversial, but I think that
• 1:04:29
  kind of a man, you know, women, I think like there's the
• 1:04:32
  Instagram mommy Blogger world, like more women are on Instagram
• 1:04:36
  than anywhere. And then and men right now, I
• 1:04:38
  think it's more men on YouTube, at least by a bit.
• 1:04:40
  But you know, social media like women, it's very addictive for
• 1:04:44
  women. I'm not saying it's not
• 1:04:45
  addictive for men too, but I what I'm trying to get here is I
• 1:04:48
  would, I've just sort of noticed.
• 1:04:50
  And maybe it's because women are, you know, the toxic
• 1:04:52
  feminine is more naturally self absorbed, it's more inward focus
• 1:04:55
  and the toxic masculine is more dominion like attack, you know,
• 1:04:58
  control focus. You could kind of make that
• 1:05:01
  maybe argument. So like when it comes to social
• 1:05:03
  media and like the world of influencing, like the influencer
• 1:05:06
  space, right? There's some amazing men out
• 1:05:08
  there that are doing really good stuff.
• 1:05:10
  You know, that I I I really appreciate, like Nick Fritas, I
• 1:05:12
  think is doing awesome stuff. He's a evangelical guy.
• 1:05:15
  Actually, I like a lot of Matt Frad stuff.
• 1:05:17
  He's a great right man, but you don't see a lot of, I think male
• 1:05:21
  influencers like our husbands because our husbands are working
• 1:05:26
  and being our husbands and they're not making their career
• 1:05:28
  out of influencing, right? And so there's this weird area
• 1:05:32
  where like the media is so powerful today.
• 1:05:34
  Everyone is on social media. We're so isolated increasingly
• 1:05:36
  as a society, we spend so much time on our screens.
• 1:05:40
  And so it's like there's a certain kind of male that maybe
• 1:05:43
  is the more toxic. And I'm not saying they're all
• 1:05:45
  like this. Of course not.
• 1:05:46
  This is a generalization is largely about trends that
• 1:05:50
  they're getting more attention and more airspace like more time
• 1:05:53
  in the room basically than the average man of self governments
• 1:05:57
  and and and and and goodness because those men typically
• 1:06:01
  don't like social media. They're not on it.
• 1:06:03
  They hate it. They're humble men and they're
• 1:06:04
  humble they're. Humble because they know that
• 1:06:06
  that's their. Like when I have a conversation
• 1:06:08
  with my husband, we, I, I get to talk to him every morning, every
• 1:06:11
  night and throughout the day. But when I talk to him, I'm
• 1:06:13
  always like, that was so that was so wise.
• 1:06:15
  Like that's so good. You know, I wish we were.
• 1:06:18
  Recording this from my podcast. You know, I I I doke with him.
• 1:06:20
  I'm like gotta get you on the podcast because he's just
• 1:06:23
  dropping these like, you know, this, this truth, and in the
• 1:06:26
  simple way that it's just so profound, It's so accessible and
• 1:06:30
  kind of like what you're, you know, to be husband told you.
• 1:06:32
  It's not about you, Erica, was it?
• 1:06:33
  Is that the greatest? Well, I'll talk.
• 1:06:34
  Can I tell you another story that happened actually while I
• 1:06:37
  was writing the Wall Street Journal article?
• 1:06:38
  So I'm writing, we're going through, I have 750 words.
• 1:06:40
  We're going through, I'm going through all these revisions with
• 1:06:42
  the editor. And I had, you know, put the
• 1:06:44
  important point about John Paul the Second actually, you know,
• 1:06:47
  correcting earlier ideas of women's natural inferiority,
• 1:06:52
  which come from Aristotle, but also prior that had been kind of
• 1:06:55
  taken up in the documents of the church.
• 1:06:57
  John Paul the Second is reading the text of the New Testament
• 1:07:00
  through the Imago day, right in Genesis, that men and women are
• 1:07:04
  both created in the image of God with these rational souls.
• 1:07:09
  And putting aside this idea, which of course, for a long time
• 1:07:12
  was kind of seen as basic to Western civilization, that like
• 1:07:16
  women are inferior, which of course the earliest women like
• 1:07:19
  Christina Pizan, like Mary Wollstencraft had challenged and
• 1:07:22
  said, well, hold on a second, women aren't particularly well
• 1:07:24
  educated. Why don't you educate women 1st
• 1:07:27
  and test their reason, give them the capacity for reason, and
• 1:07:30
  then maybe see if you still think they're inferior, right?
• 1:07:32
  And so of course, bringing women into liberal education, right?
• 1:07:36
  Educating them, cultivating them in all the human virtues, right?
• 1:07:39
  I mean, that's another challenge.
• 1:07:41
  That like, don't treat women, don't infantilize women, don't
• 1:07:44
  treat them like children. That's right.
• 1:07:45
  Treat them as equals, Co heirs for the Kingdom of God and Co
• 1:07:48
  heirs for dominion over the earth and an equal partner.
• 1:07:52
  Right. And I, I think that is, you
• 1:07:54
  know, some people. Well, that sounds like feminist
• 1:07:56
  modernism. Like, no, that's Christianity.
• 1:07:57
  Yeah, that's Christianity. That's Christianity, but then
• 1:07:59
  and then also our call to by God to cultivate all the human
• 1:08:05
  virtues. So the older ideas like that
• 1:08:07
  women are natural subjects, men are natural rulers, which is
• 1:08:10
  exactly Tim Gordon's position that comes out of Aristotle.
• 1:08:13
  He's like Kim Gordon, Catholic influencer, yes, writer.
• 1:08:16
  And he says, you know, he has a soul, the patriarchy, which
• 1:08:18
  again, the patriarchy isn't de facto bad.
• 1:08:20
  Actually, if you define it properly, it can be a beautiful.
• 1:08:23
  Thing this is actually what I'm getting to It's just this idea
• 1:08:25
  of well, how do you get to this idea of I was I was I was
• 1:08:29
  wrestling with the idea that OK, so John Paul the second corrects
• 1:08:32
  this by talking about mutual submission because why because
• 1:08:36
  mutual submission in Ephesians 5 ought to be the kind of lens
• 1:08:40
  through which you read the rest Why because mutual submission is
• 1:08:43
  the Christian command that we are subordinate.
• 1:08:45
  We submit ourselves to each other.
• 1:08:47
  You don't lure, I mean all the time throughout Scripture with
• 1:08:51
  you know, Jesus is saying our rulers don't Lord it over one
• 1:08:54
  another, right? They they serve like that's our
• 1:08:57
  command is to serve. That doesn't mean you can't be
• 1:08:58
  strong. Jesus literally taking off the
• 1:09:01
  shoes of his disciples, all the sandals and washing their feet
• 1:09:04
  and saying, do, do as I'm doing. I mean that that, you know, the
• 1:09:08
  servant leader. That's right, model.
• 1:09:10
  Right. And it doesn't mean a wimpy
• 1:09:11
  thing. You use your strength on behalf
• 1:09:14
  of those who who you ought to serve.
• 1:09:18
  And so when when I was writing this piece, I was wrestling with
• 1:09:20
  this idea of mutual submission because I didn't want it just to
• 1:09:23
  be mutual submission. Because what's really important
• 1:09:25
  to my work is the need for men to be responsible in the family
• 1:09:30
  for their part. And this has been like, my
• 1:09:32
  entire work has been like, this is the answer to sexual
• 1:09:36
  asymmetry, right? Is to get men responsible, not
• 1:09:38
  only in their own private families, is to make, is to
• 1:09:40
  ensure that they're responsible, that they, in some ways, I mean,
• 1:09:43
  we could go through the whole history of sort of the way in
• 1:09:45
  which like the rift between home and work and industrialization
• 1:09:48
  sends men out of the home so they don't have a place.
• 1:09:50
  I think, I think Erica, the the response is sorry to interrupt,
• 1:09:53
  but I think this is such a, it's such an important point that,
• 1:09:55
  you know, we're exploring here. But I think the response of
• 1:09:58
  maybe, you know, the kind of more patriarchal Catholic, you
• 1:10:02
  know, red pillish world, right, would be OK, OK, you're right.
• 1:10:05
  Men have this responsibility to lead in the home.
• 1:10:07
  They are the the leader of the home.
• 1:10:09
  You know, this is scriptural. Like they are the head of the
• 1:10:12
  home and women are to respect their husbands.
• 1:10:16
  Women are to submit to their husbands.
• 1:10:18
  There is a mutual submission, Yes, of course.
• 1:10:20
  But you know, women, men have that.
• 1:10:21
  There is that's asymmetry just as they're in our bodies
• 1:10:24
  asymmetry. We bring life into the world in
• 1:10:26
  our rooms. And men can't do that.
• 1:10:28
  Men are to be the head of the home.
• 1:10:29
  OK. So men have this natural
• 1:10:30
  responsibility to kind of be the leader, to kind of, you know, be
• 1:10:34
  the, you know, be strong ultimately.
• 1:10:36
  But there's also natural rights that men get in the home or the
• 1:10:41
  obedience or the submission of the wife under their authority.
• 1:10:45
  And this is where, you know, the maybe the extremes might start
• 1:10:49
  to come out of, well, what does that look like?
• 1:10:51
  And then you have, you know, Timothy Gordon saying women
• 1:10:54
  should not be able to leave their home without their
• 1:10:56
  husband's permission. So how do you?
• 1:10:58
  Yeah. So I think it's really important
• 1:10:59
  to think through all of that with because of the intellectual
• 1:11:02
  history that I was talking about before where obedience is seen
• 1:11:05
  as arbitrary will like obeying kind of slavishly that we have
• 1:11:10
  to we have to do some translation.
• 1:11:12
  And so I think going back actually to Thomas Aquinas
• 1:11:15
  understanding of law is really helpful.
• 1:11:17
  And the way I would think about this is that the man because of
• 1:11:20
  his kind of pass, it will not only because of his strength,
• 1:11:24
  right, but also because he is in some sense his body well,
• 1:11:28
  because it isn't nurturing both in his own body.
• 1:11:30
  But then through breastfeeding and all of that, he is kind of
• 1:11:33
  warding off protecting right from the outside world in order
• 1:11:38
  to care for the common good, right?
• 1:11:40
  And so his leadership is order in order to care for the common
• 1:11:45
  good of the family. And so he sees the whole in
• 1:11:47
  order that his that the wife, the mother can see the parts,
• 1:11:52
  can pay attention to the parts, if that makes sense.
• 1:11:54
  So we have whole 1 is not better than the other, but there is a
• 1:11:56
  way in which the whole, the common good, yeah, the common
• 1:11:59
  good has to take priority over the parts.
• 1:12:03
  Because I mean, just think about in common sense is like a woman
• 1:12:06
  who is naturally inclined. And we know this from all sorts
• 1:12:09
  of studies that women are person focused, that she is very
• 1:12:13
  interested in the individual concrete particular needs of
• 1:12:16
  each of her children, which is beautiful.
• 1:12:19
  And it doesn't matter. I mean, putting aside like work
• 1:12:21
  from homework outside of the home, all that stuff.
• 1:12:23
  It is an inclination that women have.
• 1:12:25
  Women are person centered, right?
• 1:12:27
  And so the way in which he can prepare and make the conditions
• 1:12:32
  for the possibility of her meeting individual needs.
• 1:12:35
  And it's overlapping. It's not like he's not
• 1:12:37
  interested in the individual particular needs.
• 1:12:39
  But, and here's the key point, she does have to subordinate
• 1:12:43
  that interest to the common good.
• 1:12:45
  Why? Because if she in her interest
• 1:12:48
  for the for the needs of one particular child decides or her
• 1:12:52
  own particular needs or something like that can like
• 1:12:55
  overwhelm and take over something like the common good
• 1:12:57
  of the family. And so it's just something that
• 1:12:59
  works together, I think really well in great harmony in
• 1:13:02
  families where there's a deep respect, there is an
• 1:13:05
  understanding that either of those, there's like an
• 1:13:07
  inequality. Again, it's like the Trinity,
• 1:13:09
  right? And that's what's so hard for
• 1:13:11
  moderns to understand, and them, especially Americans.
• 1:13:14
  It's like the Trinity because the Trinity has hierarchies.
• 1:13:16
  Like they're equals, they're equals.
• 1:13:17
  And they're one flesh. They're one being.
• 1:13:19
  That's not one flesh, they're one being.
• 1:13:21
  I mean, this is also constitutional monarchy.
• 1:13:22
  I mean, it's basically like you have a first among equals.
• 1:13:25
  And So what does that mean? It's like first and it's.
• 1:13:27
  So in constitutional monarchy, sorry to keep interrupting, but
• 1:13:29
  it's all such good stuff, It's the king.
• 1:13:33
  In the constitutional monarchy, the king is has this designation
• 1:13:36
  by God to be first among equals. Not that he is better right than
• 1:13:40
  the rest, but that he is meant to be the leader of the rest
• 1:13:43
  and. Represent and represent
• 1:13:45
  represents, yeah. And needs, I mean, in some
• 1:13:47
  states now. I mean, it's a bit of a
• 1:13:48
  figurehead in England, right? And we don't understand it as
• 1:13:51
  well because we're not, we don't have constitutional monarchy,
• 1:13:54
  although, you know, it's close, our understandings are close.
• 1:13:57
  But I think that's the part is that I think if we that the the
• 1:14:00
  really key thing, and I think there's some great work by Mary
• 1:14:03
  Stanford on this, is that the husband who is like focused on
• 1:14:07
  his headship is probably not doing it right.
• 1:14:09
  The husband who's focused on imitating.
• 1:14:11
  You get that vibe and you like, like, I mean, just common advice
• 1:14:15
  for girls listening, like if you're with a guy and he's
• 1:14:18
  obsessed with his role as being the patriarch and the head.
• 1:14:21
  And in terms of I have the power, I have the control, I
• 1:14:24
  have the authority, as opposed to I want to lead this family
• 1:14:27
  and I want to create a beautiful life with you to serve God and
• 1:14:29
  others. That's an that you should that's
• 1:14:31
  a red flag. You know, there's too much
• 1:14:33
  emphasis on the wrong thing. Similarly, if you're a man and
• 1:14:36
  you're dating a woman and she's just like, be my paycheck.
• 1:14:39
  Like, you know, just be my, be my.
• 1:14:41
  I just want to be able to spend your money and do what I want.
• 1:14:43
  She's all about herself or. She's all obsessed with herself
• 1:14:46
  and, you know, certainly she's her.
• 1:14:47
  That's a disaster. But yeah, then yeah, she's all
• 1:14:50
  with her self fulfillment. My career, my dreams, my ideas.
• 1:14:53
  Those are both versions of toxicity of of the of the sexes.
• 1:14:58
  So I want to quote St. Agustin because I think it's
• 1:15:01
  good to have authorities and doctors of the Church on this
• 1:15:05
  exact point. So in his political writings,
• 1:15:06
  and I'm going to give a bit of a quote, I'll go slow.
• 1:15:09
  So he says let them have dominion over the fish of the
• 1:15:12
  sea. He's of course, now quoting from
• 1:15:13
  Genesis over the fowl of the air and over every creeping thing
• 1:15:17
  which creepeth on the earth. And then St.
• 1:15:19
  Agustin says he did not intend that his rational creature, made
• 1:15:23
  in his own image, should have lordship over any but irrational
• 1:15:27
  creatures, not man over man, but man over beasts.
• 1:15:32
  And so of course, when you read Genesis, you see that the
• 1:15:34
  dominion is given to both men, man and woman, right over the
• 1:15:38
  rest of creation. Then he goes on to say in the
• 1:15:42
  sort of, you know, conquered or in order to have domestic peace,
• 1:15:46
  he says commands. Now remember, this is pre
• 1:15:49
  Hobbes. I want to give you like remind
• 1:15:51
  you of the intellectual history. So for him, commands are
• 1:15:54
  commands of reason that are aligned with God's will.
• 1:15:56
  This isn't arbitrary will, right?
• 1:15:59
  This is like a rational command. Commands are given in the family
• 1:16:04
  by those who have care for the rest, who have care for the
• 1:16:08
  rest. So by husband to wife, by
• 1:16:10
  parents, to children, by masters, to servants, and those
• 1:16:14
  who are cared for obey, listen because they're being cared for,
• 1:16:18
  they're entrusting, they're listening and then trusting
• 1:16:20
  themselves to those who are, you know, have that authority.
• 1:16:25
  Women obey their husbands. This is scripture.
• 1:16:28
  Children, their parents and servants, their masters in the
• 1:16:31
  household of the just man. He goes on, however, who quote
• 1:16:34
  lives by faith, and I'm still quoting him who is still on
• 1:16:39
  Pilgrim, who is still a Pilgrim on his way to that heavenly
• 1:16:42
  city. Even those who command are the
• 1:16:45
  servants of those whom they seem to command.
• 1:16:49
  For it is not out of any desire for mastery that they command.
• 1:16:53
  Rather, they do so from a dutiful concern for others, not
• 1:16:58
  out of pride and ruling, but because they love mercy.
• 1:17:04
  What would you say, Erica, is the responsibility of a woman in
• 1:17:08
  a marriage? You know, a Christian marriage
• 1:17:11
  in terms of submission. What do you think that looks
• 1:17:13
  like? Yeah, like the mutual
• 1:17:15
  submission. So I would say there's one key
• 1:17:17
  element. So of course it's collaboration
• 1:17:19
  so much as collaboration, right. And finding I think everyone's.
• 1:17:23
  So I'm going to give you a bit of a long answer, but just like
• 1:17:25
  there's toxicity that tends to the specific degeneracy of men
• 1:17:29
  kind of looks all the same and the specific degeneracy of woman
• 1:17:32
  looks all the same. When you see virtue, when you
• 1:17:34
  see sanctity, it's a kaleidoscope.
• 1:17:38
  It's beautiful. The Saints are beautiful, and
• 1:17:40
  what you tend to see in the Saints are deeply integrated
• 1:17:43
  human beings. So men who have a humility about
• 1:17:46
  them, they have strength, a deep strength that is respected by
• 1:17:49
  those who know them. But it's a humility.
• 1:17:51
  They don't have to Lord it over people because people respect
• 1:17:53
  it. So they can be humble and
• 1:17:55
  gentle. You see this especially in
• 1:17:56
  really holy priests, I think women, I think, have a fortitude
• 1:18:01
  that comes from deep within because they know that they are
• 1:18:05
  God's first and that they want to serve the rest with the
• 1:18:09
  strength and with their body and with their, you know, their
• 1:18:13
  feminine genius as as John Paul the Second would say.
• 1:18:16
  And so you tend to see a fortitude, a deep courage in
• 1:18:19
  women, the courage to stand for the truth.
• 1:18:21
  Like you are the poster girl for this, the poster woman for this
• 1:18:25
  is a deep courage that comes from deeply within.
• 1:18:27
  I mean, you see this in all of the female Saints.
• 1:18:30
  Is that courage to speak the truth sometimes against power,
• 1:18:33
  like a Catholic Catherine of Siena, right?
• 1:18:36
  So then what is it when you have someone who's been made like
• 1:18:39
  that in the kaleidoscope of different ways, different ways
• 1:18:41
  of life, different particular circumstances, different
• 1:18:43
  talents, different personalities, different gifts.
• 1:18:46
  Some women really, really good with the domestic arts, really
• 1:18:50
  interested in creative things, some more intellectual women,
• 1:18:53
  all sorts of different types, right?
• 1:18:55
  You see, how do you see this, right?
• 1:18:57
  So, but when you see a woman develops strength that comes out
• 1:18:59
  of from the Holy Spirit, that comes out of her sanctification,
• 1:19:02
  a deep interior strength. I think the key, the very easy
• 1:19:06
  key of what a, the mutual submission looks like on the
• 1:19:10
  woman's part is never undermining her husband.
• 1:19:16
  And so that doesn't mean not disagreeing and it doesn't even
• 1:19:19
  mean not disagreeing in front of her children.
• 1:19:21
  I don't think there's can be like my husband and I are like,
• 1:19:24
  because we're both kind of intellectuals.
• 1:19:26
  Our whole household is like we engage in ideas.
• 1:19:29
  No, no, I don't think that's right.
• 1:19:30
  This is right. And we, we debate, we think
• 1:19:33
  about ideas, we give our children from like very small.
• 1:19:35
  We we give them like we, we strongman the hardest, like the,
• 1:19:39
  the opinions of other and so that they can learn and so that
• 1:19:42
  they can be real apostles who understand others and who want
• 1:19:45
  to bring them along. Right.
• 1:19:46
  So don't undermine your husband. What does that mean?
• 1:19:49
  Like take him down right? Instead, you want a natural.
• 1:19:54
  Headship like, take it like. And so like you want to.
• 1:19:57
  That's to show the respect. I mean disrespect and that's why
• 1:20:00
  the scripture, holy scripture literally uses the respect word.
• 1:20:03
  That's right, because the number one way to undermine your
• 1:20:05
  husband is to disrespect him. That's right.
• 1:20:07
  And what is disrespect? Disrespect isn't disagreement.
• 1:20:10
  Disrespect isn't conversations about disagreement.
• 1:20:12
  Disrespect isn't even maybe you know a heated conversation for
• 1:20:15
  provided it's respectful about a disagreement.
• 1:20:18
  It's not ideas, it's not work, it's not all of the things it
• 1:20:21
  could be. It comes down to often times it
• 1:20:23
  can be a very subjective thing based on the relationship,
• 1:20:26
  right? How does, how does a woman learn
• 1:20:28
  to not disrespect her husband? How does it and how does how do
• 1:20:31
  we define disrespect? Is there an objective
• 1:20:35
  definition? There are any objectives?
• 1:20:36
  Here. Yeah.
• 1:20:37
  I mean, I think it's when you can see it in his face, you
• 1:20:39
  know, like you can see that like there's kind of a like, and I
• 1:20:44
  mean, it's like a bigger a man who doesn't have as much
• 1:20:46
  humility as my husband will kind of like rail against it, I
• 1:20:49
  suppose. But like my husband, yeah, it's
• 1:20:50
  like a deflation. And so, like one of the things
• 1:20:52
  that I've learned, I think especially from Mary Stanford,
• 1:20:54
  who does this so well, is that men wanna, she calls men the
• 1:21:00
  husbands, the giver in chief. And so they want to give and
• 1:21:04
  they want to give themselves and give and sacrifice.
• 1:21:06
  They want to do it. And all they want is gratitude.
• 1:21:08
  Yes. And so it's like gratitude for.
• 1:21:11
  And and the freedom to being the main dog leader, right?
• 1:21:14
  Yeah, I mean, but that's what that's what's incredible.
• 1:21:16
  Like I think about my husband and he he literally his like so
• 1:21:20
  much of his joy in life comes from yes, provision that he's
• 1:21:24
  able to provide not just physical things for our family,
• 1:21:26
  but be that spiritual lead and he is those things for our
• 1:21:29
  family. And I think that's it's, but
• 1:21:32
  it's so innate to his nature. And I don't have, I have a
• 1:21:35
  version of it, but it's not the same.
• 1:21:37
  I think for me, it's like feeling the connectedness,
• 1:21:39
  seeing my children thriving, like, and being like
• 1:21:42
  interconnected, like getting to like whole, you know, there's
• 1:21:44
  something, I mean, it is it's nurture.
• 1:21:46
  I mean, that's why we go back to men largely provide first, women
• 1:21:50
  largely nurture first. They both do those things too.
• 1:21:53
  But it's that ability to, yeah, create within, look within.
• 1:21:56
  I don't see the subjective, see the personal, develop the
• 1:22:00
  personal, and they work so. They work so beautifully
• 1:22:02
  together and think of like the built the the men like just so
• 1:22:06
  built. I like, you know, the Camille
• 1:22:07
  Paglia, like without men, we would all be living in grass
• 1:22:09
  huts, right. So they're like building
• 1:22:11
  structures. And that's not just like entire
• 1:22:14
  civilizations. A build a built systematizing
• 1:22:16
  ideas. Thomas Aquinas, Right.
• 1:22:19
  But it's like it's it's, I mean, think of the man who wants to
• 1:22:21
  solve the problem for you. And you're like, I didn't really
• 1:22:23
  want it solved. I just wanted to be heard with.
• 1:22:25
  My I'm like, please solve my problem.
• 1:22:27
  I don't. I'm one of those rare ones are
• 1:22:29
  like, yes, but yeah. I obviously you know what I
• 1:22:31
  mean, like. Share with them too, but like.
• 1:22:33
  That allows the conditions for the capacity for both men and
• 1:22:37
  women together in their own way to like really nourish the
• 1:22:41
  children. And one is by, in my view, this
• 1:22:45
  is how my husband does it. But I think it's also is like my
• 1:22:47
  husband is like the expectations, calling them high
• 1:22:51
  expectations. So much so that sometimes, you
• 1:22:53
  know, he has to be like, well, I really love you all no matter
• 1:22:56
  what you do. But that love, that kind of
• 1:22:58
  unconditional love is implicit for me because it's like I'm.
• 1:23:01
  I'm sort of like, yeah. But you know, there's like a
• 1:23:03
  mercy element, right? But so high expectations to
• 1:23:05
  prove, to prepare them for the world, prepare all of them for
• 1:23:08
  the world, not just our boys, Right, Right.
• 1:23:10
  Our girls, too. Like, you have to be prepared to
• 1:23:11
  take care of yourself in the world.
• 1:23:12
  So work hard. You're not working hard enough
• 1:23:15
  in school. You're capable of more than
• 1:23:17
  that. That's what my husband does.
• 1:23:18
  But he doesn't in his beautifully gentle way because
• 1:23:20
  that's how he is a man of deep humility and kindness, you know.
• 1:23:24
  And so I think like that then enables this kind of capacity
• 1:23:29
  for the women in all their different ways.
• 1:23:32
  Again, with so many different talents, so many different
• 1:23:34
  characteristics, so many different temperaments and
• 1:23:35
  personalities to be concerned about persons.
• 1:23:39
  And that's what the rights of women, especially my book and my
• 1:23:42
  work generally is trying to elevate that because what we've
• 1:23:45
  done in Western culture pretty much forever, but especially now
• 1:23:49
  is like, you know, when, when feminism itself, when a when a
• 1:23:53
  movement for apparently the rights for women elevates the
• 1:23:57
  kind of just provision market. You know, being involved in the
• 1:24:01
  market, being involved in careers elevates that to such an
• 1:24:05
  extent that care the care for the most vulnerable in their
• 1:24:08
  mother's womb. Those obligations aren't taken
• 1:24:11
  seriously. Then you have basically
• 1:24:13
  capitulated to, you know, you've kind of given in to this way of
• 1:24:18
  viewing the world where only that kind of, you know, what
• 1:24:22
  might be seen as seen as the masculine genius is given any
• 1:24:25
  heed. Right.
• 1:24:26
  And then the opposite extreme, right, is you take the
• 1:24:28
  structures, you take the US military, you take all this, and
• 1:24:31
  you like, insert care where care is overemphasized.
• 1:24:35
  Yeah. And then you have this other
• 1:24:37
  disturbing thing where it's like, why is this person like in
• 1:24:40
  this position of authority? Because of like skin color,
• 1:24:44
  right? And that's for other reasons,
• 1:24:45
  like thank you. There's yes, thank.
• 1:24:47
  You no. And it's also like care.
• 1:24:48
  The way the left tend to wants to think about care is like
• 1:24:51
  care. Institution and sorry when I say
• 1:24:53
  that meaning like they're they're given this position
• 1:24:56
  because of traits that are not actually, you know, merit.
• 1:24:59
  It's not they're not things that they worked for it's because of
• 1:25:02
  the you know the way that they look.
• 1:25:03
  And now there are certain roles where, yeah, like if you're a
• 1:25:05
  model or you're, you know, you know, trying out for a feature
• 1:25:08
  film or something, you, you want to look a certain way as well as
• 1:25:10
  act a certain way. So it's not like it's never OK
• 1:25:13
  to judge someone by their looks for certain jobs.
• 1:25:15
  And sometimes the job includes that to some degree.
• 1:25:17
  But, you know, an athlete, yeah, their physical body, those
• 1:25:21
  traits are incredibly instrumental in whether or not
• 1:25:23
  they're going to get a get a certain role.
• 1:25:25
  But so there's nuance even there is what I'm trying to say, but.
• 1:25:29
  So the way the left often thinks about this kind of care element,
• 1:25:32
  which has become, I mean, and, and I think it's important to
• 1:25:34
  say like a lot of my work, so you can go read in first Things
• 1:25:37
  Embodied Caregiving, which basically is challenging care
• 1:25:40
  feminists who have elevated this idea of care and a care ethic as
• 1:25:44
  kind of being feminine. Great.
• 1:25:46
  And what I do in that article is I challenge them to say your
• 1:25:48
  care ethic, which basically comes out of Christianity, has
• 1:25:51
  to more deeply inform your feminism because you're
• 1:25:53
  asserting the idea that abortion should ought to be consistent
• 1:25:57
  with this. And it clearly is not.
• 1:25:58
  And I've debated women like that and they they can't tell you
• 1:26:02
  where their, their regard for abortion comes from because it
• 1:26:06
  doesn't follow in the logic of there.
• 1:26:08
  But So what you tend to see on the left is like care
• 1:26:11
  institutions, they want care architecture, they want care,
• 1:26:16
  you know, you know, 24 hour care, universal daycare,
• 1:26:20
  universal daycare. They don't understand the most
• 1:26:23
  important care that takes part in the home.
• 1:26:25
  And so this is what the Rights of Women is trying to get back
• 1:26:27
  to my book, The Rights of Women is trying to say, no, actually
• 1:26:30
  all the virtues we need for economic life, for civic life,
• 1:26:32
  for all of these different aspects of society is in the
• 1:26:36
  domestic sphere, is in the home. It's the work that men and women
• 1:26:39
  do in collaboration with one another to cultivate the
• 1:26:42
  virtues. It's the rights of women and
• 1:26:44
  it's the responsibilities. Of that's right and that's the
• 1:26:46
  key point is that is that an older understanding and that's
• 1:26:50
  what I'm showing the book is that there's two there's two
• 1:26:52
  kind of lines within early women's rights and one takes off
• 1:26:57
  and becomes autonomy feminism, which is rights for no freedom
• 1:27:01
  with no end in mind. And the other is all about
• 1:27:04
  rights with regard to responsibilities, rights in
• 1:27:07
  order to carry out my responsibilities, rights to do
• 1:27:09
  the good, freedom to do the good, freedom for excellence.
• 1:27:12
  And that's an older account that's, you know, starts in, you
• 1:27:16
  know, the late 18th century and moves up and through the
• 1:27:18
  antebellum period in our country.
• 1:27:21
  And you can see it very clearly in in particular thinkers who
• 1:27:23
  you know, and you can go look at my work, have that very clear
• 1:27:27
  when you read them. Mary Wilson Craft again,
• 1:27:30
  Christina Pizan, even earlier than that, Sarah Grimke,
• 1:27:32
  Lucretia Mott, who is the real heroine of the early women's
• 1:27:35
  rights advocate in our country. This is how they talked was
• 1:27:39
  about rights and responsibilities together in
• 1:27:41
  order for, you know, for human excellence, for virtuous
• 1:27:44
  development for both men and women.
• 1:27:47
  Why? Because they saw this, when you
• 1:27:49
  don't form women, as you know, into the virtues, into all the
• 1:27:54
  human virtues, you have this corrupt version.
• 1:27:56
  And they saw that you, they become playthings for men.
• 1:28:00
  And that is not what we want for women.
• 1:28:02
  We want women to be fully human so they can in, in, in carry out
• 1:28:05
  their obligations to their communities, but first and
• 1:28:08
  foremost to their families, to their spouses, to their
• 1:28:10
  children, to their elderly parents.
• 1:28:12
  And that was a vision that was totally hijacked at some point.
• 1:28:16
  And and, you know, I think it's something that we can really
• 1:28:18
  build on today. Do you have hope that we are
• 1:28:23
  going to be able to reclaim the lost vision of the Co equals
• 1:28:27
  with certain roles and responsibilities, that some of
• 1:28:30
  them are the same and some of them are different men and
• 1:28:32
  women? He created them in his image and
• 1:28:35
  how they're to live out marriage and dominion over the earth.
• 1:28:38
  You think we're going to be able to reclaim that, I think.
• 1:28:42
  I think it's an amazing time to reclaim it, not only because I
• 1:28:45
  think young people can see the kinds of marriages that you and
• 1:28:48
  I have and that so many people I know have with great
• 1:28:53
  fruitfulness. As you said, you know, I can
• 1:28:54
  tell you of of, you know, families at Hillsdale where one
• 1:28:57
  of my daughter's go beautiful families who have this
• 1:29:00
  collaboration. And I guess one of the things I
• 1:29:02
  would want to say is that I think those who have a sense
• 1:29:06
  that there's like these very definite roles, and I know
• 1:29:09
  you've been talking about this, is that they're really like, as
• 1:29:13
  my friend Mary Harrington would say, not traditional enough.
• 1:29:16
  I do a lot of work thinking, looking at kind of women in
• 1:29:18
  medieval times, especially in sort of middle medieval period
• 1:29:22
  where there's an understanding of joint property ownership.
• 1:29:25
  Why? Because there's a common regard
• 1:29:26
  for the work of the household, which is the first, you know,
• 1:29:29
  household management is economics, right?
• 1:29:31
  And so the great authority women had as mothers to, you know,
• 1:29:35
  care for the household, which was the most important place.
• 1:29:37
  It was the place where all work happened.
• 1:29:39
  So why do I bring that up? Well, you know, after the rift
• 1:29:42
  of industrialization, you have a lot of time when men go out of
• 1:29:45
  the home, then women go out of the home and children are left.
• 1:29:48
  And now we have this incredible opportunity because of work from
• 1:29:50
  home, because of the capacity for more and more employers to
• 1:29:54
  want to allow part time work for the engagement of within the
• 1:29:58
  home of both men and women. Not always obviously, but to be
• 1:30:02
  able to have that collaboration once again, that home and work,
• 1:30:05
  as I've done in a lot of my work recently, an article for
• 1:30:07
  American Compass, an article in in a Notre Dame law journal, is
• 1:30:11
  to try to rehabilitate that understanding of work and home
• 1:30:16
  as kind of something that can take place together.
• 1:30:19
  So in John Paul the Second's Laborum Exergens, So what he
• 1:30:22
  called his favorite encyclical. So this is on human work.
• 1:30:25
  He meditates on the great rupture.
• 1:30:28
  And this is a place that I don't think these kind of, you know,
• 1:30:31
  far right, whatever you want to call them Catholic, they call
• 1:30:34
  themselves masculinist now, like a Tim Gordon.
• 1:30:37
  I don't think they have read clearly in.
• 1:30:39
  As a response to feminism. Masculinist.
• 1:30:42
  Yeah, masculinist. Yeah, I don't know why they
• 1:30:43
  would whatever anyway, but but they haven't seen clearly what
• 1:30:47
  it is that the modern church is doing, like why the development
• 1:30:51
  of doctrine is necessary because they miss really key elements in
• 1:30:55
  Labourne exogens. He sees very clearly John Paul
• 1:30:58
  the Second, who's such a great student, both the philosophy and
• 1:31:01
  theology and history. And he sees what's happened with
• 1:31:05
  industrialization, with the rise of liberalism, with with all of
• 1:31:08
  it, right. And so he sees that there's a
• 1:31:11
  great technological change that's happened.
• 1:31:14
  That we can make. Use of But it has changed
• 1:31:17
  everything. And so he wants to say, how do
• 1:31:20
  we make life more humane? How do we make work more humane?
• 1:31:23
  How do we ensure that the worker is, you know, his work is
• 1:31:27
  dignified because he's the one who has dignity and he brings
• 1:31:29
  that dignity to his work and that's what he's interested in.
• 1:31:32
  And. John Paul the second is in
• 1:31:34
  there. And so I think there's a time
• 1:31:36
  for us now that we could see that the work, as he very much
• 1:31:38
  very clearly says, that indispensable work of the
• 1:31:40
  mother, you know, caring for her children can never be undermined
• 1:31:45
  by being drawn out into market work, right?
• 1:31:49
  But that she can have a freedom if she's able to really balance
• 1:31:53
  these things or integrate them, as I think you and I do in our
• 1:31:57
  own work where we prioritize our children.
• 1:32:00
  And I'd say my husband too, prioritizes his children.
• 1:32:03
  But the priority he gives to his children, his family require him
• 1:32:06
  to spend most of his time out of the home while for him working
• 1:32:09
  from home, spending most of his time 50, sometimes 60 hours a
• 1:32:13
  week working at his tech job. Whereas I can prioritize and he
• 1:32:17
  and we give both give each other the freedom to be able to do
• 1:32:19
  that by the priority we have, which I've called overlapping
• 1:32:22
  spheres right as and kind of a complementarity that is
• 1:32:26
  ambiguous in the sense not that our bodies are ambiguous.
• 1:32:28
  Our bodies are very clear and very different.
• 1:32:31
  But the way each family, each couple lives this out with the
• 1:32:35
  regard to all the things we talked about has to be sort of
• 1:32:39
  an act of practical wisdom. Yes.
• 1:32:41
  And it's, and it's something that we take to prayer and it's
• 1:32:44
  something that there has to be unity about, right?
• 1:32:47
  And so I'm always, you know, I look at my kids, how are my kids
• 1:32:50
  doing? Are my kids doing okay?
• 1:32:52
  All right, then, then the work I'm kind of work I'm doing is
• 1:32:55
  okay, right? How's my husband doing?
• 1:32:57
  You know, and those are the kinds of like checks, you know,
• 1:32:59
  how's my faith life doing him? Do I have enough time to make it
• 1:33:01
  to Mass every day? Do I have enough time to do my
• 1:33:03
  rosary every day? Am I prioritizing those things?
• 1:33:06
  OK, then I can take this time to do this intellectual work that I
• 1:33:09
  feel is a vocational call from God.
• 1:33:12
  Well, and it's also helping providing for the economic, you
• 1:33:15
  know. Which has become much more
• 1:33:16
  necessary as a New Englander with seven children.
• 1:33:19
  But it's not. I think that's another aspect.
• 1:33:21
  It's like, of course mothers work.
• 1:33:22
  All mothers work. It's about how they work, where
• 1:33:24
  they're working, what they're working, and it all come back to
• 1:33:27
  that principle. Is this serving the family,
• 1:33:29
  right? Or is this counter to the
• 1:33:31
  purposes of the family? And if you have that very simple
• 1:33:34
  and obviously, are you in unity with your spouse, That's
• 1:33:35
  essential. Exactly.
• 1:33:36
  If you have those two pieces and it's going to look different for
• 1:33:39
  different people based on all kinds of circumstances and
• 1:33:43
  innate callings or traits, there's so much to go there.
• 1:33:46
  But I think that's where like it's very dangerous to fall into
• 1:33:48
  these like very clear, like this is exactly the role, the
• 1:33:51
  traditional role of the woman when it comes to work,
• 1:33:54
  household, all of these things. Obviously with child rearing,
• 1:33:57
  that's fundamental, like only women have the babies, only
• 1:34:00
  women nurse the babies. So you already know, de facto,
• 1:34:02
  no matter how you set up the system, the woman is going to be
• 1:34:05
  primary care for that child when they're very, very young.
• 1:34:08
  And that doesn't mean you don't have Alocare, you know,
• 1:34:10
  surrogates supporting you, grandmothers, you know, really.
• 1:34:13
  Tried to work from home. Nannies, obviously the husband,
• 1:34:16
  you know, supporting, but you know, that's a foundational
• 1:34:19
  principle. And then the rest you built.
• 1:34:20
  Yeah, that's right, figure out. And I think the way I would say
• 1:34:23
  it is like in my work that's, you know, been more scholarly.
• 1:34:26
  So again, in a Notre Dame Law law review article is like you
• 1:34:29
  can think of it in two ways as like some women are called to
• 1:34:33
  really the domestic arts, those arts that have been swallowed up
• 1:34:36
  by industrialization, by all the things that made machines take
• 1:34:40
  over, right? And they love those, and they
• 1:34:42
  want to bring those back. And those by their thrift, by
• 1:34:46
  their sort of ingenuity, by their good works, they can
• 1:34:49
  contract the needs of the home. In other words, they don't need
• 1:34:52
  to buy as many things. They don't need to.
• 1:34:54
  One of the things I talk a lot about is how the home went from
• 1:34:56
  this great productive entity, right?
• 1:34:58
  When so much work. Think about the highly skilled
• 1:35:00
  women who are like at their looms, doing work with children,
• 1:35:03
  you know, under foot, who are like sewing.
• 1:35:06
  I mean, incredible. Skills.
• 1:35:08
  Yes, exactly. We're reading in my house.
• 1:35:11
  We're reading those right now. And it's like, that is highly
• 1:35:13
  skilled work, right? That was kind of robbed from by
• 1:35:16
  industrialization, right? So they, there are women who
• 1:35:18
  want to bring that back. And I think that's beautiful.
• 1:35:20
  I think it's because they're contracting the need.
• 1:35:22
  They're contracting the consumer needs because the, the, what
• 1:35:25
  happens with industrialization is you go from a productive,
• 1:35:28
  highly productive home where it's the center of the household
• 1:35:30
  and you move into a consumptive hold, which needs so much cash.
• 1:35:34
  And so everyone's dependent on the cash, which can make women
• 1:35:37
  very vulnerable. And she's fully dependent on the
• 1:35:39
  cash that a man brings in if he's vicious, right?
• 1:35:42
  If you contract the needs of the family and they don't need to
• 1:35:45
  assume as much because of your great skill in the in the
• 1:35:48
  household, that's incredible. But there are other women who
• 1:35:51
  don't have those skills, who don't have those vocations.
• 1:35:53
  They have other skills, they have other skills and other
• 1:35:55
  vocations that that allow them as you do so beautifully, you
• 1:35:59
  know, to be out on podcast, to be doing kind of media.
• 1:36:01
  Work and I do this, you trade your talents for other people's
• 1:36:05
  talents. That's right.
• 1:36:06
  And you can't, you know, this is not trading the talent of my
• 1:36:09
  relationship and nurture for my children, but it's trading the
• 1:36:11
  talent of yeah, I'm going to, you know, purchase this baked
• 1:36:15
  bread from someone else. I'm not going to bake it myself.
• 1:36:17
  Like as a simple example. And I think, you know, having
• 1:36:20
  to, you know, being too legalistic and legalistic is not
• 1:36:25
  the right word actually, what is the right word for this?
• 1:36:27
  Rigid maybe do you have rigid? The rigidity is where we can
• 1:36:31
  lose sight of, you know, again, use the word kaleidoscope, which
• 1:36:34
  I think is a beautiful word of the different kinds of
• 1:36:37
  temperaments, talents, callings, everything else that God had and
• 1:36:40
  like. Look out at the world and see
• 1:36:41
  all the beautiful ways in which women and men live this vocation
• 1:36:44
  together and like, build them up instead of tearing them down.
• 1:36:47
  Like, oh, women only do this, men only do this.
• 1:36:49
  Like, look at the Saints. Look at how the way in which
• 1:36:53
  they live virtue, the way in which they are like live
• 1:36:55
  sanctity is so beautiful, so numerous, so distinctive.
• 1:36:59
  And that's what we're each called to be fully human, you
• 1:37:01
  know, fully have the virtues of Christ, you know, all the
• 1:37:04
  virtues. And I think that that's it's a
• 1:37:06
  it's a beautiful call and it's a mission.
• 1:37:08
  So many Catholics and Christians and and people, I'm sure from
• 1:37:12
  other religions as well, are living in this collaboration,
• 1:37:15
  this deep love and respect for one another that I think is a
• 1:37:18
  beautiful thing that I think I know my children are anxious
• 1:37:21
  their own in their own families to to see lived out to see lived
• 1:37:25
  out in their own way. And and I can't wait to see
• 1:37:27
  their own pick peculiarities how they live that out how they you
• 1:37:30
  know, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit and you know, the
• 1:37:34
  great unity between husband and wife were able to do that.
• 1:37:36
  Erica, thank you. This is so beautiful.
• 1:37:39
  And we got to do this again because I know there's like 1000
• 1:37:41
  topics we didn't even get to. But thank you for your work.
• 1:37:44
  Thank you, Lila. Thank you for thank you for
• 1:37:46
  your, your vision and your your moral clarity and your
• 1:37:50
  knowledge. It's a real gift to myself, the
• 1:37:52
  church and I, I think everyone listening.
• 1:37:54
  Thank you Lila for having me. Thanks so much for listening to
• 1:37:57
  this episode of the Lila Rose Show.
• 1:37:59
  I hope you enjoyed the discussion.
• 1:38:01
  I'd love to hear your thoughts. I always love hearing from you
• 1:38:03
  guys. I got some really wonderful,
• 1:38:04
  thoughtful emails and of course, messages from you all.
• 1:38:07
  You can e-mail me at lila@gtbmedia.com.
• 1:38:11
  You can also leave a comment here in the comment section too.
• 1:38:13
  I look at my comments, read them, try to respond to them.
• 1:38:15
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• 1:38:19
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