Does Society Value Women's Work Less? | Outtakes from "The Red Pill" — Transcript

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1. 0:05[Music]
2. 0:14so does its documentary it's actually
3. 0:18about something called the men's rights
4. 0:20movement okay I haven't but I understand
5. 0:25all about enforced masculinity so I get
6. 0:27that yeah all right actually okay
7. 0:47okay okay so this film is looking at
8. 0:55what their perspective is and my story's
9. 1:00actually not surprising I don't know
10. 1:19that much about it to be honest with you
11. 1:21since I teach it from from the feminist
12. 1:24perspective as it is so for me it's a
13. 1:27little bit more difficult to kind of
14. 1:28wrap my head around a men's rights
15. 1:30movement but what I do understand about
16. 1:33it is that men come to the table with
17. 1:37their own form of socialization which
18. 1:39constrains their behavior because they
19. 1:42sanction each other in ways that you
20. 1:44know women section each other for
21. 1:46femininity men do the same so from that
22. 1:50perspective I can kind of see maybe
23. 1:52where they're coming from but you know
24. 1:54women need to empower themselves to and
25. 1:57to in order to get out of their own
26. 2:00boxes so that's kind of the way I see it
27. 2:04I don't really know but specifically
28. 2:07about that though
29. 2:09you teach I teach sociology and then
30. 2:12currently just teaching a social
31. 2:14problems course we don't just focus on
32. 2:19gender we talk about economic inequality
33. 2:21we talk about race and ethnicity
34. 2:23inequalities of that inequalities within
35. 2:25you know all the different institutions
36. 2:27that we have in our in our society and
37. 2:29then of course includes gender and
38. 2:31sexual orientation and all those other
39. 2:33things that relate to that oh absolutely
40. 2:41and it's it's not necessarily conscious
41. 2:45part of the way that we repress is
42. 2:49almost like we're oppressed in a way
43. 2:51that ok I'm not quite sure how I want to
44. 2:55say that so hmm
45. 2:59economically the fact that we're more
46. 3:03nurturing and more caring and we tend to
47. 3:05go into those occupations as part of a
48. 3:07way that allows us to be oppressed
49. 3:10because that's where our gender gap
50. 3:12comes and our wage gap comes in we're
51. 3:18still seen as less formidable in many
52. 3:22ways and part of that is the fact that
53. 3:24you know we're socialized to be more
54. 3:26collaborative less come less competitive
55. 3:30and there's still so much out there in
56. 3:32the way of the media and in other forms
57. 3:35and other institutions that teaches that
58. 3:37were just not as good as men and it's
59. 3:40hard for us to not internalize that so
60. 3:46feminism is a way of empowering women to
61. 3:49come to terms with that and to embrace
62. 3:52that and to say okay we're different but
63. 3:55it's okay but that doesn't make us
64. 3:56unequal and should not you know put us
65. 4:00in a position to be unequal
66. 4:22right because they're associated with
67. 4:25femininity so the nurturing the caring
68. 4:27the vulnerability all of the soft things
69. 4:32and things that we think of as yin are
70. 4:34not valued because they're not masculine
71. 4:37so because our standards are all still
72. 4:40based on masculinity and when what that
73. 4:42means and the strength that that is
74. 4:45allegedly right so what I really liked
75. 4:48about this workshop was that it brought
76. 4:49out that in a way that even though we
77. 4:52can be vulnerable inauthentic and and be
78. 4:55more like water and Yin that is part of
79. 4:58our strength the fact that as caregivers
80. 5:01and nurtures that is part of that is our
81. 5:03strength and so when I see a gender wage
82. 5:09gap that is you know part of that that
83. 5:14the way of keeping that that devalues
84. 5:17women because of those tendencies and
85. 5:19then pays them less because they tend to
86. 5:21go into those occupations and we get
87. 5:23tracked into those occupations and all
88. 5:25of those things that come with that I
89. 5:28[Music]
90. 5:29can't accept that
91. 5:30as a part of you know the way I think
92. 5:33the world should work
93. 5:37do you think they live in a patriarchy
94. 5:40oh absolutely absolutely the fact that
95. 5:44we're competitive and that in society we
96. 5:47didn't always live in you know if you go
97. 5:51back into history it wasn't always
98. 5:53patriarchal there were times when men
99. 5:57and women were considered to be equal
100. 5:59when the world was more sharing and
101. 6:01caring and and collaborative and there
102. 6:04are societies that valued had completely
103. 6:06different values than we do today than
104. 6:08this this drive for money and drive for
105. 6:12competitiveness and drive for you know
106. 6:15being the best and achievement and and
107. 6:17all of those things where we really
108. 6:18worked together more and men and women
109. 6:20were you know equal and when that
110. 6:23changed right so yes absolutely we live
111. 6:29in more of a patriarchy now than we ever
112. 6:30did and I think money fuels that and I
113. 6:34think our need for achievement fuels
114. 6:36that and I think that those aren't
115. 6:40necessarily bad things but the
116. 6:43directions that were sent to achieve
117. 6:46those things women into more caring
118. 6:49occupations men into more mathematical
119. 6:52engineering and things like that I think
120. 6:53that's part of it because those are the
121. 6:56things that shows us what we value about
122. 6:58men and about women
123. 7:05as far as the genders go who do you
124. 7:07think holds the power and why
125. 7:18well I don't think I could be a feminist
126. 7:20without thinking that men are holding
127. 7:21the power cuz I wouldn't need to feel I
128. 7:24wouldn't need to feel a drive to fight
129. 7:28for equal rights if I didn't feel that
130. 7:31there was one that had more dominating
131. 7:33more domination tendencies than the
132. 7:36other so I would have to say that men
133. 7:40still hold the power because the
134. 7:42standards that are set in our society
135. 7:44are still according to what men can do
136. 7:46and what what masculinity means and as
137. 7:49long as that's the standard and as long
138. 7:53as there are institutions and structures
139. 7:55in place that keep it there then but
140. 8:01that doesn't mean that we can't find the
141. 8:02power and change that it just means that
142. 8:04we have to to work together a little bit
143. 8:06more as women and I think we can fix
144. 8:09that
145. 8:14why should I become a feminist I don't
146. 8:16know it just seems like a natural
147. 8:17extension of of my thinking processes I
148. 8:20just I'm I don't roll over and play dead
149. 8:24well I don't submit well I think but I
150. 8:31think my process of becoming a feminist
151. 8:33really started when I went into the
152. 8:35martial arts and I started teaching
153. 8:38martial arts and I met women who were
154. 8:41teaching women's self-defense and it
155. 8:45just kind of evolved it wasn't a
156. 8:47conscious decision it was an evolution
157. 8:50that happened within me as I felt more
158. 8:53powerful in learning how to defend
159. 8:55myself and in how in empowering other
160. 8:59women to defend themselves and to do all
161. 9:02of those things that that came with that
162. 9:04it just became natural to consider
163. 9:06myself a feminist I didn't just open the
164. 9:09book one day and say oh yeah I want to
165. 9:11be that just is just one of those things
166. 9:14that evolved and that's what I became
167. 9:16through that process
168. 9:20and it's been fun yeah do you think
169. 9:29strips
170. 9:33no and not at all I think that what's
171. 9:39hard for a lot of men to wrap their
172. 9:41heads around is that as we as women grow
173. 9:44more powerful we all grow more powerful
174. 9:47because we can work together better when
175. 9:49we're more in partnership with each
176. 9:52other than when we're fighting against
177. 9:54dominating forces and when we're you
178. 9:56know one group of people is more
179. 10:00subordinate than another I
180. 10:02we all grow stronger that way and I
181. 10:05don't think there's any reason to fear
182. 10:07feminism I think it's something that men
183. 10:10can embrace just as easily if they
184. 10:12understand that it doesn't disempower
185. 10:14them because the proof is in history
186. 10:17when we were all equal life was
187. 10:21beautiful but we didn't have nearly as
188. 10:24much conflict as we do now and that
189. 10:26conflict comes from that domination
190. 10:28versus subordination paradigm
191. 10:37thank you that was fun I've never done
192. 10:42that before that was interesting yeah
193. 10:49[Music]