Feminist Founders Subscriber-Only Podcast

Becky Mollenkamp (00:01.134)
Hi, Faith, we're here to talk to our private podcast folks. And this is going to be very real time in the moment thoughts because literally before we hit record, I got an email that just struck my eye while you were getting ready that was talking about, well, it said the feminism in recession and talking about the backlash to gender equality. And we're not going to speak specifically to this study exactly because we don't have it and it just came across.

but kind of more generally about these kinds of studies and this kind of conversation that comes up and has come up again and again and again since dawn of time of women trying to assert themselves and push for better equality and or equity. And this article specifically was talking about a study that we don't have, we don't look at, but it's a global study. that also means it's not just American viewpoints, but talking about

Gen Z and millennials that over a third of them, and it's not just the men, although I have a feeling if I saw the stats, that's probably far more men than women, but that 36 % of Gen Z, 39 % of millennials believe that we've gone too far in promoting women's equality that we're now actually discriminating against men. It's the Andrew Tate message of the world that these young men are getting that, and then the trad wife,

sort of thing to, right? Those, the granola to MAGA pipeline and the same for like the, you know, cold plunges to MAGA pipeline. But I do think it's interesting. One, that these studies come out and have again and again and again. And two, is there, I don't know. I'm wondering if, how much of it is real?

Like, is there a bit of a backlash? it the word itself? Is it the spirit of what's happening? Is it just what inevitably happens when too many rights, when too much starts to shift, where white men start to lose more rights, there's always this kind of backlash and this reframing and the kind of this like, hey, let's put people back in their place, quote unquote. So I know you had some thoughts just about like language and stuff as well with study. So I'm curious what thoughts come up for you initially.

Faith Clarke (02:17.322)
And so as I'm thinking about this, I'm like, want to just own my own place in the colonizer framework. I have for sure done, you know, I have nine years of studying at the doctoral level and however many years before that post undergrad. And I say that to say not as a pride statement, it's a mark of.

acceptability and yet it's also a mark of my own entrenchment in the same system that makes a study like this possible. I just, whenever I hear study, I become skeptical because I've been the one looking at the data and the same data, two different people, two different eyeballs create two different stories. And I know how to tweak statistical

mechanisms to tell one story and then tweak it to tell another story. And I think there's a lot of, know, as we become more, we want data. So people give us the data to, to forward their own agenda. And so I'm like, I got to see the data myself. No, I get a little arrogance when I see stuff that disagrees with my own bias. And so I think we all have to disown our own bias where stuff like this is concerned. I think.

Until we see the study that says the pay gap between men and women is closed. Until we see the study that says the fact that women are in high school, in colleges doing quote unquote as well as men. And then that translates into what happens in the workplace. Until I see.

those gaps close until I see the gap between health outcomes for men and women close. This makes, no, I don't think we've gone overboard. No, whether that's about what these people think feminism is and is this really based on a critical analysis or what these people think centering women mean.

Becky Mollenkamp (04:20.056)
Yeah

Faith Clarke (04:34.888)
you know, is it really possible either spaces where men are being discriminated against? Possibly. But is that, is that about, that space? Is that about, I don't know what that is about and I'd want to look at that. But if across the board, we still have these gaps that have this gender line, then I'm like, no, something definitely has to be done. I personally was not, did not consider myself a feminist. It felt like a white woman term.

And it took me some time. have to acknowledge that that was a lot of that was about me not knowing what feminism meant. And I identify as Christian. And when I hear people saying, Christian is this or that and oppressing and this and that, then I acknowledge that, yeah, not for me in the way I understand it, right? So I had to get close to feminists who interpreted it a particular way.

and listen to how they interpret it and why and recognize myself in them. And then I said, yeah, I am feminist based on these definitions to, am trying to create a certain kind of world. And yeah, I do think that I need to center women and center women's needs to do that. So.

Becky Mollenkamp (05:42.008)
Yeah.

Becky Mollenkamp (05:53.87)
Well, I'm going to shed a little more light onto this for you because I clicked a little farther while you were talking. So first of all, it was 24,000 people over 30 countries, but the bulk of them, 23,765 were from Canada, Republic of Ireland, Malaysia, New Zealand, South Africa, Turkey, and the US. So it's an interesting group, but we can probably guess that some of those nations might have different views than if this was a US centric.

survey. But so the bulk of those countries, although it was 30 countries, the bulk of it was like seven countries. And this is, I think it's very interesting as you dive deeper, as I suspected, the bulk of the people who don't identify as feminists are men, and those who do are women. And what's interesting and sad to me, because I think you and I are both Gen X. And

Our generation, I don't know what happened to us. It makes me very sad. I don't know if it's our age, but somehow fewer, the generation that least identifies as feminist for women is our generation. Even more baby boomers do than we do. That's sad. But when you look at the numbers, millennials and Gen Z, goes way up. 53 % of Gen Z women identify as feminist. And that's probably without any definition.

I highly doubt they said a feminist is this, right? It's just, do you identify with this term? And like you said, that might immediately exclude some folks, especially younger folks who maybe haven't yet gone to college, haven't taken women's studies, haven't under, like been in experience with other folks who are looking at feminism in a certain way. They may have in their mind a very white centric, because it has been very white centric view of what feminism is. So there may be even more who would actually identify with a term like womanist or humanist or some other word.

that isn't feminist, but they very much share the same ideals. So there's that. And then when we go to the one about has it gone too far in promoting equality and discriminating against men, 57 % of Gen Z men and 56 % of millennial men say yes, whereas only 36 % of Gen Z women and 39 % of millennial women say yes. That's still an astonishing high number, I think, among women. Makes me sad. But there's a very big difference that's happened. And I don't know how much of that is they're young.

Becky Mollenkamp (08:10.592)
And they are ignorant. And I don't mean that in like stupid way. mean, like, they just haven't had as much life experience, college experience. They haven't learned as much yet. They don't know as much. So that those opinions might change because the older men are much closer to their women in beliefs than younger men. The gap gets so much bigger between men and women as the generations go on. And that's that's interesting. So anyway, there's more data there. And it does make this

It feels a little bit like the framing, as always, as you said, is, which is interesting coming from Cosmo, should supposed to be a women's publication that you would think would put a better spin on the stuff. But I guess it's to get people to read, which it worked. But so what it just says to me is there is something with younger men that is a little troubling. And I've been seeing and hearing that play out with the Andrew Tates and the Joe Rogan's and the, you know, information coming out, but maybe it's not as.

Bad as we thought because young women get it.

Faith Clarke (09:11.01)
I think there's also something about, you know, we were just in our other podcast recording talking about vision. And I think, you know, the importance of history, like there is no understanding where we're going without understanding where we've been. you know, me in college, I didn't do women's at all. I was an engineering and science student. And so,

I only had stereotyped, stereotypic pictures of what these things meant and had to learn from my colleagues who also studied this. And I'm not saying the only way to kind of have a critical framing of this is through college, but it definitely, it's like people saying that they understand my story just by looking at me for 15 minutes. And so there is something about the non-telling of the story.

just the conversations about black history, the conversations about women's history, like that story needs to be threaded through so that people standing today understand what's the journey been. And I don't know that that's being expressed in some of the ways that some of the iconic feminists, Audre Lorde and so on, were talking about it in really direct ways. And so maybe.

Becky Mollenkamp (10:34.52)
Well, now the schools are taking out. I just wonder what that's going to do. Like, it's interesting the timing of this and thinking about it, because it's coming on the heels of, you know, a great deal of progress. Not enough progress, not the progress you and I want to see all of that, but definitely a great deal of progress for folks who are not white men, right? For all sorts of marginalized identities, we've come on decades now of progress.

And so that includes, I think, more robust education around these issues, because the stripping away of that education is only now beginning. It wouldn't be reflected in a poll like this. Now, granted, it's not all US, so there is that. And I don't know how much education is happening in these other parts of the world around some of these issues around gender. But I feel like in the US anyway, that has been. And so it's strange that in a way for me to sit with the idea that more education has actually led to men feeling

young men feeling more isolated. And I just wonder if it's that natural defensiveness that comes up. I wonder if our education, I don't think stripping away the education is the answer, but I wonder if we haven't done a good enough job of, don't want to say having compassion for those with the privileged identities, because that's not it. But finding a way to have those conversations.

in a way that allows all involved to feel less personally responsible or something. Because I just don't know what it is that's making young men feel. The question that actually bothers me the most is men are being expected to do too much to support equality. And that statement is the one where there was the biggest difference between men and women of all age groups, but especially the younger men, 60 % of Gen Z and 50 % of

57 % of millennial men said, yeah, men are being expected to do too much to support equality, whereas the women were much lower. And I just don't know, like, how do we address that in education? Because obviously what we've been doing isn't working if this is the results it's getting. I don't think getting rid of the education around, I mean, I think we need more Audre Lorde, not less, but I wonder if that's the answer in and of itself, or if there's something about the way it's being delivered that is not working.

Faith Clarke (12:56.522)
Yeah, I don't think it's about education, although education is part of the thing. I think all we have to, for me, all I have to do is swap out another, swap out this identity for another identity, right? And so let's use autism. so I, non-autistic people have to do too much to create,

equity for people with autism. I'm like, that's just a bullshit. You know, so the fact that that's in place, it is not the temptation to say, okay, so women need to do more to help men feel less defensive. No, no, that's the whole playing into the same game. That is the...

Becky Mollenkamp (13:31.694)
Of course!

Faith Clarke (13:52.862)
the game and so I, there's something about, I do think that everybody is getting educated in informal ways and I think that the educational rhetoric for men perhaps has gotten stronger as part of the pushback and I might need, because I didn't, I personally have not had a very strong like, what do do with my children?

you know, around some of these issues. And I think that that's probably whether it's in families, in personal relationships, like where are we keeping the story alive? And it doesn't have to be in the kind of like pro-militant ways, but there has to be, my grandmother would tell me about her mother and I mention and talk about my mother and my grandmother to my kids. And I'm like, where are the stories of women's journeys?

and what's needed happening and being kept alive. And there's a way that perhaps the perception of progress makes the story, the story is told in less compelling ways. I'm not sure, but I definitely.

Becky Mollenkamp (15:02.37)
Well, and when I say we need to do it differently, like, I feel gross saying it. That's why I was struggling with how to say it, because I don't even know if that's it. Now I'm just like, maybe this is just the natural backlash that happens on the heels of progress, right? And that if we, unfortunately, I feel like we're in a state now where we're, the powers that be, not us, but like, you know, the systems are responding to this kind of data in a way that's going to

make the people who responded this way happy, right? Like the negative folks here, the men are getting what they want in this moment, right? They're like, yeah, we're going to get rid of all of the things that have made you feel this way. Rather than saying, no, the progress wasn't the problem. Your response to it is the problem. And I don't know. think there is a part where it's that discomfort piece that we talk about in the framework as well. Maybe that's, I think that's what I'm saying.

I wonder if we don't do a good enough job of educating people, whether it's in the school system or just in familial settings. like, I don't think, not even I wonder, because I know we don't do a good enough job. Certainly, at least I see inside of many white communities of helping people sit with discomfort. But I also see it in men, that sort of fragile male ego thing. I just don't think that people have learned to sit in discomfort. So their reaction to discomfort is representative in this kind of polling.

Right? I'm uncomfortable so I don't like it. Instead of I'm uncomfortable so I should learn more. I'm uncomfortable so I want to know more. I'm uncomfortable. Let me lean into that to discover more and see what this is about and why women are feeling so different than me. Right? It's just I'm uncomfortable. So I'm going to say, no, I'm not a feminist. I'm uncomfortable. Right? Yeah. I think I'm having to do too much to help with all quality. I'm uncomfortable. So I think what I'm saying, are we doing enough to help men and or white people or whoever the people with the privilege identities?

I don't think it's about like coddling to them, but I wonder if there's just not enough learning how to be uncomfortable. And so as soon as we get uncomfortable, we go into like, I'm against it. Instead of it becoming, I'm uncomfortable, so let me learn more. Let me lean in. I'm uncomfortable, so I'm going to lean back. Does that make sense? And I don't know that there's a great answer to that, but that's, think, what I mean when I say like, are we doing enough here?

Faith Clarke (17:17.8)
Yeah, I think the question is who's the we, you know, because our men who are, who acknowledge that they need to do more to create platform for women, are those men doing enough to help other men, to use their privilege like we were talking about earlier, to create more and invite more people in? Are they doing enough? Are the women doing enough? They're doing all they can.

Becky Mollenkamp (17:35.244)
Yeah.

Faith Clarke (17:47.122)
You know, I...

Becky Mollenkamp (17:47.894)
No, you're right. Who should be doing it is these baby boomer men whose numbers are so much lower on every count than their sons or grandsons. know, I don't know if the baby boomers, millennials are probably their kids. Gen Z are probably their grandkids. Their message isn't getting through to their kids and grandkids because they are far more in alignment with women of all, they're better than the Gen Xers, right? Than on these things. And where are they? And I agree with, where are they? Where are those?

the older men rather than just saying, you know, I don't have to deal with that. That's them. That's not how I show up. You're right. Where are they to lead these young men?

Faith Clarke (18:26.1)
think it's all for every privilege, all of us are fragile through the lens of a privilege identity. And so through the lens of that privilege identity in dealing with our fragility, our question has to be, how am I kind of showing up to help break the power hold of my privileged identity, right? So that I'm creating more equity. it's like, I think all of us have to, how am I doing that?

So it's all the men, regardless of generation. I remember when I don't know whose interview it was and this man said, I am a feminist. And I'm like, yes, because it's not about being in a woman's body. It is about how do we create more equity in the world? Oh, these people.

are way out on the edges. How do we widen the world to center them so that their needs are met? And that's not the thing about which body you're in, you know.

Becky Mollenkamp (19:31.042)
Yeah, I mean, there's 30 % of Gen Z men who say they are feminists. I want them to be more vocal. This 28 % of Gen Z men who think that a man who stays home with his children is less of a man, that sucks, but that means there's 70 % of those Gen Z men who don't think that. Let's get them more vocal. I agree. And it's the same when we see these surveys about white folks, right? And like, those differences. And that's where I step up and say, I need to do more. And when I see something like this, I...

we need to see more coming out of men because something is wrong. Something's amiss with how our young men are feeling. And I think some of that is very much just a natural backlash, maybe all of it, to the wind of change going in the other direction. But I think the problem is we're in a time where instead of saying, no, get uncomfortable,

And we know these numbers will eventually change as people, as this becomes more the norm and they develop more comfort just by exposure. Instead, we're responding by saying, you're uncomfortable, let me fix that for you, right? Let me take care of that so you don't have to be uncomfortable anymore. So now we're back to making everyone who's not a white man uncomfortable so that those white men can be comfortable. And that sucks. But that's what we're trying to break here.

Faith Clarke (20:47.732)
Yeah, yeah. Saw a real yesterday last night with a brown man just saying, you know, like his white friends, quite enjoys this particular type of conversation. He's being a little sarcastic because they were like, it's a tough time to be a white man. And he says to them, he's like, I usually say, tell me more. And as they describe his own lived experience for his whole life, it's like, yeah, I mean, people are gonna just not give me, you know, not say,

Becky Mollenkamp (21:02.35)
No.

Faith Clarke (21:17.258)
stuff to me because I'm white and maybe I don't get invited into such and such because I'm white. And it's like, oh, that must be tough for you. know, it's like part of this is about, the thing that you're reacting to is the every minute experience of all kinds of other people and you had no idea. And maybe just that you're just for this moment, it feels a little bit sucky to you.

Becky Mollenkamp (21:35.864)
Now

Faith Clarke (21:40.19)
Let's just have a minute, just have a minute because even at this point where you're saying I have less access, you still have more access than this whole bunch of other people. But you just noticing, wow, I I have a little less access and that, that, that feels some kind of way to me.

Becky Mollenkamp (21:56.972)
Yeah, well, that's where framing is so important, like you mentioned earlier with language, because imagine if they had asked that question differently. The question is, man who stays at home with his children is left to look after his children is less of a man. And they say, yes, but what if they had said a man who stays home to look after his children, you know, misses out on work opportunities, you know, who has his career suffer in the same way women have for the entirety of human existence, right?

then that changes things, right? Because you're having to see yourself in a different light. Sure, you can say, yeah, they're less of a man. But what does it mean to be less of a man? you mean more like what you've historically thought of a woman being. And is that a negative then? Right, like calling that out a bit more. And I think that's so right. That's right.

Faith Clarke (22:41.962)
I I get, touch you when I look at how questions are framed because of like the qualitative research and means like clearly those questions reflect your bias. So that doesn't, you know, it doesn't feel credible to me at all. was the purpose of it was to get some data that's interesting and create dialogue or not dialogue, maybe polarizing, yeah, polarizing discourse, you know, and yeah, different from what's actually happening in people. But when we ask questions like that,

Becky Mollenkamp (22:52.205)
Mm-hmm.

Becky Mollenkamp (23:02.894)
controversy a little. Yeah.

Faith Clarke (23:11.272)
you what do we expect to get?

Becky Mollenkamp (23:12.972)
Right, men are expected to do too much to support equality. So it could have been like, have historically not been asked to do enough to support equality, right? That would be just as valid of a question and it wasn't asked that way. I mean, really this is just more about like a conversation about how we get to these places. And I think the big thing for me too is I have as a Gen Xer, I have some history as you do with.

decades of seeing these kinds of studies come out. I remember in the 90s when I was a baby feminist and these similar sorts of things coming out and talking about feminism's dead, young people today don't identify as feminists. And here we are 40 years later, make me sad that I'm, no, it's great. It's great that I'm not old. But here we are having the same conversation, right? So I think part of the reason I wanted to hit record on this too is just because I'm sure this was designed.

to get news and it probably will, right? It just came out today. So there's probably a lot of news coming out about it. And I kind of want at least our people that are listening to this to have some frame of reference as they begin to hear the stories, as they begin to explore it as ways for them to maybe turn the conversation on its head with other folks to invite that like curiosity and that discovery. If you have some man saying like, well, feminism's dead. I saw a survey, right? That you can start to ask some questions about how they came to that.

What does feminism mean? What kinds of questions were asked, right? Who's being asked? do you, does that reflect how you feel? And tell me about that. I think that can be helpful.

Faith Clarke (24:46.73)
Yeah, yeah, I think also it's just to own the fact that we all have some implicit biases that feed, that don't serve us. you know, I have, having grown in a majority in this period of time, a majority white, patriarchal society, I have biases that put me at a disadvantage.

And so when, as a person in business trying to create this world of the future, part of moving against those biases requires a certain amount of intention and therefore a discomfort, right? So I have to own that because of the world that I live in. Without my focused attention, I am going to be more critical of black service providers. I'm gonna be critical, more critical of black store owners or whatever.

just based on the air that I breathe in terms of making choices. So you read a survey like this, it's feeding into a certain type of bias. And then without my intention, I am making a hiring decision or a business decision. And I find myself leaning without my awareness towards the person that is male because I don't want to be perceived as feminine, whatever it is that's operating underneath. And so...

A lot of us have to kind of wait a second, what's going on here? And what are my biases and what's my kind of, you know, the fast thinking, slow thinking system, that instinct knee jerk, what's that? And what fed that? And then when I'm being intentional, what am I actually trying to create?

Becky Mollenkamp (26:26.251)
Yeah.

Becky Mollenkamp (26:30.444)
or it gets used to feed the narrative that's happening in America anyway, right, at this moment, and I think across the globe in lot of places, to justify the systemic changes that are happening for the worse, right? To say, well, in the same way Trump's like, I got a mandate, even though it's not a mandate, this kind of data can also be used to say, well, this is what people want, clearly. This is, look at the surveys, right? And so being able to have a response to that, having thought about

I think it's valuable. So thank you. know this was like sprung on you, but I think it's an interesting conversation. I'll include the link to the study also in show notes for anyone who wants to take a look at it themselves and learn a little more, not just about the reporting on the study, like the actual data that they provided so you can take a look. So thank you for talking about this with me. I think it's interesting.

Faith Clarke (27:20.682)
You're welcome. You're welcome.