Speaker 1: Girls are running the world and it's not going well.
So called artists reimagine Confederate monuments and the many reasons
why you shouldn't cheer for surrogacy. All that and more
on The Kylie Cast. Hi everybody, and welcome to the
Kylie Cast. I'm Kylie Griswold, Managing editor at The Federalist.
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Federalist dot com. I would love to hear from you.
I read an article this week that I can't stop
thinking about, and in fact, it seems to have caught
a lot of people's attention. It's a piece by Helen
Andrews in Compact magazine called The Great Feminization, and in
it she makes the case quite persuasively in my opinion
that everything we would conceptualize as wokeness is the byproduct
of a feminized society. En mass I mean, just think
about it. Political correctness, identity, politics, the me too movement,
cultural affirmative action, DEI, social emotional learning. All of it involves,
in Helen's words, quote, prioritizing the feminine over the masculine,
empathy over rationality, safety over risk, cohesion over competition end quote.
This is in part explained by the general differences in
how men and women approach conflict. While men are wired
for war, they're primed to compartmentalize. They deal with conflict
directly and swiftly. Women tend to be much more cooperative
and risk averse. Instead of dealing with their competitors head
on like men do, they tend to isolate or undermine
them quietly and behind the scenes. Helen writes, quote, men
tend to be better at compartmentalizing than women, and wokeness was,
in many ways a society wide failure to compartmentalize. Traditionally,
an individual doctor might have opinions on the political issues
of the day, but he would regard it as his
professional duty. To keep those opinions out of the examination room.
Now that medicine has become more feminized, doctors wear pins
and lanyards expressing views on controversial issues, from gay rights
to gaza. They even bring the credibility of their profession
to bear on political facts, as when doctors said Black
Lives Matter protests could continue in violation of COVID lockdowns
because racism was a public health emergency end quote. She
observes that probably the most detrimental sector of this feminization
is the legal profession, because, after all, we all lie
on law and order and blind justice, a reliable legal
system that can call balls and strikes against an impartial law.
Helen says, quote to be blunt. The rule of law
will not survive the legal profession becoming majority female. The
rule of law is not just about writing rules down.
It means following them, even when they yield an outcome
that tugs at your heart strings or runs contrary to
your gut sense of which party is more sympathetic end quote.
It's a long article. There's plenty more to agree with,
but readers also found some disagreements too. My colleague Joy
Pullman is an author and the executive editor at The Federalist,
and she wrote a response piece to Helen Andrews this
week in The Federalist titled Western culture isn't feminized, It's transgender,
and she joins me now to discuss Joy Welcome. Thanks
so much for coming on the Kylie Gust. Thank you,
Kylie Joy. I did want to highlight what I think
was probably your favorite passage of Helen's article, and it
was also mine. She wrote, quote, women can sue their
boss is for running a workplace that feels like a
fraternity house, but men can't sue when their workplace feels
like a Montessori kindergarten. Naturally, employers air on the side
of making the office softer. So if women are thriving
more in the modern workplace, is that really because they
are out competing men? Or is it because the rules
have been changed to favor them? End quote. So I
think you would largely agree with that sentiment, and I
want to start by just asking you to detail what
do you think are Helen's strongest points, Like what in
this article do you agree with?
Speaker 2: I actually would say that I agree with at least
ninety five percent of her article. I just in mind
kind of wanted to extend it and think about some
of the language that she's using. So, for example, I
kind of, I guess it's a little difficult for me
to hear all of these really terrible things described to
feminization when it's kind of only half of the story
I really see, you know, so the things that she
and in my response, I link to some work I've
done kind of engaging with a lot of different people
who have kind of made similar arguments over the past
couple of years on the right kind of like the
long house argument, for example, is a really popular sort
of thing, and I do see a lot of those
as being negative aspects of women. But what I see
as missing and if you're going to use the word
feminine or feminization but exclude all the positive things about
what women do, I think that's where the problem for
me comes in. And so I would just love for people,
you know, to use more of a refined term, such
as maybe toxic femininity to talk about you know, kind
of these you know, girls gone bad sorts of things,
these dynamics in our culture, because I think it is important,
you know, to really talk about the other half of
that what women do, that is good. There are actually
a lot of feminine attributes that we're really missing in
our culture and that are not only left out of
the conversation, but a lot of you know, women's lives,
everyday lives now. So I think we've just really lost
a complete picture of what femininity means and what you know,
the good parts of it could be. And I really
think if we brought back more of those good parts,
we would have less of the bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So you right in your piece that society actually
isn't feminine at all. Can you explain what you mean
by that?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean just when I look at around at
our society, I do not see a feminine world. I
see a world that is very hostile to women and
two children who I kind of see as you know,
one of the top concerns of a well adjusted woman
is you know, how the children are doing right and
part And I think in biologically speaking, psychologically speaking, a
lot of the uniqueness about women as compared to men
is because of our orientation towards children, you know, wherehereas men,
you know, an inward orientation towards the home, towards children
raising them. You know, while men tend to have more
of an outward orientation, kind of more outward facing, if
you would think of that. You know, so our society
is extremely hostile to children and two women. You know,
so if you look at for example, I mean, I
think the kind of the just one thing that we
never talk about or we pretend is a really good thing,
is the sexualization of our culture. You know, walking around now,
I'm just seeing naked women all the time, everywhere I go, billboards, everything,
I mean, so I can't know.
Speaker 1: I look.
Speaker 2: I use Pinterest for example, you know, to get recipes, right, Like,
I store my recipes on there, and so I'm flipping
through it while my kids are watching. There are there
are bra ads like every single page on my Pinterest,
and they're not you know, I'm totally comfortable with bras.
I like, you know, I wear them. I want to
wear nice ones, you know, nothing wrong with that, but
like these are basically what I would consider soft porn advertisements.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: And I have a seven year old, you know, looking
at me helping you in the kitchen, you know, with dinner,
and she's seeing really straight aut pornographic stuff and that's
completely wrong and there's no warning on it, and that
I think that's just because it's become normalized. Other people
don't see it as pornographic, but it really is. And
that's just because you know, everybody's watching porn. Our culture
is just really you know, transformed in that direction. But
that is not a pro woman thing, you know, because
really the value of women decreases when other women are
putting out right, you know, the way that women get
the commitment that we want, the security you know of marriage,
the you know, a man to provide for us while
we're vulnerable having children. You know, really we have to
have this compact with other women that they're not going
to be servicing you know, men sexually for free otherwise.
You know, it really bids you know, down the price
of reserving that for a guy and what you have
to offer for him in a marriage. So that's you know,
one of the things that I bring up in the article.
I mean, our culture is really I mean treating women
like men, basically saying in order for women to get
a head in life or to be given any sort
of recognition or honor, they have to neuter themselves with chemicals,
you know, really mess with their you know, their emotions,
their entire bodies, you know, dump themselves for full of
synthetic hormones with the pill and all kinds of other contraception.
Speaker 1: You know, there is zero regard.
Speaker 2: Given for the fact that women are biologically different than
men and you know, accommodations for you know, that sort
of thing. Rather, you know, women are basically said, you know,
freeze your eggs, you know, screw kids, you don't really
want those, and just pushing to career, career, career, career
is the only way that you give me value. I
think that's inherently anti woll. It's sold to us as
pro women, but I think it's deeply anti women because
it negates who we are, as fertile, different than men
beings in order to gain any sort of honor acceptance,
you know, or you know, pats on the back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Well, and there's so many things we see
regularly that are just I don't know how you sweare
them with this idea that society, that feminization is just
the best way to describe exactly what's happening in society. Right,
So it's not feminine at all to look at a
protest and see half naked women screaming in the phases
of police officers. There's nothing feminine about that, or there's
nothing in right, or when Helen writes about women prioritizing
safety over risk, well, are women prioritizing safety over risk
when they take chemical abortion pills prescribed to them by
a telehealth practitioner that you could send them to the
er and bleed out hemorrhaging, you know, because they might
have an ectopic pregnancy that they don't know about or something.
It's we've been told this is feminized because this is
what feminism looks like, quote unquote, But there isn't anything
feminine about it at all. And you talk a little
bit about the fertility rates in your piece. I'd also
just love to hear you talk a bit about other
ways that we have just an anti child culture, you know,
from abortion to not having children friendly events or you know,
weddings or whatever else might fit into that category.
Speaker 2: I loved your monologue last week, you know, for example,
talking about the ghoulishness you know in people's yards that's
completely anti children, right. You know, a couple of blocks
from my home, we've got like this, you know, basically
guy you know, in a noose, decapitated, you know, with
all this blood dripping all around.
Speaker 1: You know, my child?
Speaker 2: What am I I'm not supposed to let my children
play in the neighborhood, you know, where they live, so
that they don't have to see terrifying things that haunt
them in their sleep, you know. And I know, I
mean I saw the replies on that. You know, people
with dead and consciences, you know, sitting there is being like,
what's wrong with you? You want to have a little fun? No,
these people have warped consciences. They're not thinking about the children.
You know, they're basically you know, putting themselves first over
what if they had kids, you know, they would have
a better I mean, some people can have kids and
still be totally messed up and not great people, you know,
but it does tend to have a refining effect on
the majority of people, and people absolutely are less likely
to put out that kind of gore and garbage. And
that's just a really trivial surface example, you know, of
our culture's kind of anti kid nature. But I really
think just the fact that you know, women don't want
babies nowadays. I think it's fifty percent you know, of
women under fifty actively don't want children. That is almost
unheard of in the history of humankind. You know, women always, always,
always wanted children, you know some I mean to the
you know, to the extent that there are you know, old, ancient,
you know stories about women, you know, I mean it's
it's kind of a trope, right, you know, woman gets
a baby and then she ignores her husband, right, you know,
the husbands have to compete with the baby for the
wife's attention after the baby comes. And you know, so
it is an innate biological, you know, female wired in
sort of thing to want a baby. And so the
fact that we have you know, and I and you
know included among them, have you know, have been working
on that defeminist you know, feministization process for myself, right,
you know, but it is a real problem when you
have a society where people treat babies as trash, disposable, disgusting,
you know, all of these opposite of the the true natural,
biological correct action of an actual female.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and in the piece specifically, Helen talks about
the New York Times staff for instance, that I forget
the year she used, but it was ten percent female
and now it's like vastly more female staff at the
New York Times and how that affects the way that
people perceive things, because of course, no matter, no matter
if you're reading The New York Times on a regular
basis or not, it sets the terms of debates, and
you know, it determines what's in the news and so
on and so forth. But it's just interesting because then
you'll you'll have corporate media, legacy media running articles. I
think this was from the Times, although it may have
been the Washington Post. So many of those are just
indistinguishable in my mind at this point. But about you know,
the Motherhood Penalty, where they're running a piece about how
awful it is to be a mother and how women
are just totally screwed once they have a baby, you know,
and that's not a unique piece the artists calls about
to rich tech bros.
Speaker 2: You know, or the women who sold their eggs, you know,
and have no one to live with for the rest
of their life after their you know, their entire uterus
dries up. You know, who are lonely. You know, they
have no one to come home to but their dogs
or potted plants. You know, who are staring at the
second half of their life with nothing to look forward
to besides freaking money. You know, that is absolutely a
set of articles that could be run right that would
be the mirror image of that, and then you can
show you know, the woman a relief. They have someone
to come home to, they have someone to snuggle with,
they have you know, grandkids, games to go to, they
have meaning in their life. They have people who need
them and rely on them and love them and want
them like no one else. And I mean that's you know,
so I go off for work for a business trip,
you know, I come home, you know, for the next week,
I'm like the celebrity at home. The kids are all
like all over me, mommy, mommy, mommy. And you can
either take that as oh, that's so annoying, you know,
or you can be like, wow, these people love me
like nobody else. I'm such a rich person, you know.
Rich in the world matters so much more than money.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, well, I mean you can argue that it's
what our modern culture would define as as feminine, but
what it really is is feminist. It's their definition of
this list.
Speaker 2: Which is anti stand sex.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, they're wearing feminine as a skin suit, when
really femininism is the antithesis to everything that is that
is feminine. Your headline is pretty punchy. I want to know,
what do you mean when you say that Western culture
is transgender. Well, so, the the what.
Speaker 2: I mean by that simply is that, you know, as
we're discussing, you know, women are not pushed to act
like women. They're pushed to act like men nowadays. But
also the corollary is true, men are not pushed to
act like men, they are pushed to act like women. Right,
so we have this total swap we don't have we
you know, we have the feminization of men, but we
have the masculinization of women. And so that's why I
say that our culture is transgender, because you know, if
it was truly a feminine culture, I think we would
see some of the good things about being feminine as
well as the women.
Speaker 1: But instead we only have.
Speaker 2: The trashy garbage stuff about you know, women being bleached
to both sexes, you know, and and you know then
the masculinization being extended to women. So I think, rather
than you know, we just have one sided equation here,
which I think, whether that being a one sided kind
of you know situation, we have a dual side, and
we have a swap. And that's of course because the
sex is live and balance with each other. We are
a dynamic or interrelated. We can't have one without the other.
Men are not to women as a fish is to
a bicycle. And you know, men and women need each other.
We can't get by without each other, and we have
to figure out how to live together in happiness and harmony,
you know, rather than being at war all the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I want to put up a passage from your
piece actually because this gets to that point, and I
thought it was just really excellent. You write about a
speech you delivered a year ago to the Ego Forum,
and you write, quote, are we experiencing a cultural overfeminization?
It looks to me like instead we have a swap.
We have feminization where there should be masculinity, and masculinization
where there should be femininity. Our women are pushed to
act like men and are men to act like women,
and the resulting social transgenderism makes everyone extremely unhappy, not
to mention dysfunctional end quote. And then I love this part.
Do we have too many weak men and unhitched women? Absolutely?
So we're gone conclusion. I'd argue However, that's because our
society has reversed men and women's roles, and in so
doing abandoned both masculinity and femininity. We are not too feminine.
Our women are not feminine enough, and our men are
not masculine enough. I thought that was such a good point,
and it just seems to be seems to me that
what you're saying is that it's really a problem of
disordering society. So these feminine traits would actually be good
if they were rightly ordered toward child rearing, and but
they're catastrophic when they're brought into the boardroom or brought
to safety dominie men's instead of children a baby.
Speaker 2: Say that again, I said, safety before risk is a
good way to protect a baby. Yes, And to putting
risk above safety is a good way for a man
to protect his family. Right, he puts himself in front
of the bullet, right, he goes and checks out the
funny noise in the garage, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's such a great point.
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Speaker 1: I also love that you bring it all the way
back to the Garden of Eden. Helen talks a lot
about how this overfeminization is unprecedented, and I mean, in
many ways it is. You know, we have somewhat of
a unique problem in twenty first century America in its
current form. But at the same time, you know, there's
nothing new under the sun, and men have been abdicating
this leadership role and blaming women for the results since
the very first man and woman, since the very first sin.
I mean, it's this is not a new thing.
Speaker 2: Well right, And I mean, so this is tricky I
mean to talk about, but I think at the bottom
line is if men really are supposed to be the leaders,
the heads of the households, the heads of government, the
heads of society. You know, if they really have that
role naturally speaking, you know, then you know, a leader
doesn't whine and refuse to take responsibility and blame shift,
I mean, and so really men are abdicating their masculinity
and their leadership role when they sit around and just
whinge about how women are the problem. I agree that
many women are a problem, and I agree that one
have been socialized to be dysfunctional, you know, not helpful
antagonistic to man. I understand that men have a very big,
uphill legal and cultural battle, you know, in order to
kind of like you know, a very you know, it's
not going to be an easy, you know, kind of
cake walk to kind of take the places that they
believe are rightfully theirs and to kind of reverse the situation.
And I do think that women need to be in
partnership with them and helping, let you know, men with
this task, just as we you know, are supposed to
be in partnership with and helping men with every good thing.
But at the same time, you know, where does the
buck stop.
Speaker 1: You know, anyone who is a.
Speaker 2: Leader knows, I mean, I know in our society. This
is messed up too, but right, you know, But but
traditionally speaking a properly a well a siety with accountability,
the leader takes responsibility for what, you know, other people's
failures under his leadership or lack of leadership. And so
if the men are saying, you know, it's right, you know,
women are trying to be you know, the she boss
taking you know, we're in the pants, blah blah blah. Okay,
but you're letting them. And that's and so I mean,
I don't in saying this, of course, I think there
are stupid ways to go about writing that problem, you know,
writing that problem, and there's smarter ways to do it,
and I want men to do that in a smart way.
But I just you know, I do think acknowledging and
talking about the situation is the first step. But just
sitting there is not acceptable. It's not going to get
people anywhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's get into a little bit of what you
think some of the right ways are to write the
ship here because Helen offers a nuking anti discrimination laws
as a good way to start reversing this trend. Because
what happens is because corporations and other institutions are afraid
of lawsuits. If it doesn't look like they have enough
enough women on their employee roster, then they can be
sued and lose just I mean, so many figures worth
of money there have been. She detailed a number of
companies that have fallen into this. I think Coca Cola
was one, there were plenty of others. And so, of
course you're always going to have this trend toward over
hiring women so that you don't get sued. And so
of course getting rid of some of these anti discrimination
laws would help that because you would have more of
a market correction there. But how else, how else do
we fix not only the what she calls the overfeminization,
but this transgender transgenderism of society that you that you
talk about.
Speaker 2: Well, I think one thing that could help is for
people to back men who do masculine and courageous things
that really get a lot of you know, females testyle
whining and response. So, for example, take you know a
very recent issue, you know, the Young Republicans group chat right,
You know, those were a bunch of men basically making
masculine jokes, and someone wanted to be a trader to
them and you know, docs them, you know in the public.
You know, I think you know, and so those men
you know have been basically you know, turned on. I
think they need to be backed the way same way
that Elon Musk, you know, when he had some doxing
of the young men that he was hiring for Doge.
You know, he put out a public poll. He said, Okay,
you know they said some stupid stuff. They're sorry for it,
or if it was public, they wouldn't have.
Speaker 1: Said it that way.
Speaker 2: Should I rehire them? A majority of people that absolutely
rehire them, right, And I think the same thing, you know,
would be the way to treat the young Republican groups.
Speaker 1: Text.
Speaker 2: Obviously they do not actually support you know, putting people
in ovens. They are not Hitler supporters. You know, those
are jokes. And young men say, you know, just ridiculous
stuff to each other all the time. You know, they
tell their best friends, you know, they you know, they
call them squear words, blah blah blah, all this ridicult
stuff that they don't believe. And that's understood you know,
in male culture. And so I think men really need
to have the backing. They need to know that people
have their back. If they're going to get out there
and act like a men, act like a man, you
know that people are not going to you know, turn
on them and knife them for displaying basic male behavior.
I mean, it's it's ridiculous, you know that young you know,
men can be in trouble for making jokes like that,
you know, while you know, we have powerful people. For example,
in the Senate, there's all of these you know, concealed
agreements about you know, actual sexual assault you know, done
by Senate senators, congressmen and their staffers, you know, and
nothing is happening to them. It's all being concealed, right,
you know. So there's just a ridiculous hierarchy that basically
needs to be you know, upended by people with power,
backing people who you know, men when they behave like
men when they're actually not doing anything wrong. And we also,
you know, I think we do see some masculine kind
of leadership out of the Trump administration that a lot
more people need to kind of emulate, you know, when
when they do something that's bold, you know that you
know that is obviously good for people that has obviously
a lot of court, but you know they you know,
get the kind of attempted cancel culture sort of stuff.
They just ignore it. They say you're stupid, and they
move on. And that's really what should happen, you know,
with other people, not just those who have the clout
or the level you know of a JD. Vans or
a Donald Trump, but the people who are under them,
who are trying to put things to order, you know,
in an aggressive way. Different For example, attorneys general of
states are also you know, have taken on that mold.
I think I think, you know, more governors, more state
lawmakers really need to just be refashing themselves into you know,
the masculine like you know, I don't care about what
you're going to say. I care about the results here,
and we're going to do them because we have the
authority given to us by the voters kind of thing.
And so, you know, more of that needs to be
happening with Republican elected officials. And you know, the people
who do that need to be backed by their voters,
backed by their donors, back to you know, by whatever
supporters of people. They need to be given jobs, et cetera,
et cetera, so that you know, basically the you know,
the the ability to take people down for taking masculine
action evaporates completely.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's probably a role on a more
interpersonal level too, you know, not the not the screw you,
I don't care what you say when you're getting tisk tisked,
you know, by the local Karen on your Facebook page
or whatever, but more more so just normalizing rational responses
to things, asking people follow up questions why do you
feel comfortable saying that? Or you know, And there's a
lot of workplaces where the crazy HR Karens, whether or
not they're actually in an HR position, you know, just
the more like Karen lefties feel very comfortable saying exactly
what they think about anything and correcting anybody who says
anything that they view as stepping, you know, a little
over the line from a conservative perspective, or you know,
a little too fraternity house ish, as Helen would say.
But nobody feels comfortable pushing back on the Karens who
push a little bit too far in the other direction,
or who you know, say things that are anti religion
at work, or things that are just like you know,
that should be out of bounds from the other direction.
And so I think just We've seen people model this
really well lately, like watching Alibeth Stucky's Jubilee interview. The
way that she challenges a lot of these you know,
culturally feminine, preconceived ideas that are more tug at your
heartstrings arguments rather than rational, rational discussion. I think is
such a good model for people in their interpersonal life.
You know, it doesn't just need to come from the
top down. We like, we can fix this from from
the bottom up, or at least at least make progress.
Speaker 2: Well, that's so, I do think that this toxic femininity
is largely created by you know, male acquiescence and refusal
to kind of stand up and take you know, to
take authority. Just so, I just think that more people,
both men and women, need to practice and enforce just
saying no to toxic females. Yeah, no, you know, I'm
not you know, I'm not going to participate in this situation. No,
I know, I disagree with you, and we can just
leave it there, you know, if they keep it up
saying no, I left it there, you know, just but
practicing whatever, you know, forms of just saying no and
sticking by your no and just refusing to allow their
you know, ridiculous cluster b tactics to dominate the situation.
You know, people, we need a lot more practice with
that because I think kind of the lack of boundaries,
the lack of social norm enforcement, you know that's going
on just you know, it allows like kind of the
chaos agents to have full reign of the public square.
And so there needs to be a lot more people
saying no and enforcing their no in whatever situation that
you're in when somebody is being really toxic in you know,
a feminine way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, Joy, great insights. Thank you so much for
joining me. Everybody should go read Joy's article Western culture
isn't feminized, It's transgender. Go give it a read. And Joy,
I hope to have you back again very soon. Thank you.
All right. Next up, there is a crazy story we
need to talk about this week, which involves a new
museum exhibit that features those Confederate statues that went away
over the past few years. But they are back in
a different form than they went away. And here to
discuss that with me is my colleague and friend el Pernell.
You've seen it before, you love her. Welcome l Hey, Kyleie,
great to be back. She is the assignment editor at
The Federalist, and she is also bringing with her a
secondary special guest, which is a brand new addition to
her family. I should clarify she got a dog, she
got a puppy. Tell us about your dog.
Speaker 5: L Yeah, you might see her interrupting our our recording here,
so so I apologize. But we've got a little yellow
lab puppy and she is absolutely wonderful, but definitely in
the biting phase that they always warn you about. So
we'll see how how far she lets me get before.
Speaker 1: She interrupts me. Yeah, we'll see what we can do.
But if you hear anybody chewing in the background, it's
it's Skipper, it's not Lle. So ye. Yeah, I'm not
going to call you a dog mom though, because that
term offends me. So you're you're a dog owner. Now.
Speaker 5: I like to say that dogs are are members of
the family, but not children.
Speaker 1: That's a great distinction. Yeah, at a very federalisty take.
So way to just bring that in there. Yeah, well, oh,
you wrote a piece this week. It's out today. It's
about these new Wealth, these old Confederate statues, monuments that
have been restored. I put that in quotes to a
museum exhibit. Your piece is called left wing cultural revolutionaries
are decapitating statues and calling it art. The statue in
question is, well, it was formerly a statue of Stonewall Jackson,
the Confederate leader, but the statue no longer looks like
Stonewall Jackson. Can you fill us in on what exactly
happened to this, what the exhibit entails, and just kind
of describe the coverage of this museum exhibit.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so a lot of people are probably familiar with
the Roberty Lee statue that used to stand in downtown Charlottesville.
It was voted to be removed by the city council
several years ago, and there were a lot of people
unhappy about that, and of course you have the Unite
the Right demonstration. That's where you get the the very
good people on both sides hoax from the media, and
so so that Roberty Lee statue was removed. It was
I think given to some kind of organization, and that
organization ended up maybe it was a museum, ended up
melting it down and.
Speaker 1: Kind of in secret.
Speaker 5: But then afterwards they broadcast this really kind of haunting
video of his face which had, like I guess, been
cut off of the rest of the monument, just glowing
orange being melted down slowly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was in secret, but it was also in
the most grotesque way possible and seemed very intentional. There
was no reason to decapitate the statue before then incinerating
it and or melting it down, I guess, and then
broadcasting that specific component of it that they literally got
his head. How insane.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was secret until it happened, and it was
in your face everything, right.
Speaker 1: So, but a lot of people, I.
Speaker 5: Think don't know that two blocks away from where the
Roberty Lee statue stood, in what was formed known as
Lee Park, there was a Stonewall Jackson statue and that
was also removed by the city council. At the same time,
there was also a Lewis and Clark statue, which was
removed because it included a depiction of Sackageweya that was
I guess, I don't know what was problematic about it,
but that was removed too. But the Stoneall Jackson statue
was given to a museum in Los Angeles, I think
right before Glenn Youngkin became the governor of Virginia, and
this museum has been holding on to it and gave
it to this artist to play with essentially, and what
she did to it was dismember it. So it's a
statue of Donald Jackson riding his war horse, and she
cut it up in little pieces. She started by cutting
his head off, and if you look at the statue now,
such that it is not only is it has its
head been removed, but his face has been removed from
its head. And so she chopped it up into these
pieces and then she kind of melded them together into
this grotesque like you've got a horse leg sticking out here,
and then a man's head hanging kind of like on
the top from the horse parts, and then you've got
like the man's arm coming out of the other part
of the horse. And so it's just this like mangled
wreckage of a piece. And that is the centerpiece of
this new exhibit in Los Angeles called Monuments, which also
includes several other Confederate memorials and monuments, many of which
still bear the markings that were left by demonstrators and
rioters who threw pain on them, or graffeited them, or
otherwise desecrated them.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So when people talk about putting these monuments in context,
the context now is that they're not being put in
a place that's less public, where people can go and
see them and read about the historical context of them.
The quote unquote context for these monuments now is that
the mob, the violent mob, mob, the demonstrators, the rioters,
got the last word. They're completely defaced. One of them
has its face completely bashed in. One of them says
beware traders. They're covered in red paint. They're completely defaced.
And it's just so sad and twisted that that's who
got the last word on these. I want to highlight
an excerpt from the piece you talked about. Kara Walker,
the quote unquote artist of this Stonewall Jackson piece. But
it said this, and I believe it was the New
York Times coverage of it. I'm just going to put
up an excerpt for people who are watching, but I'll
read it for you too. It says, quote, she made
the work at a foundry in upstate New York. The
first step in the process, she said, was quote a
really kind of gruesome beheading of the Jackson figure that
she said left her unsettled, though some people present applauded
as the head came up. She said, quote, I actually
felt like it was such a violent act that I
was really uncomfortable with it. End quote. But she felt
there was no alternative. Quote. Again, I knew that what
I was going to do was going to involve not
having the head in its right place. She goes on
to say that she chose not to visit Charlottesville to
study the sculpture's past or recent context. Instead, she decided
to treat its theme as a symbol of the pervasive
ideology of the lost Cause of the South, and she
says this was basically mine now my found object. She said,
she resolved to treat it as quote, an object to
be played with and contended with and wrestled with as
an artist. I have so many, so many reactions reading this.
The first is just the fact that she identifies how
violent the act is of beheading this statue and ripping
its face off. It's she understands the moral component of this,
but proceeds with it anyway. And then it's so crazy
to me that she she talks about the fact that
she is intentionally not grappling at all with the context
of this staff and is instead just using it as
her personal racial justice play thing. And Al, I would
love to hear your thoughts on that. Yeah.
Speaker 5: So, I mean when we all were told back in
twenty twenty and before that in twenty seventeen, when the
Charlottesvield thing happened, that these Confederate statutes were just going
to go to museums, I don't think this is what
any of us had in mind. I wouldn't put it
past some of these artists or organizations to have had
this in mind from the beginning, but certainly was not
what was conveyed to the public.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's interesting.
Speaker 5: So it's interesting that, yeah, she recognizes that it's violent
and then says that she has to do it anyway.
Speaker 1: And I think there's maybe some scary.
Speaker 5: Parallels there for the ways that people who believe that
America has not and perhaps cannot peacefully be rid of
what they would consider its original sin, what they believe
is violent but necessary to kind of excise the demons
from our society, the way that she sees herself as
doing with this statue.
Speaker 1: You had a really great quote in your piece to
that point, just to put a fine point on that,
you say, quote the BLM industrial complex is predicated on
the belief that America and Western civilization at large are
a bourgeoisie that must be punished and punished collectively for
the sins of capitalism and colonialism. If you don't believe me,
go read Ibram Kendy. Punishments range from being passed over
for college acceptance to being stabbed on a train. And
of course that's a reference to Arena Zaruska, which was
not a random act of violence. I mean it was,
but the perpetrator who specifically called out the fact that
he had gotten that white girl, this was racially motivated,
clearly in his own words, this is violent, and it's
a perfect parallel for the fact that like, this is violent,
but it must be done.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, and so the things that you know,
there are plenty of ways to legitimately critique the sins
and the faults of the slaveholders, the South Civil War,
you know, what have you, just as there are, by
the way, with every moment of civilization since the Fall
in the Garden. So there are legitimate critiques to be
had there. But that's not you know, that's not what
this is. The critiques that are being leveled here are
the same exact critiques that are leveled against our you know,
modern America and going back to the Founding so you have, like,
the accusations against these Confederate generals, right, are that they
defended a way of life that was intrinsically dependent on slavery,
on racism. And that's the same accusation that's being leveled
against America today. It's the same accusation inherent in the
sixteen nineteen project against the America of the Founding fathers.
And so if this is what they will do to
representations of those who defended a racist society, you know,
they would level the same accusations against our society today,
against America for its entire lifetime. And so if they're
willing to do that to the statues, you know, history
shows us that when statues are destroyed, people always come next.
Speaker 1: Yes. Sean Davis, the CEO of the Federalists, made this
point very explicitly in a recent Senate testimony where he
said it starts with censorship, it moves on to statues,
and ultimately it ends with people, and it's not always racial.
Like this is just how Marxism and all of this
works itself out. But we saw that this happened with
Charlie Kirk. I mean, this happens all of the time.
It's not just the iconoclasm of metal and other materials,
it is the takedown of people. I saw, Oh, go
ahead to that point. But just before we move on.
Speaker 5: You know, these statues obviously are not human beings. They're
made of bronze, but they're symbols. And there is meaning
for these Marxists in destroying these symbols. And I think
there's a lot of things today that they would also
view as as symbols. I mean, even even think of,
like you know, the argument for reparations. You and I
obviously have never owned slaves, would never own slaves, but
because we share a skin color with people who did
in the past, it is demanded of us that we
pay the punishment. And so we are we're symbols in
the same sense kind of as as these statues are.
We are the the propitiary, you know, that is that
is being asked to make the payment for the sins
of the forefathers. So that I mean, so to see
what they're willing to do to a statue, and to
know that they believe the same things of you and I,
purely because of our skin color and our you know,
existence as Americans.
Speaker 1: It's terrifying, right well, and we see that all the time.
It's it. It does start with statues and moves on
to people. But people are our symbols too. I mean,
you know, Arena Zarutzska in many ways is just a
symbol of white women. Charlie Kirk in many ways is
a symbol of conservative Christians. You know, a lot this
was said often during Donald Trump, all of the law
fair and everything, and the assassination attempts against him. It
was there after you. I'm just in the way, you know,
in many ways, Donald Trump is the embodiment of MAGA
Americans or MAGA extremists or whatever. Joe Biden and all
the rest of the Democrats, you know, brand half of
the country as and so you're so right about the
symbols point. But the symbols don't even stop at material things.
You know, it's not just flag burning and monument toppling.
It's it's also taking out people who who personify these things.
And that's a huge, huge problem. I want to put
up a tweet to you included in your article. It's
from our colleague John Daniel Davidson. Excellent tweet, he says.
The New York Time writer says, the exhibit of defaced
Confederate monuments quote faces down past and present hatreds with
startling confidence end quote. But that's wrong because the exhibit
is itself a manifestation of present hatreds, projected back into
our shared past, flung forward at our posterity, and aimed
directly at those alive today who would have preserved these
monuments untouched. The entire exhibit is a monument to hatred
in the present day of country and countrymen. I mean,
John is absolutely right as usual. The exhibit is not
just about you know.
Speaker 5: The goal is not to put history in any kind
of artistic or historical context.
Speaker 1: The goal is to show subjugation.
Speaker 5: It's the New York Times, I think described this as
described the original statues as works of Jim Crow era propaganda.
All that they've done is now reworked them into works
of George Floyd era propaganda. The purpose is not to educate,
it's not to provoke thoughtfulness, it's not to promote introspection.
But the purpose is to say these have been conquered.
We are the new conquerors. Culturally, ancient civilizations right used
to put the heads of their enemies on pikes to
warn of their worn others that they were victorious, or
march their enemies, their captured enemies through the streets, and
that's exactly what's happening here. It's impossible not to see
the parallels with kind of those ancient heads on spikes
versus you see Stonewall Jackson's faceless head hung on top
of this kind of mangled statue.
Speaker 1: Everyone should go read Elle's excellent piece. Left wing cultural
revolutionaries are decapitating statues and calling it art on the Federalist, Elle,
thanks so much for your commentary today. Tell Skipper thanks
for your time and we'll have you back again soon.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1: Last week, ABC's Dancing with the Stars hosted what they
called Dedication Night, where each of the competing couples, which
if you haven't seen the show, is a celebrity who
paired with a professional dancer. They each dedicated their dance
to a person or institution that had been influential in
the celebrities life. Sounds like a sweet idea. One of
the contestants Scott Hoying, a singer in the a cappella
group Pentatonics, dedicated his dance to his husband Mark, but
then revealed that the two of them are going to
be Dad's take a look.
Speaker 2: Marco star with you all excited?
Speaker 1: Were you to be able to join Scott jury this week?
I was so excited.
Speaker 2: I'm Scott and Riley's biggest fan, so to have this
moment with them felt like a dream come true. And
failed to announce such big news with our pregnancy.
Speaker 1: With our baby, it is something.
Speaker 4: I will never forget for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1: We have one more piece of news for you, what
our is pregnant?
Speaker 3: Dad.
Speaker 1: Now, I know it can be hard for people to
look past the joy on these two men's faces to
think critically about what this kind of announcement actually means.
After all, many people will make the argument that it's
actually pro life, it's creating children, isn't it. Criticizing decisions
like this is always met with accusations of homophobia, bigotry, hatred,
and even the attack that if you're really pro life,
you'll celebrate things like this. The exact same arguments are
often made when it comes to in vitro fertilization commonly
known as IVF. But IVF and surrogacy and anything else
that commodifies human life are fraught with moral and ethical concerns.
Here are just a few of the many reasons why
Scott and Mark's pregnancy announcement is caused for sadness and
not celebration. First, same sex surrogacy always intentionally deprives a
child of his natural right to a mother and father.
Framing the desires of adults as civil rights ends in
denying children their natural human rights to a mom and dad. Second,
surrogacy scars children with undeniable and unavoidable loss, and this
loss is not unique to children who are commissioned by
same sex couples. As Katie Faust of Them before Us
often explains, surrogacy splits what should be one person in
a child's life, his mom, into what she calls three
purchasable and optional women. These include the genetic mom, or
the one who supplies the egg, the birth mom, with
whom the baby forms a primal and pivotal bond, and
the social mom, who nurtures the child and satisfies his
yearning for a mother's love. Third, surrogacy often exploits financially
vulnerable women in order to satiate the desires of adult
who want a maid to order baby. It's not naturally
a pro woman exercise. Fourth, surrogacy enables abuse because although
it often includes limited screening, it doesn't include a standard,
strict vetting process that adoptive couples must undergo to ensure
children's safety and security. As a result, some of the
custom ordered children end up in the hands of pedophiles
and other abusers. Surrogacy always includes the possibility of this. Fifth,
surrogacy opens the door to eugenics because most surrogacy pregnancies
are created through IVF, where doctors can grade embryo fitness
and then discard lab created human beings who don't have
the desired chromosomes or hair color or eye color. From
the disposal of unwonted human beings, to the incompleteness of
medical records, to the deprivation of half of a child's family,
the ethical and moral problems with surrogacy are many, So
don't let people scold you into cheering for surrogacy, and
don't let them shame you and trick you into thinking
it's pro life. It is not as dreamy and wonderful
as it's cracked up to be. All Right, that's going
to do it for me today. Thank you so much
for tuning into this week's episode of The Kylie Cast.
I will be right back here next week with more.
Until then, just remember the truth hurts, but it won't
kill you.