Episode 27 - Pointless gendering in language!?

This week, Rachel and Vanessa talk about the goings on in their lives, as well as why we automatically gender words that aren't actually gendered. When you think of a doctor, what gender do you picture? A teacher? A lawyer? A nurse?

For some follow-up reading, Rachel suggests this article:

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20201006-are-some-languages-more-sexist-than-others

We're switching the show to be every 2 weeks, so you'll see/hear us again on November 3rd!

Transcript

Vanessa: 0:02

Recording in progress. Okay

Rachel: 0:13

sorry I'm not laughing at you. I'm just laughing

Vanessa: 0:19

Yeah, no, I, I am so out of practice in my vocal training. Yeah. You know, so I'm working on it. And I can help you with this right here. So I'm trying to keep this going. Whatever you need right now. So, hello. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. It's Once it clicks, it's great. But it's hard to get into click so vocal training fun. Hello, everybody, welcome to transcending humanity. This is episode 27. I think last week was just a little short one or something, but I still counted as an episode. I'm Vanessa, I am joined by Rachel, you know, as both from previous episodes of the show, I would imagine.

Rachel: 1:06

I hope so.

Vanessa: 1:07

I would hope so, too. Yeah. I mean, otherwise, go back and listen to that shit. You know? What are you doing here? You still have 26 episodes to catch up on which I know is a tall ask. You can watch it on YouTube. You know, we have a YouTube channel. You can see our smiling faces. Unless you're watching this on YouTube right now. Then, did you know that we have a podcast those so quick news on the show. I am changing the format a little bit again. We're going to be doing it as bi weekly. That's what Yeah, every two every two weeks bi weekly. We recording every two weeks instead of every week because honestly, I think most of us are getting burnt out. And yeah, so my once I find the job, I think I'll be less burnt out but fuck this shit. It's getting old. So yeah, we're gonna be doing that. If you'd like to show please support us on Patreon you can support us on Patreon or through but spread both are accessible through our website transcending humanity.com For the price less than the price of a Starbucks coffee because my Starbucks copies cost $6.15 And so if you can chip in shipping buckets and like a politician, which I can send

Rachel: 2:21

you money you're running for office,

Unknown: 2:23

I know.

Rachel: 2:24

I don't want to be I don't want to that's okay, because I am also an elected official. And these are the faces that we need in politics and that's not what we're talking about today but also in the United States Election Day is coming up so please vote it's a big deal.

Vanessa: 2:42

Blue Yeah, don't don't don't vote for the fascist please but I'm pretty much guessing that the people that vote for fascists aren't listening to the show because we are pretty liberal around here. But you know, who knows? Or maybe

Rachel: 2:59

the people that listen to this show are willing to have a nuanced discussion about how sometimes the left also isn't great for no people and we can talk about that and not have people absolutely 100% lose their minds

Vanessa: 3:17

Yeah, my opinion both sides suck in their own special ways so that's what I mean I'm running as a Democrat I'd rather not run this Democrat but and just playing by the rules because I can take the Democratic Party's money when I run so rather than going to a big deal it is right now they're not at the time of day but big fucking surprise but once I get on the news, then they'll pick me

Rachel: 3:39

up all right, or when you get past the primary well I haven't had now I'm self owning. I haven't actually listened to the episode yet. Do you have a primary Yeah,

Vanessa: 3:49

we do it earlier than usual because the presidential primaries so it's in March so I have to have all my signatures in by December 20 to get on the ballot mess Yeah, so I'm hoping to do that met like 24 right now which really isn't too bad for red s area here because I can't go door to door knocking I'll get shot. But no one wants to be training on their doorstep around here. So well, maybe somebody does, but I forget where it was. Oh yeah. Donate to the show, please. Five bucks a month. Yeah 10 bucks a month whatever. If you donate through Buzzsprout then it actually gets taken off of our Buzzsprout invoice which is kind of nice and then anything left over we get and then Patreon you know I just withdrawal but yeah, I I love doing the show but making so little money. It's a strain so anything can help. I would love it. So, Rachel, what's been going on with you anything fine?

Rachel: 4:53

Um, gosh, I wish I could say yes. Yeah, I was about to say Hanson Family has been on the struggle bus a little bit lately, but really the struggle is the the lack of a bus. So we're very fortunate to be until several weeks ago to have been a two car family. And now we're a one car family because the transmission is pooping out on one of our vehicles.

Vanessa: 5:29

That's expensive.

Rachel: 5:31

Yeah. And that's been a journey, right? We were originally quoted 12k to fix it.

Vanessa: 5:40

Car? Well,

Rachel: 5:42

I was kind of what we thought about it, we weren't okay. Like if we're financing either way. Like, what does it look like to finance something new? or new to us?

Vanessa: 5:58

You can finance $1,000 car, you know,

Rachel: 6:02

well, in our area, a 12,000 car would we will be buying the exact same problems that we'd be trying to church. Um, I mean, yeah, there's three kids in the family. So we can't just buy a tiny car. And they very generously negotiated it down to $9,000. Which might as well still be a million.

Vanessa: 6:30

Yeah. But where'd that$3,000? Go? They were just trying to rip you off that apparently,

Rachel: 6:35

it has something to do with the warranty on the transmission. Um, so we still were like, I guess no, thanks. We found another place to do it for 4000. That's still a lot. But

Vanessa: 6:53

that's more in line with what you would expect for transmission repair that right.

Rachel: 6:57

And it's also a tax return. So yeah. So like, if it really comes down to it? Well, we'll just wait till February. And we'll have two cars again. Right, Gary? Yeah. We're all paying taxes here. Or we're trying

Vanessa: 7:17

to pay taxes. Poor folk pay taxes.

Rachel: 7:21

Right. Um, so that's been, it's been an adventure. So not fun, but a lot happening.

Vanessa: 7:38

Yeah, like, you have to like schedule time with the car. That's me

Rachel: 7:43

pretty much, right? Like this is? Right. It really does feel like being a teenager, right? Where you're like, Come on, Dad, can I use the car? Only Right? Like, where the parents are going? Hey, so what are you in the office this week? When are you in the office this week? Or are we going to have to reschedule meetings because we've only got the one.

Vanessa: 8:09

And then, like, if there's an emergency or something, you know, I mean, people used to only have one car per family, but times were a lot slower than you know. So I think right now, it's really everybody has to have their own vehicular thing.

Rachel: 8:27

Well, I mean, going back to the money if employers wanted to pay a living wage for a family to just live on one income. Um I love my job. I love what I do. But I would also very gladly trade that all in until the kids are older be a stay at home mom. So we wouldn't have to juggle with all the logistics and the childcare and the

Vanessa: 8:58

childcare is it's it's intense. It's I just have the one out of the holly people's multiples, do it. I mean, are you just that crazy now? Is it baked in?

Rachel: 9:10

I'm just bananas. Yeah.

Vanessa: 9:13

I don't get it. Um,

Rachel: 9:18

yeah, well, it'd been in some ways. And this is I think, where the role, right kind of losing your Marvel stuff comes in. In some ways. I'm very grateful for the pandemic. Because pre pandemic there was no like, Oh, you're having a hard time finding childcare? Well, that's too bad. You can't work from home with your kids at home. Yeah, everybody knows you can't do your job. Well, turns out that you totally can do that.

Vanessa: 9:48

Yeah. But there are very few office jobs that can't be done from home. So

Rachel: 9:53

right and then also, like, are you actually nose to the grindstone for eight hours a day? I know you can stop and you can get a snack. Or you can read a story or change the cartoon. It's just the work is still gonna happen. Yeah, she's gonna get done. It's just

Vanessa: 10:12

like working in the office. I mean, half the time people are just shooting the shit. So it's no,

Rachel: 10:17

she's what I'm doing. Yeah, most of the time in the office.

Vanessa: 10:21

And you know that the whole, you know, eight hour workday five days a week. It's I mean, from what I understand it's been proven that BBs so because there's certain chunks of the day that people just don't get anything done, you know. So whatever, right? I'm not a, I'm not an expert in that. Perhaps I should be. I don't know. Maybe that's another platform, I can find that. Good luck getting that through. And Ohio.

Rachel: 10:49

might be right for day, four day workweek

Vanessa: 10:53

would be nice. I'm gonna we're gonna piss off the Conservatives with my subsidized childcare platform. But whatever. Else, any good news, anything that has you excited.

Rachel: 11:07

So I do have one exciting thing. And I forgot. So thank you for asking. I'm, like think I've talked on the show before about this magazine that I'm starting. And we launched on October 1. So that's been really so it's a magazine about women in podcasting. Theater featuring and I said this is important, featuring women, right, because it's true everywhere. But in podcasting, right. There's, there's a lot of guys are, there's a lot of guys. And when people talk about like wishing that there was more diversity. I mean, it just gender diversity, right? Like, yeah, hi, Cassidy. Right? There's a bunch of women, right? Like, the ones in this Zoom Room are like, hey, hey, guys, like you're here. Like, we, it turns out that we kind of are amazing at this. And if you're not going to future us, well, then we're gonna future ourselves. Exactly. So

Vanessa: 12:22

have you lined up Lauren Lapkus yet, because she's like, she's the queen. I'll have celebrity podcast guests. So you have to get more than that. Because onboard somehow.

Rachel: 12:36

Yeah, that would. She's just

Vanessa: 12:39

like, she gets on all the podcasts I listened to, like, luck. Yes. Hi. So.

Rachel: 12:43

So this is confusing. This has thrown a lot of people off. Because it's not a podcast. It's a magazine about podcasting. So yeah, she my, to ask her to write an article.

Vanessa: 12:58

You should, because I mean, she. She's like co host of a lot of podcasts as well, but she's on tons of them. So her experiences with podcasting has been pretty interesting for that for an article or an interview or something. So I have no idea how to get a hold of her. But, you know, who knows? But yeah,

Rachel: 13:16

I think having been in podcasting for a while. I've gotten pretty good at creating people and figuring out how to email them so

Vanessa: 13:27

I can imagine that's how you get that's how you get your interviews. So bypass the agents and producers and all that stuff. Yeah. are trying to Yeah, I've tried to some are pretty well locked down. But yeah. slushy is melting. Just stir it up, if you're wondering what I'm doing over here. So I got rid of by hate group on Facebook last night. That was

Rachel: 13:54

really, yeah, that is exciting.

Vanessa: 13:58

It's like, oh, for me, it's good practice for when I run for office, too. So but I mean, for the most part, they're just not creative. It's like,

Unknown: 14:05

Dude, your bro bro. Dude, dude. Hey, dude. Hey, bro. Hey, brah Hey, bro, dude.

Vanessa: 14:11

Like now? But, yeah, yeah. And it was like, I had to report some of them for like for threats. You know, a lot of them are telling me to analyze myself. And there was some surprisingly creative names. Which I kinda have to give props for.

Rachel: 14:34

Creativity, but also, I get a points for for being violence. Yeah.

Vanessa: 14:41

But like, for the most part, it's just like, you know, you're a man that I've edited. It's like, whatever it's like, this is the same regurgitated stuff you hear over and over again. It's just more annoying than anything because that just says go through and block so many people. So and I think I wound up taking down a couple posts, just because it's like, no I'm not worth it, but people have way too much fucking time on their hands, you know? And they're a lot of the LGB without the T. Crowd on there. And because the posting question was I recently joined her dating again, which is it's like a lesbian queer dating app. And I just posted saying, there's a lot of sis it like. Yeah, and that's how it got captured by an age group like, well,

Unknown: 15:33

your dude, you know?

Vanessa: 15:37

My tits and Posey say otherwise. So?

Rachel: 15:41

Yeah, right. Your brain also?

Vanessa: 15:47

It's, but even like

Rachel: 15:49

pre surgery, right? Like even

Vanessa: 15:50

pre surgery. But I mean, when people are that far gone, the chances are the odds of actually swaying them. Just non existent, really, I mean, some people, when I went and saw Father Nathan, monk in person a few weeks ago, he actually tries to sway people in these cities has like, a 14% success rate or something like that. But I just I don't, I don't feed the trolls. And that's one thing I'm going to do on my campaign is because I know I'm going to get them I just asked my followers just don't even respond to them. Because all it's going to do is upset you and empower them. But holy shit, did they come fastened in droves? It was, it was like, Whoa, this is happening. But then there's another Facebook page that is dedicated to find people finding people like me, whose posts have been shared and face in hit groups on Facebook. And checking to let you know, Hey, your post has been shared in a hate group, you might want to change your privacy settings or take it down. So right on Oh, that person is because it was nice. Okay, I

Rachel: 17:05

would my brain was going the other way. So oh, you added the it was nice.

Vanessa: 17:10

No, no. It's just someone just being a good human. So because I didn't know what group it had been shared to. So then I looked at the posts and I saw that been shared 12 times. I'm like, Ah, shit. Okay, I'm just locking this down. But yeah, it was. It'll really piss. If any of those people who are listening to this right now. It'll really piss you off to know that when I was deleting and blocking, reporting, I was doing it well dilating. And dilating is where I'm putting my thing inside my in my thing, so a lot of them were talking about like, post-op like magnets and stuff coming out from down there. Like there's multiple ways you can get that in the past days. Mine was the Phenom version. There's another one where the east part of the colon so I can actually self lubricate. That's not the kind I got. Apparently, they're dangerous, but like, there must be some rumors, something or someone had maggots coming out of them or something because like a good chunk of the comments were like, talking about maggots and memes about maggots and stuff and like, you know, these people okay. Yeah, so yeah, so if you my advice for anybody listening, if you see yourself suddenly getting getting hate bombed on social media, you can just change the privacy and your posts to to friends only and that'll wipe it out. But or if you just don't even want to look at it. Just delete it. That's what I wanted to do. And there were so many. I probably blocked 150 people. So now I'm dying. I just deleted the post. They're still on Instagram, but Facebook's cesspool I have scum and villainy. So. So yeah, that's me. But,

Rachel: 19:05

but it's also kind of a nice segue into our topic tonight.

Vanessa: 19:10

Exactly. Thank you, Rachel.

Rachel: 19:14

It's what have you ever because what we had discussed talking about was how language and like the language that we natively speak influences our perceptions of gender. Um and right like when you're talking about right like all these guys are these guys who apparently have nothing better to do with their time then be jerks to people on the internet.

Vanessa: 19:48

Guys and girls, here's a mix up.

Rachel: 19:52

It's perfectly actually I appreciate knowing that because right like English language that we're all speaking right now. It's All male centric, right male is the default that we get really freaked out collectively. When that notion of male first gets challenged, yeah. But it's because like, in English, it's not so much that we have, right like nouns and verbs that are masculine or feminine, like Spanish or French or a lot of other Latin languages. But male is the default. Right? That even for words that are not gender, like Doctor, for example, automatically think male. Right? Exactly.

Vanessa: 20:47

I've trained my brain to think female, but that's tough training. So right, like,

Rachel: 20:51

it's hard. It's hard work. It is making

Vanessa: 20:55

it teacher you think woman?

Rachel: 21:00

Right. But Professor, now it's a guy.

Vanessa: 21:04

Yeah, yeah. Nurse women. Mm hmm.

Rachel: 21:09

Um, but Right, like none of those words, inherently representative gender, but we have been so steeped in this social idea that how we think about gender is like, it's just as so influenced by it. And people don't like to be challenged. And like, in the United States, our whole public school system is basically set up to in most cases, right to avoid critical thinking. Yeah. So a lot of people aren't going oh, wait, what? Why do I think of a meal when I think doctor? Like, even a question is basic as that is not one that is encouraged to be asked No. Oh, yeah, I haven't present. Although I will. This is always kind of like my go to The Kids Are All Right, story. And it's a little old now. But I want to say like 10 or so years ago, I was a tutor for a college readiness program for Minneapolis public schools. And I would always do some kind of like a riddle to more of a brains before we'd start with the tutoring. And there was a riddle I did once. That No, I'm going to bomb it, because I haven't told the riddle as such. But it was something like a kid was in a, some kind of an accident. And his father took him to the hospital. child needed surgery. And the surgeon said, I can't operate on this child. He's my son. Like, so what's the deal here? And like, right away, the kids were like, well, obviously, either this kid has two dads or his mom is a surgeon. And I was like, I was expecting this to be more of a discussion, but they were already know,

Vanessa: 23:45

their little sixth graders so far ahead of us.

Rachel: 23:50

I mean, these guys are all now. All right, if you're in sixth grade, right there in their early 20s Now, isn't that crazy? Right? Just freaks me out.

Vanessa: 24:01

I worked at an online charter school from 2005 to 2006. With seventh graders, and I mean, those kids are all adults now probably have kids of their own that could be in seventh grade. It's like blows my mind anyway. Sorry.

Rachel: 24:20

Yeah, no, that's but um so I think that we may be, it doesn't feel like it right. Like when you go on to Facebook or whatever. But maybe this is just because I live near Minneapolis. But I hope I see Minneapolis as being like, look at all the terrible things that are happening in Minneapolis and like, everybody there is obviously awful. The police maybe are awful, but the Minneapolis people are okay. Right? Like because I Now going off on police, the people who serve on the police force in Minneapolis don't live in Minneapolis for the most part, suburbs. So the people that live there, they're awesome.

Vanessa: 25:22

They're just cold.

Rachel: 25:25

Yeah. Um, so I feel like, right, like if these young people, now adults, right, and as sixth graders are growing, but yeah, what's the big deal? The kid either has two dads. First one is a surgeon. This isn't a riddle at all. Right, like, I would hope that we'll start to see some, a few changes. But sorry, go ahead.

Vanessa: 25:51

No, I'm just I think we won't go ahead.

Rachel: 25:56

Um, but I think that we still kind of need to work to create this culture of safety to be asking these kinds of questions. Right? Because we are so steeped in it as English speakers. Right? Like, we might not say that a cup of coffee as masculine or feminine as they would in French? Sure. But that doesn't mean that we're not assigning gender to things in a way that makes no sense. And that doesn't influence her and how we perceive people to perform. To do the performative aspect of gender identity.

Vanessa: 26:50

Yeah, like, why do so many people call like, vehicles, girls, you know, so?

Rachel: 26:57

Well, right? Or you said vehicles and I immediately thought cars, but it really spoke.

Vanessa: 27:06

So she's a good old girl, you know, but Right, I don't know, I, or, or baby.

Rachel: 27:16

That was one. Um, I remember being deeply confused by that as a kid. There was like a mechanic next to the public library in the city. One of the cities I grew up in. So my mom would take us to the library and be like, are they in the window or something like, take good care of your baby? And I'm like, That is super, obviously a mechanic. So Mom, what are they talking about? And she went, Oh, well, some people call her cars, their babies, and they take care of them like babies. And I was like, well, that's weird and stupid. Guilty. Well, now I don't think there's anything exactly wrong with it. Except that then we also refer to them as women. And then we call windows and a lot. And right and but so that we're not treating women like, competent adults. Because woman and baby are, like, right there together visually in our brains. Yeah. Yeah. So let's just, I'm just ranting now, but like, there's so much work to do, because the language that we use is just so much in us that it's hard to decouple all of that out.

Vanessa: 28:51

It's so big then it's like, yeah, there's so many things that are left that are baked in like like something you find anyone that's read the white women, but racism is so deeply baked in to white people. And we don't most of us don't even realize it. It's to the point where I'm confident and saying, if you're white, you're racist, whether you know it or not. I have so much in me that's just been baked in. And I there's so many different things. There's there's tendering there's race, there's all these different things that are just, they're just trained into us. And I mean, there's no like, one particular time that like, you can look back and say, Oh, this is when I started thinking this way. It's just there, you know, because we're surrounded by it. And it's, it's a very odd part of humanity, I suppose.

Rachel: 29:56

Yeah. But one and so this harder How will I think be in the show notes. But one thing that I thought was also kind of an interesting thought exercise for me. As this, this article very specifically mentioned that one language spoken by a lot of people globally that has no gender baked into it is Mandarin Chinese really? And because it's first I was thinking, like, is there a difference between how people are treated? Right, like in their societies based on the gender language? And so then I started, like really thinking about, right, like the People's Republic of China, how are they treating people? Well, generally, maybe not awesome. Yeah. But kind of everybody is being treated equally terrible.

Vanessa: 31:02

I mean, that sounds about right, you know,

Rachel: 31:04

right. Like, and that's maybe a pretty bold claim to make. But that, to me, was kind of an interesting thought exercise, right? Like how, like, what does that look like globally, based on the language that you speak? And I don't know the answer to that question. Oh, I don't mean that. But I'll probably be thinking about it for a while.

Vanessa: 31:27

Yeah. It's strange. Mandarin doesn't have to interpret those Cantonese. You know, those are the only two. Yeah, China centric languages that I know of. So my ignorance is showing her faults. But

Rachel: 31:43

I would assume

Vanessa: 31:45

no, I don't know how similar they are. They have

Rachel: 31:49

the same because I based on mostly nothing. Like, I would be assuming that they have like the same base. Language, right? Like English is not a great example. But right, like Italian, French Romance languages, right, like Latin based languages. Right, like, you can kind of understand what people are saying, if you speak one of the three. since English is mostly dramatic, our rules make no sense. But

Vanessa: 32:32

language is so completely fucked up.

Rachel: 32:35

Right, like we got a little bit of German, and we got a little bit of French and we got a little bit of Anglo Saxon by.

Vanessa: 32:45

And none of it makes sense.

Rachel: 32:47

No, none.

Vanessa: 32:48

Chinese listeners. Send us an email to credit us on that place. Yeah. Our is kidneys. generalists as well are now so thank you.

Rachel: 33:04

But and then I would kind of wonder if there are other languages in that part of the world that are also you don't assign gender in the same way right, like Korean or Thai?

Vanessa: 33:22

I would hope so. I would hope so.

Rachel: 33:26

I know some people I could ask about this, but Hmong might be another one. Hmong. Oh, yeah. So, um, we're just going all over the dinner episode today. So the Hmong people originally lived in Thailand that helped the United not Thailand. I'm sorry, Vietnam. helped the United States during the Vietnam War. We're then we are super good at doing this and the US just ditching the people that help us when the war is over. We go back home, which is totally what happened to the Hmong. There's a lot of people in like the Twin Cities Minnesota took in a lot of Hmong refugees. So, almost everybody that I Yeah, so like, kind of sent to camps in Laos, uh, post Vietnam War, but a lot of Hmong folks that I know were born in refugee camps in Laos, and came to the US as refugees. But Canada culture is just just beautiful and amazing. And this is totally outside of language, but I've been doing a lot of like crafting stuff lately. Like, if you need something to do with your hands, right, like, crocheting is a good thing to do. But they do a lot of like textile storytelling. So like quilts that, like tell the story or their family over generations and things like that, like, are very amazing people and culture that we could have gotten a lot more debt to help. Yeah, Americans. I mean, huh? Yeah, we could I don't know if I want to talk about Gaza, but probably not.

Vanessa: 35:45

Yeah, that's probably like, can of worms that we want to open? But,

Rachel: 35:48

um, but yeah, I would be like with the language piece. I would be curious if I, if the language is spoken in that part of the world.

Vanessa: 36:01

Asian listeners, yeah. Help us out here.

Rachel: 36:03

Yeah. So let us know.

Vanessa: 36:06

We're curious. So how about your basic white checks?

Rachel: 36:11

Yes, please. Also, just tell us to Google, which is probably what I'll be.

Vanessa: 36:17

It's what we probably shouldn't be doing. Yeah. It's just like, when people ask trans people and stuff just fucking google it.

Rachel: 36:25

Right? Right. And I know. My go to, as always, like, indicate to me that you have done some work and say, Hey, I read this thing. And I was really confused by this piece of it. Okay. I'm happy to explain that piece of it to you if you have put some like made an attempt.

Vanessa: 36:54

That's why well, Americans traveled to other countries. Yeah. If we at least attempt, you know, to learn the language and speak it. It goes a long way. You know, it

Rachel: 37:04

does. Yes, it does.

Vanessa: 37:08

Because Americans, you're winning, winning. France. You speak French? Because it's France. Right. Alright, you know, at least try your best

Rachel: 37:23

attempt.

Vanessa: 37:29

So, back to the gender thing. Yeah. A more crude thing that has really come up is how come the word ball has been attributed with strength in masculinity and power in the word pussy has been attributed with weakness and fragility. When in actuality, balls are the most sensitive things that can't hold up any pressure and push. Take a fucking pounding. How did that happen? Rhyming? Oh, yeah,

Rachel: 38:06

just go around with some like, good old fashioned male fertility. Yeah, on that one. Yeah.

Vanessa: 38:16

Just popped in my head. Sorry.

Rachel: 38:18

I mean, well, no, but I mean, for real, right. Like at the beginning of the episode, you were talking about dilation, right? And just casually laying there dilating and blocking people. Well, I have not had that. The experience of having to dilate following surgery. I have given birth to three children, vaginally, and so like, dilation is also part of my lived experience in a completely different fashion. And that sucks.

Vanessa: 38:54

It's it's different.

Rachel: 38:58

But also like, Yeah, well, you're just because kind of you're just hanging around. Yeah. Wait, your body?

Vanessa: 39:10

I think usually, for the for the, for the viewers, the listeners aren't going to be able to do anything. So keep them coming in for a second like look at the visual aid.

Rachel: 39:19

All right. All right. We love a good visual here on transcending humanity. But yeah, like would you were I can't obviously speak to the surgical piece but, um, you know, when you're waiting for your cervix to dilate enough for a baby to actually come out. For some people, it's pretty quick. For me, we're talking days. So, but like you still got a deuced Have, right like you're not going to not eat or you know, like not go to the bathroom or take a why? Because in the case of a birth right like walking, just speed it up. So there you are. You're just doing the thing. Hanging out blocking haters making a sandwich open up enough to I don't know if you're if you're hungry and tired a PBN che is usually a pretty safe and easy bet.

Vanessa: 40:47

It has, it has your protein, it has your sugar and your carbs and everything. Right, um, I wanted to do a visual aid for the listeners or listeners not gonna be able to see this, they're gonna be like, listeners, just watch YouTube channel, and hit the subscribe button while you're at it.

Rachel: 41:03

Right, right, because we really we, the more subscribers we do, we monetize.

Vanessa: 41:08

But dilation for trans women is very similar how it is for sis women, where post op, any hole in your body wants to close up, right. And when you get a veteran plasti you have a shiny, fresh new hall, and you don't want it to close up. So they give you a bag full of for dilators there's small, and then medium, medium and large. And just like waving these things around, this is gonna get us demonetized overnight monetized anyways.

Rachel: 41:47

Right? No, YouTube, those aren't dildos

Vanessa: 41:51

medical tools. So but so you have two three times a day for 2020 minutes at a time. I'm not gonna I haven't missed one yet. But they're not always 20 minutes. you loop the singer, you lay down, you live this thing up, and you just push it on in there. And you have to keep pushing for me, I have to get to the second dot here. So that's just barely showing. And right now I have to do two different sizes. There's like the small medium, and then the medium large. So I start with this for five minutes and then switch to this. That's what dilating is. So when I'm talking about dilating and mutilated sticking these up inside me, so these are my little friends. Hello, friends. This one is the blue bomber. This one's the Grinch. That my little purple ones, my pussy, purple pissy poker, then there's a big there's a big orange one, which I just called a no way with this. No way. Is that going in me? So?

Rachel: 43:02

That's I mean, but for real, right. Like back to your question. Usually, it comes down to the patriarchy, right? And I know that that is right. Like, people roll their eyes and be like, Yeah, whatever the patriarchy. But when you have an entire social system that is set up. For males to dominate, you have a whole language then set up to support that cultural notion. And so even though we all have men in our lives who are not tools, there, they're actual decent human beings who aren't bent on domination. It's a lot of work for all of us to get rid of that notion, when the language that we have all been speaking since we can speak. Has that baked into it?

Vanessa: 44:21

It does. It does. It's just interesting to think about, it's everywhere. And I think for the vast majority of the time, we don't even realize it. So it's it's interesting to step back and look at the building blocks of language and how it's also changing. And it's changing so rapidly to the dawn of the internet, really, and the invention of memes, but It's not what's going to be like in 1020 years, you know, so hopefully, it'll be a little bit more neutral. But I don't know, the, the patriarchy isn't gonna go down without a fight that much so.

Rachel: 45:18

Right. Right. Well, I mean, cuz that's I mean, I think that we often think about, like patriarchy the same way that white people think about racism, that it's like individual people that have shitty attitudes? In some ways, yes. But also, we're talking about dismantling an entire socialist system and building a new one. Yeah. When like, I mean, right, then you're kind of going into well, like, yeah, the guy that invented a vehicle, or like the first guy that invented a car, spent most of his life driving a horse and buggy. The person who invented electric lights spent most of their life using candles, right? Like, you've got to use what you have, while you try to improve it.

Vanessa: 46:17

Transcend, that. It's not going to,

Rachel: 46:23

like it's true. Like, but you have to be mindful, right, that you are working to improve what is existing and acknowledge what exists needs improving.

Vanessa: 46:35

Yeah. And as you said, the kids are the kids all right. I, I've seen other people talk about Gen alpha, but they're gonna come in and just fucking burn shut down. And you know what? Good, it needs to be burned down. So

Rachel: 46:52

or, I was, I think this is not super apparent, I think when I'm like, in public life, but, um, I am by nature, a pretty angry person. And I have a hard time, like, controlling my temper and all of that. My, my poor little son, youth five. I was having, not that long ago was having a mom moment where I kind of just went to deal with you did not deserve that. Then we talked about it afterwards. But immediately, after I completely lost my mind, my poor little guy. He started to cry, but she felt comfortable doing which by five. We know, right? Like a lot of us know the data. So he felt comfortable crying. He told me that he was sad and angry, and a little bit scared that I had lost it. Good feelings, right? Valid feelings based on how I had acted. Yeah. But here we have a little boy, who is right, like right now being socialized as a boy in our society, who could immediately name what he was feeling.

Vanessa: 48:23

Here many adults, man that can't do that.

Rachel: 48:26

So like The Kids Are All Right, but I'm hoping that some of it is also maybe the parents are doing okay.

Vanessa: 48:37

too. Two, because, like our generation, you and I are close in age, right? You're in your mid 30s. Yeah, I think I'm 42. So we're close enough. And they were both millennials. So we were raised by Boomers, Gen Z are raised by Gen X. So Gen Z are pretty cool. Because Gen X are pretty cool. Yeah, that is one of the Elseworlds we were all sorts of fucked because we were raised by boomers. And our kids are Gen alpha with a couple Gen Z, but you know, mainly Gen alpha, mostly Alpha. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of us. I know myself included. And sounds like you have generational trauma, that, you know, certainly raising kids throughout our lives like I was I had the shippi anatomy as a kid. I was physically sexually and emotionally abused growing up. And it is up to us to break that. And I think a lot of millennials grew up in a similar situation, and they're choosing to break that trauma and start fresh. And it's hard. I mean, I have a I have a three and a half year old, who I believe is neurodivergent as well as me, and I struggle like I struggled big time raising him. But I've never raised a hand to him, I very rarely raise my voice. Because I can't put that forth into another generation. And people, like, you'll hear people say, well, that's just gonna make your kids soft. No, it's not. It's making your kids compassionate. And that has nothing to do with being soft. It means that they're aware of things, and especially more aware of their feelings. Right. And

Rachel: 50:35

I think there's so much power, right in empathy for others, that is not based in trauma. Right, like I had a relatively healthy upbringing, but some mental health challenges of the family. So I'm really watching now I'm just tired. And so I'm not really good at it anymore, because I'm tired. But I'm really good at like, walking on eggshells and anticipating how other people are feeling. Yeah. Because I had way too many of those experiences of just weight loss. Right, that I'm pretty good at anticipating people's feelings. But that comes from a place of trauma. And not always from a place of love.

Vanessa: 51:39

Yeah. Yeah. I hear you that, like, if you asked my kids or their mom, I say sorry, constantly. Because throughout growing up and having been involved in my family's business and stuff until my late 30s. Like, I always think that people are mad at me, because I was usually someone, some family member was on my case about something or another. So no, I'm always just like, sorry, sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Right. Like

Rachel: 52:10

sorry, for existing. I'm just trying to make a living.

Vanessa: 52:15

Yeah, definitely. So you can sort of pick up your kids, right?

Rachel: 52:23

Just do your best.

Vanessa: 52:26

Yeah. That's

Rachel: 52:31

really all we could do.

Vanessa: 52:32

Yeah. I listened to a podcast called The casual criminalist. If you don't listen to it, you should Simon Whistler is awesome. But a recurring theme on it, of serial killers on a show is almost every single one was brought up in an extremely abusive home. So there's a there's nurture and nature involved in that kind of shit. So you kind of have to wonder if some of those people were raised in homes that actually cared about them? How things would be different.

Rachel: 53:04

Yeah. I think that I am out of steam. Yeah.

Vanessa: 53:09

So it's

Rachel: 53:11

so maybe just we'll give another reminder that if you want to support the show, yes. I'm a free way to do that is to subscribe to YouTube. Share. Share it, Episode, all that send us an email,

Vanessa: 53:27

rate us on.

Rachel: 53:30

Wherever you rate your podcast.

Vanessa: 53:31

Yeah, Apple Music and Spotify. I think the ones that lets you do that. Yeah.

Rachel: 53:37

And if you have some money, you can support us on Patreon or Buzzsprout.

Vanessa: 53:43

Mohsen easy. And it just goes to just make things smoother around here. So yeah, hey.

Rachel: 53:56

Capitalism is another construct of the patriarchy. And there's one that we're not going to be decoupling anytime soon. So no need to make a living.

Vanessa: 54:07

Yeah, yeah. We don't want to especially someone being unemployed, don't you start barking being unemployed and I'm trying to find trying to find employer so I got to kind of keep my nose Brown for now. So thank you again, everyone for listening. We appreciate you know, I hate that phrase. Like when people come and say, I appreciate you. Thank you. We love you for being for for supporting us and for being awesome people. I can we will be back in two weeks, no longer every week. Per usual, I have no idea what we're going to be talking about. So yeah. Thank you for listening. Stay tuned. Stay tuned. Bye bye.

Unknown: 55:00

Okay