July 23, 2025 • 38 mins
This week's episode begins with a sensitive subject: Mala shares a startling and xenophobic experience she had while walking her dog in Downtown Los Angeles. This incident leads into today's episode, where Diosa and Mala dive into the women of MAGA, modern-day eugenics, and why having kids feels impossible right now.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Ready, all right, looka motis. So today we come to
the studio a little shaken. Honestly, I texted Theosa and
Jackie this morning SOS because I was really stressed out
while I was walking my dog and I'm going to
(00:21):
get emotional because it just happened and I'm still processing.
But when I was walking my dog bought us on
our morning walk. Typical day, I wanted to get everything
going early so that I could get to campus and
work on producing this movie I'm producing, and then get
to Hollywood to record with Loka Thoida. And as we're
(00:44):
out and about, there was this group of white men
who were walking in the opposite direction that I was,
so they were walking towards me. I was walking towards them.
And you know that moment when, especially I think, as
women were out and about and there's a group of
men and they're talking and they're laughing and they're chattering,
and then when they get close to you they get
(01:04):
really quiet. Well that happened that moment. So they're passing
by me. There's like six or seven of them, and
they got really quiet, and then one of them says,
Ice is going to get you. And then the others
started to repeat it, and then they started like laughing
about it, and you know, they were like passing me
on both sides of the sidewalk, so I felt very
much like surrounded by them. They didn't stop, they didn't
(01:26):
touch me, they didn't say anything else, but they said
ice is going to get you. And then they all
started repeating it and laughing, and it took me a
minute to realize that the comment was directed towards me,
and it definitely was, and so I just wanted to
like get out of there and get home as soon
as possible and get to campus and go on with
(01:48):
my day. And so you know, I know you all
out there in your own in your own communities and
in your own families are experiencing scary things. I'm much
scarier than what I experience this morning. But it was
one of those moments where like they felt so bold
to say something to me, a complete stranger, and I
(02:10):
was not bothering them. And also a reminder that, you know,
it reminded me in that moment that like when they
looked at me, they saw somebody who is other and
who could be targeted for things like this, Like I
look like somebody who could be snatched up. And I
know that we're all seeing the news and the reports
(02:31):
about the way that Ice that how they have quotas
that they're trying to meet, and Maria, you know Hosa
recently was talking about how there simply aren't enough you know,
quote criminal undocumented people to round up, and so in
order to meet their quotas, they're just detaining anybody and
(02:51):
everybody indiscriminately without asking names or documentation. They're definitely acting
first and asking questions later. And so after that experience,
all of that was coming to mind for me, and
it just made me hyper aware of how close the
(03:12):
threat is and how even just seemingly pedestrian people on
the street might have that hatred in their heart. And
you know, it was scary to experience that they were
so close to me and so close to where I live,
and that when I walk out on the street that
somebody might see me or someone like me, or someone
(03:34):
like our listeners, or like my co host, or like
my friends and family and think that it's funny that
were being targeted. So I just wanted to share that
this morning. And you know, I know we've been covering
the ice raids on the podcast, and what a scary
time it is. And it's scary for a lot of
different reasons, politically, economically, This administration is basically touching all
(04:03):
parts of our lives. And you know, I don't think
that there's necessarily a smooth transition from today's experience into
the topic of our episode, but we did want to
talk about all the different reasons why people in our
community are maybe changing, maybe their wants and desires and
(04:23):
their plans for themselves, whether that has to do with
travel or how they move through the world, or whether
or not they start families, not only because of the economy,
but because of the climate and how scary it is
even just to be an adult. But how do you
bring a child into all of this? So, yeah, I
bring this to you, and you know, I'm here with Yosa,
(04:45):
And she said to me before we recorded, you don't
have to talk about it if you don't want to,
But I said, no, no, Like, if not here, then where,
you know, if not on the podcast, if not on
our archive, then where do we have the conversation? Because
I don't want it to be content, but I do
want it to be part of like our our dialogue.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Don't go anywhere, look amotives. We'll be right.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Back, and we're back with more of our episode.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
As women in their thirties, I have definitely noticed the
conversation about are you gonna have kids or not? And
it's not just questions we're getting from our families, but
questions that we're having with each other internally, with ourselves
and just with our friend group. But there's no way
of talking about deciding to have children or deciding to
(05:38):
be child free without identifying and naming that we're in
late stage capitalism. We're living in a fascist regime. There
are so many reasons women are choosing to not have
children that extend beyond the individual choice of motherhood is
not for me. There are systemic reasons that women may
(05:59):
be choosing to not have children. And so we're going
to use some of that idea and that theory to
really ground us in the conversation today and really look
at the macro before we dive into the personal conversations
that we're having with each other and with our friends.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
I think that there's this tendency to look at a
person's child freeness and automatically find fault with it and
then place blame on them. And we're seeing this conversation
not only on social media, not only in our families,
but also like in the broader political and social conversation
(06:37):
in the news, on the political level, going all the
way up to the White House, where people like JD.
Vance and Donald Trump and Candice Owens, who's you know,
not in the White House, but a talking head who
has been very supportive of the White House, where folks
have a very particular desire to like zero in on
focus in on childless women and blame them for things
(07:00):
like their own misery, but also blaming them for this
sort of social like sort of social decline and a
decline to the quality of life in the United States
and the power of the United.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
States definitely, And I think that there's a blaming of
feminism that like feminism has rotted our brains, has taken
us so far away from like quote traditional values and
instilled in us these like quote toxic feminist values that
were like forgetting our quote purpose of what it means
(07:34):
to be a woman, which is to child bear children.
And so I do see that that type of ideology
at like the highest levels of power in the United States.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Right from Oprah Daily. Quote, child free people like me
are all over the news at the moment, and this
is due to ongoing studies reporting that millennial women are
having fewer children, but also due to off the cuff
remarks such as JD Vance's dig at Kamala Harri and
all quote childless cat ladies who are apparently living miserable lives,
(08:06):
and this type of rhetoric is all over the place.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Yeah, I now identify very strongly as a childless cat
lady because that is my life right now. I do
have a bunch of cats, and I am childless, and
so I'm actually not miserable. I'm quite happy.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
I mean, look at you. You're thriving, You're glowing.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
I'm thriving.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Come on, Yes, I'm not thriving. I'm surviving today. But
generally speaking, yeah, I'm not living a miserable life. I'm
living a pretty happy life in spite of fascism. And
I think that these men like JD Vance and these
politicos that are trying to talk about the declining birth
rate are intentionally ignoring the policy that they're writing, the
(08:47):
policy that they're backing and supporting that do not support
women having children. Just recently, snap food benefits were cut,
Medicaid is being cut. There are so many things that
are supposed to help children in working people mothers that
are intentionally being reduced or cut, and so that actually
(09:07):
does lead to a miserable life.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Yeah. So, in spite of the fact that all these
factors which are really impacting our quality of life, in
the quality of life of any future children in a
negative way. In spite of all of these social safety
nets being cut and even things like student loans being cut,
there is still pressure to reproduce from Amy Wilkinson, despite
(09:31):
the growing number of people saying no thanks to parenthood.
In twenty twenty three, forty three percent of US homes
were childless, which is an increase by seven percent from
twenty twelve according to the US Census Bureau. So there
is an ongoing increase in the number of child free
homes in the United States and the birth rate is declining,
(09:51):
but people seem to target this as a fault of
women who are exercising free choice, like women who are
child free are to blame for the declining birth rate,
and these other social and economic factors are never really considered.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Yeah, and I think It's important to note that while
there is a declining birth rate in the United States.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
It's also globally. Globally, people are.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Having less children, and there's its own conversation to be
had about climate change and climate disaster and how that
could be a reason that folks globally are not having
children in addition to socio political reasons. Climate change is
of course also under that umbrella, but that is also
a factor that cannot be ignored. So it's not just
folks in the US, but there is a declining birth
(10:39):
rate globally as well. Also want to mention that there
is some research that we did when prepping for this episode,
and that the falling birth rate is not necessarily due
to a less desire to have children. And I quote,
it's hard to have children in the United States right now.
There's not a lot of support for parents in the US,
and young adults face a lot of challenges student loans,
(11:00):
at the high cost of housing, job insecurity that may
lead them to delay or maybe even give up on
having children.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
And even though there are all of these really intense
it's like a pressure cooker, all these factors that may
get so scary and untenable to reproduce. It's still also
seen as a woman's responsibility and primary role to bring
children into the world. I don't see a conversation about
men having a responsibility to making the world a safe
(11:32):
and welcoming place for their own children, right that they
wish to bring into the world. It's a very lopsided conversation.
And from an opinion piece in the La Times, I
chose to be child free. The Pope called a selfish
and Elon Musk went as far as suggesting we lose
our right to vote. The Supreme Court eliminated the federal
right to abortion, while some states are limiting access to
(11:52):
certain forms of birth control, all but forcing some women
to have children.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
It's not just the Jdvances of the world, and of
course they are influencing the cultural conversation, but it's also
conservative women that are pushing these ideologies, this pro natalist
ideology as well. The Times, which is a London based publication,
covered this conference of conservative women in Dallas, and something
(12:22):
that I thought was really notable from this article and
this profile is that the type of rhetoric that's being
spewed by some of these women is quote less prozac,
more protein, less burnout, more babies, less feminism, more femininity.
Let's be honest, it's never been hotter to be a conservative.
(12:42):
And the woman who said this is Alex Clark, and
she was a speaker at this conference, and so I
think that really encapsulates the conservative woman right now. And
they're also propping up this idea that our role in
life and in society is to raise children and to
be mothers. And it's almost like we saw the Girl Boss,
(13:06):
and it is this rejection of the Girl Boss, and
I think what they're not maybe piecing together is like, yeah,
you were burnt out, probably from climbing the corporate ladder.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Maybe you're rejecting that, and now.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
You're going like an entirely different route into like I'm
not going to work at all, when probably what you
needed was a safety net, not necessarily like this conservative viewpoint.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
But that is like where it's heading.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
And it's so odd how feminism continues to be positioned
as oppositional to that choice right, because feminism is all
about protecting women's right to choose the life that they
want to live that if they want to be, if
(13:54):
they want to be mothers, if they want to get married,
if they want to stay at home, that there be
the proper protect in place socially, economically, medically that they
can do that without being trapped and without being abused,
and with having access to all the medical care that
they need, and still being able to have a bank
(14:14):
account and still being able to drive a car. Like
it's about protecting women no matter what life choices they
want to make. If a woman wants to be a
sex worker, feminism would say that, at least, in the
very least, our society should not criminalize sex workers, should
not abuse sex workers. If women want to work full
(14:34):
time and never have kids, you know, like, leave that
woman alone. And so this notion that feminism is antithetical
to having babies when feminism has also entailed like making
sure that we're not subjected to eugenics and for sterilization
in hospitals, right so that we can have babies if
we choose to. So it's a very gross sort of
(14:58):
interpretation of feminism.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
I think what's really interesting about this conference that the
Times covered is that it is a lot of young women,
So it's a lot of gen Z women. And there
was a woman who they interviewed who is twenty three
years old, and she felt that she wanted the opposite
of what millennials had. And so it's like gen Z
(15:21):
grew up seeing us maybe struggling, maybe in student loan debt,
not being able to buy a home, not having kids,
and they're rejecting that. And so in this quote, this
woman says, kind of seeing everything that's happened with millennials
and just the way they're going. They're not having kids,
They're just stressing themselves out, burning themselves out. I think
(15:41):
we're really leaning towards a family, Christian just a strong
moral code, because I think that's something that's lacking for
a lot of us. And so it really is this
pushback I think on the progressive ideologies, beliefs, political views
that millennials have because we grew up in this era,
like we some of the gen Z folks, I don't
(16:01):
remember the Me Too movement the way we did, right.
They don't remember what it was like to vote in
the twenty sixteen elections. They don't remember Donald Trump and
the Axis Hollywood tapes. They were children, how could they?
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (16:14):
And so there is I think this collective misremembering because
they were children and so there's a then rejection of
the things that we have been fighting for as millennial women.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
This is also important to have the conversation that these
conservative women are I think, largely white women, and so
there is something really important in a white woman led
movement to have more babies and return to traditional values.
(16:50):
And there's a eugenics here because these women are not
advocating that women of color have the opportunity to stay
home and have as many babies they want.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Yeah, they don't like when we do that.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Actually, no, it is a very specific movement to increase
the white birth rate, and there is a propaganda element
here that is directed towards white women. You will have
a softer, better, less stressful life if you just forget
about all this feminism nonsense and this making your own
(17:23):
money nonsense, and stay home and have as many babies
as your uterus will allow. And there are those natalist
women out there who are doing press junkets basically talking
about how they absolutely plan to have babies until their
uterus is removed. And this is not something that they
are extending again to immigrant women, to black and brown women,
(17:45):
and therefore it is a movement of eugenics. It's poor
and white supremacy.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
It is because as we know, historically Latino women, Black
women have been sterilized without their consent, without their knowledge,
even because they don't want us having babies. And I
think that that is an important piece to remember when
we are choosing to have children or not, Like they
actually don't want us to have kids. They don't want
us to reproduce in this country. Specifically, they're tearing away
(18:14):
immigrant mothers from their babies in this current moment.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
And if we do have children, they want our children
to not have access to higher education. They want our
children to be low wage labor that can be discarded
when no longer needed, or can be labor that is
detained and arrested. And then you are basically, per constitution,
you can still enslave people if they're imprisoned, right, And
(18:41):
so this is another piece that people talk about when
it comes to ice raids, immigration, detention, the prison industrial
complex that once a person is in state custody in
that way, has been criminalized and is detained, they are
susceptible to being exploited for their labor. And since we
can't just enslave civilians, what we can technically enslave, imprisoned people.
(19:05):
There is a political and economic motivation to criminalize and
detain as many non white people as possible. So it's
all connected here. And not to sound like a conspiracy theorist,
but I think that the research has been done, the
writing has been done, absolutely, you know, the policies have
been passed, the statements have been made by the president
(19:27):
and folks who work for him, that we can understand
what's happening here. They don't want us to have babies,
but if we do, then they want our babies to
be labor labor.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Yeah, I mean, and we're not the only ones connecting
these dots and having these conversations. Recently, NPR put out
a report titled the Politics of Fewer Babies, and there's
this SoundBite of our president Trump saying, quote, I'll be
known as a fertilization president. And that's okay, that's not bad.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
That's not bad. I've been called much worse.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
And so there is definitely a pattern here where the
political figures, the politicians are very outspokenly talking about the
falling birth rate and who they want to have more
children is white people.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Yeah, and what have they been calling the children of
immigrants for years. Anger anchor babies, not like oh oh great,
you know, oh great, we're repopulating, Oh great, Like babies
are being born. No, these babies are bad babies. They're
anchor babies.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
And research has shown the research is there that immigrants
do contribute to the birth population because they are having
babies here.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Yeah, that's not the type of babies that they want
born here.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
They're currently they're trying to President Trump is trying to
revoke birthright citizenship and make it a state thing versus
a federal policy, a federal law. And so that's also
really important to consider too, Like you could be in
the state of California or you could be in Texas
and you might not have access to citizenship depending on
where you're born.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Absolutely, we have this idea maybe that oh, I'm a
citizen and so it protects me and it can't be
taken away from me. But like it can be, it
can be. It's happened before in other places. I mean,
a lot of people have been making a lot of
connections to the current moment, and of course Nazi Germany
(21:26):
and the setup and the way that things happened before
the Holocaust was full the full blown Holocaust, because it
didn't just happen overnight. You know, there were policies being passed,
there was rhetoric, there was propaganda, there were hateful, racist
cartoons and speeches. Eventually people started getting snatched up and
(21:48):
criminalized and sent away and detained, including people who were
German born right, but who were at the time were
not fitting the white supremacist German definition of what a
German citizen truly is, right, and we see something very
similar happening here now. And a JD. Vance again recently
(22:09):
was so boxing and talking about how if your ancestors
fought in the Civil War, if you're descended from people
who fought in the Civil War, you have way more
claim to Americanness than any of these other people.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
I'm like, which side of the Civil War? I think
we know which one. But that is a very interesting,
very not even coded, that's so explicit, that's so fucking explicit.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Very explicit. So it's crazy times. And it is interesting
how back in the day, of course, propaganda was predominantly
spread through political figures, press conferences and speeches, broadcast news journalism,
(22:54):
because news and journalism of course can also be conservative, can.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Be part of the propaganda machine.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Can be part of the propaganda machine. However, in today's
day and age, we have the propaganda machine on our
cell phones, yes, and civilians, regular people can contribute to
the propaganda with their lifestyle content, with the tradwife content right,
or can consume the propaganda so much more quickly and
easily and constantly than I think has ever been possible.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Don't go anywhere, lookamotives, We'll.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
Be right back, and we're back with more of our episode.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
And I think one of the women that has been
very much of that propaganda is Candice Owans, Yes bodly
very much influencing this culture of and soapboxing that women
should be staying home, when notably she does not stay home.
She's working, she's a political, she's a talking head yas
(24:00):
she has a YouTube like, she's actually not quote traditional,
she could be actually maybe the furthest from traditional.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
In so many ways. And I think so many of
these sort of tradwife influencers are not traditional in any way,
shape or form, because showing the outside world insight into
like your home and your kitchen, Yeah, there's nothing traditional
about that.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
And we've been talking about that here at look atra
radio internally because you know, in so many ways, Latina mom,
like our mothers and our grandmothers fall into what we
consider trad wives. Oh yeah, they were making the food.
They're making the food from scratch. They were serving their
husbands quite literally. I remember, like growing up, my mom
(24:42):
would you know, work make the meal and then serve
my father a plate. My dad would just be sitting
at the table and my mom would serve him, take
him his plate, and then would serve herself.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Right, yeah, And so my mom would never be putting
that online, right.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
You know, obviously there's generational differences, but that idea of
like trad wives being new is not necessarily a new concept,
but it is a new type of content that we're seeing.
It's like a subset on the Internet, and it does
influence and encourage women to take on this more subversive
(25:19):
role in their lives and in their families. I have
not seen This doesn't mean it's not out there, but
I haven't seen like queer women doing tradwive content.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Interesting.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Maybe they're out there, but I for what I've seen,
it has been like heterosexual women making content about taking
care of their husbands and their families and making the
food and doing the quote traditional things. And that's quote
softer life, which is also a co opted term.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Now, yeah, soft life, because what about staying home and
raising ten kids is soft? Nothing, nothing at all. That
is a very difficult, laborious life. And your husband, if
he's working, like a traditional husband is working, he's not
helping you.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
He's not helping you. He's also not supposed to help you.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
He's not supposed to help you.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
In traditional in a traditional viewpoint, right, he's or traditional values.
He's actually not supposed to help you because he's supposed
to work and you're supposed to do everything else. You
carry the house, you carry the children.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
That's that's that's traditional. And you don't complain, right, and
you don't complain and you do with the smile.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Sounds miserable actually absolutely, And not only that, I mean
these these influencers, these tradwafe influencers, they're making money. Every
woman and every person should have access to their own money.
That is like how abuse can permeate in relationships. I
don't think like, oh, you shouldn't be monetizing. But if
we're pushing back on this idea that tradwives are traditional
(26:45):
and they're they have traditional values and they want like
a life from the nineteen fifties. You couldn't have a
bank account, Nope, you could not have a credit card,
you could not buy a car, you could not buy property,
you could not rent without a co signer.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Oh, and you're going to broadcast yourself without a petty
coat on to the world.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Put your petty coat on, you.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Absolute Jezzebel. No, it's just it's not what we're doing.
Is I think pointing out the flaws and the logic? Yes, right,
And I think going back to Candace Owens being, for
whatever reason, just so adamant about women's specific point. There
was a Jubilee episode that it was like Candace Owens
versus I don't know, twenty one feminists or something, and
(27:26):
so Candace is just going on and on and on
about how women should be home. But again, Candace is
on tour. Yes, Canada's is on tour. There's a comedian,
I think it was Yvonne Orgy whom she's a stando comedian.
She's Nigerian. She talks about this in her comedy and
she's she was talking to her mom about how she
goes on tour and she performs on stage in front
(27:47):
of crowds as a stand up comedian, and then her
mom says something like, oh, so you're a prostitute are
you're performing? You're creating yourself around for many in front
of all these people. So you're a whore. And I'm
not calling Candace owns. I just think that it's a
funny joke that reminds me of her, right, because what's traditional? Yes,
about being on tour?
Speaker 3 (28:07):
Yeah, I mean, And she has so much to say
about the individual choices women are making, whether that be
having children on their own right, she like fiercely critiques
mothers or women who are choosing to be mothers on
their own that is still a problem for her because
they're single mothers. And then what is that going to
do to that's supposedly detrimental to the child in her worldview.
(28:30):
She also spews incredibly homophobic things about men, about gay men,
and so she is not someone that I would want
to be taking any type of information from. But she
does have a following. She does, and she is shaping
this conservative viewpoint and this conservative ideology and community that's growing.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
It's true. There's this other quote from Candace that women
are being socially engineered to hate men, men are being
socially engineered to be gay, making men be more in feminine.
I don't think men have to be engineered to be gay.
I think they're just gay on their own.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
I think they're just born gay.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
I think they're just gay on their own. I don't
think anybody has to do anything. But also, like there
is such.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
A clear hatred of the feminine.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
The feminine of women. I think there's a lot of
self hatred that I see from Candice Owens and women
like her who so publicly demand that we all agree
that women are inept and unable to live decent lives
on our own or based on our own choices and desires,
(29:41):
and that we in like choosing for ourselves are like
the biggest detriment right to men into society. And it's
just so sad to see that amount of like self
doubt and lack of confidence, self hatred, and that amount
of self hatred. And I don't know, I just want
to as all so like when we hear this stuff
(30:02):
and they try and blame us for like living life
on our own terms, and I don't know, somehow try
to tie social demise to our freedom, like, don't let
them get to you. Yeah, don't let it happen, don't
fall for it. We're doing just fine.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Yeah. And I think with all of that in mind,
like it then begs the question, how does that influence
our personal decisions to have children or not?
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Is it even a choice anymore?
Speaker 3 (30:28):
And I think that that has been one of the
fundamental pillars of feminism, is that I have the choice
to have children or not. But given the current state
of everything in this country, is it even a choice anymore?
Do I even have the free will to make a
choice to have children, knowing everything that's at stake? And
(30:51):
so it is, I think we cannot talk about the
individual choice because in so many ways and nothing is individual.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
We're all in community.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
My individual choice affects everyone else, whether I want to
believe it or not.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Yeah, absolutely, And you know, on that piece, I think
we still bringing it from the meta to the to
the micro here. You know, I think we each have
had these conversations, I think on an ongoing rolling basis
about not having kids. And it's so fascinating because I
just wonder, like, if I were to just do it
(31:28):
right now, just to do it. Would that like satisfy everybody?
And would everybody be happy? No, because they would still
want it to be done a particular way, absolutely, but
also hurry up and do it this particular way.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Yeah, And I was thinking about that, and I think
when preparing for this episode, I was thinking about how
many goal posts there are for women, especially when you
date men. You know, Pananda was like the first man
I dated and I ended up marrying him, right, and so,
which is always like so funny to me, but you know,
when we were dating, and I'm sure anyone who dates well,
(32:03):
I think to regardless, if you're partnered, you'll get this
question right of like when are you getting married? And
then the goalpost is when are you getting married? And
that's the question that everyone asks, and then it becomes
when are you having kids? And so my response that
I've been workshopping and I say now is it's not
something we're prioritizing right now. And that is my way
of being like, cause you know, really, what I want
(32:24):
to say is like it's none of your business actually,
but my like diplomatic way of saying is saying that
is it's not something we're prioritizing right now. A few
years ago fit none and I had like a timeline
and we said, like in five years. And I share
that with my mom because my mom kept asking. I
was like, okay, like, give give me five years.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Right, Well, what does my mom do?
Speaker 3 (32:43):
She goes and tells a couple people, Yeah, oh in
five years.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
And so now my Madrina is like when she sees me,
she's like the Ressagnasmas and I'm I know, and I like, honestly,
that timeline has changed. Like it's not five years anymore.
It's maybe ten years. Who knows it? Maybe never right, Yeah,
but there is like that that timeline. I think that
is put on It's an external timeline because I don't
even have a timeline, but it's an external timeline that
(33:09):
then is put on you by your family and by
by extension society.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Given everything we've discussed today.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Yeah, like you have a homework assignment that's due, Yes,
since you got to turn in.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
It's looming.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
It's looming. No pressure for me to pop one out,
just know that. Just no, thank God, take as much
time as you need. Freeze the eggs. Don't freeze the eggs.
There's all kinds of options.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
So many options.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
I mean it for now, for now, for now, there
are options for.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Now kind of well they're being minimized, but there's a
couple options left.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
There are a couple options, I mean.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
And even that part of family planning is like under attack,
like in vitro access to in vitro access to freezing
your eggs, like all of these things are under attack
right now by this administration. So it's not just the
right to have an abortion, but even the right to
have children, and in a different type of way that's
not quote traditional.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Yeah, it's a somehow in there, like crusade for freedom.
They really love like limitations and shackles.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Yeah, they actually hate freedom.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
They hate freedom very very much, or only a very
specific type of freedom for a very specific type of person.
But we reject it. Here it look at thot our radio,
we reject it. I know that that was just a
really heavy back and forth, but we do want to
come back and say we know a lot of our
(34:36):
listeners are mothers. Yeah, don't know how you do it,
so proud of you. Keep up the good work.
Speaker 4 (34:42):
Go Momsnestly they're raising like little radical empathic babies and
that is like something to be so proud of in
a world that makes it so challenging to be a mother.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Absolutely, and I think in these times more than ever,
we go back to the idea of your community and
your village, and when we don't have social safety nets,
when it is so volatile out there, when it is
so expensive and scary and difficult to raise a family,
we encourage you all to show up for the moms
(35:18):
and the babies in your life, even if you don't
have any yourself. You know, be the cousin that takes
them to the mall. You know, be the thea that
shows up at the games, that takes an interest and
an investment in the lives of the parents and the
children around you, because that is something that we can do,
(35:39):
we can still contribute to, like a beautiful childhood for
a kid that isn't that isn't ours, but who is
part of our family or our community. And I think
that's a really important thing right now and always.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
Yeah, and I think it's important to remember that, you know,
when we think of being in a community, that means
being an active participant of that community. Right If you
want a village for your family, for your friend who's
a mom, like you have to be a villager, and
that means showing up even when it's not convenient. That
means showing up even when the state of the world
(36:16):
is exhausting, tiring, anxiety inducing, like it means still showing
up for the people that are in our lives, especially
the moms, especially the children. It's really it's a really
challenging time for everyone, but especially for moms, especially for children.
We're seeing all across LA and LA County that programming,
that summer programming is being cut because of fear of
(36:39):
ice rates. So now more than ever, your mom friend
needs support and she maybe needs to go get out
for a second without her children, and it's a good
time to step in in that way.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Absolutely. In a previous episode, we also talked about how
do we support our immigrant community members, presumably adults, right
We're also seeing is that the children of our immigrant
community members are also doing a lot of caretaking and
helping and stepping up in light of everything that's going on,
so on that level as well, you know, like how
(37:14):
do we support the kids. Supporting the parents means supporting the.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Kids absolutely, absolutely, so thank you Loka Motives for listening.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
We know this was a heavy episode.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
Take care of yourselves, take care of each other, step outside,
always remember to hydrate.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
And we'll catch you next time. See those.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
Look at Radio is executive produced by Viosa Fen and
Mala Munios.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Stephanie Franco is our.
Speaker 4 (37:41):
Producer, Story editing by me viosa.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Creative direction by me Malak.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
Look at Our Radio is a part of iHeartRadio's Mike
Lupua podcast network.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
You can listen to look at Radio on the iHeartRadio
app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (37:55):
Leave us a review and share with your pritima or
share with your homegirls.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
And thank you to our look more risks our listeners
for tuning in. Tchuned every weekitos
Speaker 2 (38:08):
Log alone
Ready, all right, looka motis. So today we come to
the studio a little shaken. Honestly, I texted Theosa and
Jackie this morning SOS because I was really stressed out
while I was walking my dog and I'm going to
(00:21):
get emotional because it just happened and I'm still processing.
But when I was walking my dog bought us on
our morning walk. Typical day, I wanted to get everything
going early so that I could get to campus and
work on producing this movie I'm producing, and then get
to Hollywood to record with Loka Thoida. And as we're
(00:44):
out and about, there was this group of white men
who were walking in the opposite direction that I was,
so they were walking towards me. I was walking towards them.
And you know that moment when, especially I think, as
women were out and about and there's a group of
men and they're talking and they're laughing and they're chattering,
and then when they get close to you they get
(01:04):
really quiet. Well that happened that moment. So they're passing
by me. There's like six or seven of them, and
they got really quiet, and then one of them says,
Ice is going to get you. And then the others
started to repeat it, and then they started like laughing
about it, and you know, they were like passing me
on both sides of the sidewalk, so I felt very
much like surrounded by them. They didn't stop, they didn't
(01:26):
touch me, they didn't say anything else, but they said
ice is going to get you. And then they all
started repeating it and laughing, and it took me a
minute to realize that the comment was directed towards me,
and it definitely was, and so I just wanted to
like get out of there and get home as soon
as possible and get to campus and go on with
(01:48):
my day. And so you know, I know you all
out there in your own in your own communities and
in your own families are experiencing scary things. I'm much
scarier than what I experience this morning. But it was
one of those moments where like they felt so bold
to say something to me, a complete stranger, and I
(02:10):
was not bothering them. And also a reminder that, you know,
it reminded me in that moment that like when they
looked at me, they saw somebody who is other and
who could be targeted for things like this, Like I
look like somebody who could be snatched up. And I
know that we're all seeing the news and the reports
(02:31):
about the way that Ice that how they have quotas
that they're trying to meet, and Maria, you know Hosa
recently was talking about how there simply aren't enough you know,
quote criminal undocumented people to round up, and so in
order to meet their quotas, they're just detaining anybody and
(02:51):
everybody indiscriminately without asking names or documentation. They're definitely acting
first and asking questions later. And so after that experience,
all of that was coming to mind for me, and
it just made me hyper aware of how close the
(03:12):
threat is and how even just seemingly pedestrian people on
the street might have that hatred in their heart. And
you know, it was scary to experience that they were
so close to me and so close to where I live,
and that when I walk out on the street that
somebody might see me or someone like me, or someone
(03:34):
like our listeners, or like my co host, or like
my friends and family and think that it's funny that
were being targeted. So I just wanted to share that
this morning. And you know, I know we've been covering
the ice raids on the podcast, and what a scary
time it is. And it's scary for a lot of
different reasons, politically, economically, This administration is basically touching all
(04:03):
parts of our lives. And you know, I don't think
that there's necessarily a smooth transition from today's experience into
the topic of our episode, but we did want to
talk about all the different reasons why people in our
community are maybe changing, maybe their wants and desires and
(04:23):
their plans for themselves, whether that has to do with
travel or how they move through the world, or whether
or not they start families, not only because of the economy,
but because of the climate and how scary it is
even just to be an adult. But how do you
bring a child into all of this? So, yeah, I
bring this to you, and you know, I'm here with Yosa,
(04:45):
And she said to me before we recorded, you don't
have to talk about it if you don't want to,
But I said, no, no, Like, if not here, then where,
you know, if not on the podcast, if not on
our archive, then where do we have the conversation? Because
I don't want it to be content, but I do
want it to be part of like our our dialogue.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Don't go anywhere, look amotives. We'll be right.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Back, and we're back with more of our episode.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
As women in their thirties, I have definitely noticed the
conversation about are you gonna have kids or not? And
it's not just questions we're getting from our families, but
questions that we're having with each other internally, with ourselves
and just with our friend group. But there's no way
of talking about deciding to have children or deciding to
(05:38):
be child free without identifying and naming that we're in
late stage capitalism. We're living in a fascist regime. There
are so many reasons women are choosing to not have
children that extend beyond the individual choice of motherhood is
not for me. There are systemic reasons that women may
(05:59):
be choosing to not have children. And so we're going
to use some of that idea and that theory to
really ground us in the conversation today and really look
at the macro before we dive into the personal conversations
that we're having with each other and with our friends.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
I think that there's this tendency to look at a
person's child freeness and automatically find fault with it and
then place blame on them. And we're seeing this conversation
not only on social media, not only in our families,
but also like in the broader political and social conversation
(06:37):
in the news, on the political level, going all the
way up to the White House, where people like JD.
Vance and Donald Trump and Candice Owens, who's you know,
not in the White House, but a talking head who
has been very supportive of the White House, where folks
have a very particular desire to like zero in on
focus in on childless women and blame them for things
(07:00):
like their own misery, but also blaming them for this
sort of social like sort of social decline and a
decline to the quality of life in the United States
and the power of the United.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
States definitely, And I think that there's a blaming of
feminism that like feminism has rotted our brains, has taken
us so far away from like quote traditional values and
instilled in us these like quote toxic feminist values that
were like forgetting our quote purpose of what it means
(07:34):
to be a woman, which is to child bear children.
And so I do see that that type of ideology
at like the highest levels of power in the United States.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Right from Oprah Daily. Quote, child free people like me
are all over the news at the moment, and this
is due to ongoing studies reporting that millennial women are
having fewer children, but also due to off the cuff
remarks such as JD Vance's dig at Kamala Harri and
all quote childless cat ladies who are apparently living miserable lives,
(08:06):
and this type of rhetoric is all over the place.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Yeah, I now identify very strongly as a childless cat
lady because that is my life right now. I do
have a bunch of cats, and I am childless, and
so I'm actually not miserable. I'm quite happy.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
I mean, look at you. You're thriving, You're glowing.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
I'm thriving.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Come on, Yes, I'm not thriving. I'm surviving today. But
generally speaking, yeah, I'm not living a miserable life. I'm
living a pretty happy life in spite of fascism. And
I think that these men like JD Vance and these
politicos that are trying to talk about the declining birth
rate are intentionally ignoring the policy that they're writing, the
(08:47):
policy that they're backing and supporting that do not support
women having children. Just recently, snap food benefits were cut,
Medicaid is being cut. There are so many things that
are supposed to help children in working people mothers that
are intentionally being reduced or cut, and so that actually
(09:07):
does lead to a miserable life.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Yeah. So, in spite of the fact that all these
factors which are really impacting our quality of life, in
the quality of life of any future children in a
negative way. In spite of all of these social safety
nets being cut and even things like student loans being cut,
there is still pressure to reproduce from Amy Wilkinson, despite
(09:31):
the growing number of people saying no thanks to parenthood.
In twenty twenty three, forty three percent of US homes
were childless, which is an increase by seven percent from
twenty twelve according to the US Census Bureau. So there
is an ongoing increase in the number of child free
homes in the United States and the birth rate is declining,
(09:51):
but people seem to target this as a fault of
women who are exercising free choice, like women who are
child free are to blame for the declining birth rate,
and these other social and economic factors are never really considered.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Yeah, and I think It's important to note that while
there is a declining birth rate in the United States.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
It's also globally. Globally, people are.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Having less children, and there's its own conversation to be
had about climate change and climate disaster and how that
could be a reason that folks globally are not having
children in addition to socio political reasons. Climate change is
of course also under that umbrella, but that is also
a factor that cannot be ignored. So it's not just
folks in the US, but there is a declining birth
(10:39):
rate globally as well. Also want to mention that there
is some research that we did when prepping for this episode,
and that the falling birth rate is not necessarily due
to a less desire to have children. And I quote,
it's hard to have children in the United States right now.
There's not a lot of support for parents in the US,
and young adults face a lot of challenges student loans,
(11:00):
at the high cost of housing, job insecurity that may
lead them to delay or maybe even give up on
having children.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
And even though there are all of these really intense
it's like a pressure cooker, all these factors that may
get so scary and untenable to reproduce. It's still also
seen as a woman's responsibility and primary role to bring
children into the world. I don't see a conversation about
men having a responsibility to making the world a safe
(11:32):
and welcoming place for their own children, right that they
wish to bring into the world. It's a very lopsided conversation.
And from an opinion piece in the La Times, I
chose to be child free. The Pope called a selfish
and Elon Musk went as far as suggesting we lose
our right to vote. The Supreme Court eliminated the federal
right to abortion, while some states are limiting access to
(11:52):
certain forms of birth control, all but forcing some women
to have children.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
It's not just the Jdvances of the world, and of
course they are influencing the cultural conversation, but it's also
conservative women that are pushing these ideologies, this pro natalist
ideology as well. The Times, which is a London based publication,
covered this conference of conservative women in Dallas, and something
(12:22):
that I thought was really notable from this article and
this profile is that the type of rhetoric that's being
spewed by some of these women is quote less prozac,
more protein, less burnout, more babies, less feminism, more femininity.
Let's be honest, it's never been hotter to be a conservative.
(12:42):
And the woman who said this is Alex Clark, and
she was a speaker at this conference, and so I
think that really encapsulates the conservative woman right now. And
they're also propping up this idea that our role in
life and in society is to raise children and to
be mothers. And it's almost like we saw the Girl Boss,
(13:06):
and it is this rejection of the Girl Boss, and
I think what they're not maybe piecing together is like, yeah,
you were burnt out, probably from climbing the corporate ladder.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Maybe you're rejecting that, and now.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
You're going like an entirely different route into like I'm
not going to work at all, when probably what you
needed was a safety net, not necessarily like this conservative viewpoint.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
But that is like where it's heading.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
And it's so odd how feminism continues to be positioned
as oppositional to that choice right, because feminism is all
about protecting women's right to choose the life that they
want to live that if they want to be, if
(13:54):
they want to be mothers, if they want to get married,
if they want to stay at home, that there be
the proper protect in place socially, economically, medically that they
can do that without being trapped and without being abused,
and with having access to all the medical care that
they need, and still being able to have a bank
(14:14):
account and still being able to drive a car. Like
it's about protecting women no matter what life choices they
want to make. If a woman wants to be a
sex worker, feminism would say that, at least, in the
very least, our society should not criminalize sex workers, should
not abuse sex workers. If women want to work full
(14:34):
time and never have kids, you know, like, leave that
woman alone. And so this notion that feminism is antithetical
to having babies when feminism has also entailed like making
sure that we're not subjected to eugenics and for sterilization
in hospitals, right so that we can have babies if
we choose to. So it's a very gross sort of
(14:58):
interpretation of feminism.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
I think what's really interesting about this conference that the
Times covered is that it is a lot of young women,
So it's a lot of gen Z women. And there
was a woman who they interviewed who is twenty three
years old, and she felt that she wanted the opposite
of what millennials had. And so it's like gen Z
(15:21):
grew up seeing us maybe struggling, maybe in student loan debt,
not being able to buy a home, not having kids,
and they're rejecting that. And so in this quote, this
woman says, kind of seeing everything that's happened with millennials
and just the way they're going. They're not having kids,
They're just stressing themselves out, burning themselves out. I think
(15:41):
we're really leaning towards a family, Christian just a strong
moral code, because I think that's something that's lacking for
a lot of us. And so it really is this
pushback I think on the progressive ideologies, beliefs, political views
that millennials have because we grew up in this era,
like we some of the gen Z folks, I don't
(16:01):
remember the Me Too movement the way we did, right.
They don't remember what it was like to vote in
the twenty sixteen elections. They don't remember Donald Trump and
the Axis Hollywood tapes. They were children, how could they?
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (16:14):
And so there is I think this collective misremembering because
they were children and so there's a then rejection of
the things that we have been fighting for as millennial women.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
This is also important to have the conversation that these
conservative women are I think, largely white women, and so
there is something really important in a white woman led
movement to have more babies and return to traditional values.
(16:50):
And there's a eugenics here because these women are not
advocating that women of color have the opportunity to stay
home and have as many babies they want.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Yeah, they don't like when we do that.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Actually, no, it is a very specific movement to increase
the white birth rate, and there is a propaganda element
here that is directed towards white women. You will have
a softer, better, less stressful life if you just forget
about all this feminism nonsense and this making your own
(17:23):
money nonsense, and stay home and have as many babies
as your uterus will allow. And there are those natalist
women out there who are doing press junkets basically talking
about how they absolutely plan to have babies until their
uterus is removed. And this is not something that they
are extending again to immigrant women, to black and brown women,
(17:45):
and therefore it is a movement of eugenics. It's poor
and white supremacy.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
It is because as we know, historically Latino women, Black
women have been sterilized without their consent, without their knowledge,
even because they don't want us having babies. And I
think that that is an important piece to remember when
we are choosing to have children or not, Like they
actually don't want us to have kids. They don't want
us to reproduce in this country. Specifically, they're tearing away
(18:14):
immigrant mothers from their babies in this current moment.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
And if we do have children, they want our children
to not have access to higher education. They want our
children to be low wage labor that can be discarded
when no longer needed, or can be labor that is
detained and arrested. And then you are basically, per constitution,
you can still enslave people if they're imprisoned, right, And
(18:41):
so this is another piece that people talk about when
it comes to ice raids, immigration, detention, the prison industrial
complex that once a person is in state custody in
that way, has been criminalized and is detained, they are
susceptible to being exploited for their labor. And since we
can't just enslave civilians, what we can technically enslave, imprisoned people.
(19:05):
There is a political and economic motivation to criminalize and
detain as many non white people as possible. So it's
all connected here. And not to sound like a conspiracy theorist,
but I think that the research has been done, the
writing has been done, absolutely, you know, the policies have
been passed, the statements have been made by the president
(19:27):
and folks who work for him, that we can understand
what's happening here. They don't want us to have babies,
but if we do, then they want our babies to
be labor labor.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Yeah, I mean, and we're not the only ones connecting
these dots and having these conversations. Recently, NPR put out
a report titled the Politics of Fewer Babies, and there's
this SoundBite of our president Trump saying, quote, I'll be
known as a fertilization president. And that's okay, that's not bad.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
That's not bad. I've been called much worse.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
And so there is definitely a pattern here where the
political figures, the politicians are very outspokenly talking about the
falling birth rate and who they want to have more
children is white people.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Yeah, and what have they been calling the children of
immigrants for years. Anger anchor babies, not like oh oh great,
you know, oh great, we're repopulating, Oh great, Like babies
are being born. No, these babies are bad babies. They're
anchor babies.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
And research has shown the research is there that immigrants
do contribute to the birth population because they are having
babies here.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Yeah, that's not the type of babies that they want
born here.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
They're currently they're trying to President Trump is trying to
revoke birthright citizenship and make it a state thing versus
a federal policy, a federal law. And so that's also
really important to consider too, Like you could be in
the state of California or you could be in Texas
and you might not have access to citizenship depending on
where you're born.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Absolutely, we have this idea maybe that oh, I'm a
citizen and so it protects me and it can't be
taken away from me. But like it can be, it
can be. It's happened before in other places. I mean,
a lot of people have been making a lot of
connections to the current moment, and of course Nazi Germany
(21:26):
and the setup and the way that things happened before
the Holocaust was full the full blown Holocaust, because it
didn't just happen overnight. You know, there were policies being passed,
there was rhetoric, there was propaganda, there were hateful, racist
cartoons and speeches. Eventually people started getting snatched up and
(21:48):
criminalized and sent away and detained, including people who were
German born right, but who were at the time were
not fitting the white supremacist German definition of what a
German citizen truly is, right, and we see something very
similar happening here now. And a JD. Vance again recently
(22:09):
was so boxing and talking about how if your ancestors
fought in the Civil War, if you're descended from people
who fought in the Civil War, you have way more
claim to Americanness than any of these other people.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
I'm like, which side of the Civil War? I think
we know which one. But that is a very interesting,
very not even coded, that's so explicit, that's so fucking explicit.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Very explicit. So it's crazy times. And it is interesting
how back in the day, of course, propaganda was predominantly
spread through political figures, press conferences and speeches, broadcast news journalism,
(22:54):
because news and journalism of course can also be conservative, can.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Be part of the propaganda machine.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Can be part of the propaganda machine. However, in today's
day and age, we have the propaganda machine on our
cell phones, yes, and civilians, regular people can contribute to
the propaganda with their lifestyle content, with the tradwife content right,
or can consume the propaganda so much more quickly and
easily and constantly than I think has ever been possible.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Don't go anywhere, lookamotives, We'll.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
Be right back, and we're back with more of our episode.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
And I think one of the women that has been
very much of that propaganda is Candice Owans, Yes bodly
very much influencing this culture of and soapboxing that women
should be staying home, when notably she does not stay home.
She's working, she's a political, she's a talking head yas
(24:00):
she has a YouTube like, she's actually not quote traditional,
she could be actually maybe the furthest from traditional.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
In so many ways. And I think so many of
these sort of tradwife influencers are not traditional in any way,
shape or form, because showing the outside world insight into
like your home and your kitchen, Yeah, there's nothing traditional
about that.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
And we've been talking about that here at look atra
radio internally because you know, in so many ways, Latina mom,
like our mothers and our grandmothers fall into what we
consider trad wives. Oh yeah, they were making the food.
They're making the food from scratch. They were serving their
husbands quite literally. I remember, like growing up, my mom
(24:42):
would you know, work make the meal and then serve
my father a plate. My dad would just be sitting
at the table and my mom would serve him, take
him his plate, and then would serve herself.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Right, yeah, And so my mom would never be putting
that online, right.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
You know, obviously there's generational differences, but that idea of
like trad wives being new is not necessarily a new concept,
but it is a new type of content that we're seeing.
It's like a subset on the Internet, and it does
influence and encourage women to take on this more subversive
(25:19):
role in their lives and in their families. I have
not seen This doesn't mean it's not out there, but
I haven't seen like queer women doing tradwive content.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Interesting.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Maybe they're out there, but I for what I've seen,
it has been like heterosexual women making content about taking
care of their husbands and their families and making the
food and doing the quote traditional things. And that's quote
softer life, which is also a co opted term.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Now, yeah, soft life, because what about staying home and
raising ten kids is soft? Nothing, nothing at all. That
is a very difficult, laborious life. And your husband, if
he's working, like a traditional husband is working, he's not
helping you.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
He's not helping you. He's also not supposed to help you.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
He's not supposed to help you.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
In traditional in a traditional viewpoint, right, he's or traditional values.
He's actually not supposed to help you because he's supposed
to work and you're supposed to do everything else. You
carry the house, you carry the children.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
That's that's that's traditional. And you don't complain, right, and
you don't complain and you do with the smile.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Sounds miserable actually absolutely, And not only that, I mean
these these influencers, these tradwafe influencers, they're making money. Every
woman and every person should have access to their own money.
That is like how abuse can permeate in relationships. I
don't think like, oh, you shouldn't be monetizing. But if
we're pushing back on this idea that tradwives are traditional
(26:45):
and they're they have traditional values and they want like
a life from the nineteen fifties. You couldn't have a
bank account, Nope, you could not have a credit card,
you could not buy a car, you could not buy property,
you could not rent without a co signer.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Oh, and you're going to broadcast yourself without a petty
coat on to the world.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Put your petty coat on, you.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Absolute Jezzebel. No, it's just it's not what we're doing.
Is I think pointing out the flaws and the logic? Yes, right,
And I think going back to Candace Owens being, for
whatever reason, just so adamant about women's specific point. There
was a Jubilee episode that it was like Candace Owens
versus I don't know, twenty one feminists or something, and
(27:26):
so Candace is just going on and on and on
about how women should be home. But again, Candace is
on tour. Yes, Canada's is on tour. There's a comedian,
I think it was Yvonne Orgy whom she's a stando comedian.
She's Nigerian. She talks about this in her comedy and
she's she was talking to her mom about how she
goes on tour and she performs on stage in front
(27:47):
of crowds as a stand up comedian, and then her
mom says something like, oh, so you're a prostitute are
you're performing? You're creating yourself around for many in front
of all these people. So you're a whore. And I'm
not calling Candace owns. I just think that it's a
funny joke that reminds me of her, right, because what's traditional? Yes,
about being on tour?
Speaker 3 (28:07):
Yeah, I mean, And she has so much to say
about the individual choices women are making, whether that be
having children on their own right, she like fiercely critiques
mothers or women who are choosing to be mothers on
their own that is still a problem for her because
they're single mothers. And then what is that going to
do to that's supposedly detrimental to the child in her worldview.
(28:30):
She also spews incredibly homophobic things about men, about gay men,
and so she is not someone that I would want
to be taking any type of information from. But she
does have a following. She does, and she is shaping
this conservative viewpoint and this conservative ideology and community that's growing.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
It's true. There's this other quote from Candace that women
are being socially engineered to hate men, men are being
socially engineered to be gay, making men be more in feminine.
I don't think men have to be engineered to be gay.
I think they're just gay on their own.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
I think they're just born gay.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
I think they're just gay on their own. I don't
think anybody has to do anything. But also, like there
is such.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
A clear hatred of the feminine.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
The feminine of women. I think there's a lot of
self hatred that I see from Candice Owens and women
like her who so publicly demand that we all agree
that women are inept and unable to live decent lives
on our own or based on our own choices and desires,
(29:41):
and that we in like choosing for ourselves are like
the biggest detriment right to men into society. And it's
just so sad to see that amount of like self
doubt and lack of confidence, self hatred, and that amount
of self hatred. And I don't know, I just want
to as all so like when we hear this stuff
(30:02):
and they try and blame us for like living life
on our own terms, and I don't know, somehow try
to tie social demise to our freedom, like, don't let
them get to you. Yeah, don't let it happen, don't
fall for it. We're doing just fine.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Yeah. And I think with all of that in mind,
like it then begs the question, how does that influence
our personal decisions to have children or not?
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Is it even a choice anymore?
Speaker 3 (30:28):
And I think that that has been one of the
fundamental pillars of feminism, is that I have the choice
to have children or not. But given the current state
of everything in this country, is it even a choice anymore?
Do I even have the free will to make a
choice to have children, knowing everything that's at stake? And
(30:51):
so it is, I think we cannot talk about the
individual choice because in so many ways and nothing is individual.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
We're all in community.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
My individual choice affects everyone else, whether I want to
believe it or not.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Yeah, absolutely, And you know, on that piece, I think
we still bringing it from the meta to the to
the micro here. You know, I think we each have
had these conversations, I think on an ongoing rolling basis
about not having kids. And it's so fascinating because I
just wonder, like, if I were to just do it
(31:28):
right now, just to do it. Would that like satisfy everybody?
And would everybody be happy? No, because they would still
want it to be done a particular way, absolutely, but
also hurry up and do it this particular way.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Yeah, And I was thinking about that, and I think
when preparing for this episode, I was thinking about how
many goal posts there are for women, especially when you
date men. You know, Pananda was like the first man
I dated and I ended up marrying him, right, and so,
which is always like so funny to me, but you know,
when we were dating, and I'm sure anyone who dates well,
(32:03):
I think to regardless, if you're partnered, you'll get this
question right of like when are you getting married? And
then the goalpost is when are you getting married? And
that's the question that everyone asks, and then it becomes
when are you having kids? And so my response that
I've been workshopping and I say now is it's not
something we're prioritizing right now. And that is my way
of being like, cause you know, really, what I want
(32:24):
to say is like it's none of your business actually,
but my like diplomatic way of saying is saying that
is it's not something we're prioritizing right now. A few
years ago fit none and I had like a timeline
and we said, like in five years. And I share
that with my mom because my mom kept asking. I
was like, okay, like, give give me five years.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Right, Well, what does my mom do?
Speaker 3 (32:43):
She goes and tells a couple people, Yeah, oh in
five years.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
And so now my Madrina is like when she sees me,
she's like the Ressagnasmas and I'm I know, and I like, honestly,
that timeline has changed. Like it's not five years anymore.
It's maybe ten years. Who knows it? Maybe never right, Yeah,
but there is like that that timeline. I think that
is put on It's an external timeline because I don't
even have a timeline, but it's an external timeline that
(33:09):
then is put on you by your family and by
by extension society.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Given everything we've discussed today.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Yeah, like you have a homework assignment that's due, Yes,
since you got to turn in.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
It's looming.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
It's looming. No pressure for me to pop one out,
just know that. Just no, thank God, take as much
time as you need. Freeze the eggs. Don't freeze the eggs.
There's all kinds of options.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
So many options.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
I mean it for now, for now, for now, there
are options for.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Now kind of well they're being minimized, but there's a
couple options left.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
There are a couple options, I mean.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
And even that part of family planning is like under attack,
like in vitro access to in vitro access to freezing
your eggs, like all of these things are under attack
right now by this administration. So it's not just the
right to have an abortion, but even the right to
have children, and in a different type of way that's
not quote traditional.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Yeah, it's a somehow in there, like crusade for freedom.
They really love like limitations and shackles.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Yeah, they actually hate freedom.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
They hate freedom very very much, or only a very
specific type of freedom for a very specific type of person.
But we reject it. Here it look at thot our radio,
we reject it. I know that that was just a
really heavy back and forth, but we do want to
come back and say we know a lot of our
(34:36):
listeners are mothers. Yeah, don't know how you do it,
so proud of you. Keep up the good work.
Speaker 4 (34:42):
Go Momsnestly they're raising like little radical empathic babies and
that is like something to be so proud of in
a world that makes it so challenging to be a mother.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Absolutely, and I think in these times more than ever,
we go back to the idea of your community and
your village, and when we don't have social safety nets,
when it is so volatile out there, when it is
so expensive and scary and difficult to raise a family,
we encourage you all to show up for the moms
(35:18):
and the babies in your life, even if you don't
have any yourself. You know, be the cousin that takes
them to the mall. You know, be the thea that
shows up at the games, that takes an interest and
an investment in the lives of the parents and the
children around you, because that is something that we can do,
(35:39):
we can still contribute to, like a beautiful childhood for
a kid that isn't that isn't ours, but who is
part of our family or our community. And I think
that's a really important thing right now and always.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
Yeah, and I think it's important to remember that, you know,
when we think of being in a community, that means
being an active participant of that community. Right If you
want a village for your family, for your friend who's
a mom, like you have to be a villager, and
that means showing up even when it's not convenient. That
means showing up even when the state of the world
(36:16):
is exhausting, tiring, anxiety inducing, like it means still showing
up for the people that are in our lives, especially
the moms, especially the children. It's really it's a really
challenging time for everyone, but especially for moms, especially for children.
We're seeing all across LA and LA County that programming,
that summer programming is being cut because of fear of
(36:39):
ice rates. So now more than ever, your mom friend
needs support and she maybe needs to go get out
for a second without her children, and it's a good
time to step in in that way.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Absolutely. In a previous episode, we also talked about how
do we support our immigrant community members, presumably adults, right
We're also seeing is that the children of our immigrant
community members are also doing a lot of caretaking and
helping and stepping up in light of everything that's going on,
so on that level as well, you know, like how
(37:14):
do we support the kids. Supporting the parents means supporting the.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Kids absolutely, absolutely, so thank you Loka Motives for listening.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
We know this was a heavy episode.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
Take care of yourselves, take care of each other, step outside,
always remember to hydrate.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
And we'll catch you next time. See those.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
Look at Radio is executive produced by Viosa Fen and
Mala Munios.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Stephanie Franco is our.
Speaker 4 (37:41):
Producer, Story editing by me viosa.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Creative direction by me Malak.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
Look at Our Radio is a part of iHeartRadio's Mike
Lupua podcast network.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
You can listen to look at Radio on the iHeartRadio
app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (37:55):
Leave us a review and share with your pritima or
share with your homegirls.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
And thank you to our look more risks our listeners
for tuning in. Tchuned every weekitos
Speaker 2 (38:08):
Log alone
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