August 22, 2024 • 24 mins
Madeline Fry Schultz discusses her experience at Hillsdale College and the unique qualities of the students there. The conversation then shifts to the cultural issues surrounding gender and the challenges faced by both the left and the right in defining gender roles. They also discuss the importance of community and support for stay-at-home moms. The conversation concludes with a discussion on the lack of conservative representation in the arts and the challenges faced by conservative artists. The Karol Markowicz Show is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday & Thursday.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
My voice is finally almost sort of back to normal,
which you know, I appreciate. I tweeted that I had
had a bad cough for like nine days and it
was going away, and I got a lot of very
funny answers, and I'm thankful for all the people that
wished me well and so I'm doing better. Thank you
(00:27):
for asking. So this week, if you're on that X platform,
a user tweeted some marital advice. His name is Tyler
Tote Todt, his handle is ty Ral and he wrote
it was in a thread of other marital advice, but
this tweet is the one that went viral. He said,
(00:47):
tip for women. Most of us men really want to help,
but don't know how. Give us lists, give us list
items weekly. We can take off your plate and we'd
love to help. Guys ask her what I can take
off your plate to time. The key is solid communication
around this. We can't read minds. This tweet blew up.
I mean it was everywhere. Women took this tweet super well.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Being a little sarcastic there, he.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Got thousands of responses calling him names, saying women don't
want to make no stinking lists for.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
No men, etc.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
I find this bananas. I've talked about this on the
show before, but my husband and I do not have
equal distribution of household or children duties, not even close.
My job is way more flexible, so I do more
around the house period. It's not even about gender rules.
I have more time, so obviously I'm going to be
the one to do it, and when I want him
(01:43):
to do something, I ask him to do it. This
complex that some women have where they just expect men
to read their minds is baffling to me. I mean,
I always like to say, have they met men? Do
they seem like they could read our minds. What I
really think helps us in our marriage is that we
have a clear delineation of duties. Some things that, for example,
(02:08):
wouldn't fall into either mine or his categories, we somehow
just know who would handle a charge or a credit
card that is an error, that's all me. Always our
fridge right now currently leaking. I have provided the towel
to soak up the water, but everybody understands I'm not
the one calling the repair man. I don't know why
(02:30):
this is it's just the way it is. It's not
perfect right. Sometimes there'll be things that he would think
are my responsibility or I would think are his responsibility,
and the other person's like, wait, I didn't know that.
And I can think of various times in our marriage
fifteen years now that we've given each other lists of
things to do, like, hey, I need these things done.
(02:52):
What's so wrong about that? This idea that the man
should just know is crazy. The responses are like if
the dishes are dirty, wash them, or the bathroom always
needs cleaning. Again, have you met men? I know all
about the idea of weaponizing competence when a man pretends
he doesn't know how to do something so his wife
will do it for him. But that's not what we're
(03:14):
talking about here. This is about the reality that most
single straight men do not take care of their homes
to the standards of the average women. I think we
all know this. Look. Of course, there are exceptions. There
are men who are very tidy, who take super great
care of their home even when they live on their own.
(03:35):
Maybe they have a cleaning woman come once a week,
maybe they do it themselves, but that's not the standard thing.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
We have.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
The whole joke about the men who have the mattress
on the floor for years and years and years until
they get a girlfriend who's like enough of this. Yes,
you're going to have to teach him some stuff, explain
some things, and let's be real here, in most relationships,
he'll teach you some things too. This rage at men
is not healthy for anyone, and it's not productive. It
(04:03):
festures online women talk each other into believing that good men,
men who actually want to help their wives, are actually
horrible because they don't know already what they need to
be doing. I mean, my message is obviously, communicate with
your spouse, but more than that, stay away from these
internet chats. This insanity that festerres If you're in a
(04:27):
good marriage, whether you're a man or a woman, protect
it from these raging voices. It was that great poet
Mick Jagger who said, during the one random solo country
album he made, love is fragile. You hide it from
the light, don't let the internet in. Coming up next
and interview with Madeline fries Schultz. Join us after the break.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My
guest today is Madeline fries Schultz Madeline the contributors editor
at the Washton Examiner, of visiting fellow at Independent Women's
Forum I Love Them, and a contributing writer for Verile Magazine.
She's also an online editor for Human Life Review and
has been published in more than a dozen outlets. She
(05:15):
studied French and journalism at Hillsdale College. Follow her on
exit Madeline Frye him, Madeline, So nice to have.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
You on all right, thanks for having me. So I
have to.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Start with the Hillsdale part because I just did a
fellowship there a few months ago, and I loved it
like crazy, Like I thought it was just the most
incredible place. And I was particularly impressed. I mean, the faculty,
the campus, all of it. It's amazing, but the students, like,
my god, the students. I was just blown away by them.
(05:48):
So I wanted to ask you when you were there,
do you, guys, did you feel like you were doing
something different than other colleges. Because I've spoken to college kids,
I've met really smart kids, but Hillsdale was something else entirely.
The way that they look you in the eye, the
way that they shake your hands, the way that they
come to class, not dressed in jeans all of it,
(06:09):
so they didn't feel didn't feel different or to you,
was it just normal?
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Yeah. I mean I don't want to talk up Hillsdale
too much. Obviously I love it, but at the time
it felt very normal because I didn't have a different
college experience. But I would go visit friends at other
colleges and you would see people going to class in
big T shirts and work out shorts and that. I
definitely I did that on the occasion, for sure, I lie,
But mostly you would dress up to go to class
(06:35):
and people would attend these events all the time. I
love the visiting professors. We had Mark and Mark and
Molly Hemingway, we had Heather McDonald from City Journal. I'm
sad that I missed your class as a few years
too than several years now. I've been out of college
for a while. But yeah, no, it is a great college.
I definitely recommended. I know everybody's aunt and uncle and
parents wants every high schooler to go there, but speaking
(06:58):
as a student who did, I definitely that's really.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
I mean, that's that's it. I was there and I
was like, I want my kids to have this kind
of experience. It's tougher. I mean, I'm Jewish, So it's
not because Hillsdale wouldn't be amazing for a Jewish student,
because I think that they would. I had, like, you know,
my Jewish star on the whole time, and it was
during the real campus protest, and I had like he
Brew my bag and everybody was totally wonderful. But you know,
(07:21):
I think of college, not that I think you should
get married out of college, but I do think it's
somewhere that you meet potentially the person to marry, and
I think that's tougher when there's only a few Jewish
kids on campus. So I told them that I was like,
if you started Jewish Hillsdale, I am in for.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
I met my husband through a friend that I met
at Hillsdale, So maybe something like that.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Yeah, well that's that's what I think of. You know,
if you think of kids, not kids, but you know,
young adults on a path to getting married. I think
it has a lot to do with where you go
to college and who you surround yourself with. So how
did you get into this world? What was the the
first steps into the media landscape for you?
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Yeah, going way back, my first thing that I ever
did in media was in high school. There was this
local flyer you could pick up at the grocery store
and it had little stories about stuff in my town.
I grew up in Peachtree City, Georgia. It's a suburb
of Atlanta, and I remember seeing it and I was thinking,
the graphic design is not very good. I wish I
(08:25):
could help with this. I was really into graphic design
for a while, so I reached out to the woman
who published it, and then I said, can I do
a teen column for you? And so for a few months,
I did a teen column. I called it Moxie. I
wrote a piece on being anti social media ironically I
love something, you know. I didn't have the time and
I think maybe I was taking a Facebook break or something.
I was feeling very high and mighty on all my
(08:47):
tips that.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
I was as we all do, yes, when we take
those breaks, how amazing we are. Yes.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah. So that's how I kind of got started. And
I liked journalism. And then I went to Hillsdale and
was thinking about maybe going into publishing or something. But
I really got involved in the journalism program and I
just loved the immediacy of it. That was my favorite
thing is that you could write something. It's kind of
like you get this dopamine hit when you see your
name published, but it's it's incredible that you get to
(09:16):
interview people too. I love the variety of people that
you get to speak with as a journalist. And it's
really cool because you can just be really nosy about
something and there's a topic that you want to know
more about, and then you get to just have a
reason to see it. Call someone and say I'm going
to talk to you for half an hour and just
pick your brain and then write up something about this
really cool and then you get to feel like the expert,
even though thirty minutes ago you had no idea what
(09:37):
the subject was about. Right.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Nothing better than when we all become experts overnight on
the topic of the day.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
It happens more than you would think, even with my.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Yeah yeah, well I've seen it. I've seen it happen
on the on the X platform. So what do you
consider your beat?
Speaker 2 (09:53):
I would say my beat is culture. Funnily enough, I
live in the DC area. I work kind of in
politics at a political news website, but I have never
been interested in politics really. I like to focus on
cultural issues, stuff from pop culture to books, movies, free
speech issues, how we talk to each other online in person,
(10:16):
all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
We're going to take a quick break and be right
back on the Carol Marcowitch Show. So a question that
I ask all of my guests, which is this is
the perfect seg is what do you consider our largest
cultural problem? Since you cover cultural issues.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Yes, I'm going to say that it's the gender wars.
This may be kind of a hot take, but I
think that this is a problem that creates a lot
of other problems. A lot of things stem from this,
and you see real issues with it on the right
and on the left. On the left, obviously they can't
tell you what gender is, they can't tell you what
a woman is. And then on the right we are
(10:56):
kind of reverting to this really strong gender determinism. See
in a lot of spears, and obviously I'm painting with
broad strokes. There are a lot of people on the
right who don't feel this way. But you have people
saying that if you're a woman, you have to be
a trad wife, you have to stay at home. You
have jd Vance complaining about childless cat ladies. I know
he kind of walked back that comment. But I think
that the right has a real issue with the way
(11:19):
that it talks to and portrays women. And then obviously
the left is no better because the left is saying, well,
if you're a woman and you're slightly masculine, you're non
binary or brands, there's really no home for people who
don't want to conform to really narrow expectations. And on
top of that, then we're just kind of fueling anger
(11:40):
in between men and women. That affects the marriage rate,
you know, and it kind of is leading to a
lot of other issues as well.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Is it solvable?
Speaker 2 (11:48):
I think so. I just don't know if anyone wants
to solve it.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
So how would you solve it?
Speaker 2 (11:54):
I mean, I think that we just need to be
really honest with people. I think one of the issues
I'm going to speak from the right because I'm a conservative,
I don't know what the left is going to do.
They're going to have to figure that out themselves, probably
be able to define what a woman.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Is, but maybe, Yeah, I think.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
I think on the right we need to be really
serious about what we're talking about when we talk about
men and women's roles. And what our goals for them are.
And it's important to realize that there are things that
are going to work for most people and not things
that aren't going to work for all people. And also
there's this really interesting point that Mary Harrington brings up.
(12:34):
She's a really great writer, and she talks about how
we have this idea of traditional family that is very
much based in the nineteen fifties where the man goes
to work and the woman stays at home, and that's
really not traditional at all. That developed after the Industrial Revolution.
Men and women used to both work. Women were probably
more in the home because it was safer for a
(12:54):
child to be around a loom versus a plow, you know,
so the man would probably be out in the field,
the woman would be at home, right, but everyone would
be working, everyone would feel fulfilled, you would have your
family around you. And then you come into our post
industrial society where women can't take babies to the factory.
That's completely unsafe, so they would stay home with their
kids and the dad would go off to work. But
(13:15):
then we also don't have grandparents staying at home. So
the society, the idea that we want to have, you know,
men outside the house, women in the house, which again
I'm not saying is a bad thing right from home
mostly and I really appreciate that flexibility. I love spending
time with my son, But that is it's not traditional,
and it's very isolating, and a return to that society
(13:37):
and encouraging women to be in that role also needs
to come along with community, having other moms who are
staying home, having grandpeethers. There is a support system. So
it's just not so simple as saying we want to
have more babies. We want women to return to these
traditional roles because the structure, the societal help that they
used to have just isn't there.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Yeah, I think that that's so right, because the idea
that women in the home will just find other women
to hang out with is tough because that's not the true.
That's not sort of the model that is happening right now.
I when I had my first baby, we were living
in Manhattan, and for the first three months I met
(14:18):
lots of women in the same situation as me, and
then they all went back to work and I was
going to be a stay at home mom and that
didn't work out that way. Just you know, sort of
life just happened and I took a different path. But
it's also that's another thing that I think about a
lot for these conversations is you don't really know how
it's going to go. You don't know how things are
(14:39):
going to turn out. You might just discover that you
want to be doing something, you know, having a job,
working outside the home. You don't know where life will
take you. It's a long road and making you know,
kind of firm decisions doesn't always work out the way
that you think it will. But the community part, I
think about that a lot, especially as you have older kids,
(15:01):
it gets really hard to kind of find those other parents,
other families if you are a stay at home mom.
I think that that's a challenge that a lot. I
hear that a lot from stay at home moms that
it's easier when you have babies and you're walking around
and you know, you could see who else is out there,
But when the kids are in school, it gets a
lot tougher to find that kind.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Of community, right, Yeah, you kind of have to meet
other I'm still I've got a two year old, so
I'm still in the like meet mom's playing around meat,
mom's at story and that kind of works out, but yeah,
it is difficult, and you need other people supporting your lifestyle.
There are otherwise You're going to feel really isolated and lonely,
and it is hard to stay home with children and
not have an adult conversation with anybody. That's tough.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
I remember that period of time where my brain just
felt like mush and I had no I was still
I was on Twitter, but I had no idea what
people were talking about. Sometimes it was like, you know,
when you're in it, you just you know everything that's
happening in every like reference and writing. You know where
we're recording this during the time where jd Vance is
weird and that's the topic of conversation. But I remember
(16:04):
signing on to Twitter and being like, I have no
idea what these people are talking about. Like it's just
it isn't permeating at all. I have I'm doing something
totally different.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Yeah, it feels like if you missed two seconds of
the Internet, there will just be layers that you have
to do so much to understand what's going on. But
the toddler brain thing is really real. I remember one
time I was sitting in the front yard and I
was in the middle of talking to him, and then
our neighbor went by on a bike and I was
still in toddler mode, so I was like, oh, hi, right,
(16:35):
I forgot how to be an adult. I don't know,
interact with people absolutely, And.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
When I take my I take a Twitter break, you know,
when I go on vacation and things like that, and
I come back and it's like, you know, Nikki Haley
defended slavery, Like I'm just like, you know what, I'm
not even going to catch up. It's okay, I'll hit
the next round.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Yeah, it's not every you know, the two day outrage cycle.
Well it'll be We'll move on to something else.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
Right, So, if you weren't a writer, what would be
a Plan B for you?
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Oh that's a good question. I actually really liked photography
growing up, and I feel like that's such a you know,
growing up in the twenty twenty tens, everybody was really
into photography. But I do still have a nice DSLR
and I loved, you know, I you know, it was
interested in graphic design. So I feel like something in
the design world would be really fun. I like the
(17:26):
visual side of things, which is always why I'd liked
to print like magazines, and I think that that really
pairs well with the written word too, So totally different
but also slightly right.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
I would say you should totally do that on the
conservative side, because I think we're really lacking on the
design front.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Yeah. My friend dave reeboy is really he's a conservative obviously,
and he's really into design and art, and he's always
like sending around bad examples of conservative design and being
like what is this, Like I could do this so
much better, other people could do it so much better,
Like why do we do this horrible? You know, just
(18:07):
really basic kind of design stuff that conservatives I think
get wrong. So I don't know a million dollar idea,
I think you should, yeah, do that.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
A great discussion in and of itself is why do
we not encourage more conservatives to go into the arts.
I think we don't value it, we think it's not
that important, and then we see it to the left,
and then you see people who are persuaded by art.
Artists persuasive. Of course, it's the first thing that draws
people in. There are a lot of accounts or artists
or things that I follow that I don't necessarily agree with. Them,
(18:38):
but they're just so beautiful, and I'm not getting that
from a lot of conservative outlets.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Well. I also think that there's the element of artists
who are conservative can't be out because I hear from
you know, designers or artists and they kind of whisper
to me and my DMS like I'm with you, but
I obviously can never say that out loud. So there
is the element of they would have their lives destroyed
(19:03):
if they were openly conservative, and that's why they have
to kind of keep it quiet. I wonder for the
ones that just sort of will boldly go into it
and be like, I'm a conservative and I don't care.
I think they would probably be safer. You can't attack
them as much, you can't come after them for that.
(19:24):
It's the ones that keep it quiet that's sort of
it's the closeted thing. It's like when you're closeted about
something like that, you have more potential for the for
the dramatic outing.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Right talking about cancel culture, I don't ever have to
worry about it because people know my views, you can
read my articles, you can do at them, and I'm
probably not going to get a lot of jobs but
no one is ever gonna fire me, or because I
thought that I believed a certain way, you know what
it is. But there are people who very reasonably are
not open about their views. But that does put them
(19:57):
in a tough situation because if anyone goes slightly viral,
now people are going to go back through all of
their tweets get mad at them. We saw this with
the guy who was killed at the Trump assassination attempt.
Obviously people weren't going to like him because he was
a Trump supporter, but he died protecting his wife and
diet and then everyone was like, he tweeted these rude
(20:18):
things online and it's like, this is not what we
should be focusing on.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Yeah, and it happens sort of to mainstream ish. You know,
there's an Instagram account I followed Tinks t I NX,
and she liked a few of Don Junior and Klay
Travis's tweets. During COVID, they were tweeting like sort of
like we have to reopen the country. Like it wasn't
anything it wasn't like, you know, anything like about abortion,
(20:44):
or it wasn't anything super contentious. It was like, we
have to reopen the country, and she got she had
to apologize, you know, teary apology and just really terrible stuff.
But yeah, I feel that safety and security when you
can just be yourself is it's a feeling. It's it's
nice that we don't have to cover who we are
and we could just be open about it.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
It's really a gift and it's kind of rare, and
I think that is why we need now Now my
new ideas we need a Hillsdale or just for the arts,
but Hillsdale does have a really good arts program. I
don't want to, you know, but we need we need
more things, encouraging spaces to help conservatives develop these skills
as well as apply them. I think is the Yeah, well,
I think.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
We have at least two projects for you to get
started on after this call.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
So this is great. I'll get right to work.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
So do you feel like you've made it getting to
you know, write and you're a mom and you're you
can write about whatever you want. You could be free.
Do you feel like you're there?
Speaker 2 (21:40):
I am in a really great position and I'm really
grateful for it. I don't I don't think I've made it.
I don't think i'm ever going to feel like I've
made it. But it is pretty incredible that I get
to write, also get to take care of my son,
and I think that's another thing going back to our
gender wars issue and discussion of moms and parents. We
are living in an incredible era with so much flexibility,
(22:03):
and even if you don't have a full time job,
there are lots of contract jobs, you know, if Democrats
don't try to take them away through the legislation, but
there are lots of ways that you can freelance and
make money and flex your hours. And so again, this
idea of women completely not working is just totally irrelevant
because you can work from home and you can do
lots of you know, the world is your oyster. Lots
(22:25):
of things are available to you.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Absolutely. I used to be, you know, one of the
few people who work from home. I always worked from home.
I always wrote my columns from home. And now everyone
works from home. Everyone's like, hey, you want to have lunch, Like,
there's a lot of people at home now who used
to just be in the office full time. It's one
of the only real positives I can point to from
(22:48):
the COVID, you know, extensive lockdowns, maybe I also like
people hand sanitizing. I was always a big hand sanitizer person,
so I enjoy them, you know, being everywhere they're getting
rid of. But in general, you know, I liked having
hand sanitizer everywhere I went.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Yeah, I appreciate that a lot, especially with a two
year old. Every time I take him to the restroom
and hands all over the toilet. We need all the
hand sanitizer right now.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Right, If that's it. I think moms understand that that
was always a product that was in demand, and then
suddenly it was available everywhere. It was very nice. I
enjoyed that a lot. So and here this is a
great conversation. I love talking to you. And here with
your best tip for my listeners on how they can
improve their lives.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Okay, I have one that I think is really good.
It's not super fancy, but it is something you can
do today, this very moment to make your life better.
And it is to go on a walk. And my
husband and I do this. We take our son out
in the stroller every single day. I know it's a
little bit difficult because it's like ten thousand degrees outside.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
But I'm in Florida. It's actually twenty thousand degrees.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Oh maybe it's treadmill. I don't know, but actually, well,
you know, I think it's really good to be in nature.
But we did this yesterday. I was having a terrible
day for absolutely no reason, and we just went on
a really long walk through our neighborhood. We were swimming
our butts off by the end of it. But I
just felt absolutely fine afterwards. And it's not going to
solve all your problems, but it will solve a lot
of them. Just get out of nature. Get don't bring
(24:17):
your phone on the walk unless you want to listen
to a podcast. Maybe that's okay, but don't check your
phone on the walk, right, particularly this podcast, then you
can listen to it exactly.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Take the Carol Marcowitch Show with you on your walk
through nature. Thank you so much, Madeline, she's Madeline Fright Schultz.
I loved having you on. You're just fantastic and read
her stuff at all the places that she writes, and
follow her on Twitter X and I still can't quite
get onto the X thing.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Call. Thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Thanks so much for joining us on the Carol Marcowitch Show.
Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts,
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
My voice is finally almost sort of back to normal,
which you know, I appreciate. I tweeted that I had
had a bad cough for like nine days and it
was going away, and I got a lot of very
funny answers, and I'm thankful for all the people that
wished me well and so I'm doing better. Thank you
(00:27):
for asking. So this week, if you're on that X platform,
a user tweeted some marital advice. His name is Tyler
Tote Todt, his handle is ty Ral and he wrote
it was in a thread of other marital advice, but
this tweet is the one that went viral. He said,
(00:47):
tip for women. Most of us men really want to help,
but don't know how. Give us lists, give us list
items weekly. We can take off your plate and we'd
love to help. Guys ask her what I can take
off your plate to time. The key is solid communication
around this. We can't read minds. This tweet blew up.
I mean it was everywhere. Women took this tweet super well.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Being a little sarcastic there, he.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Got thousands of responses calling him names, saying women don't
want to make no stinking lists for.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
No men, etc.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
I find this bananas. I've talked about this on the
show before, but my husband and I do not have
equal distribution of household or children duties, not even close.
My job is way more flexible, so I do more
around the house period. It's not even about gender rules.
I have more time, so obviously I'm going to be
the one to do it, and when I want him
(01:43):
to do something, I ask him to do it. This
complex that some women have where they just expect men
to read their minds is baffling to me. I mean,
I always like to say, have they met men? Do
they seem like they could read our minds. What I
really think helps us in our marriage is that we
have a clear delineation of duties. Some things that, for example,
(02:08):
wouldn't fall into either mine or his categories, we somehow
just know who would handle a charge or a credit
card that is an error, that's all me. Always our
fridge right now currently leaking. I have provided the towel
to soak up the water, but everybody understands I'm not
the one calling the repair man. I don't know why
(02:30):
this is it's just the way it is. It's not
perfect right. Sometimes there'll be things that he would think
are my responsibility or I would think are his responsibility,
and the other person's like, wait, I didn't know that.
And I can think of various times in our marriage
fifteen years now that we've given each other lists of
things to do, like, hey, I need these things done.
(02:52):
What's so wrong about that? This idea that the man
should just know is crazy. The responses are like if
the dishes are dirty, wash them, or the bathroom always
needs cleaning. Again, have you met men? I know all
about the idea of weaponizing competence when a man pretends
he doesn't know how to do something so his wife
will do it for him. But that's not what we're
(03:14):
talking about here. This is about the reality that most
single straight men do not take care of their homes
to the standards of the average women. I think we
all know this. Look. Of course, there are exceptions. There
are men who are very tidy, who take super great
care of their home even when they live on their own.
(03:35):
Maybe they have a cleaning woman come once a week,
maybe they do it themselves, but that's not the standard thing.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
We have.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
The whole joke about the men who have the mattress
on the floor for years and years and years until
they get a girlfriend who's like enough of this. Yes,
you're going to have to teach him some stuff, explain
some things, and let's be real here, in most relationships,
he'll teach you some things too. This rage at men
is not healthy for anyone, and it's not productive. It
(04:03):
festures online women talk each other into believing that good men,
men who actually want to help their wives, are actually
horrible because they don't know already what they need to
be doing. I mean, my message is obviously, communicate with
your spouse, but more than that, stay away from these
internet chats. This insanity that festerres If you're in a
(04:27):
good marriage, whether you're a man or a woman, protect
it from these raging voices. It was that great poet
Mick Jagger who said, during the one random solo country
album he made, love is fragile. You hide it from
the light, don't let the internet in. Coming up next
and interview with Madeline fries Schultz. Join us after the break.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My
guest today is Madeline fries Schultz Madeline the contributors editor
at the Washton Examiner, of visiting fellow at Independent Women's
Forum I Love Them, and a contributing writer for Verile Magazine.
She's also an online editor for Human Life Review and
has been published in more than a dozen outlets. She
(05:15):
studied French and journalism at Hillsdale College. Follow her on
exit Madeline Frye him, Madeline, So nice to have.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
You on all right, thanks for having me. So I
have to.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Start with the Hillsdale part because I just did a
fellowship there a few months ago, and I loved it
like crazy, Like I thought it was just the most
incredible place. And I was particularly impressed. I mean, the faculty,
the campus, all of it. It's amazing, but the students, like,
my god, the students. I was just blown away by them.
(05:48):
So I wanted to ask you when you were there,
do you, guys, did you feel like you were doing
something different than other colleges. Because I've spoken to college kids,
I've met really smart kids, but Hillsdale was something else entirely.
The way that they look you in the eye, the
way that they shake your hands, the way that they
come to class, not dressed in jeans all of it,
(06:09):
so they didn't feel didn't feel different or to you,
was it just normal?
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Yeah. I mean I don't want to talk up Hillsdale
too much. Obviously I love it, but at the time
it felt very normal because I didn't have a different
college experience. But I would go visit friends at other
colleges and you would see people going to class in
big T shirts and work out shorts and that. I
definitely I did that on the occasion, for sure, I lie,
But mostly you would dress up to go to class
(06:35):
and people would attend these events all the time. I
love the visiting professors. We had Mark and Mark and
Molly Hemingway, we had Heather McDonald from City Journal. I'm
sad that I missed your class as a few years
too than several years now. I've been out of college
for a while. But yeah, no, it is a great college.
I definitely recommended. I know everybody's aunt and uncle and
parents wants every high schooler to go there, but speaking
(06:58):
as a student who did, I definitely that's really.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
I mean, that's that's it. I was there and I
was like, I want my kids to have this kind
of experience. It's tougher. I mean, I'm Jewish, So it's
not because Hillsdale wouldn't be amazing for a Jewish student,
because I think that they would. I had, like, you know,
my Jewish star on the whole time, and it was
during the real campus protest, and I had like he
Brew my bag and everybody was totally wonderful. But you know,
(07:21):
I think of college, not that I think you should
get married out of college, but I do think it's
somewhere that you meet potentially the person to marry, and
I think that's tougher when there's only a few Jewish
kids on campus. So I told them that I was like,
if you started Jewish Hillsdale, I am in for.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
I met my husband through a friend that I met
at Hillsdale, So maybe something like that.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Yeah, well that's that's what I think of. You know,
if you think of kids, not kids, but you know,
young adults on a path to getting married. I think
it has a lot to do with where you go
to college and who you surround yourself with. So how
did you get into this world? What was the the
first steps into the media landscape for you?
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Yeah, going way back, my first thing that I ever
did in media was in high school. There was this
local flyer you could pick up at the grocery store
and it had little stories about stuff in my town.
I grew up in Peachtree City, Georgia. It's a suburb
of Atlanta, and I remember seeing it and I was thinking,
the graphic design is not very good. I wish I
(08:25):
could help with this. I was really into graphic design
for a while, so I reached out to the woman
who published it, and then I said, can I do
a teen column for you? And so for a few months,
I did a teen column. I called it Moxie. I
wrote a piece on being anti social media ironically I
love something, you know. I didn't have the time and
I think maybe I was taking a Facebook break or something.
I was feeling very high and mighty on all my
(08:47):
tips that.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
I was as we all do, yes, when we take
those breaks, how amazing we are. Yes.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah. So that's how I kind of got started. And
I liked journalism. And then I went to Hillsdale and
was thinking about maybe going into publishing or something. But
I really got involved in the journalism program and I
just loved the immediacy of it. That was my favorite
thing is that you could write something. It's kind of
like you get this dopamine hit when you see your
name published, but it's it's incredible that you get to
(09:16):
interview people too. I love the variety of people that
you get to speak with as a journalist. And it's
really cool because you can just be really nosy about
something and there's a topic that you want to know
more about, and then you get to just have a
reason to see it. Call someone and say I'm going
to talk to you for half an hour and just
pick your brain and then write up something about this
really cool and then you get to feel like the expert,
even though thirty minutes ago you had no idea what
(09:37):
the subject was about. Right.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Nothing better than when we all become experts overnight on
the topic of the day.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
It happens more than you would think, even with my.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Yeah yeah, well I've seen it. I've seen it happen
on the on the X platform. So what do you
consider your beat?
Speaker 2 (09:53):
I would say my beat is culture. Funnily enough, I
live in the DC area. I work kind of in
politics at a political news website, but I have never
been interested in politics really. I like to focus on
cultural issues, stuff from pop culture to books, movies, free
speech issues, how we talk to each other online in person,
(10:16):
all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
We're going to take a quick break and be right
back on the Carol Marcowitch Show. So a question that
I ask all of my guests, which is this is
the perfect seg is what do you consider our largest
cultural problem? Since you cover cultural issues.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Yes, I'm going to say that it's the gender wars.
This may be kind of a hot take, but I
think that this is a problem that creates a lot
of other problems. A lot of things stem from this,
and you see real issues with it on the right
and on the left. On the left, obviously they can't
tell you what gender is, they can't tell you what
a woman is. And then on the right we are
(10:56):
kind of reverting to this really strong gender determinism. See
in a lot of spears, and obviously I'm painting with
broad strokes. There are a lot of people on the
right who don't feel this way. But you have people
saying that if you're a woman, you have to be
a trad wife, you have to stay at home. You
have jd Vance complaining about childless cat ladies. I know
he kind of walked back that comment. But I think
that the right has a real issue with the way
(11:19):
that it talks to and portrays women. And then obviously
the left is no better because the left is saying, well,
if you're a woman and you're slightly masculine, you're non
binary or brands, there's really no home for people who
don't want to conform to really narrow expectations. And on
top of that, then we're just kind of fueling anger
(11:40):
in between men and women. That affects the marriage rate,
you know, and it kind of is leading to a
lot of other issues as well.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Is it solvable?
Speaker 2 (11:48):
I think so. I just don't know if anyone wants
to solve it.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
So how would you solve it?
Speaker 2 (11:54):
I mean, I think that we just need to be
really honest with people. I think one of the issues
I'm going to speak from the right because I'm a conservative,
I don't know what the left is going to do.
They're going to have to figure that out themselves, probably
be able to define what a woman.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Is, but maybe, Yeah, I think.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
I think on the right we need to be really
serious about what we're talking about when we talk about
men and women's roles. And what our goals for them are.
And it's important to realize that there are things that
are going to work for most people and not things
that aren't going to work for all people. And also
there's this really interesting point that Mary Harrington brings up.
(12:34):
She's a really great writer, and she talks about how
we have this idea of traditional family that is very
much based in the nineteen fifties where the man goes
to work and the woman stays at home, and that's
really not traditional at all. That developed after the Industrial Revolution.
Men and women used to both work. Women were probably
more in the home because it was safer for a
(12:54):
child to be around a loom versus a plow, you know,
so the man would probably be out in the field,
the woman would be at home, right, but everyone would
be working, everyone would feel fulfilled, you would have your
family around you. And then you come into our post
industrial society where women can't take babies to the factory.
That's completely unsafe, so they would stay home with their
kids and the dad would go off to work. But
(13:15):
then we also don't have grandparents staying at home. So
the society, the idea that we want to have, you know,
men outside the house, women in the house, which again
I'm not saying is a bad thing right from home
mostly and I really appreciate that flexibility. I love spending
time with my son, But that is it's not traditional,
and it's very isolating, and a return to that society
(13:37):
and encouraging women to be in that role also needs
to come along with community, having other moms who are
staying home, having grandpeethers. There is a support system. So
it's just not so simple as saying we want to
have more babies. We want women to return to these
traditional roles because the structure, the societal help that they
used to have just isn't there.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Yeah, I think that that's so right, because the idea
that women in the home will just find other women
to hang out with is tough because that's not the true.
That's not sort of the model that is happening right now.
I when I had my first baby, we were living
in Manhattan, and for the first three months I met
(14:18):
lots of women in the same situation as me, and
then they all went back to work and I was
going to be a stay at home mom and that
didn't work out that way. Just you know, sort of
life just happened and I took a different path. But
it's also that's another thing that I think about a
lot for these conversations is you don't really know how
it's going to go. You don't know how things are
(14:39):
going to turn out. You might just discover that you
want to be doing something, you know, having a job,
working outside the home. You don't know where life will
take you. It's a long road and making you know,
kind of firm decisions doesn't always work out the way
that you think it will. But the community part, I
think about that a lot, especially as you have older kids,
(15:01):
it gets really hard to kind of find those other parents,
other families if you are a stay at home mom.
I think that that's a challenge that a lot. I
hear that a lot from stay at home moms that
it's easier when you have babies and you're walking around
and you know, you could see who else is out there,
But when the kids are in school, it gets a
lot tougher to find that kind.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Of community, right, Yeah, you kind of have to meet
other I'm still I've got a two year old, so
I'm still in the like meet mom's playing around meat,
mom's at story and that kind of works out, but yeah,
it is difficult, and you need other people supporting your lifestyle.
There are otherwise You're going to feel really isolated and lonely,
and it is hard to stay home with children and
not have an adult conversation with anybody. That's tough.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
I remember that period of time where my brain just
felt like mush and I had no I was still
I was on Twitter, but I had no idea what
people were talking about. Sometimes it was like, you know,
when you're in it, you just you know everything that's
happening in every like reference and writing. You know where
we're recording this during the time where jd Vance is
weird and that's the topic of conversation. But I remember
(16:04):
signing on to Twitter and being like, I have no
idea what these people are talking about. Like it's just
it isn't permeating at all. I have I'm doing something
totally different.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Yeah, it feels like if you missed two seconds of
the Internet, there will just be layers that you have
to do so much to understand what's going on. But
the toddler brain thing is really real. I remember one
time I was sitting in the front yard and I
was in the middle of talking to him, and then
our neighbor went by on a bike and I was
still in toddler mode, so I was like, oh, hi, right,
(16:35):
I forgot how to be an adult. I don't know,
interact with people absolutely, And.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
When I take my I take a Twitter break, you know,
when I go on vacation and things like that, and
I come back and it's like, you know, Nikki Haley
defended slavery, Like I'm just like, you know what, I'm
not even going to catch up. It's okay, I'll hit
the next round.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Yeah, it's not every you know, the two day outrage cycle.
Well it'll be We'll move on to something else.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
Right, So, if you weren't a writer, what would be
a Plan B for you?
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Oh that's a good question. I actually really liked photography
growing up, and I feel like that's such a you know,
growing up in the twenty twenty tens, everybody was really
into photography. But I do still have a nice DSLR
and I loved, you know, I you know, it was
interested in graphic design. So I feel like something in
the design world would be really fun. I like the
(17:26):
visual side of things, which is always why I'd liked
to print like magazines, and I think that that really
pairs well with the written word too, So totally different
but also slightly right.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
I would say you should totally do that on the
conservative side, because I think we're really lacking on the
design front.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Yeah. My friend dave reeboy is really he's a conservative obviously,
and he's really into design and art, and he's always
like sending around bad examples of conservative design and being
like what is this, Like I could do this so
much better, other people could do it so much better,
Like why do we do this horrible? You know, just
(18:07):
really basic kind of design stuff that conservatives I think
get wrong. So I don't know a million dollar idea,
I think you should, yeah, do that.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
A great discussion in and of itself is why do
we not encourage more conservatives to go into the arts.
I think we don't value it, we think it's not
that important, and then we see it to the left,
and then you see people who are persuaded by art.
Artists persuasive. Of course, it's the first thing that draws
people in. There are a lot of accounts or artists
or things that I follow that I don't necessarily agree with. Them,
(18:38):
but they're just so beautiful, and I'm not getting that
from a lot of conservative outlets.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Well. I also think that there's the element of artists
who are conservative can't be out because I hear from
you know, designers or artists and they kind of whisper
to me and my DMS like I'm with you, but
I obviously can never say that out loud. So there
is the element of they would have their lives destroyed
(19:03):
if they were openly conservative, and that's why they have
to kind of keep it quiet. I wonder for the
ones that just sort of will boldly go into it
and be like, I'm a conservative and I don't care.
I think they would probably be safer. You can't attack
them as much, you can't come after them for that.
(19:24):
It's the ones that keep it quiet that's sort of
it's the closeted thing. It's like when you're closeted about
something like that, you have more potential for the for
the dramatic outing.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Right talking about cancel culture, I don't ever have to
worry about it because people know my views, you can
read my articles, you can do at them, and I'm
probably not going to get a lot of jobs but
no one is ever gonna fire me, or because I
thought that I believed a certain way, you know what
it is. But there are people who very reasonably are
not open about their views. But that does put them
(19:57):
in a tough situation because if anyone goes slightly viral,
now people are going to go back through all of
their tweets get mad at them. We saw this with
the guy who was killed at the Trump assassination attempt.
Obviously people weren't going to like him because he was
a Trump supporter, but he died protecting his wife and
diet and then everyone was like, he tweeted these rude
(20:18):
things online and it's like, this is not what we
should be focusing on.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Yeah, and it happens sort of to mainstream ish. You know,
there's an Instagram account I followed Tinks t I NX,
and she liked a few of Don Junior and Klay
Travis's tweets. During COVID, they were tweeting like sort of
like we have to reopen the country. Like it wasn't
anything it wasn't like, you know, anything like about abortion,
(20:44):
or it wasn't anything super contentious. It was like, we
have to reopen the country, and she got she had
to apologize, you know, teary apology and just really terrible stuff.
But yeah, I feel that safety and security when you
can just be yourself is it's a feeling. It's it's
nice that we don't have to cover who we are
and we could just be open about it.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
It's really a gift and it's kind of rare, and
I think that is why we need now Now my
new ideas we need a Hillsdale or just for the arts,
but Hillsdale does have a really good arts program. I
don't want to, you know, but we need we need
more things, encouraging spaces to help conservatives develop these skills
as well as apply them. I think is the Yeah, well,
I think.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
We have at least two projects for you to get
started on after this call.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
So this is great. I'll get right to work.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
So do you feel like you've made it getting to
you know, write and you're a mom and you're you
can write about whatever you want. You could be free.
Do you feel like you're there?
Speaker 2 (21:40):
I am in a really great position and I'm really
grateful for it. I don't I don't think I've made it.
I don't think i'm ever going to feel like I've
made it. But it is pretty incredible that I get
to write, also get to take care of my son,
and I think that's another thing going back to our
gender wars issue and discussion of moms and parents. We
are living in an incredible era with so much flexibility,
(22:03):
and even if you don't have a full time job,
there are lots of contract jobs, you know, if Democrats
don't try to take them away through the legislation, but
there are lots of ways that you can freelance and
make money and flex your hours. And so again, this
idea of women completely not working is just totally irrelevant
because you can work from home and you can do
lots of you know, the world is your oyster. Lots
(22:25):
of things are available to you.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Absolutely. I used to be, you know, one of the
few people who work from home. I always worked from home.
I always wrote my columns from home. And now everyone
works from home. Everyone's like, hey, you want to have lunch, Like,
there's a lot of people at home now who used
to just be in the office full time. It's one
of the only real positives I can point to from
(22:48):
the COVID, you know, extensive lockdowns, maybe I also like
people hand sanitizing. I was always a big hand sanitizer person,
so I enjoy them, you know, being everywhere they're getting
rid of. But in general, you know, I liked having
hand sanitizer everywhere I went.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Yeah, I appreciate that a lot, especially with a two
year old. Every time I take him to the restroom
and hands all over the toilet. We need all the
hand sanitizer right now.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Right, If that's it. I think moms understand that that
was always a product that was in demand, and then
suddenly it was available everywhere. It was very nice. I
enjoyed that a lot. So and here this is a
great conversation. I love talking to you. And here with
your best tip for my listeners on how they can
improve their lives.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Okay, I have one that I think is really good.
It's not super fancy, but it is something you can
do today, this very moment to make your life better.
And it is to go on a walk. And my
husband and I do this. We take our son out
in the stroller every single day. I know it's a
little bit difficult because it's like ten thousand degrees outside.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
But I'm in Florida. It's actually twenty thousand degrees.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Oh maybe it's treadmill. I don't know, but actually, well,
you know, I think it's really good to be in nature.
But we did this yesterday. I was having a terrible
day for absolutely no reason, and we just went on
a really long walk through our neighborhood. We were swimming
our butts off by the end of it. But I
just felt absolutely fine afterwards. And it's not going to
solve all your problems, but it will solve a lot
of them. Just get out of nature. Get don't bring
(24:17):
your phone on the walk unless you want to listen
to a podcast. Maybe that's okay, but don't check your
phone on the walk, right, particularly this podcast, then you
can listen to it exactly.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Take the Carol Marcowitch Show with you on your walk
through nature. Thank you so much, Madeline, she's Madeline Fright Schultz.
I loved having you on. You're just fantastic and read
her stuff at all the places that she writes, and
follow her on Twitter X and I still can't quite
get onto the X thing.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Call. Thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Thanks so much for joining us on the Carol Marcowitch Show.
Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts,
Host
Karol Markowicz
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