January 3, 2023 • 38 mins
To ring in the new year, Michelle and Hilaria are talking with the heart and soul of how this podcast came to be. Author and activist Dr. Phyllis Chesler joins them to discuss her book “Woman’s Inhumanity To Woman.” Plus, she gives her best piece of advice for all woman!
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Which is anonymous with the Laria Baldwin and Michelle Campbell
Mason and I heart radio podcast, Hey, which is welcome back.
I'm Laria and I'm Michelle. Today we have a guest
that we are beyond thrilled to be welcoming. She's the
reason we met each other. She's the reason we started
this show. She is a doctor, a sociologist. She's has
(00:27):
twenty books that she has written. Let's get started with
none other than Dr Phyllis Chessler. Hi. My name is
Dr Phillis Chessler. I'm an author of twenty books, a
second wave feminist, a troublemaker and activist. And I am
so pleased to be here with you. Can I tell
you you are the reason we are doing this and
(00:50):
you are the reason that we have You know that
we became friends, that Michelle and I became friends, it's
because of you, and so we're just like the we.
This this of have you here in this space is
just like very making me give me butterflies. And I
think it's where the people tell you, like how you
change their lives, because we never know how our life
can be changed by someone else's happenstance. But just thank
(01:13):
you for that. It is my privilege, it's my pleasure.
And because of you, sister, which is because of you.
I started read reading Woman's and Humanity to Woman, which
I've never read. I'm blown away. It is good, as
you've said. So we're so feased to have you on
(01:36):
talk to us about what is women's in humanity to women? Well,
like men, women are human beings and therefore we're as
close to the apes as to the angels. We are
not perfect. We have been maligned, which is then a
problem when we start telling the truth about how women
(01:58):
compete with each other, not with end but with each other,
and how they slander and shun and ostracize a woman
who was quote different, or who was prettier, or who
has more money, or who's going out with the best
guy in high school. So um, it's the internalization of sexism,
(02:20):
not just by men, but by women too. Women uphold
the same standards which persecute and discriminate against other women,
and that's global. I mean when I was doing interviews
when this book first came out, the reporters would say
to me, how did you know about mothers and daughters
(02:42):
in Nepal or in Brazil, and I said, well, because
we're it's human nature, and it's global, it's everywhere. So
in the beginning, when I first understood it, I had
to write this book. It was a friend and an
(03:04):
ally who totally did something so terrible to me that
I I hit the floor. I didn't expect this to
ever happen. And then I realized, I can't personalize it,
and I have to use it. I have to be
productive with this new information. And it took me twenty
(03:24):
years on and off, researching it and doing many, many interviews,
and in the beginning, the feminist not everyone, but feminist
leaders of my generation, the second wave, said, don't do that.
And what their concern was is that since women have
(03:44):
been seen as bitches and lunatics, and which is an
untrustworthy and no respect coming all way, why should we
then add to that We should instead say that we're
compassionate and altruists, stick and maternal. But that's not true.
Some of us are to our own children, but we
(04:06):
are not necessarily the same way towards other adult women,
and um many examples exist. So initially the feminist support
that I yearned for I didn't really get. They were
afraid that men would use it against us, and they'd say,
(04:28):
we always knew that. You know, that's not new. Everyone
knows that women are terrible. So I waited and I read,
and I thought, and I interviewed, and the interviews were
amazing because women were dying to talk to me about
how another woman did her down, did her and stole
her boyfriend, stole her husband, stole her children, stole her job,
(04:50):
wrecked her reputation, very happy to talk about it. And
at the end, I would say, by the way, were
you ever part of the group that um shunned another
woman or slanted her or betrayed her? Total amnesia, no,
no memory. Why because women are not supposed to be aggressive.
(05:19):
If we are, it's not as important as mail aggression
because that's so much bigger and so much more violent physically.
So what we do psychologically and socially is seen as
not that, not that bad, and um, we don't really
want to talk about it because it's not nice. And
(05:39):
you know right that girls are trained to try to
appear nice, and that niceness covers up, um a fewards,
a grudge, rage, and a desire to kill socially another woman.
So now you tell me why you have turned to
(06:01):
this subject. What's happened to you? Well? I came to
it when I realized that a large group of of women,
not as large as you think, we're bullying me online.
And when I found out that it was other women,
(06:22):
it was like somebody punched me in the stomach, and
I thought, oh my goodness. I was kind of soul
searching and sort of figuring out, what is this that
makes us so competitive? Now I'm going to take another step,
and I'm going to say I have been the mean
girl we all have been. And reading the first chapter
of your book, the introduction in the first chapter where
(06:45):
you talk about how people told you not like you said,
people told you not to write the book, don't tell
them that where you can be mean, don't do it.
We're not supposed to say that, but I think if
we don't address this, we are never going to move
the dial at all towards equality. It's like talking about racism.
(07:08):
We wouldn't say, um, you have to work on resisting
your internalized racism, sexism? What have you every day in
small ways in large ways. If you don't acknowledge it,
if you really don't want to do something about it,
nothing will have a change, and you'll have mothers bringing
(07:30):
little girls to have female genital mutilation. You'll have women
supporting the on the killing of their daughters right and
of other young women, and you'll have what you described.
You'll have out of envy and despair because women feel
that they're ugly and that they're not chosen by the prince,
(07:52):
and that their lives are hell. Even if it's not realistic,
it's what they feel. So that the cheerleader has friends,
the movie star has male friends because other women are
jealous because they feel if she succeeded, I'm bound to fail.
It's it's as if women haven't been team players from
(08:16):
the childhood on and they don't understand that if one
woman makes the basket, that everybody wins. We have not
had that experience. We only know that only one woman
can be mis America, only one woman can be the queen,
only one woman can win the part. And so that's
(08:39):
and then look at the internet, as you just said,
has opened up a world of pain, so that teenage
girls are uh advice to commit suicide. You know that
they're so hey to kill yourself, and some have and
it's other girls and the mothers of other girls. So
(09:00):
there's a meanness and the mean girls syndrome, which when
Women's in Humanity came out, a few books came out
at the same time, but only about teenage girls, and
I was thinking, I have just one chapter on that,
because these girls grow up and become adult women and
don't get better and don't change. So you're right, if
(09:25):
we don't admit it and come to grips with it,
nothing will have a change. There's this great quote um
I pulled from the book Women expressed disapproval by disconnecting
(09:48):
both verbally and energetically, and I thought that was so
profound because it's so true. It it just, you know,
kind of exacerbates the isolation that you feel when you
are the one on the receiving end of this behavior.
And it's so interesting because now we have social media
to take into account with this, and this is obviously
something that we combat on this show and Hilaria combats
(10:09):
and we're all experiencing so much with online trolling. But
it's almost like that turned on its head because of
the cloak of anonymity online. So it's I think that's
a really interesting Cowards who don't give their names feel
unleashed and empowered to do these things. Their bullies and cowards,
(10:34):
and it's it's a real problem because it takes a toll.
But you know, women don't want to be abandoned and
they want to be part of a group or a clique.
So if you have a difference with another woman, you
want to smooth it over and pretend it doesn't happen,
it doesn't exist. And how can we become independent thinkers
(10:56):
and heroes and warriors if we're afraid to tell the
next woman in our group what we really think and
we disagree with her. So women don't know. In fact,
in my first book So Long Ago, Women in Madness,
I wrote about the importance of women learning to not
just tolerate differences, but to celebrate them. And fifty years
(11:20):
later or more, that hasn't exactly happened. I mean, think
of mothers and daughters. If a daughter is really different
from her mother, if she's not and her mother is traditional,
for example, she's they're gonna the mother will feel abandoned.
The daughter will feel abandoned by the mother because they're
(11:42):
very different, and they're afraid. If these differences persist or grow,
it will mean detachment, just as you said, they will disconnect.
It's so interesting. That's that's so interesting. I feel, you know,
it's something you said before and this as well, that
there's something about um holding each other to a code
(12:04):
of context. So in so many ways, as you said,
we're not taught to be team players. Where I mean,
I have three plus my my stepdaughter, four girls, and
I have four boys, and even seeing the activities as
little children that they are encouraged to do. My boys
are encouraged to do team sports and my girls are
(12:26):
encouraged to do individual activities. In gymnastics, well, you have
to be the one, the one there, whereas you know,
the boys are going and playing basketball, which you have
to eat. The whole team needs to win. And so
we're even we're teaching this to our kids as they're
as they're very young, and we're telling the girls very
confusing you have to be the best at this. But
(12:46):
if you're the best, then you're breaking away from the
group and your targets, so you're gonna be shot down.
It's a very difficult dance to do. And so talk
to us a little bit about holding each other to
the code of you know what you were saying with
mothers and daughters. If I break away, then I don't
have that connection. Well, what women are held to a
(13:06):
much highest standard than men are, and men are forgive
them when they make mistakes. If another woman makes a mistake,
a small one, a big one, we have a grudge
against her. It's fastest forever, and we get her or
we disconnect with her. So we don't know how to
express our anger or our disappointment directly and then let
it go. Let it go. But I want to go
(13:28):
back to how you begin. Um. I have a son
I don't have daughters. And he was maybe about eight
years old, and he would come home after school with
other little boys and they go in the backyard and
they would fight. They run around and they'd hit each other.
They thought, I think it don't ever be back. Oh
they were back for the next day. Now, the little
(13:49):
girls from his classes who lived on the block or nearby,
they had one best friend. They didn't talk to anyone else.
It was a privileged di atic or relationship like a
mother daughter relationship. And then one day they never spoke again,
and they had new best friends. If at all they
(14:11):
spoke against each other. And I'm looking at this and thinking,
is this hard wired? Is it possible? And it is
civilization capable of going against it? If to the extent
of which it's hard wired. I mean, the boys were
just physical. They were aggressive, they were physical, but they
were bonded and this is what they like to do.
(14:34):
And the girls and needed in depth intimacy with one
best friend. And I think we all do and it
might be part of our undoing because if you manage,
and it's not easy to have a friendship with the
way men do. Nothing's personal. Um, it's a kind of
(14:55):
a mid distance friendship. It doesn't have deep depth intimacy,
but it's stable. Women we want deep, deep and we
can't give it up. We really want to confess everything
and express everything and listen to everything. And then if
one of us turns against the other, she has all
(15:16):
the information, doesn't she. You know, all the bodies buried.
So the price that we pay for this intimacy that
we crave is betrayal. And we don't know how to
me too, I'm just as guilty as the next woman.
I would prefer a deep friendship. I now see that
(15:39):
it's safer and more stable and wiser to have a
middle ground friendship, you know, And even the way I
say it, it's like a disappointment, right, what's interesting. I mean,
if you think about that, it's just like you're throwing
yourself on the fire to have that intimate connection in essence,
because ultimately they can use that against you. Um. I did.
(16:00):
Per You're discussing how little girls can have these dietic
friendships that are so so cohesive and contained and then
they're gone. Um, And I think we've all experienced that
and how devastating it can be. But in that lens,
can you explain to us the difference between direct aggression
and indirect aggression with women? So indirect aggression, which began
(16:24):
to be studied seriously by the end of the nineteen eighties,
means the slandering, the shunning, the grudge holding. There are
amazing studies and I'm so glad that I waited for
them to appear, and I write about them in Woman's
and Humanity Woman And so this is where all power is. Gossip, Oh, gossip.
(16:50):
When we gossip, we don't necessarily do it because we
love the woman we're talking about. Wanta in every way
to protect on her note, we gossip to say, hey,
you know what I got on her? Listen to this.
Guess who I saw with him where I saw her,
And that gossip in certain cultures leads to the death
(17:15):
of that or that girl in an honor killing, or
to her being divorced, which can be also equivalent to
death of some kind. Because this is a phenomenon that's
very global, it's not just specific to America. In the
feminist movement, we wanted so much to be sisters because
(17:39):
we've never had that. All of our intellectual mentors and
the books we were assigned to read were written by men.
And so to think that women had ideas that was
so worthy, that were riveting, that were even better than
everything else, it was so sweet. And I write about
(18:00):
is in a book called a Politically Incorrect Feminists that
that's me and um, it was so sweet that as
we began bad mouthing each other or trashing each other
ideologically personally for whatever said of reasons, we had no
(18:21):
name for it. You didn't know. We denied it. That's
how we handled it. It's not really happening. She deserved it.
It didn't happen to me and so on. So indirect
aggression is the name for it, and just because it's
indirect and not homicidal doesn't mean it's not as deep
(18:42):
or as consequential as male aggression. How much of this
do you think is nurture versus nature? It's really hard
to say. I mean, scientifically, there's definitely. I give some
examples in chapter two of Woman's in Humanity and Woman
of Apes, primates behaving in ways that are that are
(19:04):
very familiar to us as human beings. It's embarrassing, like
a primate who kills the baby of another woman primate
so that she can have her as the nanny. I
mean what you know, I mean last warfare, for survival,
(19:24):
for survival. And then there's examples of the bonnabows you know,
who do all kinds of woman to woman friendly stuff.
But you know, as she was speaking, Hill Area, women
are not just passionate and and and wanting intimate connectivity.
We're also very sensitive and we want to be liked,
(19:46):
and we don't want to displease anyone. We're pleases, not superficially,
we really want to please and sometimes appease danger, appease violence.
So when we begin to get I mean, I was
not gonna laugh. But try writing a book. You write
(20:10):
a book and then it gets reviews and you read
that you should never read the reviews of us, but
everybody does. You read reviews. This is a crazy book.
This is a fully written book. This is a man
hating book. This is a shrill book. That those were
the words that all the early feminists, great works, you know, received.
So but it's it's not just women, it's right, it's
(20:35):
including women writers. You know. Just she can't right, you know,
she stupid, She should not the publishers should leave her
alone and not publish her ever again me which often happens.
So there's this internet troll disaster, and then there's very
real life economic consequences, not that I'm minimizing the men
(21:00):
health consequences, I'm not. But then you lose your job
and you can't feed your kids, and you go down.
So this is a power that girls and women have.
In fact, I reanalyzed Carol Gilligan's research and what was
(21:22):
interesting important is that why did little girls suddenly become
silent and go with the flow and go with the crowd,
the herd mentality. It's because not because men or boys
were threatening them. It's because they didn't want to be
targeted by the other little girls. So they tried to
(21:44):
figure out what's the right thing to say. And once
you start doing that and get used to doing it,
or you never have an independent thought in your life,
and as you do, you hide it. So I would say,
I would say this, So what is to be done?
What could we do? That was? The first thing is
(22:07):
to accept very humbly, that change is a process, that
this can't be changed quickly, that consciousness alone aha may
not be enough. But the second thing is what you've
been doing, to acknowledge, not deny, not cover up, not
(22:28):
be afraid of the truth. I mean, the truth is
that thing that's supposed to set us free. Right. But
then as women we have to become strong, really strong
strong egos, strong selves, strong enough to be able to
(22:49):
take being criticized and to deal with it and not
to personalize it. We personalize. A woman disagrees with us,
tells us off would have on the floor. A man says, oh,
screw you, that's what you think I'll get you. But
we're very sensitive, right, So even if it's in the
(23:13):
war of ideas, we want to all get along and
you know, be harmonious. Yeah, then we need to do
something else. That's hard. Need to learn how to express
anger directly and at the moment, at the moment, not
go home and think about it and plan and plot
(23:33):
and start gossiping about it. But we need rules of
engagement the way sports has rules of engagements and war
two for that matter, by the way, and those rules
are completely violated in the our world today. We also
need to do something else. We need to ask the
(23:54):
next woman or a woman who managed us directly what
we want. It's not going to be a d reader.
She may not know at that moment what we really
need or want at that moment. And then there's the
next thing, which is impossible almost but I have to
say it. And also, once you've learned to ask for
(24:15):
what you want and if you can't get it, if
this is a toxic friendship, so to speak, if this
is someone who is beyond change, we have to walk away.
We have to give it up. We have to have
the courage to disconnect. We the great connectors. We have
(24:36):
to be vigilant about not gossiping. We have to try
very hard not to gossip. Now this is almost impossible,
but it's very essential. It's at least it's a goal
that we can strive for. And we need to learn
to praise the next woman. I mean, just think we've
(24:57):
had mothers. They cook often every night, well three times
a day. Do we go home and say, mom, you
did it again. This is fantics, thank you, this is terrific.
I can't believe this. We don't. We just take it
for granted. And I think it's important to praise and
support the next moment and tell her. At the same time,
(25:21):
if we have made mistakes, like big mistakes. Who doesn't
make big mistakes, we need to apologize. We need to
say I'm really sorry, I'm sorry I hurt you. Even
if I thought I was right and I did I
did it the wrong way and my intention was not
(25:41):
to hurt you. That's hard to do. We need to
do that. So going back to what phillis you always
you say about gossip, how it functions as maintaining morals
(26:01):
UM and groups like group solidarity and really just perpetuating
like the patriarchal norms through shaming one another. UM. How
do you how do you feel about you know, the silos,
I'd say on social media where people have very extreme views,
yet they find community within their little buckets of hatred
(26:23):
or misogyny or racism or what or what have you.
They find camaraderie in these groups, and then that almost
gives them a sense of of, you know, of belonging
within this hate group which would have never existed before.
It's like this, this entirely new undercurrent of perpetuating hate
that just doesn't seem easily eradicated. It's very tribal, and
(26:45):
people are very I mean, forget about especially post pandemic,
which still continues. Uh. People are isolated and they're alienated.
And you're right. They think when they find a group
with whom they agree on whatever conspiracy they hold in common,
that now they've got a tribe. But this is this
(27:10):
is true of politics, it's true of governmental leaders, it's
true even of great thinks this tribalism as opposed to
the ability to be an individual. First. So yes, I've
been purged from certain lists of groups because my ideas
(27:34):
we're seen as wrong. And it was painful, and I
wrote about it in a book that's out of a
friend called the Death of Feminism, And it was around
the very thing that you're now both talking about. So
I mean there is the great books by women who
(27:55):
are feminists have been disappeared in generation after generation. Century
up the century and Dale spender and Australian scholar wrote
a wonderful book called Women of Ideas and What Men
Have Done to Them. But now as we see, women
of ideas have been cannibalized you a good phrase, and
(28:17):
disappeared by other women who want to reinvent the wheel,
who want to take the credit for ideas that they
did not originate, destroy the shoulders on which they should
be standing, which I'm calling matricycle, in order to become
the first, and the only and the greatest. So there's
(28:40):
a lot of hubrists, and a lot of foolishness, and
a lot of left over mother daughter adolescent conflict. I'm
not sure how to get rid of any of that.
Do you have any ideas? We're trying. It has to
start with the conversation, which is what we're doing here.
I have, since reading this book in becoming aware of it.
(29:00):
So it's one thing to say, Okay, I'm experiencing this now.
I want to make sense of it, especially when I
see that other people experience it as well, and then
what can I can't change other people, but I can
change myself. So when I'm in situations, if I notice
that I'm gossiping, I call myself out and I might
(29:22):
I might continue doing and be like, this is what
I'm doing right now. I am going to give this
a name. I am gossiping right now. Just so, No,
if there's a woman that comes into women, we size
each other up. Men talk about size each other. Oh,
they don't hold the candle to us, right we size
people up. I mean, we all know, we've all been there.
(29:43):
When I am around a woman who I am feeling
that kind of like there's like this like little fire
of competition, I'm starting to turn that into admiration. And
in my head if not I have, if I don't
have the opportunity to speak to the person in my head,
I'll start complimenting the person and I'll turn that and saying, oh, wow,
(30:06):
she's so beautiful. I love her outfit, I love this,
I love the way that she's walking. I mean, obviously
from the outside, it's all superficial. You know, even though
people might have a glow to them and the same
thing about you know, women who I get to I
get to know their work, and they're you know, all
their all their life and their families and all the
different ins and outs of them, of their of their being.
(30:28):
I start to try to turn my negativity into a positivity.
But I have to start inside well, I think, and
that takes us to like this first step which we're
experimenting on ourselves with this show and this this concept,
not like it's pioneering by any means, but it's really
just to put into practice something that can change these patterns.
(30:49):
And I know we both speak about it with each
other all the time. You catch yourself gossiping and you
you you, it becomes a trigger and you and you
stop doing it. You see another woman, you have that
visceral reaction to maybe the competition. And then I've started
taking it a step further and going out of my
way to engage and compliment someone in a situation where
(31:09):
it could have been very uncomfortable. And I've been finding,
like you know, you get the light that you give out,
and it's just the magnetism and the warmth that comes
from just taking that chance and like making those steps.
Obviously it's small and it's baby steps, but it does
feel like a good way to integrate some sort of change,
slowly but surely not small, because imagine if every woman
(31:34):
on planet Earth did it, that ripple would become a
huge wave. So I just because you've just inspired me
and please me beyond belief. Um, maybe we should gather
to do a teaching on the subject. You know, I
have not asked you like personal questions or tell me
(31:56):
all the bad things that have happened, the kind of
things you may not want to say online, you know,
or you may And if women could join us and
share their stories, as long as it was structured and safe,
that might be a good next step for you to undertake.
(32:17):
And I would be happy to help in any way. Really,
thank you, Phyllis. That would be amazing. I mean, yeah, So,
what is your best piece of advice for women? Treat
women respectfully, don't expect, don't think because a woman is
not perfect that she's the evil stepmother. Just treat her
(32:38):
with respect. We don't have to love each other, even
though we want to and want to receive it. We
don't have to love each other. We don't even have
to like each other. We just have to behave respectfully,
have boundaries, respect the boundaries be kind. I would give
(32:59):
that at this moment. It's interesting because we'll say, okay, well,
we're not burning and hanging and throwing stones, although these
things do happen in other places in the world, but
you know, we really haven't moved that far forward. We're
repeating the same feelings over and over again, of competition,
(33:21):
of not having enough. If somebody seems to have more
than they must have done something nefarious in order to
get there. Um, you know, punching up, punching down, punching
left right, it's all punching and yeah, yeah, yeah, so
we I mean, I think I think until we start
(33:41):
addressing what we have inside of us, that's the only
thing that we can change. We can have these conversations,
we can you know, share our ideas because this is
the thing that people whisper about. When I've you know,
since becoming such a fan of your work, and I
obviously share that with my platform and people that I
that I meet, you know, I mean, the mom world,
(34:05):
the mom world is so competitive, and the mom world,
especially in the past decade, has turned into quite a business.
So you have capitalism on top of it, you know,
And I've had my part of them being my mom influencers.
That's called a hate hate that term, but you know,
I mean it has just generated this thing where what
(34:26):
happens when the mean girls grew up and started having
kids and started having a business, we're really just the same.
I'm seeing for my my oldest daughter, who's nine, that
she is very much experiencing the mean girl dynamic, especially
that dynamic of three. For some reason, it's always the
three kids. I think I've talked about this on a
previous UM episode with us, But what what is it
(34:49):
that these girls are doing this at such a young age.
Could be hard wired? I mean, we don't know, and
we're here civilization to help us resist the more barbaric
items of our hard wiring. So I think three is
an unstable Let's think of it as a three legged stool.
(35:12):
Women are most comfortable one on one in a diet
which recapitulates the mother daughter relationship, especially if it failed
and you want to perfect it um and you you
you improve on it with your best friend, and then
(35:33):
you get to the end of what you can do
and you move on to another best friend. So we
are most comfortable in a diet could be with a man,
but definitely with another woman a third member. That's competition,
that's instability. Who's who was the third member going to
choose who's the closest to who? We're gonna try one thing.
(35:57):
I don't know if you're you're into it, but you
do something called what are we coveting in the coven?
Which is something where you should share something that you're
really into. Oh no, no, I got something in Until
this day, I was privileged to co lead a team
of grassroots women who rescued four women from Afghanistan and
(36:20):
one I've chosen as my Afghan granddaughter. And she's here
in America at a graduate school on a scholarship. And
I'm gathering the team to meet her later in December
in my home and bringing her here, including the woman
who got her on the plane. So I think it
(36:42):
will be a very moving and exciting and high points
for everyone involved. Fantastic, really good. I'm into that. That
is so wonderful. I can't wait. I can't wait to
hear all about it. Dr Chester, thank you so much
for being with us today. Privilege, my pleasure. I'm good,
(37:03):
Thank you. All right, ladies, that's it for today. We're
so pleased to have phyllis. This was a dream come
true on so many different levels. So please go get
her book. It is mind blowing and you know she's
saying all of the things that you're going to just
be nodding and saying yes, yes, yes, I totally get
(37:26):
this and it all makes sense. And we all know
we've all been that place, you know, the word of
the year as gas lit. We've all been the place
and would think, oh gosh, why is this happening? And
you know, just to see it on written in such
a scientific way, it really will hopefully arm you with
knowledge that will give you ability to forgive stuff that
(37:48):
you've done and ability to forgive things that other people
have done and get to a place where we can collaborate. UM.
So don't forget to share it with your friends, Rate review, subscribe, UM,
find us on I G and we can't wait to
see you guys next week. Thank you, which is follow
us at which is a nonpod on Instagram and wherever
(38:11):
you get your podcasts.
Which is anonymous with the Laria Baldwin and Michelle Campbell
Mason and I heart radio podcast, Hey, which is welcome back.
I'm Laria and I'm Michelle. Today we have a guest
that we are beyond thrilled to be welcoming. She's the
reason we met each other. She's the reason we started
this show. She is a doctor, a sociologist. She's has
(00:27):
twenty books that she has written. Let's get started with
none other than Dr Phyllis Chessler. Hi. My name is
Dr Phillis Chessler. I'm an author of twenty books, a
second wave feminist, a troublemaker and activist. And I am
so pleased to be here with you. Can I tell
you you are the reason we are doing this and
(00:50):
you are the reason that we have You know that
we became friends, that Michelle and I became friends, it's
because of you, and so we're just like the we.
This this of have you here in this space is
just like very making me give me butterflies. And I
think it's where the people tell you, like how you
change their lives, because we never know how our life
can be changed by someone else's happenstance. But just thank
(01:13):
you for that. It is my privilege, it's my pleasure.
And because of you, sister, which is because of you.
I started read reading Woman's and Humanity to Woman, which
I've never read. I'm blown away. It is good, as
you've said. So we're so feased to have you on
(01:36):
talk to us about what is women's in humanity to women? Well,
like men, women are human beings and therefore we're as
close to the apes as to the angels. We are
not perfect. We have been maligned, which is then a
problem when we start telling the truth about how women
(01:58):
compete with each other, not with end but with each other,
and how they slander and shun and ostracize a woman
who was quote different, or who was prettier, or who
has more money, or who's going out with the best
guy in high school. So um, it's the internalization of sexism,
(02:20):
not just by men, but by women too. Women uphold
the same standards which persecute and discriminate against other women,
and that's global. I mean when I was doing interviews
when this book first came out, the reporters would say
to me, how did you know about mothers and daughters
(02:42):
in Nepal or in Brazil, and I said, well, because
we're it's human nature, and it's global, it's everywhere. So
in the beginning, when I first understood it, I had
to write this book. It was a friend and an
(03:04):
ally who totally did something so terrible to me that
I I hit the floor. I didn't expect this to
ever happen. And then I realized, I can't personalize it,
and I have to use it. I have to be
productive with this new information. And it took me twenty
(03:24):
years on and off, researching it and doing many, many interviews,
and in the beginning, the feminist not everyone, but feminist
leaders of my generation, the second wave, said, don't do that.
And what their concern was is that since women have
(03:44):
been seen as bitches and lunatics, and which is an
untrustworthy and no respect coming all way, why should we
then add to that We should instead say that we're
compassionate and altruists, stick and maternal. But that's not true.
Some of us are to our own children, but we
(04:06):
are not necessarily the same way towards other adult women,
and um many examples exist. So initially the feminist support
that I yearned for I didn't really get. They were
afraid that men would use it against us, and they'd say,
(04:28):
we always knew that. You know, that's not new. Everyone
knows that women are terrible. So I waited and I read,
and I thought, and I interviewed, and the interviews were
amazing because women were dying to talk to me about
how another woman did her down, did her and stole
her boyfriend, stole her husband, stole her children, stole her job,
(04:50):
wrecked her reputation, very happy to talk about it. And
at the end, I would say, by the way, were
you ever part of the group that um shunned another
woman or slanted her or betrayed her? Total amnesia, no,
no memory. Why because women are not supposed to be aggressive.
(05:19):
If we are, it's not as important as mail aggression
because that's so much bigger and so much more violent physically.
So what we do psychologically and socially is seen as
not that, not that bad, and um, we don't really
want to talk about it because it's not nice. And
(05:39):
you know right that girls are trained to try to
appear nice, and that niceness covers up, um a fewards,
a grudge, rage, and a desire to kill socially another woman.
So now you tell me why you have turned to
(06:01):
this subject. What's happened to you? Well? I came to
it when I realized that a large group of of women,
not as large as you think, we're bullying me online.
And when I found out that it was other women,
(06:22):
it was like somebody punched me in the stomach, and
I thought, oh my goodness. I was kind of soul
searching and sort of figuring out, what is this that
makes us so competitive? Now I'm going to take another step,
and I'm going to say I have been the mean
girl we all have been. And reading the first chapter
of your book, the introduction in the first chapter where
(06:45):
you talk about how people told you not like you said,
people told you not to write the book, don't tell
them that where you can be mean, don't do it.
We're not supposed to say that, but I think if
we don't address this, we are never going to move
the dial at all towards equality. It's like talking about racism.
(07:08):
We wouldn't say, um, you have to work on resisting
your internalized racism, sexism? What have you every day in
small ways in large ways. If you don't acknowledge it,
if you really don't want to do something about it,
nothing will have a change, and you'll have mothers bringing
(07:30):
little girls to have female genital mutilation. You'll have women
supporting the on the killing of their daughters right and
of other young women, and you'll have what you described.
You'll have out of envy and despair because women feel
that they're ugly and that they're not chosen by the prince,
(07:52):
and that their lives are hell. Even if it's not realistic,
it's what they feel. So that the cheerleader has friends,
the movie star has male friends because other women are
jealous because they feel if she succeeded, I'm bound to fail.
It's it's as if women haven't been team players from
(08:16):
the childhood on and they don't understand that if one
woman makes the basket, that everybody wins. We have not
had that experience. We only know that only one woman
can be mis America, only one woman can be the queen,
only one woman can win the part. And so that's
(08:39):
and then look at the internet, as you just said,
has opened up a world of pain, so that teenage
girls are uh advice to commit suicide. You know that
they're so hey to kill yourself, and some have and
it's other girls and the mothers of other girls. So
(09:00):
there's a meanness and the mean girls syndrome, which when
Women's in Humanity came out, a few books came out
at the same time, but only about teenage girls, and
I was thinking, I have just one chapter on that,
because these girls grow up and become adult women and
don't get better and don't change. So you're right, if
(09:25):
we don't admit it and come to grips with it,
nothing will have a change. There's this great quote um
I pulled from the book Women expressed disapproval by disconnecting
(09:48):
both verbally and energetically, and I thought that was so
profound because it's so true. It it just, you know,
kind of exacerbates the isolation that you feel when you
are the one on the receiving end of this behavior.
And it's so interesting because now we have social media
to take into account with this, and this is obviously
something that we combat on this show and Hilaria combats
(10:09):
and we're all experiencing so much with online trolling. But
it's almost like that turned on its head because of
the cloak of anonymity online. So it's I think that's
a really interesting Cowards who don't give their names feel
unleashed and empowered to do these things. Their bullies and cowards,
(10:34):
and it's it's a real problem because it takes a toll.
But you know, women don't want to be abandoned and
they want to be part of a group or a clique.
So if you have a difference with another woman, you
want to smooth it over and pretend it doesn't happen,
it doesn't exist. And how can we become independent thinkers
(10:56):
and heroes and warriors if we're afraid to tell the
next woman in our group what we really think and
we disagree with her. So women don't know. In fact,
in my first book So Long Ago, Women in Madness,
I wrote about the importance of women learning to not
just tolerate differences, but to celebrate them. And fifty years
(11:20):
later or more, that hasn't exactly happened. I mean, think
of mothers and daughters. If a daughter is really different
from her mother, if she's not and her mother is traditional,
for example, she's they're gonna the mother will feel abandoned.
The daughter will feel abandoned by the mother because they're
(11:42):
very different, and they're afraid. If these differences persist or grow,
it will mean detachment, just as you said, they will disconnect.
It's so interesting. That's that's so interesting. I feel, you know,
it's something you said before and this as well, that
there's something about um holding each other to a code
(12:04):
of context. So in so many ways, as you said,
we're not taught to be team players. Where I mean,
I have three plus my my stepdaughter, four girls, and
I have four boys, and even seeing the activities as
little children that they are encouraged to do. My boys
are encouraged to do team sports and my girls are
(12:26):
encouraged to do individual activities. In gymnastics, well, you have
to be the one, the one there, whereas you know,
the boys are going and playing basketball, which you have
to eat. The whole team needs to win. And so
we're even we're teaching this to our kids as they're
as they're very young, and we're telling the girls very
confusing you have to be the best at this. But
(12:46):
if you're the best, then you're breaking away from the
group and your targets, so you're gonna be shot down.
It's a very difficult dance to do. And so talk
to us a little bit about holding each other to
the code of you know what you were saying with
mothers and daughters. If I break away, then I don't
have that connection. Well, what women are held to a
(13:06):
much highest standard than men are, and men are forgive
them when they make mistakes. If another woman makes a mistake,
a small one, a big one, we have a grudge
against her. It's fastest forever, and we get her or
we disconnect with her. So we don't know how to
express our anger or our disappointment directly and then let
it go. Let it go. But I want to go
(13:28):
back to how you begin. Um. I have a son
I don't have daughters. And he was maybe about eight
years old, and he would come home after school with
other little boys and they go in the backyard and
they would fight. They run around and they'd hit each other.
They thought, I think it don't ever be back. Oh
they were back for the next day. Now, the little
(13:49):
girls from his classes who lived on the block or nearby,
they had one best friend. They didn't talk to anyone else.
It was a privileged di atic or relationship like a
mother daughter relationship. And then one day they never spoke again,
and they had new best friends. If at all they
(14:11):
spoke against each other. And I'm looking at this and thinking,
is this hard wired? Is it possible? And it is
civilization capable of going against it? If to the extent
of which it's hard wired. I mean, the boys were
just physical. They were aggressive, they were physical, but they
were bonded and this is what they like to do.
(14:34):
And the girls and needed in depth intimacy with one
best friend. And I think we all do and it
might be part of our undoing because if you manage,
and it's not easy to have a friendship with the
way men do. Nothing's personal. Um, it's a kind of
(14:55):
a mid distance friendship. It doesn't have deep depth intimacy,
but it's stable. Women we want deep, deep and we
can't give it up. We really want to confess everything
and express everything and listen to everything. And then if
one of us turns against the other, she has all
(15:16):
the information, doesn't she. You know, all the bodies buried.
So the price that we pay for this intimacy that
we crave is betrayal. And we don't know how to
me too, I'm just as guilty as the next woman.
I would prefer a deep friendship. I now see that
(15:39):
it's safer and more stable and wiser to have a
middle ground friendship, you know, And even the way I
say it, it's like a disappointment, right, what's interesting. I mean,
if you think about that, it's just like you're throwing
yourself on the fire to have that intimate connection in essence,
because ultimately they can use that against you. Um. I did.
(16:00):
Per You're discussing how little girls can have these dietic
friendships that are so so cohesive and contained and then
they're gone. Um, And I think we've all experienced that
and how devastating it can be. But in that lens,
can you explain to us the difference between direct aggression
and indirect aggression with women? So indirect aggression, which began
(16:24):
to be studied seriously by the end of the nineteen eighties,
means the slandering, the shunning, the grudge holding. There are
amazing studies and I'm so glad that I waited for
them to appear, and I write about them in Woman's
and Humanity Woman And so this is where all power is. Gossip, Oh, gossip.
(16:50):
When we gossip, we don't necessarily do it because we
love the woman we're talking about. Wanta in every way
to protect on her note, we gossip to say, hey,
you know what I got on her? Listen to this.
Guess who I saw with him where I saw her,
And that gossip in certain cultures leads to the death
(17:15):
of that or that girl in an honor killing, or
to her being divorced, which can be also equivalent to
death of some kind. Because this is a phenomenon that's
very global, it's not just specific to America. In the
feminist movement, we wanted so much to be sisters because
(17:39):
we've never had that. All of our intellectual mentors and
the books we were assigned to read were written by men.
And so to think that women had ideas that was
so worthy, that were riveting, that were even better than
everything else, it was so sweet. And I write about
(18:00):
is in a book called a Politically Incorrect Feminists that
that's me and um, it was so sweet that as
we began bad mouthing each other or trashing each other
ideologically personally for whatever said of reasons, we had no
(18:21):
name for it. You didn't know. We denied it. That's
how we handled it. It's not really happening. She deserved it.
It didn't happen to me and so on. So indirect
aggression is the name for it, and just because it's
indirect and not homicidal doesn't mean it's not as deep
(18:42):
or as consequential as male aggression. How much of this
do you think is nurture versus nature? It's really hard
to say. I mean, scientifically, there's definitely. I give some
examples in chapter two of Woman's in Humanity and Woman
of Apes, primates behaving in ways that are that are
(19:04):
very familiar to us as human beings. It's embarrassing, like
a primate who kills the baby of another woman primate
so that she can have her as the nanny. I
mean what you know, I mean last warfare, for survival,
(19:24):
for survival. And then there's examples of the bonnabows you know,
who do all kinds of woman to woman friendly stuff.
But you know, as she was speaking, Hill Area, women
are not just passionate and and and wanting intimate connectivity.
We're also very sensitive and we want to be liked,
(19:46):
and we don't want to displease anyone. We're pleases, not superficially,
we really want to please and sometimes appease danger, appease violence.
So when we begin to get I mean, I was
not gonna laugh. But try writing a book. You write
(20:10):
a book and then it gets reviews and you read
that you should never read the reviews of us, but
everybody does. You read reviews. This is a crazy book.
This is a fully written book. This is a man
hating book. This is a shrill book. That those were
the words that all the early feminists, great works, you know, received.
So but it's it's not just women, it's right, it's
(20:35):
including women writers. You know. Just she can't right, you know,
she stupid, She should not the publishers should leave her
alone and not publish her ever again me which often happens.
So there's this internet troll disaster, and then there's very
real life economic consequences, not that I'm minimizing the men
(21:00):
health consequences, I'm not. But then you lose your job
and you can't feed your kids, and you go down.
So this is a power that girls and women have.
In fact, I reanalyzed Carol Gilligan's research and what was
(21:22):
interesting important is that why did little girls suddenly become
silent and go with the flow and go with the crowd,
the herd mentality. It's because not because men or boys
were threatening them. It's because they didn't want to be
targeted by the other little girls. So they tried to
(21:44):
figure out what's the right thing to say. And once
you start doing that and get used to doing it,
or you never have an independent thought in your life,
and as you do, you hide it. So I would say,
I would say this, So what is to be done?
What could we do? That was? The first thing is
(22:07):
to accept very humbly, that change is a process, that
this can't be changed quickly, that consciousness alone aha may
not be enough. But the second thing is what you've
been doing, to acknowledge, not deny, not cover up, not
(22:28):
be afraid of the truth. I mean, the truth is
that thing that's supposed to set us free. Right. But
then as women we have to become strong, really strong
strong egos, strong selves, strong enough to be able to
(22:49):
take being criticized and to deal with it and not
to personalize it. We personalize. A woman disagrees with us,
tells us off would have on the floor. A man says, oh,
screw you, that's what you think I'll get you. But
we're very sensitive, right, So even if it's in the
(23:13):
war of ideas, we want to all get along and
you know, be harmonious. Yeah, then we need to do
something else. That's hard. Need to learn how to express
anger directly and at the moment, at the moment, not
go home and think about it and plan and plot
(23:33):
and start gossiping about it. But we need rules of
engagement the way sports has rules of engagements and war
two for that matter, by the way, and those rules
are completely violated in the our world today. We also
need to do something else. We need to ask the
(23:54):
next woman or a woman who managed us directly what
we want. It's not going to be a d reader.
She may not know at that moment what we really
need or want at that moment. And then there's the
next thing, which is impossible almost but I have to
say it. And also, once you've learned to ask for
(24:15):
what you want and if you can't get it, if
this is a toxic friendship, so to speak, if this
is someone who is beyond change, we have to walk away.
We have to give it up. We have to have
the courage to disconnect. We the great connectors. We have
(24:36):
to be vigilant about not gossiping. We have to try
very hard not to gossip. Now this is almost impossible,
but it's very essential. It's at least it's a goal
that we can strive for. And we need to learn
to praise the next woman. I mean, just think we've
(24:57):
had mothers. They cook often every night, well three times
a day. Do we go home and say, mom, you
did it again. This is fantics, thank you, this is terrific.
I can't believe this. We don't. We just take it
for granted. And I think it's important to praise and
support the next moment and tell her. At the same time,
(25:21):
if we have made mistakes, like big mistakes. Who doesn't
make big mistakes, we need to apologize. We need to
say I'm really sorry, I'm sorry I hurt you. Even
if I thought I was right and I did I
did it the wrong way and my intention was not
(25:41):
to hurt you. That's hard to do. We need to
do that. So going back to what phillis you always
you say about gossip, how it functions as maintaining morals
(26:01):
UM and groups like group solidarity and really just perpetuating
like the patriarchal norms through shaming one another. UM. How
do you how do you feel about you know, the silos,
I'd say on social media where people have very extreme views,
yet they find community within their little buckets of hatred
(26:23):
or misogyny or racism or what or what have you.
They find camaraderie in these groups, and then that almost
gives them a sense of of, you know, of belonging
within this hate group which would have never existed before.
It's like this, this entirely new undercurrent of perpetuating hate
that just doesn't seem easily eradicated. It's very tribal, and
(26:45):
people are very I mean, forget about especially post pandemic,
which still continues. Uh. People are isolated and they're alienated.
And you're right. They think when they find a group
with whom they agree on whatever conspiracy they hold in common,
that now they've got a tribe. But this is this
(27:10):
is true of politics, it's true of governmental leaders, it's
true even of great thinks this tribalism as opposed to
the ability to be an individual. First. So yes, I've
been purged from certain lists of groups because my ideas
(27:34):
we're seen as wrong. And it was painful, and I
wrote about it in a book that's out of a
friend called the Death of Feminism, And it was around
the very thing that you're now both talking about. So
I mean there is the great books by women who
(27:55):
are feminists have been disappeared in generation after generation. Century
up the century and Dale spender and Australian scholar wrote
a wonderful book called Women of Ideas and What Men
Have Done to Them. But now as we see, women
of ideas have been cannibalized you a good phrase, and
(28:17):
disappeared by other women who want to reinvent the wheel,
who want to take the credit for ideas that they
did not originate, destroy the shoulders on which they should
be standing, which I'm calling matricycle, in order to become
the first, and the only and the greatest. So there's
(28:40):
a lot of hubrists, and a lot of foolishness, and
a lot of left over mother daughter adolescent conflict. I'm
not sure how to get rid of any of that.
Do you have any ideas? We're trying. It has to
start with the conversation, which is what we're doing here.
I have, since reading this book in becoming aware of it.
(29:00):
So it's one thing to say, Okay, I'm experiencing this now.
I want to make sense of it, especially when I
see that other people experience it as well, and then
what can I can't change other people, but I can
change myself. So when I'm in situations, if I notice
that I'm gossiping, I call myself out and I might
(29:22):
I might continue doing and be like, this is what
I'm doing right now. I am going to give this
a name. I am gossiping right now. Just so, No,
if there's a woman that comes into women, we size
each other up. Men talk about size each other. Oh,
they don't hold the candle to us, right we size
people up. I mean, we all know, we've all been there.
(29:43):
When I am around a woman who I am feeling
that kind of like there's like this like little fire
of competition, I'm starting to turn that into admiration. And
in my head if not I have, if I don't
have the opportunity to speak to the person in my head,
I'll start complimenting the person and I'll turn that and saying, oh, wow,
(30:06):
she's so beautiful. I love her outfit, I love this,
I love the way that she's walking. I mean, obviously
from the outside, it's all superficial. You know, even though
people might have a glow to them and the same
thing about you know, women who I get to I
get to know their work, and they're you know, all
their all their life and their families and all the
different ins and outs of them, of their of their being.
(30:28):
I start to try to turn my negativity into a positivity.
But I have to start inside well, I think, and
that takes us to like this first step which we're
experimenting on ourselves with this show and this this concept,
not like it's pioneering by any means, but it's really
just to put into practice something that can change these patterns.
(30:49):
And I know we both speak about it with each
other all the time. You catch yourself gossiping and you
you you, it becomes a trigger and you and you
stop doing it. You see another woman, you have that
visceral reaction to maybe the competition. And then I've started
taking it a step further and going out of my
way to engage and compliment someone in a situation where
(31:09):
it could have been very uncomfortable. And I've been finding,
like you know, you get the light that you give out,
and it's just the magnetism and the warmth that comes
from just taking that chance and like making those steps.
Obviously it's small and it's baby steps, but it does
feel like a good way to integrate some sort of change,
slowly but surely not small, because imagine if every woman
(31:34):
on planet Earth did it, that ripple would become a
huge wave. So I just because you've just inspired me
and please me beyond belief. Um, maybe we should gather
to do a teaching on the subject. You know, I
have not asked you like personal questions or tell me
(31:56):
all the bad things that have happened, the kind of
things you may not want to say online, you know,
or you may And if women could join us and
share their stories, as long as it was structured and safe,
that might be a good next step for you to undertake.
(32:17):
And I would be happy to help in any way. Really,
thank you, Phyllis. That would be amazing. I mean, yeah, So,
what is your best piece of advice for women? Treat
women respectfully, don't expect, don't think because a woman is
not perfect that she's the evil stepmother. Just treat her
(32:38):
with respect. We don't have to love each other, even
though we want to and want to receive it. We
don't have to love each other. We don't even have
to like each other. We just have to behave respectfully,
have boundaries, respect the boundaries be kind. I would give
(32:59):
that at this moment. It's interesting because we'll say, okay, well,
we're not burning and hanging and throwing stones, although these
things do happen in other places in the world, but
you know, we really haven't moved that far forward. We're
repeating the same feelings over and over again, of competition,
(33:21):
of not having enough. If somebody seems to have more
than they must have done something nefarious in order to
get there. Um, you know, punching up, punching down, punching
left right, it's all punching and yeah, yeah, yeah, so
we I mean, I think I think until we start
(33:41):
addressing what we have inside of us, that's the only
thing that we can change. We can have these conversations,
we can you know, share our ideas because this is
the thing that people whisper about. When I've you know,
since becoming such a fan of your work, and I
obviously share that with my platform and people that I
that I meet, you know, I mean, the mom world,
(34:05):
the mom world is so competitive, and the mom world,
especially in the past decade, has turned into quite a business.
So you have capitalism on top of it, you know,
And I've had my part of them being my mom influencers.
That's called a hate hate that term, but you know,
I mean it has just generated this thing where what
(34:26):
happens when the mean girls grew up and started having
kids and started having a business, we're really just the same.
I'm seeing for my my oldest daughter, who's nine, that
she is very much experiencing the mean girl dynamic, especially
that dynamic of three. For some reason, it's always the
three kids. I think I've talked about this on a
previous UM episode with us, But what what is it
(34:49):
that these girls are doing this at such a young age.
Could be hard wired? I mean, we don't know, and
we're here civilization to help us resist the more barbaric
items of our hard wiring. So I think three is
an unstable Let's think of it as a three legged stool.
(35:12):
Women are most comfortable one on one in a diet
which recapitulates the mother daughter relationship, especially if it failed
and you want to perfect it um and you you
you improve on it with your best friend, and then
(35:33):
you get to the end of what you can do
and you move on to another best friend. So we
are most comfortable in a diet could be with a man,
but definitely with another woman a third member. That's competition,
that's instability. Who's who was the third member going to
choose who's the closest to who? We're gonna try one thing.
(35:57):
I don't know if you're you're into it, but you
do something called what are we coveting in the coven?
Which is something where you should share something that you're
really into. Oh no, no, I got something in Until
this day, I was privileged to co lead a team
of grassroots women who rescued four women from Afghanistan and
(36:20):
one I've chosen as my Afghan granddaughter. And she's here
in America at a graduate school on a scholarship. And
I'm gathering the team to meet her later in December
in my home and bringing her here, including the woman
who got her on the plane. So I think it
(36:42):
will be a very moving and exciting and high points
for everyone involved. Fantastic, really good. I'm into that. That
is so wonderful. I can't wait. I can't wait to
hear all about it. Dr Chester, thank you so much
for being with us today. Privilege, my pleasure. I'm good,
(37:03):
Thank you. All right, ladies, that's it for today. We're
so pleased to have phyllis. This was a dream come
true on so many different levels. So please go get
her book. It is mind blowing and you know she's
saying all of the things that you're going to just
be nodding and saying yes, yes, yes, I totally get
(37:26):
this and it all makes sense. And we all know
we've all been that place, you know, the word of
the year as gas lit. We've all been the place
and would think, oh gosh, why is this happening? And
you know, just to see it on written in such
a scientific way, it really will hopefully arm you with
knowledge that will give you ability to forgive stuff that
(37:48):
you've done and ability to forgive things that other people
have done and get to a place where we can collaborate. UM.
So don't forget to share it with your friends, Rate review, subscribe, UM,
find us on I G and we can't wait to
see you guys next week. Thank you, which is follow
us at which is a nonpod on Instagram and wherever
(38:11):
you get your podcasts.
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