December 9, 2025 • 53 mins
In this conversation, I sit down with Dorothy Greco to explore misogyny not just as individual prejudice, but as a system that shapes our culture, our institutions, our churches, and even our closest relationships. Dorothy walks me through how misogyny shows up in medicine, economics, purity culture, pornography, and the daily lives of women, and why it remains so difficult to see and name. We talk about the ways entitlement and distorted power sustain this harm, and how the way of Jesus offers a radically different vision, one rooted in dignity, equality, and mutual flourishing. This episode invites all of us to look beneath the surface, recognize what’s been hidden in plain sight, and imagine what healing and justice might require from us moving forward.
Dorothy Littel Greco has worked as a photojournalist for more than forty years. She is the author of three books, including the recently released, For the Love of Women: Uprooting and Healing Misogyny in America. When Dorothy is not writing or making photos, she loves to bike, kayak, and share food with friends.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dorothy Littell Greco (00:31):
Misogyny is so deeply embedded that it is
the air that we as women breatheand we don't even notice it.
Joshua Johnson (00:52):
Hello and welcome to the shifting culture
podcast in which we haveconversations about the culture
we create and the impact we canmake. We long to see the body of
Christ look like Jesus. I'm yourhost. Joshua Johnson, in this
episode, we confront a realitythat runs deep in our culture,
our institutions and ourrelationships, misogyny. Dorothy
Greco joins me to unpack whatmisogyny actually is, not just
(01:15):
the hatred of women, but apersistent belief that men's
wants and needs hold greaterweight, shaping laws, church
structures, social norms and theeveryday experiences of women.
Dorothy traces how this beliefembeds itself in systems like
medicine, economics, politics,media, sexuality and the church,
she highlights how entitlement,distorted views of power and the
(01:36):
commodification of women createharm that often remains hidden
beneath the surface. We alsolook at the way of Jesus, how
his treatment of women stood instark contrast to the
patriarchal norms of his time,and how his life offers a
radically different model ofmutual respect, dignity and CO
flourishing. Dorothy explainswhat healthy oneness can look
(01:57):
like within intimaterelationships, how media
disciples our imaginations andwhy rooting out misogyny
requires honesty, selfexamination and collective
action. This conversation namesthe harm, uncovers what often
goes unseen and points toward apath of healing and shared
flourishing. It's an invitationfor all of us, men and women, to
(02:19):
recognize what's broken and toparticipate in the work of
restoring what has beendistorted. So join us. Here is
my conversation with Dorothy.
Greco, Dorothy, welcome toshifting culture. It's an honor
to have you on. Thanks forjoining
Dorothy Littell Greco (02:34):
me, and I so appreciate your interest in
this topic. Joshua, it's
Joshua Johnson (02:38):
an important topic. We're talking about
misogyny today, and the roots ofit, how it like festers and gets
into our systems and our cultureand it hasn't let us go to start
out, when you talk aboutmisogyny, and we're talking
about this topic. What are youtalking about? What is misogyny?
Dorothy Littell Greco (02:57):
Yeah, I think at this point I should
have memorized the definitionthat I have in the book, but
because of my my age, memorizinganything more than a line
doesn't feel very possibleanymore. So let me read the
definition that I have inchapter one, for the love of
women, misogyny is a persistent,insidious belief that men's
ideas, wants, needs andexperiences are more important
(03:21):
than women's, and that legal,religious and social systems, as
well as intimate relationships,should uphold. This principle,
this belief system subsequentlyinfluences the laws, policies,
practices and ethos of a givenculture. And I think that we
need to stretch the definitionout. It's often just, you know,
the hatred of women, but if wehave it that small, then I think
(03:44):
it's too easy for people towiggle out of the say, Well, I'm
married. I love my wife, so I'mnot a misogynist, or I have a
great sister and we love eachother, so I'm not a misogynist,
but when we stretch it out alittle bit more and see how it
affects systems as well aspersonal relationships, then it
becomes a little bit harder tosay, Oh, this isn't an issue.
Joshua Johnson (04:05):
Then why is it an issue? It seems like, I mean,
we've seen this recently. Youhave seen the text messages go
around with the YoungRepublicans wrote about this on
your substack. Then you know,you have JD Vance, you have
others like boys. Will be boys.
This is just young boys sayingstupid jokes. Why is it so
insidious, this misogyny, andwhere is it coming from? What is
(04:29):
the actual problem going onright now?
Dorothy Littell Greco (04:36):
In brief, it's ancient. You know, if you
look at historical texts,whether it's literature or
straight history, you can seeexamples of misogyny everywhere.
The ancient Roman culture, whichwas lauded for democracy and for
the many advances that it made,also didn't allow women to vote
and did not allow women to haveany voice in the marketplace,
(04:58):
abandon children, particularlybaby girls, in dumps, and either
they would die or people couldcome and rescue them and raise
them as slaves. So you know, itgoes way back, and the fact that
we haven't been able to uprootit says to me that there is evil
involved. You know, I think it'svery easy for us as postmoderns
to dismiss the concept of goodand evil, but when you look at
(05:22):
some of the things that havehappened in the world, some of
the oppression, some of theatrocities, whether it's what
happened, what's happening rightnow in parts of Africa. Giselle
pellicott. Was the woman wholast year, it was, you know, the
trial of how her husband hadrecruited various men to come
and then drugged her, and thenthey raped her. Like on a
(05:43):
personal level, it is so beyondmy imagination. But I think that
we have to look at deeper andsay there's, there is evil in
this, in the evil, wants toseparate men and women, wants
there to be hierarchies, andwants us to not image God and
when we are partnering togetheras equals, I think we image God
(06:05):
more fully. So I believe that'sone of the things that the enemy
of our soul wants to prohibit.
Joshua Johnson (06:11):
The enemy of our soul wants to prohibit the image
of God within all of us, whichis then we could see some co
flourishing, which I believe,was set up at creation, at the
very beginning of what it lookslike. And you say it's this
misogyny is an ancient problem,and it's still here with us
today. So can you just brieflygo back to the person of Jesus?
(06:37):
And I think Jesus himself, as hecame on the scene in an ancient
day where misogyny was happeningall the time, he has a different
conception of who women are, andhe's bringing about something
totally radical, totallyrevolutionary, for that day and
for today. Can you contrast theway of Jesus back in the ancient
(07:01):
day with ancient misogynypractices?
Dorothy Littell Greco (07:04):
Yeah, I think that if you know, bringing
it forward to today, if moremen, particularly men who claim
to be Christian, treated womenthe way Jesus treated women,
then we really would have a fairchance of defeating misogyny. So
when you look at, you know, justthose three and a half years
that really, we really have arecord of Jesus's time on the
(07:25):
earth, there are so manyinstances where he broke the
cultural barriers, where hedisregarded the ways that the
patriarchal, hierarchicalculture would say, you as a
rabbi, you as a male, are notsupposed to interact with women,
whether it's the woman at thewell Samaritan, woman at the
well, who he had a conversationwith. It's the longest dialog we
(07:46):
have of Jesus in the NewTestament, and it was clear that
that was outside of the norms.
Because when the disciples cameback, they were like, What are
you doing talking to this woman,the woman with the issue of
blood, you know, the fact thatshe shouldn't have touched him,
right, because she was bleeding,and that was against the culture
he could have, should have,based on the Moors of that time,
been angry with her, rebukedher. But instead, you know, he
(08:08):
validated her suffering, and hepraised her for her faith. So
there's just so many examples ofthe way that Jesus transcended
the ways that we see misogynymanifested today, and gave us a
vision for this is what itshould look like for men and
women to partner together, formen in authority to treat women
with respect, etc you walk
Joshua Johnson (08:31):
through, and I think that's going to be helpful
for us going forward, for apodcast like mine, where I
really do care that we embodythe ways and teachings of Jesus.
And I believe that embodying theway of his love for all people
is actually the way to heal theproblems of this world. Like I
don't know of any other waythat's we're going to get there.
(08:52):
This is what I want to try to doas a basis there. You talk about
about six different systems inour culture that there are
misogyny problems. And thehardest one that you say, you
(09:52):
write about, is the the problemof the church and misogyny in
the church. And I want to getthere, but I don't want to start
there. Let's, let's start withsomething, I think the even,
let's where, let's start. Whereyou start in the medical system.
How does misogyny play out in asystem? In a medical system,
what was happening, maybe in thelast 100 years, of like,
(10:14):
diagnoses of female problems inthe medical system, and how does
it still show up today?
Dorothy Littell Greco (10:22):
Yeah, this chapter, in some ways, was
the easiest one for me to write,because I have had 25 years of
chronic health issues, so I havehad to battle many of these
things firsthand. Yeah. So ifyou look back to in the 1800s
mid 1800s prior to that time,many women were providing health
care for others in theircommunity, men and women. Women
(10:45):
were serving as midwives anddoulas, oftentimes women of
color. That was one of the rolesthat they played in their
communities. And then during themid to late 1800s there became a
shift where medical schoolsbegan to be established, and of
course, only men were allowed togo to medical schools. Women
were allowed into med schoolsuntil much, much later. So
(11:07):
suddenly, taking care of eachother becomes monetized, becomes
part of the capitalistic system,and it's dominated by men. So
men now have control over thenarrative. So that's one of. Key
factors. And then if you fastforward to the 1900s early 1900s
the role of pharmaceuticalsbegins to come into play. And
again, capitalism here, youknow, just is such a huge
(11:30):
influence in exacerbatingmisogyny. You know, it's the the
possibility of earning money offof people, and it's only those
with power and those withauthority and those in positions
of influence that can reallyearn all the money, and we still
see that today. So women wereincreasingly diagnosed with
psychological issues and weregiven drugs that sort of tamed
(11:52):
them, that quieted them down,that numbed them. And that's why
in the 19 I think it's in the20s through the 50s, there was
an enormous problem of womenbeing addicted to psychological
drugs, even though the doctorsknew that this was a potential
problem. It sort of fit in withthe ways that women were told
that they needed to rest, thatthey needed to be quiet, they
(12:14):
needed to be subdued. And then,you know, continuing that
forward, even today, women'shealth needs are often, I
wouldn't say often, because Idon't have the statistics for
how often it does happen. Butmore than for men, women, if
they go into the ER, it's notuncommon for them if, even if
they are manifesting symptoms ofa heart attack, that they will
(12:35):
be sent to have a psychologicaleval, rather than having the
test that they need to determineif it's an actual heart attack,
because women's and men'ssymptoms are different. So it's,
it's everywhere, you know, fromthe over prescribing of drugs to
not taking women's painseriously to not believing women
when they're in pain, to notgiving them the kind of maternal
(12:56):
care that they need. It's It'spervasive
Joshua Johnson (13:00):
in a lot of problems that we have in our
culture and within the systemsof our culture. I think one of
the problems because we live inthe United States of America and
we live in an individualisticsociety, we think about
individual sins, and we thinkabout our individual problems,
and we don't see like societalproblems and cultural problems
(13:22):
and systemic problems, and wekind of dismiss them. How do you
think that we could start to seesystemic problems in a way that
we can address them in anindividualistic society like
ours?
Dorothy Littell Greco (13:36):
Yeah, that is one of the the issues
for our cultural Joshua is, Ithink that we do see things far
too individualistically. I thinkfirst is listening to women,
listening to their stories, andthen being able to connect the
threads and to say, Oh, thisisn't simply this one woman.
This is a problem throughout theUnited States. That's, you know,
one of the hopes that I have forthe book, that by laying out all
(14:00):
of these systemic issues peoplewill be able to acknowledge.
Yeah, we have a problem, Ithink, much like racism, these
kind of enormous systemicissues, we we need a collective
effort. You know, think about tothe civil rights movements in
the 60s. Yes, there were somephenomenal leaders, Martin
Luther King, of course, beingone of them, but it only
(14:22):
happened. Change only happenedbecause there was a collective
effort. There were enough peoplewho said, I am not going to do
I'm not going to put up withthis anymore. This is an
offense. It is a sin. It'sharming us. It's illegal. And
when a collective efforthappened, and there was a swell
of people who came together andsaid, We need to change this.
(14:44):
That's when change began tohappen. So like for misogyny,
obviously the me too, movement,church to movement, did a
phenomenal job of raising ourconsciousness about what was
happening. But as we can see,that didn't really change
things. Raised our awareness,but it didn't change things. So
I think that in addition towomen speaking out and saying,
(15:05):
This is my story, we have got tohave men who are willing to say,
I'll do whatever it takes tomake sure that the women in my
life flourish. I will dowhatever it takes for the women
in my church, to be heard, to belistened to, to be cared for. So
that kind of commitment to womenand to women's overall health
(15:26):
and flourishing has to that hasto happen
Joshua Johnson (15:30):
because I think systemic issues and the problems
and the evil that misogyny does,it impacts a lot of other
systemic issues. I thinkmisogyny actually impacts
racism. It impacts the violencethat we have in our culture and
our gun culture in America. Itimpacts a lot of control
(15:50):
militarism. And, you know,economic systems that we have
that are problems. There's ittouches everything. And so when
I think of systemic issues, Ithink of something where, man,
you're going to root one thingout, and then you're going to
have like, eight more problemsto root out in your research. As
you're walking through somestories, have you started to hit
(16:13):
on some some things, maybe somereal. Deep rooted sin issues,
that if we, like, take care ofthose, it could actually have a
ripple effect on bigger systems.
Dorothy Littell Greco (16:27):
Yeah, I think that greed, you know,
greed, is a huge factor in theUnited States. That's what
drives capitalism. That's whatmakes us feel like the corporate
CEOs can make $50 billion a yearwhile they're fighting to pay
their employees minimum wage andgive them two weeks sick time
again, these kind of enormous,systemic issues are so hard to
(16:48):
root out, even for Christians,even for people who have said,
like, I believe in God, Ibelieve in the Scripture, for
them to actually be selfreflective, to look at their
lives and to say, oh, greed isshowing up here. Oh, misogyny is
showing up here. I'm not okaywith that. I want to be able to
deal with that, to get rid ofit, and then to live more like
(17:10):
Jesus. You know, that takes, Ifeel like it takes a work of
God, and it takes a humilitythat oftentimes we just don't
see, you know, the people inpower want to keep their power,
oftentimes and and one of thethings I talk about on the book
is the distinction between godlypower and worldly power. So
godly power is always used forgood. It's never coercive, it
(17:33):
blesses, it nourishes, it heals.
And worldly power is absolutelythe opposite. You know, we and
that's what we're seeing most ofthe time in the news. Vladimir
Putin coming in and, you know,bombing his neighboring country.
It's worldly power that does allthe damage. And so how is it
that we could convince somebodyactually, you know what, your
life is going to be better ifyou don't abuse worldly power,
(17:55):
your life isn't going to bebetter if you don't perpetuate
misogyny. I think for manypeople, it's really hard for
them to activate theirimaginations and then to be able
to say, oh, hadn't thought aboutthat.
Joshua Johnson (18:12):
What are the subtle ways that misogyny comes
out in male female relationshipswithin marriage and sexual
relationships. How does thatstart to play out?
Dorothy Littell Greco (18:24):
Yeah, there's a story that I open with
in the chapter on intimaterelationships. It's a very, very
vulnerable story. And I was soproud of this couple for being
willing to share their story,Nick and Amy, and they talk
about how they were raised in acomplementarian church culture,
you know. And there are manydifferent flavors of
complementarianism, but in thisparticular flavor, women were
(18:45):
supposed to provide theirhusbands with sex whenever their
husbands wanted sex, kind of noquestions asked. So I refer to
that as male entitlement. Andfor Nick and Amy, Nick came into
the marriage battling apornography addiction. And what
he was told, what men are oftentold, is, you know, when you get
married and you can have sexwhenever you want, that's going
to deal with your sexualaddiction. Well, that's not
(19:08):
exactly true, because sex sexualaddictions are not about sexual
(20:13):
intercourse. Sexual addictionsare about anxiety and fear and
control and so many otherthings. So they had to do a lot
of work to figure out, how isthis entitlement playing out in
the bedroom? How is it that Nickcan stop having this entitlement
to his wife's body? What does itmean for him to control his
(20:34):
sexuality? What does it mean forhim to honor his wife's no when
she really is tired. You know,they were family with a lot of
kids, and they were very youngwhen they got married, and the
kids came very quickly. So Ithink that men being willing to
recognize their entitlement is ahuge first step. And so often
again, the church, I'm sorry tosay, but the church really does
(20:56):
empower male entitlement andsexuality, and that really is
harmful for women. So how do
Joshua Johnson (21:03):
you think that the purity culture started to
play into this? I mean, you talka little bit about the
portification of things and thecommodification of women, and
how, basically, those two thingsactually kind of have the same
root in them. So how do theyplay together the purity culture
into the commodification ofwomen as well and the
(21:26):
pornification of women?
Dorothy Littell Greco (21:29):
Yeah, that's a big question. I was not
raised in a church setting, andI think the purity culture came
later, came sort of like beforeand during the time that we were
raising our first two sons, andI think the communication there
was underlying, like the basicmessage, I agree with it's
better to wait to have sexualintercourse until you're in a
committed marriage relationship.
I agree with thatwholeheartedly, but I think that
(21:52):
what they did wrong was thatthere was a lot of blame and
responsibility on girls. It's,you know, if you don't dress the
right way, if you don't act theright way, if you have too much
to drink and you end up beingraped, it's your fault. So
there's a lot of blaming thewoman for whatever it is that
happens. And there's not a lotof communication teaching boys
(22:15):
and young men. Then you canstorage your sexual feelings.
You can have sexual feelings.
That's not wrong, but you don'thave to act on them again.
That's more the entitlement. Andthen the purity culture often
really shamed women if they weresexually active or if they were
raped, you know, if there wassexual abuse happen, they were
(22:36):
seen as damaged goods, so that,you know, sort of elevating sex
above the health and welfare ofof young people. I think that
that was a mistake, and I thinkwe're seeing a lot of fallout
from from that so in terms ofthe effects of pornography. I
mean, you see that everywhere,from Halloween costumes to the
(22:57):
ways that young children aresexualized in TV shows and in
all kinds of media situations,we see that there's adult
sexuality that sort of isintruding upon children and
increasingly being normalized.
You know, I'm not sure if youwatch the movie adolescence that
came out, I think it was thisyear, or maybe the end of last
(23:19):
year. It was a powerful film.
You know, this 12, I think hewas 12 years old at the time,
and these boys were beingbrainwashed, you know, by the
INCEL culture, whichcommunicates that women owe them
sex. There was a there's a lotof violence, a lot of violent
language, which, again, youknow, you reference the Young
(23:40):
Republicans exchanges. You know,when you I wouldn't advocate or
encourage people to read that,because there was, it's just
awful the way that they talkabout anybody who's not them.
But in particular women and sex,there's just a lot of violence
that comes in as they're youngkids, and then it forms their
thoughts, you know pornography,there's so much in pornography
(24:03):
now that advocates for violenceagainst women. And as these
young boys are watching it, theyhave no idea that these women
are not enjoying it. These womenare getting paid like that's
their job, or they're notgetting paid, they're being
trafficked. And the goal is tomake sure that the men are
happy. The goal is not mutual,you know, satisfaction in those
situations. So there's just,there's so much brokenness that
(24:27):
comes in through pornography,and then again, sort of ramps up
male entitlement.
Joshua Johnson (24:33):
We have a commodification problem of of
everything, and then women get,get subsumed in, in that. What
does it look like then in arelationship? So what does it
look like for CO flourishing,like mutual flourishing within
intimate relationships betweenmen and women, where there there
are, there should be something,where it is so intimate that
(24:55):
people are intertwined, thatthere should be this, this CO
flourishing, this mutualmutuality that's happening in
that type of relationship. Whatdoes something like that
actually look like? So that mencan and women, we can move
towards something different thanwhat we have been given.
Dorothy Littell Greco (25:16):
I think that the the past is both in the
Old Testament and then thatJesus refers to as becoming one,
like oneness, which is verymysterious, because we don't
ever stop being ourselves, buttogether, we become something
different, something beautiful,something that's magnified. I
think seeing that as thefoundation of CO flourishing is
(25:39):
important, because oneness,there's no hierarchy, right
when? When you're one, it's notone on top of the other, it's
just one. So there's amutuality, a willingness to see
one another as complete equals,not as I'm better than you. I'm
more important to you. My voteis more valuable than yours a
mutual respect. You know,oftentimes there has been a lot
(26:02):
of communication about how menneed respect and how women need
love, and I think we both needboth. Like, I want to be
respected. I want my husband torespect me, and he wants me to
love him. So I don't think it'sthat binary of men want this and
women want that. I think, notagain, eliminating any form of
entitlement, whether that'sconnected to sex, where it's
(26:24):
connected to household chores.
You know, the numbers stilldemonstrate that women do a heck
of a lot more of the work, bothin terms of child care, in terms
of serving family members, interms of housework, cooking,
laundry, etc, than men. It'sbecoming it's the gap is
closing, but there's still aninequality in the second shift.
So just really, you know, acouple taking a 360 and saying,
(26:46):
what are the places where thereis inequality? What are the
places where we're not seeingeach other as equals, and we're
not committed to helping oneanother to flourish, and
oftentimes that that commitmentmeans a great deal of sacrifice.
You know, during the time thatmy husband decided to go back to
grad school, honestly, I was nota huge fan of that, because he
(27:09):
was working. We had threechildren, and I thought, Okay,
I'm not sure how that's going tolook. But, you know, having. Had
many conversations about it andfeeling like, Okay, this is the
right thing for now. What thatmeant is I didn't see him as
much I had to shoulder or theresponsibilities, but I knew it
was for a season, and it wassomething that we had agreed
(27:29):
upon. So I think, you know, itrequires a lot of communication,
a lot of mutual sacrifice, andthen just a lot of the kind of
love that's talked about inFirst Corinthians 13, we
Joshua Johnson (27:42):
could start to see that and go, Okay, there's
these intimate relationshipshere with men and women. There's
more of a mutuality. There'soneness. How does that then
start to move into culture? Oneof the things that you said
about media, as you said, mediadoesn't just reflect culture. It
disciples it. What sort ofstories should we start to see
(28:06):
within media and the arts sothat we can start to disciple
towards a better world?
Dorothy Littell Greco (28:15):
Are you familiar with the Bechdel Test?
Yes, yeah. So the Bechdel testwas created by a woman who was a
graphic artist back in the, Ithink, early 90s. And if I'm
remembering correctly, it'sessentially looking at a movie
and saying, in order to pass theBechdel test, you have to have
two female characters. They bothhave to be named. They both have
to have a name, not just honeyor sweetie, but have an actual
(28:36):
name. And they need to have aconversation about something
that's not about men, and that'sa really low bar, really low
bar. But it's the statistics interms of which movies can pass
that test, which movies to whichhave won the Academy Awards for
Best Motion Picture can passthat test is actually well below
50% so I think one of the issuesthere is that the producers, the
(29:00):
creators, the writers within theHollywood system, it would be
great if they would be morewilling to to think about and
imagine, how could we have thekind of strong female characters
that were in Little Women, orwere in Barbie because I think
that Barbie, Barbie, you know,there was so many levels to that
movie. I know it had itsdetractors, but yeah, so just
(29:23):
thinking about, what would it,what would it look like to
create movies that were morereflective of American women,
that were more reflective of thehealth that we could engender in
our culture, as opposed tomovies where women are
sexualized, where women aredemeaned, where women are really
harmed violently, becausethere's a lot of movies where
women are just treated horribly.
And that's normal, right? It'snormal violence in general, in
(29:48):
American movies, is normal. Iwould love it to see that
diminish, but yeah, that's goneby wheelhouse.
Joshua Johnson (29:56):
Think it's fascinating that media, media
and arts, movies, films,disciples culture more than it
just reflects culture. It meansthat, okay, I don't have just a
passive life. There is a waythat I could actually help
disciple in the sphere ofinfluence, whatever sphere of
(30:17):
influence that I have to movethere and not just reflect, I
think, reflect the culture. AndI think a lot of times when we
we believe that, oh, we're justreflecting what's in the culture
here, we're either perpetuatingwhat's there, but we're not
using anything into seeing a newvision of flourishing. How do
(30:39):
you think that that people thatsay misogyny is a problem and we
need to root it out? How do youthink that people like that can
move towards a proactive stance,rather than just a passive
stance of, oh, this is what itis, and this is happening.
Dorothy Littell Greco (30:57):
Yeah, that's hard, isn't it? Because
it requires a great deal ofwork. It requires
intentionality, it requires atime commitment. And for many
folks, that feels like, well,there I don't have enough
margin. There's not enoughmargin in my life to do that.
But in many ways, Joshua, it canbe these very simple things. You
know, if you are in a socialsituation where you notice that
(31:19):
a man makes a joke that issexist or that is demeaning, to
be able to say, you know, what,in front of everybody and give
him a little shame, you know,give him a little guilt. I don't
think those kind of comments areshould be said, and I want to
ask you to not make those kindof comments anymore. Small
thing, little bit of socialdiscomfort might be a little bit
(31:41):
of a risk. You're in a boardmeeting and a woman repeatedly
gets cut off her ideas are notlistened to, to be able to stop
the meeting and to say, have younoticed that we continue to cut
Caroline off as she's trying toshare her ideas? Can we work on
not doing that? Those kind ofvery small things, I think are
attainable. Will they shift thewhole culture? Oh, I wish, I
(32:06):
wish I knew that. But again, Ithink like within the church and
the church should be the placewhere women feel the safest,
where they are the most honoredand respected. And valued. If
the church started to make thatshift in a way that was
recognizable, I think that itwould make a difference. But we
(32:27):
are not leading the way. Somechurches are. There are some
churches that are doing afabulous job, but I think
consistently across the board,the American churches are not
doing their part to diminishmisogyny. And I think, you know,
I can't speak to Hollywood. I'mnot part of that. I can't speak
to the government, but I am partof the church, and that's part
of why chapter seven, which wason the church, was, whoo, there
(32:50):
was the most fire in my bellywhen I wrote that one.
Joshua Johnson (32:53):
So let's get to the fire in your belly. A lot of
the American church, there's, Ithink a huge swath of the
American church are really, Idon't know they're they're being
discipled by the culture andmedia. And what's happening
within America, more than thechurch, is actually discipling
and moving towards like, whatdoes it look like to to embody
(33:15):
these ways of Jesus? What didyou find in your research what
what is happening in the church?
How is it reflecting these,these ideas of misogyny that are
prevalent within our culture?
How is the church still likethat?
Dorothy Littell Greco (33:30):
There are so many ways you know, you go to
the Houston Chronicle and readthe series of articles that they
did on the Southern BaptistConvention a couple years ago,
and it is mind blowing, theamount of crimes that were
committed against women andchildren and some men as well,
but it was predominantly womenand children, the amount of
covering up that they did, youknow, very similar to the
(33:51):
Catholic Church. They knew thatthis priest was an abuser, and
they just sort of quietly movedhim to another diocese where
people didn't know him, thatkind of behavior is, I believe,
abhorrent, and I think that theLord hates that, but it happens
all the time. I don't know ifyou're familiar with Mark
Driscoll, but you listen to oneof, you know there many of his
(34:13):
sermons, many of his talks arehighly misogynistic, and he's a
very popular preacher. You know,he's now gaining influence in
the American political system,so convincing, again, convincing
men to give up their power andtheir authority, their worldly
power and their worldlyauthority, for godly power, so
(34:37):
that they can help everyone toflourish. And that's, that's the
bottom line. It's not. Shouldn'tsimply be white men who are
flourishing. It needs to be thepoor, it needs to be the
marginalized, it needs to be theimmigrants. It needs to be
children. And apart from a moveof God, there are times that I
think I don't know how this isever going to happen. You know,
when I look across the public,political landscape in our
(35:00):
country now, and I think, wow,if the church is not doing its
job, how is the culture evergoing to change? So I can't, I
mean, there's, I cannot imaginehow somebody, how a pastor,
could be involved with sexuallyabusing someone in his
congregation, and then get upand be in the pulpit on Sunday
(35:21):
morning preaching God's wordlike I don't understand why
there's not an Ananias andSapphira kind of moment that
happens, but for whatever youknow God's mercy, I can't
explain it, but I do think thereare just so many examples of
misogyny in the church in theUnited States. And that's my
hope and my desire is that thatshifts and that changes so that
(35:44):
we can become the kind oforganization that allows people
to see what's possible, thatfosters an imagination that says
mutual flourishing is in factpossible.
Joshua Johnson (35:58):
I'm going to bring it back, back into the
Reformation. And Martin Luther.
Martin Luther saw, hey, therewere some really systemic issues
within the Roman CatholicChurch. And they he's like,
okay, these issues need to bedealt with and taken care of. We
need to get the the Bible intothe hands of people. They could
actually see the words of Jesusfor themselves and actually
(36:19):
follow these way, these words ofJesus. And I mean, it continues
today. There's still problemswithin the system. You know, as
Martin Luther moved and theProtestant church, there's still
tons of problems within thesystem. It didn't solve all the
issues of just getting theBible, reading the words of
(36:39):
Jesus, there seems to be, Ithink, another great unveiling.
Something's happening now wherethere's, there's a new move,
like, I think there's morereformation in the church that
is happening that can like, hey,things are being uncovered.
There's something wrong in thesystem, besides getting the
hands like the Bible in thehands of everybody so they could
(37:02):
read, which I don't think manypeople do, they still just get
their information from thepastor or other people, Tiktok
influencers, right? How do wenot just take somebody's word
like this? Is what the Biblesays, And this is what the
meaning is behind it, which is,you know, a lot of people would
(37:22):
say, hey, the meaning is, menhave ultimate authority. Women
need to be subservient. There'snot really co flourishing at the
moment. Is there a way to rerethink the way that we are
reading the Bible and gettingour information from powerful
men that want to keep power, andwe just perpetuate the same
(37:44):
thing over and over again.
Dorothy Littell Greco (37:47):
Yeah, because I think you're right
that it is very easy to readcertain sections of the
Scripture and think, Well, youknow, clearly, men are supposed
to have the power and women aresupposed to be quiet in church.
Like, that's what it that's whatPaul says. So it does take it
takes work, it takes time. Ittakes a commitment to be able to
look at, you know, some of thesources, and to look at some of
(38:07):
the people who do the hard workof digging into Scripture. I
don't read Greek, I don't readHebrew. So I rely on people who
have degrees and who have donetheir work, who have shown me
consistently. I understand whatScripture is saying, not fully.
None of us can ever understandit fully. And here's the
context. So for me, findingwriters, finding theologians,
(38:32):
finding speakers, findingpastors whose lives have
integrity that feels reallyimportant to me, whose
relationships I you know, if Ilook at often from afar, because
many of these people I don'tknow, and I could say there's
something about that personthat's very winning. There's
something about that personwhere he or she seems to be
(38:52):
displaying just an unusual graceor kindness or peacefulness or
wisdom that feels like it'sbeyond what the world can offer.
So I think that's one componentfor me. Who's trustworthy. I
don't want to pick on MarkDriscoll, but when I listen to
Mark Driscoll, I think he is oneangry man, and that is not the
(39:15):
kind of person I want to be.
It's not the kind of person Iwant my sons to be. So again,
the notion of integrity, and I'mnot saying that people can never
be angry, because that's a veryharmful message, particularly
for women, but Mark isconsistently angry, and he's
consistently angry at women, soI think, okay, you know, chances
are he's not going to be reallyrevealing God's heart to me the
(39:35):
way a Tim Keller would how it isthat we could convince people
that it would be worth more forthem to spend two hours a week
reading Carolyn Custis James orIngrid Farrow or some of the
other theologians who have donea heck of a lot of work around
these gender issues, rather thanwatching football or rather than
watching The Bachelor or I wishI had an answer for that,
(40:00):
because that is what it's apriority shift. It's saying, you
know, I want to understandScripture. I want to understand
who Jesus is calling me to be. Iwant to understand how Jesus is
asking me to help change theworld, and then devoting
ourselves to that, which doesn'tmean we can never watch TV, or
we can never have fun, that wealways have to have our nose in
(40:21):
a theological book, but if we'renot willing to do the work, if
we're not willing to examine ourown biases, and I think that's a
huge thing, then we're not goingto make the kind of progress
that we need.
Joshua Johnson (40:33):
You actually taught in your Epilog like there
is a shape of hope. There issome hope moving forward. What
is that hope for you? How do youas after you have immersed
yourself in misogyny for thislong, done all this research,
have actually heard firsthandstories from many people and
written them out. How do youhave hope? Where do we go from
(40:54):
here? Like, where is it in you?
How do you hold it,
Dorothy Littell Greco (40:58):
I think in seeing real life examples of
men who are doing the work, whoare speaking up, who are
advocating for women at theirown peril, really, that gives me
tremendous hope when I look backat scripture, And as we talked
(41:18):
about earlier, see how Jesustreated women, how he loved
women radically. He loved womenradically. There's something
about that that it just fills mewith hope. And you also
reference that something isshifting, and I think that there
is a shifting that's happeningin our culture. It's not clear
to me which way it's going to goyet, but I think that there is
(41:39):
sort of an awakening of somefolks. It might be a very small
minority. Even I could see itthis week. You know, as the SNAP
benefits are supposed todisappear on Saturday, there is
a great deal of conversationhappening about, okay, church,
how are we going to step in andhelp feed the people? It's those
kind of ways that when I seepeople activating and making
(42:02):
sacrifices for the sake of thegospel, that I think, okay, the
story's not over yet. There'sstill a narrative. And when you
look at all of Scripture,Scripture is redemptive,
Scripture is about justice,Scripture is about healing and
whole. Wholeness. And so if Ican hold on to that arc, if I
can hold on to the big picture,then it does get me hope. If we
Joshua Johnson (42:27):
are people of faith, and we are people that
actually believe this, the storyof the Bible, the story of
Jesus, that He is actuallyredeeming and reconciling all
things and making all thingsnew, like the arc of history is
bending towards reconciliationand being made new, and that
gives me hope. I don't know ifI'm gonna ever see it in my
(42:50):
lifetime, but it's gonna happen.
So I could hold on to something,because I actually believe in
this Jesus. What would you sayto men who are allies? What
would you want men to know tohelp in this situation of
misogyny?
Dorothy Littell Greco (43:08):
I think for those who are already
serving as allies, I talk aboutmen becoming allies advocates
and interrupters in the lastchapter, I would want to say,
thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you for beingwilling to step in that gap, for
being willing to speak up forwomen, for being willing to risk
your reputation and maybe evenyour job to protect women. It's
so important, and it's soencouraging for us as women to
(43:30):
see men who are willing to dothat. And so I'm just so
grateful for those who havealready stepped into that role.
And I think we need more, youknow, we need more men in the
past couple of weeks, as ifthere have been all these
stories about misogyny, we needmore men to be speaking up.
David French did a great jobthis week in The New York Times
(43:53):
refuting this article that waswritten that was just so a it
was poorly written. The logicwas just absent, but it was also
highly misogynistic, written bya woman, in fact. So I think his
risking again, what kind ofblowback would he get to speak
out against that is just soimportant, and we so need that.
Joshua Johnson (44:16):
Then what would you say to women, one where
they're really, they really feellike they're at the other end of
misogyny, and it's just it'spainful for women. Let's talk to
them, and then talk to women whoare perpetuating misogyny. As
this woman who wrote thisarticle is like, Hey, this is
(44:37):
misogynistic article written bywomen, a woman, they're
perpetuating this culture,saying that this is the way it
is and it should be this way.
Dorothy Littell Greco (44:46):
Yeah, the article that you're referring
to, I think, was a week or two.
No, it's just this week. Sorry,there's been so much that's been
happening on sub stack. Canwomen be misogynist? And
absolutely they can, and it'stragic when that happens. But
they can perpetuate misogyny.
They can perpetuate the kind oflies, and most of the time, it's
women who are proximate topower, and so they're using
(45:07):
their proximity to gain theirown power by holding other women
down, women who fat shame otherwomen, or who are highly
critical of women's appearance.
That's a form of misogyny interms of the woman who has been
deeply harmed by misogyny. Sochapter eight talks about
healing, and it's a very slowprocess. It's a very organic
process. It's not a formulaicthing where we can just say,
(45:31):
well, you need to go throughthese five steps, and you need
to go to counseling for sixmonths, and then, you know,
you'll be great. I think itstarts by admitting the ways
that we have been harmed,because so often, misogyny is so
deeply embedded that it is theair that we as women breathe and
we don't even notice it. I'vebeen doing a series of
interviews with women, most ofwhom I know their stories, and
(45:54):
as I approached them and said,Hey, I'm working on this. Would
you be willing to share thislittle bit of your life with me
in a video? And almost to a one,their response was, Oh, I didn't
see that as misogyny. Again,it's just gone in so deeply and
it's so pervasive that theydon't even recognize it. So we
(46:16):
have to be willing to step backand to say, Yes, I have been
harmed. Yes, this has been verydamaging, and that, in and of
itself, can be very threatening,right? Because if we begin to
dig in there, what are we goingto find? How long are we going
to be a mess if we, you know, gointo counseling, so being
willing to acknowledge whathappened, finding safe people,
(46:38):
safe witnesses, who you canshare your story with, who will
listen to you, who will notjudge you, will not try to fix
you, who will be empathetic.
That's enormously important asmuch as possible. Extricating
yourself from situations wheremisogyny continues to happen in
your life. And of course, that'sreally complicated. If it's a
(47:00):
marital situation, oftentimesthat is true, that it's it's the
spouse who is perpetuatingmisogyny and then taking the
time that one needs to findhealing, and whether that's
through therapy, through groups,whatever it takes in order to
get to a place of greater. Orwholeness and healing, because
oftentimes misogyny is causestrauma, like real trauma, not
(47:24):
just little m, little T trauma,but big T trauma. So there's a
lot of work that often has to bedone.
Joshua Johnson (47:30):
As you said the beginning, we want to root out
misogyny, and I think because wewant to root it out, it's it's
so deeply embedded. It is theair that we breathe that we
don't recognize it that is suchon the inside, it reminds me of
like the systems within our bodythat we don't see on the
outside. On the outside, youlook okay, like you're talking
(47:51):
about you've had chronic healthissues, like somebody is not
going to say that there'ssomething wrong in that system
of you. If I'm just looking atyou and talking to you today, I
wouldn't know it. I wouldn'tthink it. But there is something
deep inside that is wrong thatwe need to root out. Say this
isn't doesn't need to happenanymore, and it needs to change,
(48:13):
and it needs to be healed, andwe can't actually heal it unless
we know that it's there, right?
So we need to open ourselves upand actually do the deep work of
looking inside and under thehood, where things may look okay
at the surface, but they're not.
There's something deep under thehood that needs to be fixed and
healed. So thank you for thiswork. For the love of women, is
(48:36):
available anywhere books aresold? Is there anywhere you
would like to point people to toget the book, or anywhere that
you'd like to point people to toconnect with you or any of your
work that you're doing?
Dorothy Littell Greco (48:47):
Yeah, thanks for asking that. I'm
always trying to encouragepeople to go to local
booksellers, because they havereally been hurt so badly by
Amazon. So Brian borders heartsand minds bookstore, which you
can find online, is actuallygiven a 20% discount for the
book, and he often gives 20% offfor many new titles. So that's a
(49:07):
great resource. Folks can go tomy site, which is Dorothy
greco.com it's Greco with 1cwhere I have several booksellers
listed. I think Christian booksis last I checked, they were
selling the book for like, 12bucks, which is a great deal.
And then I'm on sub stack atwhat's faith got to do with it,
which is a great place forpeople to follow my work.
Joshua Johnson (49:29):
Dorothy, I have a couple of really quick
questions here at the end that Ilike to ask. One, if you could
go back to your 21 year oldself, what advice would you give
Dorothy Littell Greco (49:37):
to trust myself and to trust my
intuition. I think that therewere several circumstances that
I got myself into severalrelationships during my 20s that
were not healthy, and thatcaused a lot of internal strife,
and I think that's because Icould tell something was off,
but culturally and there wassome misogyny involved in many
(49:58):
of those situations, I ignoredit and thought, yeah, this is
what I should do, or this iswhat I'm supposed to do, and
that ended up coming back toharm me. So I think trusting
myself more would definitely besomething. I wish that I had
known
Joshua Johnson (50:11):
anything you've been reading or watching lately
you could recommend
Dorothy Littell Greco (50:15):
my husband. And I really love all
creatures great and small. I'vereally enjoyed that series. We
are fans of the Great Britishbaking show, so we watch that
every every weekend reading, ifpeople go to good reads, they
get a good sense of how manybooks I go through a year. I
think I'm up to 100 This ishappiness. And I'm forgetting
(50:38):
the name, the author's name, butit was a really beautiful book.
Took a little while for me toget into it, but I really,
really enjoyed that book. Idon't read much fiction. I do
tend to read books that are alittle bit denser, theology
books, that sort of thing, whichI imagine most people might not
be interested in. But anyway, goover to Goodreads and you can
see all the books that I've hadon my night table. Excellent.
Joshua Johnson (51:00):
Well, Dorothy, thank you for this conversation.
Thank you for actuallyuncovering misogyny. What it is
that it's not just the hate ofwomen, but there is a broader,
bigger definition, and we couldactually see it in our culture
and our systems. It is embeddedwithin them, and that we need to
root this out, and it was agreat conversation. Really hope
(51:22):
that people will start torecognize what misogyny is, what
it does to us, how it harmswomen and how it harms men, and
that we could work towards someco flourishing in this world,
and that we could actuallyreflect and embody the ways of
Jesus, so thank you Amen. It wasa fantastic conversation.
Dorothy Littell Greco (51:42):
Thanks for having me on. Yeah. You.
Misogyny is so deeply embedded that it is
the air that we as women breatheand we don't even notice it.
Joshua Johnson (00:52):
Hello and welcome to the shifting culture
podcast in which we haveconversations about the culture
we create and the impact we canmake. We long to see the body of
Christ look like Jesus. I'm yourhost. Joshua Johnson, in this
episode, we confront a realitythat runs deep in our culture,
our institutions and ourrelationships, misogyny. Dorothy
Greco joins me to unpack whatmisogyny actually is, not just
(01:15):
the hatred of women, but apersistent belief that men's
wants and needs hold greaterweight, shaping laws, church
structures, social norms and theeveryday experiences of women.
Dorothy traces how this beliefembeds itself in systems like
medicine, economics, politics,media, sexuality and the church,
she highlights how entitlement,distorted views of power and the
(01:36):
commodification of women createharm that often remains hidden
beneath the surface. We alsolook at the way of Jesus, how
his treatment of women stood instark contrast to the
patriarchal norms of his time,and how his life offers a
radically different model ofmutual respect, dignity and CO
flourishing. Dorothy explainswhat healthy oneness can look
(01:57):
like within intimaterelationships, how media
disciples our imaginations andwhy rooting out misogyny
requires honesty, selfexamination and collective
action. This conversation namesthe harm, uncovers what often
goes unseen and points toward apath of healing and shared
flourishing. It's an invitationfor all of us, men and women, to
(02:19):
recognize what's broken and toparticipate in the work of
restoring what has beendistorted. So join us. Here is
my conversation with Dorothy.
Greco, Dorothy, welcome toshifting culture. It's an honor
to have you on. Thanks forjoining
Dorothy Littell Greco (02:34):
me, and I so appreciate your interest in
this topic. Joshua, it's
Joshua Johnson (02:38):
an important topic. We're talking about
misogyny today, and the roots ofit, how it like festers and gets
into our systems and our cultureand it hasn't let us go to start
out, when you talk aboutmisogyny, and we're talking
about this topic. What are youtalking about? What is misogyny?
Dorothy Littell Greco (02:57):
Yeah, I think at this point I should
have memorized the definitionthat I have in the book, but
because of my my age, memorizinganything more than a line
doesn't feel very possibleanymore. So let me read the
definition that I have inchapter one, for the love of
women, misogyny is a persistent,insidious belief that men's
ideas, wants, needs andexperiences are more important
(03:21):
than women's, and that legal,religious and social systems, as
well as intimate relationships,should uphold. This principle,
this belief system subsequentlyinfluences the laws, policies,
practices and ethos of a givenculture. And I think that we
need to stretch the definitionout. It's often just, you know,
the hatred of women, but if wehave it that small, then I think
(03:44):
it's too easy for people towiggle out of the say, Well, I'm
married. I love my wife, so I'mnot a misogynist, or I have a
great sister and we love eachother, so I'm not a misogynist,
but when we stretch it out alittle bit more and see how it
affects systems as well aspersonal relationships, then it
becomes a little bit harder tosay, Oh, this isn't an issue.
Joshua Johnson (04:05):
Then why is it an issue? It seems like, I mean,
we've seen this recently. Youhave seen the text messages go
around with the YoungRepublicans wrote about this on
your substack. Then you know,you have JD Vance, you have
others like boys. Will be boys.
This is just young boys sayingstupid jokes. Why is it so
insidious, this misogyny, andwhere is it coming from? What is
(04:29):
the actual problem going onright now?
Dorothy Littell Greco (04:36):
In brief, it's ancient. You know, if you
look at historical texts,whether it's literature or
straight history, you can seeexamples of misogyny everywhere.
The ancient Roman culture, whichwas lauded for democracy and for
the many advances that it made,also didn't allow women to vote
and did not allow women to haveany voice in the marketplace,
(04:58):
abandon children, particularlybaby girls, in dumps, and either
they would die or people couldcome and rescue them and raise
them as slaves. So you know, itgoes way back, and the fact that
we haven't been able to uprootit says to me that there is evil
involved. You know, I think it'svery easy for us as postmoderns
to dismiss the concept of goodand evil, but when you look at
(05:22):
some of the things that havehappened in the world, some of
the oppression, some of theatrocities, whether it's what
happened, what's happening rightnow in parts of Africa. Giselle
pellicott. Was the woman wholast year, it was, you know, the
trial of how her husband hadrecruited various men to come
and then drugged her, and thenthey raped her. Like on a
(05:43):
personal level, it is so beyondmy imagination. But I think that
we have to look at deeper andsay there's, there is evil in
this, in the evil, wants toseparate men and women, wants
there to be hierarchies, andwants us to not image God and
when we are partnering togetheras equals, I think we image God
(06:05):
more fully. So I believe that'sone of the things that the enemy
of our soul wants to prohibit.
Joshua Johnson (06:11):
The enemy of our soul wants to prohibit the image
of God within all of us, whichis then we could see some co
flourishing, which I believe,was set up at creation, at the
very beginning of what it lookslike. And you say it's this
misogyny is an ancient problem,and it's still here with us
today. So can you just brieflygo back to the person of Jesus?
(06:37):
And I think Jesus himself, as hecame on the scene in an ancient
day where misogyny was happeningall the time, he has a different
conception of who women are, andhe's bringing about something
totally radical, totallyrevolutionary, for that day and
for today. Can you contrast theway of Jesus back in the ancient
(07:01):
day with ancient misogynypractices?
Dorothy Littell Greco (07:04):
Yeah, I think that if you know, bringing
it forward to today, if moremen, particularly men who claim
to be Christian, treated womenthe way Jesus treated women,
then we really would have a fairchance of defeating misogyny. So
when you look at, you know, justthose three and a half years
that really, we really have arecord of Jesus's time on the
(07:25):
earth, there are so manyinstances where he broke the
cultural barriers, where hedisregarded the ways that the
patriarchal, hierarchicalculture would say, you as a
rabbi, you as a male, are notsupposed to interact with women,
whether it's the woman at thewell Samaritan, woman at the
well, who he had a conversationwith. It's the longest dialog we
(07:46):
have of Jesus in the NewTestament, and it was clear that
that was outside of the norms.
Because when the disciples cameback, they were like, What are
you doing talking to this woman,the woman with the issue of
blood, you know, the fact thatshe shouldn't have touched him,
right, because she was bleeding,and that was against the culture
he could have, should have,based on the Moors of that time,
been angry with her, rebukedher. But instead, you know, he
(08:08):
validated her suffering, and hepraised her for her faith. So
there's just so many examples ofthe way that Jesus transcended
the ways that we see misogynymanifested today, and gave us a
vision for this is what itshould look like for men and
women to partner together, formen in authority to treat women
with respect, etc you walk
Joshua Johnson (08:31):
through, and I think that's going to be helpful
for us going forward, for apodcast like mine, where I
really do care that we embodythe ways and teachings of Jesus.
And I believe that embodying theway of his love for all people
is actually the way to heal theproblems of this world. Like I
don't know of any other waythat's we're going to get there.
(08:52):
This is what I want to try to doas a basis there. You talk about
about six different systems inour culture that there are
misogyny problems. And thehardest one that you say, you
(09:52):
write about, is the the problemof the church and misogyny in
the church. And I want to getthere, but I don't want to start
there. Let's, let's start withsomething, I think the even,
let's where, let's start. Whereyou start in the medical system.
How does misogyny play out in asystem? In a medical system,
what was happening, maybe in thelast 100 years, of like,
(10:14):
diagnoses of female problems inthe medical system, and how does
it still show up today?
Dorothy Littell Greco (10:22):
Yeah, this chapter, in some ways, was
the easiest one for me to write,because I have had 25 years of
chronic health issues, so I havehad to battle many of these
things firsthand. Yeah. So ifyou look back to in the 1800s
mid 1800s prior to that time,many women were providing health
care for others in theircommunity, men and women. Women
(10:45):
were serving as midwives anddoulas, oftentimes women of
color. That was one of the rolesthat they played in their
communities. And then during themid to late 1800s there became a
shift where medical schoolsbegan to be established, and of
course, only men were allowed togo to medical schools. Women
were allowed into med schoolsuntil much, much later. So
(11:07):
suddenly, taking care of eachother becomes monetized, becomes
part of the capitalistic system,and it's dominated by men. So
men now have control over thenarrative. So that's one of. Key
factors. And then if you fastforward to the 1900s early 1900s
the role of pharmaceuticalsbegins to come into play. And
again, capitalism here, youknow, just is such a huge
(11:30):
influence in exacerbatingmisogyny. You know, it's the the
possibility of earning money offof people, and it's only those
with power and those withauthority and those in positions
of influence that can reallyearn all the money, and we still
see that today. So women wereincreasingly diagnosed with
psychological issues and weregiven drugs that sort of tamed
(11:52):
them, that quieted them down,that numbed them. And that's why
in the 19 I think it's in the20s through the 50s, there was
an enormous problem of womenbeing addicted to psychological
drugs, even though the doctorsknew that this was a potential
problem. It sort of fit in withthe ways that women were told
that they needed to rest, thatthey needed to be quiet, they
(12:14):
needed to be subdued. And then,you know, continuing that
forward, even today, women'shealth needs are often, I
wouldn't say often, because Idon't have the statistics for
how often it does happen. Butmore than for men, women, if
they go into the ER, it's notuncommon for them if, even if
they are manifesting symptoms ofa heart attack, that they will
(12:35):
be sent to have a psychologicaleval, rather than having the
test that they need to determineif it's an actual heart attack,
because women's and men'ssymptoms are different. So it's,
it's everywhere, you know, fromthe over prescribing of drugs to
not taking women's painseriously to not believing women
when they're in pain, to notgiving them the kind of maternal
(12:56):
care that they need. It's It'spervasive
Joshua Johnson (13:00):
in a lot of problems that we have in our
culture and within the systemsof our culture. I think one of
the problems because we live inthe United States of America and
we live in an individualisticsociety, we think about
individual sins, and we thinkabout our individual problems,
and we don't see like societalproblems and cultural problems
(13:22):
and systemic problems, and wekind of dismiss them. How do you
think that we could start to seesystemic problems in a way that
we can address them in anindividualistic society like
ours?
Dorothy Littell Greco (13:36):
Yeah, that is one of the the issues
for our cultural Joshua is, Ithink that we do see things far
too individualistically. I thinkfirst is listening to women,
listening to their stories, andthen being able to connect the
threads and to say, Oh, thisisn't simply this one woman.
This is a problem throughout theUnited States. That's, you know,
one of the hopes that I have forthe book, that by laying out all
(14:00):
of these systemic issues peoplewill be able to acknowledge.
Yeah, we have a problem, Ithink, much like racism, these
kind of enormous systemicissues, we we need a collective
effort. You know, think about tothe civil rights movements in
the 60s. Yes, there were somephenomenal leaders, Martin
Luther King, of course, beingone of them, but it only
(14:22):
happened. Change only happenedbecause there was a collective
effort. There were enough peoplewho said, I am not going to do
I'm not going to put up withthis anymore. This is an
offense. It is a sin. It'sharming us. It's illegal. And
when a collective efforthappened, and there was a swell
of people who came together andsaid, We need to change this.
(14:44):
That's when change began tohappen. So like for misogyny,
obviously the me too, movement,church to movement, did a
phenomenal job of raising ourconsciousness about what was
happening. But as we can see,that didn't really change
things. Raised our awareness,but it didn't change things. So
I think that in addition towomen speaking out and saying,
(15:05):
This is my story, we have got tohave men who are willing to say,
I'll do whatever it takes tomake sure that the women in my
life flourish. I will dowhatever it takes for the women
in my church, to be heard, to belistened to, to be cared for. So
that kind of commitment to womenand to women's overall health
(15:26):
and flourishing has to that hasto happen
Joshua Johnson (15:30):
because I think systemic issues and the problems
and the evil that misogyny does,it impacts a lot of other
systemic issues. I thinkmisogyny actually impacts
racism. It impacts the violencethat we have in our culture and
our gun culture in America. Itimpacts a lot of control
(15:50):
militarism. And, you know,economic systems that we have
that are problems. There's ittouches everything. And so when
I think of systemic issues, Ithink of something where, man,
you're going to root one thingout, and then you're going to
have like, eight more problemsto root out in your research. As
you're walking through somestories, have you started to hit
(16:13):
on some some things, maybe somereal. Deep rooted sin issues,
that if we, like, take care ofthose, it could actually have a
ripple effect on bigger systems.
Dorothy Littell Greco (16:27):
Yeah, I think that greed, you know,
greed, is a huge factor in theUnited States. That's what
drives capitalism. That's whatmakes us feel like the corporate
CEOs can make $50 billion a yearwhile they're fighting to pay
their employees minimum wage andgive them two weeks sick time
again, these kind of enormous,systemic issues are so hard to
(16:48):
root out, even for Christians,even for people who have said,
like, I believe in God, Ibelieve in the Scripture, for
them to actually be selfreflective, to look at their
lives and to say, oh, greed isshowing up here. Oh, misogyny is
showing up here. I'm not okaywith that. I want to be able to
deal with that, to get rid ofit, and then to live more like
(17:10):
Jesus. You know, that takes, Ifeel like it takes a work of
God, and it takes a humilitythat oftentimes we just don't
see, you know, the people inpower want to keep their power,
oftentimes and and one of thethings I talk about on the book
is the distinction between godlypower and worldly power. So
godly power is always used forgood. It's never coercive, it
(17:33):
blesses, it nourishes, it heals.
And worldly power is absolutelythe opposite. You know, we and
that's what we're seeing most ofthe time in the news. Vladimir
Putin coming in and, you know,bombing his neighboring country.
It's worldly power that does allthe damage. And so how is it
that we could convince somebodyactually, you know what, your
life is going to be better ifyou don't abuse worldly power,
(17:55):
your life isn't going to bebetter if you don't perpetuate
misogyny. I think for manypeople, it's really hard for
them to activate theirimaginations and then to be able
to say, oh, hadn't thought aboutthat.
Joshua Johnson (18:12):
What are the subtle ways that misogyny comes
out in male female relationshipswithin marriage and sexual
relationships. How does thatstart to play out?
Dorothy Littell Greco (18:24):
Yeah, there's a story that I open with
in the chapter on intimaterelationships. It's a very, very
vulnerable story. And I was soproud of this couple for being
willing to share their story,Nick and Amy, and they talk
about how they were raised in acomplementarian church culture,
you know. And there are manydifferent flavors of
complementarianism, but in thisparticular flavor, women were
(18:45):
supposed to provide theirhusbands with sex whenever their
husbands wanted sex, kind of noquestions asked. So I refer to
that as male entitlement. Andfor Nick and Amy, Nick came into
the marriage battling apornography addiction. And what
he was told, what men are oftentold, is, you know, when you get
married and you can have sexwhenever you want, that's going
to deal with your sexualaddiction. Well, that's not
(19:08):
exactly true, because sex sexualaddictions are not about sexual
(20:13):
intercourse. Sexual addictionsare about anxiety and fear and
control and so many otherthings. So they had to do a lot
of work to figure out, how isthis entitlement playing out in
the bedroom? How is it that Nickcan stop having this entitlement
to his wife's body? What does itmean for him to control his
(20:34):
sexuality? What does it mean forhim to honor his wife's no when
she really is tired. You know,they were family with a lot of
kids, and they were very youngwhen they got married, and the
kids came very quickly. So Ithink that men being willing to
recognize their entitlement is ahuge first step. And so often
again, the church, I'm sorry tosay, but the church really does
(20:56):
empower male entitlement andsexuality, and that really is
harmful for women. So how do
Joshua Johnson (21:03):
you think that the purity culture started to
play into this? I mean, you talka little bit about the
portification of things and thecommodification of women, and
how, basically, those two thingsactually kind of have the same
root in them. So how do theyplay together the purity culture
into the commodification ofwomen as well and the
(21:26):
pornification of women?
Dorothy Littell Greco (21:29):
Yeah, that's a big question. I was not
raised in a church setting, andI think the purity culture came
later, came sort of like beforeand during the time that we were
raising our first two sons, andI think the communication there
was underlying, like the basicmessage, I agree with it's
better to wait to have sexualintercourse until you're in a
committed marriage relationship.
I agree with thatwholeheartedly, but I think that
(21:52):
what they did wrong was thatthere was a lot of blame and
responsibility on girls. It's,you know, if you don't dress the
right way, if you don't act theright way, if you have too much
to drink and you end up beingraped, it's your fault. So
there's a lot of blaming thewoman for whatever it is that
happens. And there's not a lotof communication teaching boys
(22:15):
and young men. Then you canstorage your sexual feelings.
You can have sexual feelings.
That's not wrong, but you don'thave to act on them again.
That's more the entitlement. Andthen the purity culture often
really shamed women if they weresexually active or if they were
raped, you know, if there wassexual abuse happen, they were
(22:36):
seen as damaged goods, so that,you know, sort of elevating sex
above the health and welfare ofof young people. I think that
that was a mistake, and I thinkwe're seeing a lot of fallout
from from that so in terms ofthe effects of pornography. I
mean, you see that everywhere,from Halloween costumes to the
(22:57):
ways that young children aresexualized in TV shows and in
all kinds of media situations,we see that there's adult
sexuality that sort of isintruding upon children and
increasingly being normalized.
You know, I'm not sure if youwatch the movie adolescence that
came out, I think it was thisyear, or maybe the end of last
(23:19):
year. It was a powerful film.
You know, this 12, I think hewas 12 years old at the time,
and these boys were beingbrainwashed, you know, by the
INCEL culture, whichcommunicates that women owe them
sex. There was a there's a lotof violence, a lot of violent
language, which, again, youknow, you reference the Young
(23:40):
Republicans exchanges. You know,when you I wouldn't advocate or
encourage people to read that,because there was, it's just
awful the way that they talkabout anybody who's not them.
But in particular women and sex,there's just a lot of violence
that comes in as they're youngkids, and then it forms their
thoughts, you know pornography,there's so much in pornography
(24:03):
now that advocates for violenceagainst women. And as these
young boys are watching it, theyhave no idea that these women
are not enjoying it. These womenare getting paid like that's
their job, or they're notgetting paid, they're being
trafficked. And the goal is tomake sure that the men are
happy. The goal is not mutual,you know, satisfaction in those
situations. So there's just,there's so much brokenness that
(24:27):
comes in through pornography,and then again, sort of ramps up
male entitlement.
Joshua Johnson (24:33):
We have a commodification problem of of
everything, and then women get,get subsumed in, in that. What
does it look like then in arelationship? So what does it
look like for CO flourishing,like mutual flourishing within
intimate relationships betweenmen and women, where there there
are, there should be something,where it is so intimate that
(24:55):
people are intertwined, thatthere should be this, this CO
flourishing, this mutualmutuality that's happening in
that type of relationship. Whatdoes something like that
actually look like? So that mencan and women, we can move
towards something different thanwhat we have been given.
Dorothy Littell Greco (25:16):
I think that the the past is both in the
Old Testament and then thatJesus refers to as becoming one,
like oneness, which is verymysterious, because we don't
ever stop being ourselves, buttogether, we become something
different, something beautiful,something that's magnified. I
think seeing that as thefoundation of CO flourishing is
(25:39):
important, because oneness,there's no hierarchy, right
when? When you're one, it's notone on top of the other, it's
just one. So there's amutuality, a willingness to see
one another as complete equals,not as I'm better than you. I'm
more important to you. My voteis more valuable than yours a
mutual respect. You know,oftentimes there has been a lot
(26:02):
of communication about how menneed respect and how women need
love, and I think we both needboth. Like, I want to be
respected. I want my husband torespect me, and he wants me to
love him. So I don't think it'sthat binary of men want this and
women want that. I think, notagain, eliminating any form of
entitlement, whether that'sconnected to sex, where it's
(26:24):
connected to household chores.
You know, the numbers stilldemonstrate that women do a heck
of a lot more of the work, bothin terms of child care, in terms
of serving family members, interms of housework, cooking,
laundry, etc, than men. It'sbecoming it's the gap is
closing, but there's still aninequality in the second shift.
So just really, you know, acouple taking a 360 and saying,
(26:46):
what are the places where thereis inequality? What are the
places where we're not seeingeach other as equals, and we're
not committed to helping oneanother to flourish, and
oftentimes that that commitmentmeans a great deal of sacrifice.
You know, during the time thatmy husband decided to go back to
grad school, honestly, I was nota huge fan of that, because he
(27:09):
was working. We had threechildren, and I thought, Okay,
I'm not sure how that's going tolook. But, you know, having. Had
many conversations about it andfeeling like, Okay, this is the
right thing for now. What thatmeant is I didn't see him as
much I had to shoulder or theresponsibilities, but I knew it
was for a season, and it wassomething that we had agreed
(27:29):
upon. So I think, you know, itrequires a lot of communication,
a lot of mutual sacrifice, andthen just a lot of the kind of
love that's talked about inFirst Corinthians 13, we
Joshua Johnson (27:42):
could start to see that and go, Okay, there's
these intimate relationshipshere with men and women. There's
more of a mutuality. There'soneness. How does that then
start to move into culture? Oneof the things that you said
about media, as you said, mediadoesn't just reflect culture. It
disciples it. What sort ofstories should we start to see
(28:06):
within media and the arts sothat we can start to disciple
towards a better world?
Dorothy Littell Greco (28:15):
Are you familiar with the Bechdel Test?
Yes, yeah. So the Bechdel testwas created by a woman who was a
graphic artist back in the, Ithink, early 90s. And if I'm
remembering correctly, it'sessentially looking at a movie
and saying, in order to pass theBechdel test, you have to have
two female characters. They bothhave to be named. They both have
to have a name, not just honeyor sweetie, but have an actual
(28:36):
name. And they need to have aconversation about something
that's not about men, and that'sa really low bar, really low
bar. But it's the statistics interms of which movies can pass
that test, which movies to whichhave won the Academy Awards for
Best Motion Picture can passthat test is actually well below
50% so I think one of the issuesthere is that the producers, the
(29:00):
creators, the writers within theHollywood system, it would be
great if they would be morewilling to to think about and
imagine, how could we have thekind of strong female characters
that were in Little Women, orwere in Barbie because I think
that Barbie, Barbie, you know,there was so many levels to that
movie. I know it had itsdetractors, but yeah, so just
(29:23):
thinking about, what would it,what would it look like to
create movies that were morereflective of American women,
that were more reflective of thehealth that we could engender in
our culture, as opposed tomovies where women are
sexualized, where women aredemeaned, where women are really
harmed violently, becausethere's a lot of movies where
women are just treated horribly.
And that's normal, right? It'snormal violence in general, in
(29:48):
American movies, is normal. Iwould love it to see that
diminish, but yeah, that's goneby wheelhouse.
Joshua Johnson (29:56):
Think it's fascinating that media, media
and arts, movies, films,disciples culture more than it
just reflects culture. It meansthat, okay, I don't have just a
passive life. There is a waythat I could actually help
disciple in the sphere ofinfluence, whatever sphere of
(30:17):
influence that I have to movethere and not just reflect, I
think, reflect the culture. AndI think a lot of times when we
we believe that, oh, we're justreflecting what's in the culture
here, we're either perpetuatingwhat's there, but we're not
using anything into seeing a newvision of flourishing. How do
(30:39):
you think that that people thatsay misogyny is a problem and we
need to root it out? How do youthink that people like that can
move towards a proactive stance,rather than just a passive
stance of, oh, this is what itis, and this is happening.
Dorothy Littell Greco (30:57):
Yeah, that's hard, isn't it? Because
it requires a great deal ofwork. It requires
intentionality, it requires atime commitment. And for many
folks, that feels like, well,there I don't have enough
margin. There's not enoughmargin in my life to do that.
But in many ways, Joshua, it canbe these very simple things. You
know, if you are in a socialsituation where you notice that
(31:19):
a man makes a joke that issexist or that is demeaning, to
be able to say, you know, what,in front of everybody and give
him a little shame, you know,give him a little guilt. I don't
think those kind of comments areshould be said, and I want to
ask you to not make those kindof comments anymore. Small
thing, little bit of socialdiscomfort might be a little bit
(31:41):
of a risk. You're in a boardmeeting and a woman repeatedly
gets cut off her ideas are notlistened to, to be able to stop
the meeting and to say, have younoticed that we continue to cut
Caroline off as she's trying toshare her ideas? Can we work on
not doing that? Those kind ofvery small things, I think are
attainable. Will they shift thewhole culture? Oh, I wish, I
(32:06):
wish I knew that. But again, Ithink like within the church and
the church should be the placewhere women feel the safest,
where they are the most honoredand respected. And valued. If
the church started to make thatshift in a way that was
recognizable, I think that itwould make a difference. But we
(32:27):
are not leading the way. Somechurches are. There are some
churches that are doing afabulous job, but I think
consistently across the board,the American churches are not
doing their part to diminishmisogyny. And I think, you know,
I can't speak to Hollywood. I'mnot part of that. I can't speak
to the government, but I am partof the church, and that's part
of why chapter seven, which wason the church, was, whoo, there
(32:50):
was the most fire in my bellywhen I wrote that one.
Joshua Johnson (32:53):
So let's get to the fire in your belly. A lot of
the American church, there's, Ithink a huge swath of the
American church are really, Idon't know they're they're being
discipled by the culture andmedia. And what's happening
within America, more than thechurch, is actually discipling
and moving towards like, whatdoes it look like to to embody
(33:15):
these ways of Jesus? What didyou find in your research what
what is happening in the church?
How is it reflecting these,these ideas of misogyny that are
prevalent within our culture?
How is the church still likethat?
Dorothy Littell Greco (33:30):
There are so many ways you know, you go to
the Houston Chronicle and readthe series of articles that they
did on the Southern BaptistConvention a couple years ago,
and it is mind blowing, theamount of crimes that were
committed against women andchildren and some men as well,
but it was predominantly womenand children, the amount of
covering up that they did, youknow, very similar to the
(33:51):
Catholic Church. They knew thatthis priest was an abuser, and
they just sort of quietly movedhim to another diocese where
people didn't know him, thatkind of behavior is, I believe,
abhorrent, and I think that theLord hates that, but it happens
all the time. I don't know ifyou're familiar with Mark
Driscoll, but you listen to oneof, you know there many of his
(34:13):
sermons, many of his talks arehighly misogynistic, and he's a
very popular preacher. You know,he's now gaining influence in
the American political system,so convincing, again, convincing
men to give up their power andtheir authority, their worldly
power and their worldlyauthority, for godly power, so
(34:37):
that they can help everyone toflourish. And that's, that's the
bottom line. It's not. Shouldn'tsimply be white men who are
flourishing. It needs to be thepoor, it needs to be the
marginalized, it needs to be theimmigrants. It needs to be
children. And apart from a moveof God, there are times that I
think I don't know how this isever going to happen. You know,
when I look across the public,political landscape in our
(35:00):
country now, and I think, wow,if the church is not doing its
job, how is the culture evergoing to change? So I can't, I
mean, there's, I cannot imaginehow somebody, how a pastor,
could be involved with sexuallyabusing someone in his
congregation, and then get upand be in the pulpit on Sunday
(35:21):
morning preaching God's wordlike I don't understand why
there's not an Ananias andSapphira kind of moment that
happens, but for whatever youknow God's mercy, I can't
explain it, but I do think thereare just so many examples of
misogyny in the church in theUnited States. And that's my
hope and my desire is that thatshifts and that changes so that
(35:44):
we can become the kind oforganization that allows people
to see what's possible, thatfosters an imagination that says
mutual flourishing is in factpossible.
Joshua Johnson (35:58):
I'm going to bring it back, back into the
Reformation. And Martin Luther.
Martin Luther saw, hey, therewere some really systemic issues
within the Roman CatholicChurch. And they he's like,
okay, these issues need to bedealt with and taken care of. We
need to get the the Bible intothe hands of people. They could
actually see the words of Jesusfor themselves and actually
(36:19):
follow these way, these words ofJesus. And I mean, it continues
today. There's still problemswithin the system. You know, as
Martin Luther moved and theProtestant church, there's still
tons of problems within thesystem. It didn't solve all the
issues of just getting theBible, reading the words of
(36:39):
Jesus, there seems to be, Ithink, another great unveiling.
Something's happening now wherethere's, there's a new move,
like, I think there's morereformation in the church that
is happening that can like, hey,things are being uncovered.
There's something wrong in thesystem, besides getting the
hands like the Bible in thehands of everybody so they could
(37:02):
read, which I don't think manypeople do, they still just get
their information from thepastor or other people, Tiktok
influencers, right? How do wenot just take somebody's word
like this? Is what the Biblesays, And this is what the
meaning is behind it, which is,you know, a lot of people would
(37:22):
say, hey, the meaning is, menhave ultimate authority. Women
need to be subservient. There'snot really co flourishing at the
moment. Is there a way to rerethink the way that we are
reading the Bible and gettingour information from powerful
men that want to keep power, andwe just perpetuate the same
(37:44):
thing over and over again.
Dorothy Littell Greco (37:47):
Yeah, because I think you're right
that it is very easy to readcertain sections of the
Scripture and think, Well, youknow, clearly, men are supposed
to have the power and women aresupposed to be quiet in church.
Like, that's what it that's whatPaul says. So it does take it
takes work, it takes time. Ittakes a commitment to be able to
look at, you know, some of thesources, and to look at some of
(38:07):
the people who do the hard workof digging into Scripture. I
don't read Greek, I don't readHebrew. So I rely on people who
have degrees and who have donetheir work, who have shown me
consistently. I understand whatScripture is saying, not fully.
None of us can ever understandit fully. And here's the
context. So for me, findingwriters, finding theologians,
(38:32):
finding speakers, findingpastors whose lives have
integrity that feels reallyimportant to me, whose
relationships I you know, if Ilook at often from afar, because
many of these people I don'tknow, and I could say there's
something about that personthat's very winning. There's
something about that personwhere he or she seems to be
(38:52):
displaying just an unusual graceor kindness or peacefulness or
wisdom that feels like it'sbeyond what the world can offer.
So I think that's one componentfor me. Who's trustworthy. I
don't want to pick on MarkDriscoll, but when I listen to
Mark Driscoll, I think he is oneangry man, and that is not the
(39:15):
kind of person I want to be.
It's not the kind of person Iwant my sons to be. So again,
the notion of integrity, and I'mnot saying that people can never
be angry, because that's a veryharmful message, particularly
for women, but Mark isconsistently angry, and he's
consistently angry at women, soI think, okay, you know, chances
are he's not going to be reallyrevealing God's heart to me the
(39:35):
way a Tim Keller would how it isthat we could convince people
that it would be worth more forthem to spend two hours a week
reading Carolyn Custis James orIngrid Farrow or some of the
other theologians who have donea heck of a lot of work around
these gender issues, rather thanwatching football or rather than
watching The Bachelor or I wishI had an answer for that,
(40:00):
because that is what it's apriority shift. It's saying, you
know, I want to understandScripture. I want to understand
who Jesus is calling me to be. Iwant to understand how Jesus is
asking me to help change theworld, and then devoting
ourselves to that, which doesn'tmean we can never watch TV, or
we can never have fun, that wealways have to have our nose in
(40:21):
a theological book, but if we'renot willing to do the work, if
we're not willing to examine ourown biases, and I think that's a
huge thing, then we're not goingto make the kind of progress
that we need.
Joshua Johnson (40:33):
You actually taught in your Epilog like there
is a shape of hope. There issome hope moving forward. What
is that hope for you? How do youas after you have immersed
yourself in misogyny for thislong, done all this research,
have actually heard firsthandstories from many people and
written them out. How do youhave hope? Where do we go from
(40:54):
here? Like, where is it in you?
How do you hold it,
Dorothy Littell Greco (40:58):
I think in seeing real life examples of
men who are doing the work, whoare speaking up, who are
advocating for women at theirown peril, really, that gives me
tremendous hope when I look backat scripture, And as we talked
(41:18):
about earlier, see how Jesustreated women, how he loved
women radically. He loved womenradically. There's something
about that that it just fills mewith hope. And you also
reference that something isshifting, and I think that there
is a shifting that's happeningin our culture. It's not clear
to me which way it's going to goyet, but I think that there is
(41:39):
sort of an awakening of somefolks. It might be a very small
minority. Even I could see itthis week. You know, as the SNAP
benefits are supposed todisappear on Saturday, there is
a great deal of conversationhappening about, okay, church,
how are we going to step in andhelp feed the people? It's those
kind of ways that when I seepeople activating and making
(42:02):
sacrifices for the sake of thegospel, that I think, okay, the
story's not over yet. There'sstill a narrative. And when you
look at all of Scripture,Scripture is redemptive,
Scripture is about justice,Scripture is about healing and
whole. Wholeness. And so if Ican hold on to that arc, if I
can hold on to the big picture,then it does get me hope. If we
Joshua Johnson (42:27):
are people of faith, and we are people that
actually believe this, the storyof the Bible, the story of
Jesus, that He is actuallyredeeming and reconciling all
things and making all thingsnew, like the arc of history is
bending towards reconciliationand being made new, and that
gives me hope. I don't know ifI'm gonna ever see it in my
(42:50):
lifetime, but it's gonna happen.
So I could hold on to something,because I actually believe in
this Jesus. What would you sayto men who are allies? What
would you want men to know tohelp in this situation of
misogyny?
Dorothy Littell Greco (43:08):
I think for those who are already
serving as allies, I talk aboutmen becoming allies advocates
and interrupters in the lastchapter, I would want to say,
thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you for beingwilling to step in that gap, for
being willing to speak up forwomen, for being willing to risk
your reputation and maybe evenyour job to protect women. It's
so important, and it's soencouraging for us as women to
(43:30):
see men who are willing to dothat. And so I'm just so
grateful for those who havealready stepped into that role.
And I think we need more, youknow, we need more men in the
past couple of weeks, as ifthere have been all these
stories about misogyny, we needmore men to be speaking up.
David French did a great jobthis week in The New York Times
(43:53):
refuting this article that waswritten that was just so a it
was poorly written. The logicwas just absent, but it was also
highly misogynistic, written bya woman, in fact. So I think his
risking again, what kind ofblowback would he get to speak
out against that is just soimportant, and we so need that.
Joshua Johnson (44:16):
Then what would you say to women, one where
they're really, they really feellike they're at the other end of
misogyny, and it's just it'spainful for women. Let's talk to
them, and then talk to women whoare perpetuating misogyny. As
this woman who wrote thisarticle is like, Hey, this is
(44:37):
misogynistic article written bywomen, a woman, they're
perpetuating this culture,saying that this is the way it
is and it should be this way.
Dorothy Littell Greco (44:46):
Yeah, the article that you're referring
to, I think, was a week or two.
No, it's just this week. Sorry,there's been so much that's been
happening on sub stack. Canwomen be misogynist? And
absolutely they can, and it'stragic when that happens. But
they can perpetuate misogyny.
They can perpetuate the kind oflies, and most of the time, it's
women who are proximate topower, and so they're using
(45:07):
their proximity to gain theirown power by holding other women
down, women who fat shame otherwomen, or who are highly
critical of women's appearance.
That's a form of misogyny interms of the woman who has been
deeply harmed by misogyny. Sochapter eight talks about
healing, and it's a very slowprocess. It's a very organic
process. It's not a formulaicthing where we can just say,
(45:31):
well, you need to go throughthese five steps, and you need
to go to counseling for sixmonths, and then, you know,
you'll be great. I think itstarts by admitting the ways
that we have been harmed,because so often, misogyny is so
deeply embedded that it is theair that we as women breathe and
we don't even notice it. I'vebeen doing a series of
interviews with women, most ofwhom I know their stories, and
(45:54):
as I approached them and said,Hey, I'm working on this. Would
you be willing to share thislittle bit of your life with me
in a video? And almost to a one,their response was, Oh, I didn't
see that as misogyny. Again,it's just gone in so deeply and
it's so pervasive that theydon't even recognize it. So we
(46:16):
have to be willing to step backand to say, Yes, I have been
harmed. Yes, this has been verydamaging, and that, in and of
itself, can be very threatening,right? Because if we begin to
dig in there, what are we goingto find? How long are we going
to be a mess if we, you know, gointo counseling, so being
willing to acknowledge whathappened, finding safe people,
(46:38):
safe witnesses, who you canshare your story with, who will
listen to you, who will notjudge you, will not try to fix
you, who will be empathetic.
That's enormously important asmuch as possible. Extricating
yourself from situations wheremisogyny continues to happen in
your life. And of course, that'sreally complicated. If it's a
(47:00):
marital situation, oftentimesthat is true, that it's it's the
spouse who is perpetuatingmisogyny and then taking the
time that one needs to findhealing, and whether that's
through therapy, through groups,whatever it takes in order to
get to a place of greater. Orwholeness and healing, because
oftentimes misogyny is causestrauma, like real trauma, not
(47:24):
just little m, little T trauma,but big T trauma. So there's a
lot of work that often has to bedone.
Joshua Johnson (47:30):
As you said the beginning, we want to root out
misogyny, and I think because wewant to root it out, it's it's
so deeply embedded. It is theair that we breathe that we
don't recognize it that is suchon the inside, it reminds me of
like the systems within our bodythat we don't see on the
outside. On the outside, youlook okay, like you're talking
(47:51):
about you've had chronic healthissues, like somebody is not
going to say that there'ssomething wrong in that system
of you. If I'm just looking atyou and talking to you today, I
wouldn't know it. I wouldn'tthink it. But there is something
deep inside that is wrong thatwe need to root out. Say this
isn't doesn't need to happenanymore, and it needs to change,
(48:13):
and it needs to be healed, andwe can't actually heal it unless
we know that it's there, right?
So we need to open ourselves upand actually do the deep work of
looking inside and under thehood, where things may look okay
at the surface, but they're not.
There's something deep under thehood that needs to be fixed and
healed. So thank you for thiswork. For the love of women, is
(48:36):
available anywhere books aresold? Is there anywhere you
would like to point people to toget the book, or anywhere that
you'd like to point people to toconnect with you or any of your
work that you're doing?
Dorothy Littell Greco (48:47):
Yeah, thanks for asking that. I'm
always trying to encouragepeople to go to local
booksellers, because they havereally been hurt so badly by
Amazon. So Brian borders heartsand minds bookstore, which you
can find online, is actuallygiven a 20% discount for the
book, and he often gives 20% offfor many new titles. So that's a
(49:07):
great resource. Folks can go tomy site, which is Dorothy
greco.com it's Greco with 1cwhere I have several booksellers
listed. I think Christian booksis last I checked, they were
selling the book for like, 12bucks, which is a great deal.
And then I'm on sub stack atwhat's faith got to do with it,
which is a great place forpeople to follow my work.
Joshua Johnson (49:29):
Dorothy, I have a couple of really quick
questions here at the end that Ilike to ask. One, if you could
go back to your 21 year oldself, what advice would you give
Dorothy Littell Greco (49:37):
to trust myself and to trust my
intuition. I think that therewere several circumstances that
I got myself into severalrelationships during my 20s that
were not healthy, and thatcaused a lot of internal strife,
and I think that's because Icould tell something was off,
but culturally and there wassome misogyny involved in many
(49:58):
of those situations, I ignoredit and thought, yeah, this is
what I should do, or this iswhat I'm supposed to do, and
that ended up coming back toharm me. So I think trusting
myself more would definitely besomething. I wish that I had
known
Joshua Johnson (50:11):
anything you've been reading or watching lately
you could recommend
Dorothy Littell Greco (50:15):
my husband. And I really love all
creatures great and small. I'vereally enjoyed that series. We
are fans of the Great Britishbaking show, so we watch that
every every weekend reading, ifpeople go to good reads, they
get a good sense of how manybooks I go through a year. I
think I'm up to 100 This ishappiness. And I'm forgetting
(50:38):
the name, the author's name, butit was a really beautiful book.
Took a little while for me toget into it, but I really,
really enjoyed that book. Idon't read much fiction. I do
tend to read books that are alittle bit denser, theology
books, that sort of thing, whichI imagine most people might not
be interested in. But anyway, goover to Goodreads and you can
see all the books that I've hadon my night table. Excellent.
Joshua Johnson (51:00):
Well, Dorothy, thank you for this conversation.
Thank you for actuallyuncovering misogyny. What it is
that it's not just the hate ofwomen, but there is a broader,
bigger definition, and we couldactually see it in our culture
and our systems. It is embeddedwithin them, and that we need to
root this out, and it was agreat conversation. Really hope
(51:22):
that people will start torecognize what misogyny is, what
it does to us, how it harmswomen and how it harms men, and
that we could work towards someco flourishing in this world,
and that we could actuallyreflect and embody the ways of
Jesus, so thank you Amen. It wasa fantastic conversation.
Dorothy Littell Greco (51:42):
Thanks for having me on. Yeah. You.
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