VBB 288 Baggage Claim Exposing Woke Feminism!

Intro [00:00:01]:

Virgin Beauty Bitch Podcast; inspiring women to overcome social stereotypes and share unique life experiences without fear of being defiantly different. Your hosts, Christopher and Heather. 

Let's talk, shall we?

Christopher [00:00:20]:

I love the metaphor of the swinging pendulum and how it often works to describe social change. Consider how many millennia men wielded social, economic, and political power while women had to fight for an identity that acknowledged them legally as human beings. Fight to earn the right to vote, fight to secure personal liberty, sexual liberation, and professional equality. But lately, the pendulum swing has been sped up, being forcibly pushed away from male dominant positions towards the opposite polarity, female domination. The preferred vehicle for this movement is, of course, the media. It's been books, popular music, and lyrics. But lately, the movement has taken over television and film, and few people understand this conscious shift more than YouTube entertainment critic and commentator known by her pseudonym Baggage Claim. BC, welcome to Virgin Beauty Bitch.

Baggage Claim [00:01:28]:

Thank you so much. Thanks, Christopher. Thanks, Heather. Thanks for having me.

Christopher [00:01:32]:

We are pumped to have you and your knowledge on this. So, people, we want to be entertained. They want their emotions evoked, their imaginations challenged, but there's something sinister mixed into the message. You did a YouTube video a short while ago titled Everything Wrong with Woke Feminism. First off are the people who just want to pay their money and sit in the seats. What is woke feminism?

Baggage Claim [00:01:59]:

So I think a big difference between what I would call legitimate, necessary feminism versus woke feminism, which, you know, it can sound as if I'm derogatory towards the whole feminist movement, and I'm not. Naturally, I'm very grateful for the suffragettes and the women that have come before me, women that have paved the path for the level of equality that we all enjoy today. And that's sort of the line that I would draw, is that genuine feminism has been out to help women achieve that sort of equal status in society. Woke feminism is really out for female domination and has had that undertone of revenge against men. And also has taken a very black-and-white perspective on history. The trends of history are very interesting because I would say that most people have not enjoyed rights and comforts throughout history, including men, people of color, and everybody. It's always been a select few people that have sat at the top and had this hierarchy, which is why if you see even the evolution of governments have gone from monarchical, a lot of power in very few hands, to now more and more democracies and republics are more and more common today.

Baggage Claim [00:03:31]:

So, I think that the evolution of civilization is power and privilege to some, to now a privilege to many. And I think feminism played an important role in making sure that females were also part of that conversation. And there was a lot of technology that has helped sort of free us from the home, so to speak. Because if it had not been for feminine hygiene products, had it not been for, you know, the pill and a lot of, you know, machinery added to the home to kind of alleviate our duties, we could actually now start to look beyond the home and not be sort of relegated in that environment. And then, as you say, Chris, that transition from a search for equality to now, let's try to prove to the world that women are actually superior. And that's something that I'm very, very anti. I wholeheartedly believe in the sacred bond between men and women and the sacred partnership that is necessary between men and women in order to not just have happy men but also happy women, happy children, and a happy society. I think all of that exists when men and women work together, recognize each other's unique traits, and join forces to win out in the end.

Baggage Claim [00:04:52]:

And I think woke feminism absolutely does not want that. Woke feminism wants men kneeling on the floor, you know, sort of answering in a docile state, held captive at the hands of a very empowered female. Woke feminism wants us to believe the new ideal woman has all the traits of being a man. She's stoic. She's unemotional. She has no care in the world.

Baggage Claim [00:05:22]:

She doesn't. No. You know, she has. She doesn't. She doesn't even have a heart. She doesn't even have any attachment to any man. She is just this individual lone wolf. If she spares that, if she's, you know, not a lone wolf, then it's only for the sake of being with other women.

Baggage Claim [00:05:40]:

She partners up with other women. But other than that, she is, you know, she stands alone. And that's the new female introduction into a lot of Marvel films and a lot of Disney films. That's the sort of trope you see copy-pasted all over the place. And I think that's very destructive.

Heather [00:05:57]:

Can you give us an example that people would know and then identify with exactly what it is you're talking about? It's a concrete example.

Baggage Claim [00:06:06]:

Sure. The biggest example of that really was Captain Marvel, and that movie came out in 2019. Brie Larson played Captain Marvel, and that was the best. That was the first injection of wokeness starting to make waves into Disney and Marvel films. As a character, Carol Danvers, she doesn't show emotion. You know, even though in that first movie, Captain Marvel, the whole reason, a lot of the plot is based on the fact that they call her emotional and they call her irrational and that she has to overcome that. But at no point do you actually see her exhibit any of those things. And, okay, there's nothing wrong with being emotional either.

Baggage Claim [00:06:52]:

So I didn't like it from either side of that. But she's a good example of that. Even the Marvels, which was the sequel to that film, which came out back in 2023, she partners with two other women. And again, it's very similar. They're kind of copy-paste of each other's character, showing very little to no emotion and kind of inhabiting more masculine traits. I would say another example of this is Snow White. Rachel Zegler is a young actress who got into a lot of trouble a couple of months ago because of some of the comments that she had made on the red carpet. Months, even earlier than that, she had said that this new Snow White is going to be not about love at all.

Baggage Claim [00:07:40]:

It's not going to be about love. It's going to be about power. It's going to be about women taking on leadership roles. And I found that also very strange. That's one of the videos I made where I found it very interesting that even the idea of love seemed very old-fashioned to her. What's really interesting is this desire to rid women, even of that desire to be in love, to be connected to a man. Instead, she should aim for power, for leadership roles.

Baggage Claim [00:08:15]:

There used to be a time when we used to say to people, hey, there's something more important than your work. It's love. It's your home, it's your relationship, it's your time with your family. And now it's the polar opposite of that messaging, which is that let's go after positions of power and forget the fact that in Snow White, the original Snow White, the queen, is actually the one in power. It's a female-empowered story in that sense, even though it was made in the 1930s. But that's not something that they realize. Or that the whole lesson of Snow White is that the queen is obsessed with holding onto her power. She's obsessed with her youth and beauty and wants to destroy someone who's capable of loving. And that's exactly what Rachel Zegler has misunderstood.

Baggage Claim [00:09:08]:

So I thought that was very interesting.

Heather [00:09:10]:

Do you find that part of the reason why the pendulum has swung so far this other way? Because when I see all these tropes and, you know, such similar characters being portrayed again and again under the umbrella of, you know, women empowerment, it feels to me that they're trying to almost go so far, like, there was so long with women receiving one message about, like, what will bring them fulfillment and that being a life of love and connection to a partner, and that, like, the family is the most important. And that that has been such a common narrative for so long that now they're trying to counterbalance how long that's been a historical truism, if we'll call it that. I mean, ultimately going, you know, that direction, like, all the way. But do you feel that that helps to be a counterbalance, or they have just taken it too far?

Baggage Claim [00:10:12]:

I think when you look at the counterbalance to that sort of messaging, that women should be in the home and have singular responsibilities. I think the counterbalance was the sexual revolution of the 1960s and seventies, and I think a lot of that got corrected by the nineties, where the new modern woman was someone who was working, and that was considered perfectly acceptable. I think it went beyond that point to where we're now, primarily because of the rise of the Internet and, specifically, social media. What was great about that there's that podcast, the witch trials of JK Rowling. Unexpectedly, I got a lot of insights about the rise of wokeness, if you want to call it that, which was all on Tumblr. Tumblr was really the breeding ground for a lot of things we're seeing today. Tumblr was where a lot of them were burgeoning, let's say, ten years ago, 15 years ago. But Tumblr was a reaction to another site, which was 4chan.

Baggage Claim [00:11:22]:

And 4chan was the other side of the pendulum, which is a more sort of masculine, you know, over-sexualization of women, sort of no holes barred on any sort of joke and how far it could go. And Tumblr was a response to that. I think in the early two-thousands, we saw a lot of the movies and the kind of humor that existed at that time and then shows like jackass, where it was an overextension of sort of the masculine, that anything goes type of humor. And now we're seeing the other side of the pendulum, which is, no, nothing is funny. You know, you can never cross the line. So neither is good. I don't think either side is really good.

Baggage Claim [00:12:07]:

And a lot of the people that I'm really close friends with who are creators on YouTube want to go back to that, you know, that previous pendulum swing where they want no holes barred. You can make any sort of joke, and I'm not really that type of person. I'll stand for a joke. If I'm in the room and I hear an inappropriate joke, I won't say, hey, don't say that. I won't do that. But if an inappropriate joke is made about me, I'll say, don't do that. You know, I 100% believe in those types of boundaries. I think we teach other people how to treat us. And I think that's really important, especially as a woman.

Baggage Claim [00:12:43]:

I think that's incredibly important. I think. But where we're at today is that societally we are in a no limit society. Anything's possible. If I want a burger, if I want to eat, consume 5000 worth of calories, I don't even have to leave my home.

Baggage Claim [00:13:12]:

I can get it delivered to my door. If I want to consume or never have a relationship with a man ever again and just surround myself with as much porn as possible, that is entirely possible. We are in a time where there's no limit. And because we've done, because we've really as a society said no to God more and more in religion. What religion does is offer limits. It says this is right; this is wrong. It offers limits on the human experience. And we kicked all of that off.

Baggage Claim [00:13:42]:

You know, everything now is about breaking down barriers with no limits. We should be able to do anything. That's really the cultural milieu that we're in right now. But the problem with that is that it's not actually good for humanity. I'm not saying that we should have all sorts of limitations. I disagree with that. I think we have to pick and choose. But humans need limitations.

Baggage Claim [00:14:06]:

It's the same with like if you look at children, if you raise children without any sort of rules or even a routine, the child is not happy. The child does not come out of that situation in a good mental state. You need some sort of limitations. You need to teach them rules and regulations. And that's one of the things that we're struggling with is children now in an age with no rules. We don't know what to do with that. And what Wokeness is trying to do is they're trying to introduce new sets of rules, and they're actually closer to very, like, puritanical ideas of, like, you can't make this joke or this joke, you know, this joke is too inappropriate. And if you look back to older times where, you know, men were looked at with a lot of seriousness about what kind of comments they made around women or how they related. You can't just walk up to a woman and, you know, slap her on the butt and tell her you want to wife her up or whatever nonsense you want to say to her? That was not acceptable in those times.

Baggage Claim [00:15:04]:

It was actually, there was, like, a very high limitation on what kind of behavior men had to engage in when they were courting a woman. In fact, in the 1950s, you couldn't be around. A teenage boy couldn't just spend alone time with a teenage girl. They needed a chaperone. There were a lot of limits, and I think during the sexual revolution, a lot of limits started getting lifted. And that exposed society to what unlimited male behavior could look like. And that's not a good thing.

Baggage Claim [00:15:37]:

And that meant that a lot of ills started happening in society, and a lot of women started suffering because of that. Because men started, let's say, abandoning children that they fathered or abandoning women that they kind of led on. And it started creating all these issues in society. And I'm not saying that's the only issue. It's just one example. But this is where we are today. We don't know what to do because we've kind of opened up every possible limitation on our behavior, and we don't know what to do now. And we've sort of rejected any sort of guidance from religion.

Christopher [00:16:11]:

That sounds like a Pandora's box scenario. Right? I think that we are looking for guidance in limitations, but I think it's within us. It's about respect. It's about the freaking golden rule. Do unto others. Hello. It doesn't have to get more complicated than that. You don't need a Bible to have respect for other human beings.

Christopher [00:16:39]:

I think that we've lost our balance in just governing ourselves.

Baggage Claim [00:16:46]:

Yeah. Self-governance is actually something I would agree with. It's at its weakest these days. And that's another piece that's adding to it, is that how do people govern themselves? Right. They need some sort of hierarchy in their mind. Right? And this is why, you know, human beings tend to do well in religion. Is that the hierarchy in their mind, if they form it and say, God is above me, let's say. And then they say if I do something bad, God's going to punish me.

Baggage Claim [00:17:17]:

And that forces them to think about that in private when no one's looking; what are they going to do? And that aids in self-governance. But the problem is then sometimes people who are very religious can use that relationship with, let's say, their God to then use it as a tool to dominate over others. Hey, I have this great relationship with God, and you don't. You're inferior as a result. They use it as a way to elevate themselves to almost God-like status when it comes to that person. So that, hey, I can punish you with my relationship with God.

Baggage Claim [00:17:55]:

So, and that's the thing is that the human mind is so tilted towards tyranny, you know, or like oppression of others. We can look at, let's say, something that's a spiritual relationship between you and God. We can inadvertently use that to dominate other people. But when you take out God, and I'm not. I know it might sound like I'm arguing that society needs God. I'm not necessarily. I just see what happens when you take God out of the equation is that now we've replaced it with ourselves. There's no God.

Baggage Claim [00:18:30]:

There's a vacuum. You have to replace it with something. And what happened during the nineties was this push for that follow your bliss type of, you know, self, the self-esteem movement. And it became, do what you want, do whatever makes you happy. So, what's at the top of the hierarchy? In a personal state, it's you. So we've replaced God, so to speak. And now it's about whatever makes me feel good, right? So don't, you know, don't tell me what to do, don't tell me what's right for me. And the problem with that whole idea is that while it opens up the ways of letting people live and exist, it also takes away the opportunity to challenge people.

Baggage Claim [00:19:18]:

Human beings need a challenge. We need to hear whether or not because not every idea that occurs to us is actually a good idea. Why shouldn't I consume 5000 calories in the next hour? Why shouldn't I surround myself with as much adult content as possible versus engaging in a proper relationship? Engaging in proper relationships is hard. I have to compromise all the time. Why should I do that? An online relationship with some, you know, faux AI or whatever is going to be the future. That doesn't take anything from me. I don't need to make a single compromise. I don't want to make a compromise.

Baggage Claim [00:19:52]:

And that's the problem: Everything that occurs to us is not always right. We need the challenge. We need that pushback to try to figure out what's the right thing to do. And that's the reality of the world. Good ideas come out of challenge, not through acceptance. And so while the concept of unlimited acceptance sounds nice, and it sounds really, really nice, it actually doesn't result in anything good on an individual level.

Heather [00:20:23]:

Some of the things that you've mentioned really hit home around how people cultivate self discipline as the parameters for them to live within and that self care is actually built off of self discipline as one of the components. And I do agree that a lot of our society within woke culture has become about. It's almost a hedonistic whatever brings you joy is something that you should use as your guiding star rather than what does unlimited accessibility to the things that I like do to, you know, growing as a person or facing that challenge, that's going to push me in a new direction. So, like, what comes to mind for me is for people who don't have religion in their life and have adopted, let's say, you know, Christopher's golden rule, which, you know, ultimately does apply within religion as well. Right? Treat others as you would wish to be treated. Underneath the umbrella of that, you're in a position to want to be treated well because some people with enough trauma or whatever, you know, that isn't what you're seeking. So we'll just leave that one there. So, you know, for myself, as a person who grew up in a religious family and a religious upbringing and did a lot of self work to understand what my relationship is with my spirituality and, like, the.

Heather [00:21:47]:

The discipline that's required for how I treat others and how I expect to be treated, that has become, like, my guiding light around, you know, not kind of buying into, you deserve to be happy all the time, that the point of this existence isn't to be happy all the time. The wide spectrum of our emotions is actually part of the beauty of being human. And so when I think about, like, where things have been in the past, when it comes to some of, you know, my older gentlemen friends would say, and I'm sure that some women would say as well, that, let's say in the 1950s, the expectation for men to truly take care of the woman that they marry, that they court her in a way that's respectful, that they're honoring her and her time and her body and her. Her virtue, for lack of a better word, that was kind of built into, like, the religious foundations in many places across the world. But I'm just going to be referring to North America right now. I mean, underneath the surface of all of that, I still feel that a lot of that was because a woman didn't have the access to take care of herself. She didn't have the access to be able to have her own job, her own career, her own autonomy and agency to act on that autonomy. So ultimately, the parameters that men had to work within is that women are so dependent on you to survive that to be an honorable man, you need to fit within these parameters.

Heather [00:20:23]:

Some of the things that you've mentioned really hit home around how people cultivate self-discipline as the parameters for them to live within and that self-care is actually built off of self-discipline as one of the components. And I do agree that a lot of our society within woke culture has become about. It's almost hedonistic; whatever brings you joy is something that you should use as your guiding star rather than what does unlimited accessibility to the things that I like do to, you know, growing as a person or facing that challenge, that's going to push me in a new direction. So what comes to mind for me is for people who don't have religion in their lives and have adopted, let's say, Christopher's golden rule, which, you know, ultimately applies within religion as well. Right? Treat others as you would wish to be treated. Underneath the umbrella of that, you're in a position to want to be treated well because some people with enough trauma or whatever, you know, that isn't what you're seeking. So we'll just leave that one there. So, you know, for myself, as a person who grew up in a religious family and a religious upbringing, I did a lot of self-work to understand what my relationship is with my spirituality.

Heather [00:21:47]:

The discipline that's required for how I treat others and how I expect to be treated, that has become, like, my guiding light around, you know, not kind of buying into, you deserve to be happy all the time, that the point of this existence isn't to be happy all the time. The wide spectrum of our emotions is actually part of the beauty of being human. And so when I think about, like, where things have been in the past when it comes to some of, you know, my older gentlemen friends would say, and I'm sure that some women would say as well, that, let's say in the 1950s, the expectation for men to truly take care of the woman that they marry, that they court her in a way that was respectful. They honoured her and her time and her body and her. Her virtue, for lack of a better word, was kind of built into, like, the religious foundations in many places across the world. But I'm just going to be referring to North America right now. I mean, underneath the surface of all of that, I still feel that a lot of that was because a woman didn't have the access to take care of herself. She didn't have access to her own job, her own career, her own autonomy, and the agency to act on that autonomy. So ultimately, the parameters that men had to work within is that women are so dependent on you to survive that to be an honourable man, you need to fit within these parameters.

Heather [00:23:27]:

So even though there was this level of respect within that dynamic, ultimately, women were very much still at the whim of this guy going to remain a good guy when I married him? What if things start to go south, and I don't have access to get out of this situation? And so I think, like, as a young woman growing up in a time where the Disney movie princesses were, you know, the OG. The OG, you know, finding your prints.

Baggage Claim [00:24:01]:

And all of that. Right. I love Jasmine. She's my favourite.

Heather [00:24:06]:

You know, what you said to me really hits a really important nerve because when I think about what is the next step for women's empowerment, it is not becoming the masculine that we've seen in power positions. That's really throwing out the essence of the beauty of having women in powerful positions. Let's go. There would be that they bring their femininity and their compassion and their love and their collective aspirations to the table in places of influence. And so, you know, that's the type of portrayals that I want to see more of in Hollywood, rather than this stoic, masculinized, you know, she needs to get over being emotional sort of a thing, because at the end of the day, emotions, as you said, as a weakness, is still playing into, you know, feminized qualities being undermined or lesser valued. So we're getting repackaged what we've already been sold.

Christopher [00:25:08]:

I would add that if you want to take and keep the parallel with the superhuman or superhero role of women and juxtaposition, juxtapose Captain Marvel with the first installment of Wonder Woman and that character development, you can find a woman who is powerful still in her feminine space through that arc of a character, as opposed to what it is, Captain Marvel is, am I right or am I off?

Baggage Claim [00:25:40]:

No, you're completely right. And in that, in one of the videos I've made, I talked very highly of the Wonder Woman representation because, first of all, she is very feminine, and there's beauty in that and where she's really attached to doing the right thing. And that's a very feminine idea for women. What you're saying, Heather, is that in the 1950s, there's this discrepancy, you know, women being weaker and considered the weaker sex. And that was often said is like, they're the fairer sex, right? So they're held in a different light than men. And at the end of the day, no matter how much encouragement you have from society for men to do the right thing, the women are still at their whim. 

Baggage Claim [00:26:28]:

But that's still a reality today for us. Women are always going to be weaker no matter how much they try to convince us otherwise. And that's why a lot of the co-opting of sort of these superhero narratives is so important to woke feminists because they don't have to pretend that women are weaker because they're superheroes. So, a superhero can have the same strength as a male superhero because it's not answering to reality in that sense. And I think you know what's interesting? If we take things back to the 1950s, there's such a realization that we have of the difference between how women are treated today versus how they were treated in the 1950s. But we don't pay attention to that same idea about men. 

Baggage Claim [00:27:23]:

The men in that time were told that you know, there's, like, the idea of what it meant to be a man was also a very strict idea of how much emotion they could show, what they could do, what they had to do, how they had to provide, how they had to, like, think about their mental health, how they had to think about their needs, their everything. And so, I don't think it's a man and woman thing. I think it was just the reality of life, that there were very strict ideas of what it meant to be and how to exist. And for men, historically, they have been treated as the more disposable class. You know, it's an interesting thing that we don't think about the privilege of even, like, in 1912, when the Titanic sinks and the people that have access to the boats are the women and children. Why is that? If women are so looked down on and considered the weaker and like the infinitely inferior sex. 

Baggage Claim [00:28:28]:

Why were they the ones who had the right to leave, but the men did not? And yes, it went by class first, right? And class plays a really big role as well. Like, the rules of courtship, how men should treat women also apply to the upper classes, not necessarily the lower classes. So that's also a reality of life. It's that a woman from a lower class was never treated as well as a woman from an upper class. But the thing is that a lot of societies have existed actually, using religion, fundamentally tried to instate the holiness of a woman and a child as that dyad and said that that needs to be held to a higher standard. So that's the Madonna and Child symbol. But even in Hinduism, the whole, like, the whole dyad of woman and child needs to be held above everything else, and the man must choose to give up his life to protect that because that represents the future. And any society that has chosen not to do that, that has sacrificed the woman and the child, is a society that has not lasted. And so that's what I think we can look at that understanding as a way of how to move forward today, which is that women are independent.

Baggage Claim [00:29:53]:

They're far more independent than ever in society, ever. Right? But that doesn't mean that the holy trinity if I can use that phrase in this, is not necessary, which is man, woman, and child. And I know I'm talking about heterosexual couples. I'm not trying to exclude homosexual couples. We can replace the sexes there, too. But that connection between two adults and a child and keeping that whole, that the responsibility of the two adults is to keep the child safe, and the responsibility of the masculine is to keep the feminine and the child safe, and that the responsibility of the feminine is to play her role in that, in that family. Now, does that mean a woman shouldn't work? No, that can mean a woman works. That means, like, you know, the point is about partnership and that both sides can seek to protect each other in their own way, in whatever feels appropriate, in whatever feels right because there are so many variances on an individual level.

Baggage Claim [00:30:58]:

But I think that part is still important in encouraging both sides to look after each other.

Christopher [00:31:05]:

But we don't respect that the way that it has been. Nature has laid out to us that this is what is necessary for our long-term survival and mental health. But we have chosen to individualize, to be self-absorbed, as opposed to respecting this triad; as you say, I could say we have so much access to so many things that the family is not a necessary piece of our survival. Moving forward, we have come to at least act. We're acting that way.

Baggage Claim [00:31:47]:

Yes.

Christopher [00:31:47]:

And that's been to our detriment.

Baggage Claim [00:31:49]:

Yeah, yeah. Massively to our detriment. You know, Western society is already very much tilted toward having a very weak family structure. This has been true historically since the Norman Conquest. We are descendants of the British. American culture is a descendant. It's like a subset of British culture.

Baggage Claim [00:32:10]:

And so it's. It's true throughout the West. Australia, Canada. You know, the American family is a very weak concept. And in that sense, it can be a good thing because it can give rise of individualism, which has been very helpful for America. But, you know, I come from India. I'm born and raised in India, and there the family structure is very strong. What comes first is the family.

Baggage Claim [00:32:40]:

Then comes you. On your wedding day, your parents will not come to you and say, hey, we want you to be happy. This wedding isn't about you. They will not do that. They will say this wedding is about all of us. This is about the family. And if you are not happy, that's okay, because the family is more important. 

Baggage Claim [00:33:04]:

The family is at the top of the hierarchy. God, and then family. So it's very interesting because coming from that kind of culture to a culture that's very much like, hey, are you happy? It's a very weird thing to go home to my Indian parents and negotiate with them accordingly. And they're like, we don't care. I think what is worse for America is, after already having kind of a weak family structure, is saying, okay, you're 18 years old, you know, go and make your own way out in the world, which to me sounded like such a strange concept that, you know, your family encourages you to go and just do your own thing after 18. But then growing up and realizing the value of that, but then beyond that, the high rate of divorce, massively high rate of divorce, massively high rate of fatherlessness, which is something I've been talking about lately. In the 1950s, the fatherlessness rate was one in sixteen children who had no father in the home. Right now, that number is one in four. So it's devastating. It's a devastating impact.

Baggage Claim [00:34:23]:

The importance of fathers is being discussed more so now, but the biggest impact is that we know as a truism that it's very hard for a mother to leave her child because she was literally physically connected with that child. And there are a lot of hormones. There's a lot of maternal bonding that happens. Not something I've experienced. It's something I've been told. I'm not a mother yet, but for a father, it's a choice, so to speak. He has to decide whether or not he's going to stay, stay or leave. And the impact of that on a child is that if a father abandons a child, there's this feeling of, why was I not good enough for you to stay? You know, I can understand why my mom is with me because it's biological, but if my father left me, that must mean I'm not good enough.

Baggage Claim [00:35:17]:

And we see this a lot in the stories. You know, Chris, like you were talking about how all this is represented in media. You know, there are so many TV shows that show, like, the absolute feeling of abandonment that a grown man or a grown woman is going through because he or she never knew his or her father. You see it in the new girl. You see it in how I met your mother. You see it, I mean, it's all over the place because it is such a big problem. And when there's always that storyline, and I think it comes from reality because writers are pulling from their own lives, where then at 30 or 28, the man or the girl finally gets a chance to meet with the father. And there's so much anger.

Baggage Claim [00:36:02]:

Why did you leave me? Why did you abandon me? And in a lot of the studies that they've done around homelessness, is that homelessness or even drug abuse is so much related to where kids run away from homes. Like 90% of youths running away from homes who become then homeless run away from fatherless homes. And a lot of even drug abuse amongst youths is because it's highly correlated to fatherless homes. And drugs fill a void that maybe your parents have left. And that's like a lot of the belief around drug abuse is that drugs become a crutch to cling to where something is missing in your soul, right? Something's missing in your heart. And this last week, I was speaking to someone after school, this great content creator, and he said, he said, you know, they've done these studies on, I think he was talking about heroin, that when you do heroin, it feels like getting a hug. 

Baggage Claim [00:37:08]:

What a statement on why people do that. Right? On why people need it. And I live in a city where homelessness is such a big problem. It's a massive problem. And I look at these kids, they're kids, and I say, you know, why did they think they were not good enough for a better life than this? And it's like you need two parents to love you and believe in you to help, you know, that you need. You deserve a better life than this.

Baggage Claim [00:37:38]:

And I think that's massively missing for a lot of people.

Christopher [00:37:42]:

Or if you are in a single-parent situation where the one parent basically has to abandon you every day to go to work, there is that void there as well.

Baggage Claim [00:37:53]:

Yeah. You know, it's just not possible to raise a child alone. I mean, so many people do it. It's a hard job. It's so hard. And it's impossible to keep up with children and then also be the breadwinner on top of that. You know, be the emotional crush, financial crutch, and then also be the disciplinarian.

Baggage Claim [00:38:14]:

I mean, that's such a difficult role to embody. Full time. You have to do all of that full-time. I mean, that is a lot to ask of an individual. And I think the reason people don't criticize the state of single parenting is because they worry that it'll make that single parent feel bad. Because at the end of the day, they're just doing their best job. Right? And it's mom, it's moms.

Baggage Claim [00:38:35]:

It's usually moms, it's single. So, nobody wants to put down the single mother. And that's never my intention. It's just that it's a really hard job to get right.

Heather [00:38:44]:

Something you said earlier really struck home because when it comes to this, you know, we're looking at divorce rates, and we're looking at why people feel like. And I think a lot of this also goes into consumerism culture, that you can have what you need when you need it, and if it's not working out or it's broken, you can toss it and get a new model. And that kind of mentality is just so ingrained into North American society that it's affected how we view relationships. But something that you said about that Trinity and breaking it down to, you know, look at two parents and look at gender in a way that maybe is more accessible for people who are listening, you know, that deep feeling from both parents to want to find the ways to protect each other and that child in the ways that fits your role within that family unit. I mean, there's something so precious about feeling that for this person that you care about, right? That you're responsible for them, and they're responsible for you. Like, there is really something sacred about that. We love to ask our guests, What Does Feminine Mean to You?

Baggage Claim [00:40:02]:

I was going to say that I've been married for about a year and a half, and before I met my husband about five years ago, I felt like I truly couldn't be feminine until I had the opportunity to be with a strong man. You know, being a woman, having a job, and just being out in the world. I've been living away from my family for a long time. I have an older brother, and I have a father. I have a mother. I had to embody the masculine and the feminine, you know, project my power at work, make sure that I'm not being taken advantage of. I'm a very emotional person.

Baggage Claim [00:40:47]:

I actually can cry almost at the drop of a hat. I get very emotionally invested in things that I'm listening to, whether it's watching a Lord of the Rings scene or looking at something really sad and, like, about puppies and kittens and so being at work, you know, there are aspects of my emotional state that are not considered acceptable. And all of that. Just trying to be as masculine as possible and then trying to meet my own needs to keep myself safe. Keep myself fed and keep my home together. And then I met this wonderful man who was willing to partner with me and look after me.

Baggage Claim [00:41:35]:

And, you know, it allowed me to just be. It was. And it's a joke that I make with one of my girlfriends because she's also with a similar type of man. So when we go out, I don't think about anything. I don't think about where my keys are. I don't think about anything. I'm a very on top of it type person. I just am.

Baggage Claim [00:42:00]:

I know where everything is. I'm like that type. And I just, like, it's like, devil may care type. And he, you know, he's paying attention to where that car is. Is that person gonna try to rob us? He's so on. He's like military scanning, like the Terminator. Like, who's a threat? And I'm just like, whatever, just living my best life talking about random YouTube videos, whatever.

Baggage Claim [00:42:26]:

And I thought about that. I was like, so much of the stresses I still feel in life being a single person suddenly went away because someone was willing to look after me. And it's completely changed in other situations where there are other times where I tell him, you don't have to worry about anything. I don't want you to sit and think about anything. You just sit and relax. You want to play video games, you want to watch something, you just sit and relax. I'm going to take care of everything.

Baggage Claim [00:42:52]:

And that partnership of just letting someone let a load down, like, thinking and worrying and stressing all the time. And I know I'm rambling a bit, but  I swear I'll get to your question. But that being able to just feel loved and, like, have that opportunity to be de-stressed and not worry about who I am emotionally or all of that, that was just the beauty of being able to be in this type of relationship that I never had that experience before. But what is being feminine to me? I know some people might not like this answer, but I think to be truly feminine is to be extremely discretionary and very boundary-oriented. What I mean is that the female body has the ability to either be really highly valued or extremely commodified.

Baggage Claim [00:44:05]:

And that's one thing that reality that a lot of feminists today don't want to accept. They want to believe that women can have sex like men. And that's just not true. That's just not true. Men think about sex very differently than women think about sex. And it's because of the biological implications of what it means for us to have sex versus for them to have sex. And I think what it essentially means to be feminine is to draw extreme boundaries around who has access to you, who has access to talk to you a certain way, you know, has access to your body in a certain way.

Baggage Claim [00:44:46]:

And I think that's what creates value in society for you as a person, but also for you and your mind. Like if anybody can say anything to you and treat you in any way and commodify you in any way, how do you feel then, sitting by yourself about how much value you have for yourself? How much respect do you have for yourself? So I think you can be an average woman, you know, whoever, any kind of woman, and you could be on OnlyFans and sell your body. You know, there's a market for it. And that's the strange thing about the female body, which is that it has this way of being turned into something sold online.

Baggage Claim [00:45:35]:

Or even in person. So I think that the reality of it means that it's something that you really need to protect for your sake and the sake of your relationships around you. For your own health, your mental health.

Christopher [00:45:53]:

The sad thing is that Heather and I talk about this all the time: Women do not have any value or take any value from the feminine because society has discarded and disavowed it as something of no value. So why should they attach themselves to aspire to something that society says has no value?

Baggage Claim [00:46:21]:

Yeah, and that's absolutely true. You go anywhere, and you just see women's bodies splattered everywhere. Used to sell anything. It's kind of an overload. Even on Instagram, pretty much everything kind of pushed to you on the algorithm is some woman trying to convince you to give her attention in exchange for showing her body. And that's the thing.

Baggage Claim [00:46:52]:

That's that easy route. And that's one of those truisms that used to be widely accepted, which is that nothing comes for free. You can take a photo of yourself, like, partly, like, scantily clad, and you think that you're empowering yourself and you're getting attention for it or you're getting money for it, but that it doesn't come for free. There's always a price to be paid, and it's the things that take work that you have to hold, whether it's a craft you're honing, some story you've written, something you've put, like, dedicated work into, and if you trade that for something, you will trade it for good things. But if it requires no work, all it requires is for you to let down your guard and let down what you consider to be acceptable. There's a price. It just looks very different.

Heather [00:47:42]:

I think it's such a difficult dichotomy to live in for women because, you know, I'm a big believer that a woman's sexuality is created for herself and the understanding of what you said around boundaries. We've had one side of the pendulum, is that sexuality for women especially, but also men, is sinful and wrong, and you should be ashamed of it and avoid it like the plague, especially before marriage. And then when you get married, it's supposed to flip a switch, and all of a sudden, you're supposed to be fine and dandy with this person, even though you've been sold your whole life how dirty your body is and, you know, the shedding of your lining, everything has been around that. And then I feel that women have tried to denounce that in a way that, like, they, they feel, I think, as an animal on this planet, that reproduction and what comes with it, or even just understanding your body and its capacities is something that is exciting and can be with the right parameters of boundaries, full of love and pleasure and things that are beneficial for our overall health, for our mental health. So, you know, just hearing what you had to say there, I think that the fine line between these pendulums is because ultimately, you know when women think that sex is the same between them and men, it's ultimately leading down a path of accessibility with no bounds. Whereas I fundamentally believe that it's not a woman's body count or these other things that women have been shamed over, but for a woman to really give time and energy to think about what her body and her sexuality mean to her and what sort of sexual experiences does she want to have with herself and what sort of sexual experiences does she want to have with a partner? And that real heavy thinking can lend to a healthy sexual life in a world that, on both ends of those pendulums, is very dangerous for women.

Baggage Claim [00:50:09]:

Yeah, yeah, I agree. I agree. There's this obsession with. You're right about a body count. A lot of these podcasts will have these OnlyFans models come on, and then OnlyFans models, they're just sort of engaging in this transaction. They haven't thought a lot about these things, and then they'll bring on a cultural commentator who's obviously thought a lot about these things, and then they'll come on and dunk on these women and say, you know, you are not a valuable woman. I just find that whole mechanism a different version of saying God has told us that sex is sinful. It's a different version of that same thing, which is that you're relying on. You're just relying on this desire to put someone else down. You're just using some method to do that. The reality is, first of all, why isn't it good to be selling your sex? Right. That should be explained on a very individual level.

Baggage Claim [00:51:24]:

That should be explained by what impact it has on you. Not that you suck because you're engaging in this. And the same with telling women that, oh, yeah, you're, you know, everything about your sexuality is disgusting until you get married. Then, make sure you engage in it. Right. It's, it's, again, unnuanced thought. And I think a lot of. So I think a lot of religious text, actually, what's the power of religious text is that there are a lot of things that are.

Baggage Claim [00:51:51]:

It's not, like, written literally, but it tends to be taken very literally. That's why I like people who analyze text as more representative of the stories. Critical thinking and very deep-dive intellectual thinking are commonplace today, but not at the time these texts were written. Back then, people needed stories to give them an idea of what to do and how to think about things. It wasn't that we could have this intellectual conversation; they couldn't have written that into the Bible or even into Indian texts, right? The Bhagavad Gita, the Puranas, and all these religious texts are all stories meant to be interpreted and applied to what we go through today. So I think as part of that, it's important to have discussions that glean the right lessons out of it, but not use it as a hammer. That doesn't kind of apply to modern life. So that's my take, is that sexuality should be encouraged, but again, people should be encouraged to treat it not as something to engage in just so openly. We talked about the impact on women if they're participating in, let's say, OnlyFans or the adult industry, but we haven't talked about the impact on men, and that's huge as well.

Baggage Claim [00:53:20]:

And that's something that those podcasts don't talk about either. It's like a lot of the people watching those podcasts of OnlyFans models getting dunked on by whichever cultural critic, and those people watching are probably looking up those girls later. You know, they're participating in that trade as well. And that's not good for men. Men suffer massively from adult content addiction. It's a huge problem. And it's something that's, first of all, I don't think that there's a lot of tolerance for it.

Baggage Claim [00:53:56]:

I don't think if someone came out and said, said to me on the street, like, hey, I have a porn addiction, I would be very kind of kind about it. I would probably just feel a little bit disgusted, and that's not a good thing. I think any addiction should be received in a way that's with understanding. So I think there's a big sort of faux pas in even admitting that. And it's bad. It has an impact on women, too. Women can have adult content addiction, but it's really bad for men, and it specifically has an impact on their hormones, their sexual health, their mental health, and all of that. So, in general, this whole trade is so bad for both sides that it's something I would argue should be completely illegal. I would completely, 100% society would be far better if it was made illegal.

Baggage Claim [00:54:50]:

But of course, that's not possible. That's not a possible thing.

Christopher [00:54:53]:

Yeah, the ramifications of making things illegal, we can go back to alcohol and prohibition. 

Baggage Claim [00:55:02]:

And can, you know, with the Internet, can anything really be controlled? You know, it can't.

Christopher [00:55:06]:

Yeah, exactly. But speaking of men, you just did a video - why is masculinity under attack? We want people to be able to consume your content, so give us an overview of what that is and how and where people go to find you.

Baggage Claim [00:55:25]:

Sure. I wanted to explore the two sides of masculinity and femininity and examine how the trends from the last couple of decades have impacted how men and women are being represented in media. In my masculinity video, I talk a lot about the impact of woke feminists taking control of writer rooms and how, in their desire for revenge, they have really emasculated men and put them into the lowest ranks as humanly possible using a very poor interpretation of history. As we talked about earlier, the next video, it's talking about the impact that feminism has had on women. And what, Heather, you were saying that you don't want that type of femininity where basically it's a man in a woman's body. You don't want that either.

Baggage Claim [00:56:22]:

And I think that's. That's been the impact feminism has pushed for is that let's turn women into men. That's the only way for women to really be free is when there is no distinguishment between the sexes. So that's something I dive into on this next video. It's called Feminism Broke Society, which is a very provocative title. Hopefully, it will invite people to come and watch.

Baggage Claim [00:56:49]:

The reason I'm making such a bold statement is because I went back and read a lot of feminist texts and have come to the conclusion that their desire is to blur the lines between the sexes. That's really the only way to move forward. I vehemently disagree with that. So please take a look at those videos. If you guys are interested in exploring topics like that, you can find me on YouTube. Just search baggage claim. And I also write a lot of Twitter threads addressing cultural issues. So if you ever want to find me on Twitter, I'm baggageclaim eleven.

Baggage Claim [00:57:29]:

So look me up there.

Christopher [00:57:32]:

I have to ask, where did the pseudonym Baggage Claim come from? People need to know.

Baggage Claim [00:57:36]:

My friend helped me out with that because I knew I wanted to write under a pseudonym. I told her that I wanted to make this channel about individual empowerment that would help people understand how to live a good life. How do you solve all the issues that you might be running into? Because I think that when we're young, there's this belief that life is really easy, but then as you get older, you're like, wow, life is actually really, really hard. And there's nothing reminiscent of the childish perspective that you used to have. And I think people believe that trying to live a good, happy life means dealing with your own issues and taking responsibility for them. So my friend helped me conceptualize that, and she said, what if you call a Baggage Claim? That you yourself are choosing to claim your own baggage. You're choosing to claim all the issues that you need to grapple with in order to better yourself.

Baggage Claim [00:58:39]:

So I said, I love that.

Christopher [00:58:40]:

I'm glad I asked because that is a very powerful message and underpinning of what you do, and I'm glad I didn't let that slip. That's very, very poignant.

Baggage Claim [00:58:51]:

I'm glad she suggested it. She did a great job. She got it just right.

Christopher [00:59:00]:

We know all about names and what they can represent when you're going out into the world.

Baggage Claim [00:59:05]:

Speaking of which, I love the name of this podcast. I think it's so provocative and accurate.

Christopher [00:59:13]:

Thank you very much.

Heather [00:59:15]:

It's been such a joy to have you. Honestly, it's been a tremendous conversation, and your insights really help move even some things that are foundational. And I love conversations that will push me. So thank you for doing that.

Baggage Claim [00:59:34]:

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. And I appreciate that.

Heather [00:59:37]:

And I can't believe I just gushed about my husband. I was like, where am I going with this? I just lost my mind for a second. Thank you for bearing with me through that.

Christopher [00:59:48]:

I think it's an important foundation for what you speak about. It's about collaboration and support for each other. It was a perfect example of what you've been speaking about. So you don't need any reasoning for it. It was perfect.

Baggage Claim [01:00:07]:

Thank you so much.

Christopher [01:00:09]:

Thank you. And you've been listening to... 

Heather [01:00:12]:

The Virgin, The Beauty, and The Bitch!

Christopher [01:00:14]:

Find us, like us, and share us. These provocative conversations happen every week. Next week, come on back. Bring your friends to become partners in the VBB community. We invite you to find us@virginbeautybitch.com, like us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and share us with people who are Definitely Different, like you. Until next time, thanks for listening.