Speaker 1: Hey, what's up. Welcome to Beyond the Scenes. We are
Speaker 1: the podcast that goes deeper into segments and topics that
Speaker 1: originally aired on the Daily Show with Trevor Noah. I'm
Speaker 1: Roy Wood Jr. As always, and today we're talking about
Speaker 1: a very serious issue, violence against women and why it's
Speaker 1: up to men to stop it. We'll also be taking
Speaker 1: a look at a recent segment about Kim Kardashian and
Speaker 1: Kanye West and the harassment that many women face when
Speaker 1: trying to leave a relationship. Now, before we get started,
Speaker 1: I just want to just add a quick little disclaimer.
Speaker 1: Today's conversation might contain some tough subject matter, so I
Speaker 1: just want everyone to be aware of that and give
Speaker 1: you an off ramp if you need it. Alright, with
Speaker 1: that aside, let's roll the clip. For many women, every
Speaker 1: time they leave the house, it's a risk. And this
Speaker 1: is not something that men experienced, like when the pandemic hit.
Speaker 1: Men were like, so just going outside is dangerous now
Speaker 1: and women a yeah, added to the list because for women,
Speaker 1: just being out in public means facing a wide array
Speaker 1: of potential threats from men. The top story at this
Speaker 1: hour the violence against women and the conversation that it
Speaker 1: has sparked among women around the world. For many, it
Speaker 1: can feel like the only way to guarantee your personal
Speaker 1: safety is to stay at home, lock your doors, and
Speaker 1: never leave. The World Health Organization says one in three
Speaker 1: women worldwide have been subjected to physical or sexual violence,
Speaker 1: and data shows the violence starts alarmingly young. Around the world,
Speaker 1: six women are killed every hour by men, and for
Speaker 1: women of color, their cases really in the headlines on
Speaker 1: social media. The post text me when you get home
Speaker 1: now going viral, women all over the world sharing their stories.
Speaker 1: As men, we should be steering those conversations where it belongs,
Speaker 1: centered on us, because this is our responsibility not to
Speaker 1: be creeps, right, So let's not make it the one
Speaker 1: thing that we don't take credit for. Today, I'm joined
Speaker 1: by Daily Show writer Christiana and back Way, and I'm
Speaker 1: also joined by journalists and author of the book No
Speaker 1: Visible Bruises, Rachel Louise Snyder. Welcome to the show. Thanks
Speaker 1: for having us, Roy, thank you now this topic, Christiana,
Speaker 1: you know the show first covered the topic after the
Speaker 1: murder of Sarah ever Art, the young woman who was
Speaker 1: abducted while walking home from a friend's house. In London,
Speaker 1: and it sparked a much larger conversation that even something
Speaker 1: as simple as walking home isn't safe for women. What
Speaker 1: are some of the ways that women encounter violence on
Speaker 1: a daily basis? It can be anything. It can be
Speaker 1: being on the subway and a man sitting a bit
Speaker 1: too close and intimidating you with his body language and
Speaker 1: I'm becoming aggressive when you maybe ask him to back off, um,
Speaker 1: and it can get a lot more gruesome than that.
Speaker 1: There's an entire spectrum of violence that women have to
Speaker 1: face and navigate in their daily life. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of issues on the show Christiana, and you know we
Speaker 1: we're on Comedy Central, but sometimes and you know, there's
Speaker 1: times where the comedy has to wait. How do you
Speaker 1: prioritize which things to inform society? Men? Let's just keep
Speaker 1: it real. How do you how do you all decide
Speaker 1: to prioritize? All right, men are dumb? Which things do
Speaker 1: they need to understand? First? Do you start with the
Speaker 1: base level stuff? I hear you're laughing, like, how do
Speaker 1: you all decide which things? Because some of it you
Speaker 1: can sprinkle a joker two in and you can kind
Speaker 1: of like you cat calling. We've talked about that on
Speaker 1: the show in the past, but cat calling is a
Speaker 1: symptom of a far bigger issue. So how are you all,
Speaker 1: just you know, in the writer's room, able to figure
Speaker 1: out and sparse out what people need to know versus
Speaker 1: what you could possible We try to make funny. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's particularly that Sarah Everard k switch happened where I'm
Speaker 1: from South London. I know that park. I've walked through
Speaker 1: that park many times, um, and thinking about how horrifying
Speaker 1: it was, it is difficult to find any sort of
Speaker 1: humor in it because, frankly, the subject matter isn't funny, right,
Speaker 1: There's nothing funny about a woman being murdered when she's
Speaker 1: just simply trying to get home. And when I was
Speaker 1: working on that, I was thinking, from the perspective of
Speaker 1: a woman, what parts of it are kind of funny
Speaker 1: in a sick way? Um. And the joke I wrote
Speaker 1: that didn't make the show is like when you go
Speaker 1: out with your girls and they're like, text me when
Speaker 1: you get home, which is a thing that all women do.
Speaker 1: If you don't text you, then when you get home
Speaker 1: they get freaked out and you wake up in the
Speaker 1: morning and you're trending on Twitter. It's like fine, Christiana,
Speaker 1: because every woman just thinks the worst. Right, Sometimes you
Speaker 1: just get home, you're a little bit tipsy, you fall asleep,
Speaker 1: you forget to text your loved ones. And that's happened
Speaker 1: to me on a few occasions. On my now husband
Speaker 1: when we was just dating. He would get freaked out
Speaker 1: if I didn't text him when I got home somewhere,
Speaker 1: and once he was even going to call his cousin
Speaker 1: to come to my apartment to check if I was there. Right,
Speaker 1: it became a big thing. But it's kind of funny
Speaker 1: that if you don't text when you get home, they're
Speaker 1: going to send out a search party, even if it
Speaker 1: was just that you kind of overslept or forgot. And
Speaker 1: we try and find the funny and those kind of
Speaker 1: the nuances of it all and how it makes your
Speaker 1: experience as a woman kind of inconvenient because you're constantly
Speaker 1: worried about your safety and then reassuring the people that
Speaker 1: you love that you are indeed safe. To Christiana's point
Speaker 1: about precautions, right, a woman waking up to being searched
Speaker 1: for because she didn't charge her phone and she didn't
Speaker 1: hear the text messages or whatever those are jokes amongst men.
Speaker 1: Those text me when you get home. Ha ha ha.
Speaker 1: I remember doing a college show years ago when I
Speaker 1: was younger, and my younger dad pull off a student
Speaker 1: loan or a book by joke, the university would give
Speaker 1: comedians a swag bag, and swag bag was really the
Speaker 1: same stuff they were giving the kids for coming to
Speaker 1: the show, And there would be a cup and as
Speaker 1: a little ra ra rack go team towel, and every
Speaker 1: now and then there would be a rape whistle in
Speaker 1: the bag. And I could distinctly remember, you know, some
Speaker 1: of the other male comedians I was on the show,
Speaker 1: but they were like, take a look at the rape
Speaker 1: whistle and just throw that back on the type. I
Speaker 1: don't need one of those. Give me a key ring.
Speaker 1: As a man, you are oblivious to a lot of that.
Speaker 1: What are some of the other precautions that women have
Speaker 1: to take every day when they leave their home that
Speaker 1: men are just completely oblivious and stupid too. I mean
Speaker 1: I take precautions in my home. You know, I have
Speaker 1: an alarm system. I live in a city that has
Speaker 1: fairly high crime, and I remember about midnight one night,
Speaker 1: I stay awake really late. I'm a writer where you
Speaker 1: know where creatures of habit I guess. And this person
Speaker 1: knocked at my door and I was only like three
Speaker 1: ft away from the door, and I just like, holy
Speaker 1: fucking you know, like you're like huh. And and then
Speaker 1: I went and hid behind like one of my chairs
Speaker 1: in my living room, which is stupid, like what's that
Speaker 1: gonna do, Like I'm not here, I'm not here. And
Speaker 1: I just remember feeling this like you know, of course
Speaker 1: I called the police and whatever, but there's this feeling
Speaker 1: I get. I don't know if it's the same for you, Christiana,
Speaker 1: where it feels like it doesn't matter what prep preparations
Speaker 1: I have. I mean, I'm I'm a journalist who's covered
Speaker 1: war zones and natural disasters, and you know, I took
Speaker 1: a class for journalists and hostile environment and all these
Speaker 1: things that are supposed to like give me the some
Speaker 1: advantage that other women don't have, But at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, I don't. I don't feel those advantage.
Speaker 1: Isn't any tactile where I still feel vulnerable. It really
Speaker 1: is something I open and you know, even something that
Speaker 1: I try to do is not what too fair, So
Speaker 1: I make my presence known if I'm coming up behind you,
Speaker 1: you make a car for your scuff your feet, like
Speaker 1: you just want to be present of other people's space
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, you know, to the point you made there,
Speaker 1: sometimes feels like a futility to all of these precautions
Speaker 1: because the implication is the women that do suffer from
Speaker 1: violence is that they weren't cautious enough. But of course
Speaker 1: we know there's not that's not true. There's kind of
Speaker 1: this randomness to it all. And I mean, for me,
Speaker 1: I have all of these measures. I tend not to
Speaker 1: go out too late by myself, you know. Um, someone
Speaker 1: always knows where I am and where I'm expected when
Speaker 1: I'm expected to be to be back. Some of that
Speaker 1: is just growing up African. Your parents are stric Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm very used to you know, you don't want to
Speaker 1: be called like a Roman ambassador because you're always in
Speaker 1: the streets. So I feel like I'm always trying to
Speaker 1: be accountable to someone. So that's probably just like immigrant trauma. Really,
Speaker 1: but my parents are like, are you still here? Come on? Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it's just kind of just always just these little things. Um,
Speaker 1: I would rarely order maybe uber eats, when it's just
Speaker 1: me and my son in the house, because I'm concerned
Speaker 1: about if a man sees me alone. You know, it's
Speaker 1: very You're very vulnerable as a woman when a man
Speaker 1: knows you're alone. You know. So oftentimes I'll send my
Speaker 1: husband to the door, or even if we have a
Speaker 1: handyman come to the house, I won't come downstairs because
Speaker 1: it's just like, there's a there's a man I don't
Speaker 1: know in this house. Remember, and have you ever done
Speaker 1: that thing where you like shout as if someone's there. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: People I live in a house on a I'm a
Speaker 1: people who come and do surveys and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: I'm just like, hold on, my husband needs me, Like
Speaker 1: I'm not married. You know, it's just just that that
Speaker 1: apt you learn to pretend quickly and use it as
Speaker 1: some sort of shield because from experience, I have learned
Speaker 1: that men will defer to men, and you know, a
Speaker 1: woman will tell you from a man comes up to
Speaker 1: you and asks for your phone number. If you say, oh,
Speaker 1: I have a husband or I have a boyfriend, they
Speaker 1: will respect that invisible man far more than the woman
Speaker 1: they see in front of them. So you just learned
Speaker 1: to do all of these things, and far more than
Speaker 1: a woman saying no, I don't interested. You know that
Speaker 1: that's not enough. He would rather respect this mythical creature,
Speaker 1: this mythical boyfriend or husband. Um, then respect your consent
Speaker 1: in wanting to engage. So how do we get to
Speaker 1: this place where like? Why why is the burden on
Speaker 1: women to stay safe than on men to change their behavior? Oh? Yeah, question.
Speaker 1: I don't want to make it seem like I walk
Speaker 1: around every moment of every day with this um like
Speaker 1: hyper vigilance, Like I don't. In general, I feel safe
Speaker 1: in my life and in the life i've carved out. UM.
Speaker 1: Sometimes going to unfamiliar places, my you know, I have
Speaker 1: my spidy senses are a little heightened. I think that
Speaker 1: to answer that question, the simplest answer to me, why
Speaker 1: has there been this entitlement is because they can, and
Speaker 1: because all of the systems of our world, you know,
Speaker 1: from the judiciary to law enforcement, to all these major
Speaker 1: systems education, they all started you know, by men with
Speaker 1: men in mind. You know, I'm talking more specifically about
Speaker 1: this country, but I think it's true of other countries
Speaker 1: as well, that like men write the rules, men make
Speaker 1: the rules, men, you know, um in many countries still
Speaker 1: today control the the literal behavior of the women around them,
Speaker 1: all the women around them, And so I think it
Speaker 1: feels to me like we're going through a growth period.
Speaker 1: Even just having this conversation. We didn't have these conversations
Speaker 1: when I was like in college, you know, a zillion
Speaker 1: years ago or whatever. So I do think it's growth. Well,
Speaker 1: let's backtrack for a second. First, before the next question
Speaker 1: I have for you, let's talk about the different types
Speaker 1: of violence against women, because so far we're talking about
Speaker 1: you know, home invasion or someone kidnapping. But if you could,
Speaker 1: Rachel breakdown you know, some of the other ways that
Speaker 1: men can abuse or create some sort of domestic discomfort
Speaker 1: of that terrorism. I'm going used to work create a
Speaker 1: little domestic terrorism on people that doesn't necessarily involve physical
Speaker 1: violence or physical harm. Yeah, that's a good question. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a reason that my book is called No Visible Bruises, Right,
Speaker 1: it's so you know, there's emotional abuse, their psychological abuse,
Speaker 1: and there's coercive behavior. For example, I covered the Orlando
Speaker 1: Pulse child that Omar Matine killed nightclub shooting and his um.
Speaker 1: He had been married twice, so he was. It was
Speaker 1: his second marriage when the shooting happened, and with both
Speaker 1: women he had been incredibly controlling. So with his second wife,
Speaker 1: he moved her three thousand miles across the country where
Speaker 1: she had no one. She was from California and he
Speaker 1: moved her to Florida. She didn't drive, and he wouldn't
Speaker 1: let her drive, so she was really isolated. She didn't
Speaker 1: have her name on the bank accounts, and he would
Speaker 1: give her money to spend for her and her son
Speaker 1: every week. None of these are physical violence, and in fact,
Speaker 1: none of them are against the law. It's just a
Speaker 1: way of coercing and controlling somebody. Now, he did actually
Speaker 1: strangle both women, non fatal, non fatally obviously um and
Speaker 1: in in in Florida. In fact, in most states, if
Speaker 1: you're convicted of non fatal strangulation strangulation it can carry
Speaker 1: a ten year prison sentence. But he was never convicted.
Speaker 1: I mean, he could have should have been in prison
Speaker 1: when that Orlando Pulse shooting happened, but he was never
Speaker 1: charged and never convicted. So you know, that's two types
Speaker 1: of violence, one physical, one not. But there's a lot
Speaker 1: of way I mean, there's another there's another guy in
Speaker 1: my book who um went out into the countryside. They
Speaker 1: lived in Montana, went out into the countryside and got
Speaker 1: a rattlesnake and brought it home and he kept it
Speaker 1: in a cage um and told his wife that he
Speaker 1: was going to put it in bed with her or
Speaker 1: put it in the shower with her if she did
Speaker 1: anything that pissed him off. You don't have to physically
Speaker 1: be violent to control somebody. And there's no there's only
Speaker 1: two states with laws against coercive control right now, and
Speaker 1: they're both brand new and really haven't been tested. And
Speaker 1: you know, especially in this digital age, there's so many
Speaker 1: ways where you can terrorize a woman without even physically
Speaker 1: seeing her or touching her. You can leak her nudes,
Speaker 1: you can threaten to leak any intimate videos or photos
Speaker 1: you've taken. You can create you know, fake Instagram and
Speaker 1: Twitter accounts and follow her every move and whether it's
Speaker 1: a snatchat you know, there's women that say he was
Speaker 1: following me on Snapchat and turning up to where I
Speaker 1: was because if you know, like geo locations now, right,
Speaker 1: it's very easy to find where people are do sing.
Speaker 1: There are just so many ways that if a man
Speaker 1: wants to make a woman's life incredibly difficult but still
Speaker 1: be within the limits of the law, he can do so,
Speaker 1: and it's quite terrifying for both of you. Then what
Speaker 1: are social media companies Because on the other side of
Speaker 1: the break, I want to talk about um oh, Kanye
Speaker 1: and Kim and my friend Pete Davidson, But what are
Speaker 1: what are you all in your acts, the two of you.
Speaker 1: What do you think social media companies are doing right
Speaker 1: now to try and regulate that type of behaviors? Enough
Speaker 1: happening in that regard, because it feels like if I
Speaker 1: can get a rattlesnake, or I can intimidate you, I
Speaker 1: can drive by your job, that's more individual, one on one.
Speaker 1: But social media is a space. It's regulated. There are moderators,
Speaker 1: at least they claim that there's moderates who are supposed
Speaker 1: to be monitoring and policing and regulating that type of behavior.
Speaker 1: Are social media companies doing enough? I'm not an expert
Speaker 1: on that. In any ways, I think we know that
Speaker 1: they're kind of failing in a lot of areas in
Speaker 1: terms of racial harassment abuse. Um A lot of women
Speaker 1: do not feel safe on Twitter, or YouTube or even
Speaker 1: streaming on Twitch because of what they'll see in the
Speaker 1: comments section. I know Instagram has a feature now that
Speaker 1: if you block someone, you can also put the option
Speaker 1: to block any other accounts they create. But for some
Speaker 1: of these men or sometimes women who are incredibly obsessive
Speaker 1: in the term and that type of safe measures is
Speaker 1: simply not enough. But I think even if we resolve
Speaker 1: some of the social media piece and make tech companies
Speaker 1: ensure that everyone that has, say a Twitter account, is
Speaker 1: someone who's not anonymous and they have to be a
Speaker 1: real human being and etcetera, etcetera, it's such a wider
Speaker 1: societal problem. It just doesn't get to the root and
Speaker 1: the heart of the issue. And I think that's that's
Speaker 1: the big problem. I think part of the problem is
Speaker 1: they're not regulated right, we as as society are relying
Speaker 1: on them to, you know, have our best interests at art,
Speaker 1: Like like there's a group of twenty people reading every
Speaker 1: post on Facebook, Like it's just it's it's an algorithm,
Speaker 1: and sometimes it catches it, sometimes it doesn't. Lately, I've
Speaker 1: been getting um these emails that go through I have
Speaker 1: a website, and I have a I have someone else
Speaker 1: who gets that email for me? It doesn't come directly
Speaker 1: to me, and they keep sending the same thing, like
Speaker 1: Rachel Snyder has a lot to answer for with pictures
Speaker 1: of me pull from all over the web and that's it.
Speaker 1: There's no threat, there's no um direct question about what
Speaker 1: it is. I have something to answer for, and you know, I, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: it makes me nervous. I have a kid, I you know,
Speaker 1: live where I live. I've alerted campus security where I'm
Speaker 1: a professor. So but what can you do? None of
Speaker 1: it is against the law, and none of it is
Speaker 1: like specific. You know, yeah, it's a very great area. Well,
Speaker 1: after the break, I want to talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about Kim Kardashian and Kanye West and how Christian and
Speaker 1: the Daily Show writers almost got Trevor No Win to
Speaker 1: a fight with the West. And I want you to
Speaker 1: explain yourself almost time. It was a real fine he
Speaker 1: might have came up here. You never know. It was
Speaker 1: during a hiatus week, so Kanye could come fight is
Speaker 1: beyond the scenes will be right back. Before the break,
Speaker 1: we were talking a little bit about Kim Kardashian and
Speaker 1: Kanye West and everything that Kanye has been doing against her.
Speaker 1: And we did a segment on that on the show. Well,
Speaker 1: Trevor did, I want to say, we in case Kanye
Speaker 1: come up here and trying to find Trevor. Trevor did.
Speaker 1: But that's probably one of the most high profile examples
Speaker 1: of harassment that we have right now. You know, Johnny
Speaker 1: Depp and Amber heard as well. But Christiana, we spoke
Speaker 1: on Kim and Kanye on the show. How did you
Speaker 1: all decide how to tackle this topic? Because this isn't
Speaker 1: a typical daily show piece. You know, what told the
Speaker 1: night before, what's going to be on the show the
Speaker 1: next day, and sometimes so we can just read that
Speaker 1: more on the stories or just you know what's happening.
Speaker 1: And when I saw in Slack that we were doing
Speaker 1: Kim and Kanye, I was like, Oh, that's surprising. When
Speaker 1: anything in involved a Kardashians immediately becomes tabloid, and we
Speaker 1: historically don't touch tabloid stories. So there was this just
Speaker 1: the very natural reluctance that comes with us, like why
Speaker 1: are we doing this very tabloid story? And then there
Speaker 1: was some trepidation because it involves miners. You know, they
Speaker 1: have children, and there's something icky about discussing such a
Speaker 1: public dispute when there are children at the center of
Speaker 1: the center of it, and even though these are children
Speaker 1: that are on reality TV a lot, this just feels
Speaker 1: a lot more sensitive and like there are so many
Speaker 1: land mines for lack of a better world about how
Speaker 1: we could weave it and do it well. And again,
Speaker 1: remember where a comedy show, so we're going to be
Speaker 1: making jokes, right, So it's the task is incredibly difficult.
Speaker 1: But the feeling was from Trevor, and Trevor and myself
Speaker 1: spoke about it that even though this was quote unquote
Speaker 1: being viewed as a tabloid story, it was really a
Speaker 1: microcosm of so many themes that happened in society in general,
Speaker 1: and there were bigger lessons to learn from it. And
Speaker 1: Kim in a despite her vast wealth and resources, was
Speaker 1: kind of emblematic of what so many women are going
Speaker 1: through right now, and they're not being believed and people
Speaker 1: treating it like a joke, and everyone is standing by
Speaker 1: watching this escalating behavior and not spotting them as red flags. Um.
Speaker 1: So I think that being our entry point made what
Speaker 1: was a very difficult and tricky process made it a
Speaker 1: lot easier. And then you know, from the comedy side side.
Speaker 1: What I found funny, and it was a joke that
Speaker 1: did make the segment, was just like, you know, Kim,
Speaker 1: in her effort to kind of rebrand, has gone down
Speaker 1: this social justice route, and she's training, she's trying to
Speaker 1: do the bar or whatever, and in her spare time,
Speaker 1: she frees black men from jail. Right, That's that's what
Speaker 1: kind of hobbies right now, black women to black women too,
Speaker 1: So what are the optics of you like free and
Speaker 1: black men from jail in your spare time and then
Speaker 1: calling the police and the black man who happens to
Speaker 1: be your ex husband harassing you. Like she she's kind
Speaker 1: of in this real branding, real life conundrum, which isn't funny,
Speaker 1: but it's also funny, right, And and we're just talking
Speaker 1: about that, like there are many reasons why she can't
Speaker 1: call the police, but there is probably on her part,
Speaker 1: like this looks hypocritical. I'm supposed to be like this abolitionist.
Speaker 1: So we were just teasing through the comedy in the
Speaker 1: complications of it all, but still trying to convey the
Speaker 1: gravitas of the situation and our belief that Kim could
Speaker 1: be in grave danger even even someone like me. I'm
Speaker 1: like so tuned in to these issues. And it's like,
Speaker 1: when I heard that monologue from him, I was like, yes,
Speaker 1: of course, even I had been had this casual celebrity
Speaker 1: relationship to her like I do. Okay, because a lot
Speaker 1: of people go like Kim Kardashian. She loves publicity, she
Speaker 1: loves celebrity, she loves all of this. She does the
Speaker 1: Kardashian this is her life, this is her thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I get it, But there's also an element of
Speaker 1: a woman saying to her ex, hey, please leave me alone.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, Please leave me alone, because
Speaker 1: I'll be honest with you. What I see from this situation.
Speaker 1: I see a woman who wants to live her life
Speaker 1: without being harassed by an ex boyfriend or an ex husband,
Speaker 1: or an ex anything. What she's going through is terrifying
Speaker 1: to watch, and it shines a spotlight on what so
Speaker 1: many women go through when they choose to leave. You know,
Speaker 1: people always say that phrase two women. They go like,
Speaker 1: why didn't you leave? Oh, why didn't you leave? Why
Speaker 1: didn't you leave? Yeah, because a lot of women women
Speaker 1: realize when they do leave, the guy will get even crazier.
Speaker 1: And when I say crazy, I don't mean mental health crazy,
Speaker 1: like it's you. You understand what I mean. You know
Speaker 1: what I mean. The point is that Kim Kardashian and
Speaker 1: countless other women, they find themselves in a terrible position,
Speaker 1: you know, because asking kind of to stop clearly isn't helping.
Speaker 1: If Kim cannot escape this, Kim kardash and if she
Speaker 1: cannot escape this, and what chance the normal women have.
Speaker 1: Roy will tell you Trevor and I have a very
Speaker 1: interesting dynamic and relationship. We kind of like butt heads
Speaker 1: a lot, and that's I think how we produce some
Speaker 1: really good stuff. We don't always agree, but there's a
Speaker 1: deep respect there. And it was just one of these
Speaker 1: things that I had been on sabbatical and I've been
Speaker 1: talking a lot about it on my Instagram, and Trevor
Speaker 1: follows me on Instagram, so he was seeing a lot
Speaker 1: of what I was saying about this particular case. And
Speaker 1: then he was like he wanted to do on the show,
Speaker 1: but he didn't know I was back off sabbatical, and
Speaker 1: then he reached I was like, Christian, and I'm doing
Speaker 1: Kim k tomorrow, Like it's gonna be weird because you're
Speaker 1: not here and I'm like, no, I'm back, and we
Speaker 1: kind of just brainstormed it and did a lot of
Speaker 1: talking and I just gave him my whole spiel about it.
Speaker 1: And then the next day it did like a smaller
Speaker 1: meeting with the other producers and our show runner and
Speaker 1: then yeah, it really, it really came together. And I
Speaker 1: think we were like buzzing for about a week afterwards
Speaker 1: because of the conversation it generated that felt so important.
Speaker 1: Trevor said that he was biking down Hudson Highway and
Speaker 1: some dude was jogging and then ran after him and said,
Speaker 1: I want to say thank you to you for what
Speaker 1: you said about Kim Kardashian. I never saw it that way,
Speaker 1: but now I'm different. It was like, look at you,
Speaker 1: trev Making. Allies I know were like, I don't know
Speaker 1: those Kardashians, but wow, this is horrible, like the way
Speaker 1: people really switched. And you know, Kim's kind of unlikable
Speaker 1: to a lot of people, and I don't think you
Speaker 1: should be likable to be a victim, but it says
Speaker 1: a lot that if you can get people to be like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know what, if it's not it's not right. So
Speaker 1: it felt like important it felt important, you know, totally,
Speaker 1: and coming from him. It's the you know, if I
Speaker 1: said it, I'd get like, we can't come It can't
Speaker 1: come from a woman. That's why I spraining that to him.
Speaker 1: Look tever. The reason it's resonating so much. It's a
Speaker 1: bit like racism when when white people say this is racist,
Speaker 1: everyone's like, oh wow, this must really be racist. So
Speaker 1: if a man comes out and says this is virus is, yeah,
Speaker 1: let me show you, and everyone kind of steps back
Speaker 1: and says, well if because the bath men have for
Speaker 1: violence is different, they always feel that women are being hysterical.
Speaker 1: So for trying to be like, hey, guys, I'm not
Speaker 1: saying he's going to do anything, but we may need
Speaker 1: to just step back. So then, Rachel, to that point,
Speaker 1: what are some of the examples that you've seen in
Speaker 1: Kanye's behavior that our textbook examples of this of the
Speaker 1: harassment and abuse that women deal with when trying to
Speaker 1: leave a relationship. Yeah, that's a good question, because my
Speaker 1: guess is that what we're seeing on the outside is
Speaker 1: just at the tip of the iceberg. You know, there
Speaker 1: have been the text there's been the manipulation of his
Speaker 1: social media right, So he has this kind of like
Speaker 1: hidden army behind him. There's been um, the children used
Speaker 1: as leverage, right, like, oh, you know I was not
Speaker 1: allowed to go to the birthday part. I wasn't told
Speaker 1: with that. You know. There's that kind of stuff and
Speaker 1: the video, which I'm sure we'll talk about, but it's
Speaker 1: the collective of that that is concerning to me, and
Speaker 1: not just the collective, but the escalation of it, where
Speaker 1: it's like he's upping the antie. And I should mention
Speaker 1: that he apparently a week or two ago there recently
Speaker 1: said he's going to get help and whatever, and you know,
Speaker 1: I hope that's true and that he does get help. Um,
Speaker 1: but it's it's the escalation, which I think the most
Speaker 1: extreme is the video, right, Like it all kind of
Speaker 1: leads up to that video. We'll talk about the Pete
Speaker 1: Davidson where he threatened Pete Davidson in a music Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know that he hides behind his art, right these
Speaker 1: says I'm an artist, this is just art, but really, um,
Speaker 1: you could then choose anybody, right like you you actually
Speaker 1: have Pete Davidson's name in your song, so it's not
Speaker 1: art when when it's a threat like in a house
Speaker 1: across the street from your from your soon to be
Speaker 1: ex wife is exactly art right, kind of a jerk move. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's this stock. It's the stocking that's harassment. You know.
Speaker 1: She's been very good about not making too many public statements,
Speaker 1: but she's made a few, and even that I feel
Speaker 1: like fuels him. Um fuels the type of person that
Speaker 1: he is to like up the game to him. Christiana.
Speaker 1: The thing that I found very interesting about Trevor's Peace
Speaker 1: is that you're looking at an abusive dynamic between him
Speaker 1: and Kanye. And for the people who have read Trevor's
Speaker 1: book and no Trevor's history, Trevor is a child that
Speaker 1: grew up in an abusive home, so he's seen a
Speaker 1: lot of the stuff that is starting to mirror itself. Now.
Speaker 1: How much of a decision was there for Trevor to
Speaker 1: put his own emotions into into the segment because I
Speaker 1: felt like somewhere underneath all of that there was still
Speaker 1: a piece of compassion for Kanye and wanting Kanye to
Speaker 1: get better. It didn't seem like a full blown villa
Speaker 1: like a duck on him, like you weren't dark, you know,
Speaker 1: as much as it was acknowledging the behavior, acknowledging how
Speaker 1: corrosive it is, and trying to find solutions. We were
Speaker 1: very keen not to villainize anybody in this piece, right,
Speaker 1: because I think that's the instinct of that the public
Speaker 1: leaned towards. You know, we need to have a villain
Speaker 1: in this story. You need to have a hero in
Speaker 1: this story, you need to have a perfect victim in
Speaker 1: this story. And it's really complicated. Um. Kanye has also
Speaker 1: been very open about his mental health struggles over the years,
Speaker 1: and they've been courageous and been candid about the difficulties
Speaker 1: he had. And not to use his mental illness as
Speaker 1: a route to justify any of this this behavior, because
Speaker 1: that's not the case. But that was really important context
Speaker 1: for us, that there are their times when Kanye's and
Speaker 1: well this time when he's we said, you know, he's
Speaker 1: a very complicated man, but none of that justified what
Speaker 1: was happening. So we were very keen to say, Okay,
Speaker 1: what Kanye is doing is terrible, it's harassment, but we're
Speaker 1: not here to beat Kanye up or beat men like
Speaker 1: Kanye U. We didn't think there was a productive way
Speaker 1: to frame things um, because it just wouldn't land. It
Speaker 1: would have gone over the heads of a lot of
Speaker 1: people who interesting enough, so many people were team Kanye
Speaker 1: that that that was where the public discourse was at
Speaker 1: that point, and anyone that came up against Kanye in
Speaker 1: a specific way and we're like, Kanye is a villain,
Speaker 1: they weren't hearing it. So we were like, Okay, Kanye
Speaker 1: is doing a really bad thing, and we need to
Speaker 1: get people who don't see that to see that. We
Speaker 1: also need really need to make it clear about what
Speaker 1: Kim is going through. And we also knew that there
Speaker 1: was an audience that was unsympathetic because she's incredibly wealthy.
Speaker 1: She has this reality she's seen as a low brow
Speaker 1: celebrity who has no talent, even though I think her
Speaker 1: talent is like making man, do you think, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: The appropriation pieces, the har phobia, and the fact that
Speaker 1: this empire was kind of built on a sex tape.
Speaker 1: There there are so many things that mean that people
Speaker 1: do not want to receive it when they hear that
Speaker 1: Kim Kardashi and a woman like Kim Kardashian is being
Speaker 1: harassed and stalked, they just don't get it. So we
Speaker 1: were conscious of all the nuances of the piece going
Speaker 1: into it and just trying to cover each part of
Speaker 1: the argument. And of course you heard Trevor say a lot.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that Kanye is going to kill him
Speaker 1: or God forbid that happens, but he was just saying
Speaker 1: the warning signals are here, and he was able to
Speaker 1: spot those signals, I think because of his personal experience.
Speaker 1: But I will say that you know, when you work
Speaker 1: with Trevor on a headline, he's not something He's quite
Speaker 1: journalistic in the sense that he doesn't necessarily want to
Speaker 1: insert himself in the story. That's not his impulse. His
Speaker 1: impulse is actually to kind of be like um, impartial
Speaker 1: observer in times and then at the end will kind
Speaker 1: of give his take. I feel he was a bit
Speaker 1: reluctant to tell the personal side of his story, not
Speaker 1: because he's not courageous enough to do that. He's been
Speaker 1: really open about his life, but there was a feeling
Speaker 1: that perhaps that would color the entire piece. But in
Speaker 1: my view, Trevor's personal story was perhaps one of the
Speaker 1: most powerful parts of that segment because he has been
Speaker 1: a witness to that type of violence and intimidation and harassment,
Speaker 1: and he was saying, guys, this is also coming from
Speaker 1: a very personal connection, um and I feel the audience
Speaker 1: found that compelling as kind of end note to this
Speaker 1: entire monologue that he did. He built a really strong case,
Speaker 1: and then he brought himself into the story. I grew
Speaker 1: up my whole life in an abusive household, right most
Speaker 1: of mine, let's say, from the age of nine to
Speaker 1: whatever sixteen. One of the things I found most interesting
Speaker 1: was how often people told my mom that she was overreacting.
Speaker 1: What I found interesting was how many times people told
Speaker 1: my mom to calm down, people told my family to
Speaker 1: come to everyone, you know, and everyone had different reasons. Oh.
Speaker 1: I remember once we went to the police station and
Speaker 1: they said to my mom, Oh, but did you talk back?
Speaker 1: Is that why you're here? You know? You know, Oh,
Speaker 1: but but what did you say to it? It's all
Speaker 1: these questions, all these questions. I remember seeing this as
Speaker 1: a child, By the way, you see this as a child,
Speaker 1: you know, and you see a world where women are
Speaker 1: questioned for what is happening to them, as opposed to
Speaker 1: people questioning what is happening to them. And for years
Speaker 1: people said this ship ah, no, this are you know this, this,
Speaker 1: this happens, This happened, that happened. There's everyone, police, some family, stranger,
Speaker 1: whatever it was, whatever it was, and I'll never forget.
Speaker 1: One day, I got a call from my other saying, hey,
Speaker 1: mom has just been shot in the head. She's in
Speaker 1: the hospital now. She's just been shot. And I'm not
Speaker 1: saying it to make it about me. I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: maybe that's why I look at the story differently. To
Speaker 1: be honest with you, is I go it seems like nothing.
Speaker 1: And again I'm not saying Kanye will, please, I'm not
Speaker 1: saying he will, not saying that. But you see it
Speaker 1: in all these stories where people say we saw it
Speaker 1: but we didn't we whether it's the people around him,
Speaker 1: whether it's the people in their lives, whether it's us
Speaker 1: as society condoning or not condoning. And I know it's nuanced.
Speaker 1: I know I'm not saying Kinde is just a bad guy, please,
Speaker 1: But just as society and we have to ask ourselves questions,
Speaker 1: do we wish to stand by and watch your car
Speaker 1: crash when we thought we saw it coming, or do
Speaker 1: we at least want to say, hey, slow down, let's
Speaker 1: put let's all put our hazards on because there's a
Speaker 1: storm right now and some ship might go down. Let's
Speaker 1: just let's just put our hands. If it doesn't happen, Hey,
Speaker 1: the worst thing we did was we all had our
Speaker 1: hazards on like idiots. I'm I'll be fine to say
Speaker 1: I was an idiot. Nothing happened. I'll rather be in
Speaker 1: that situation than to be in one way. I say, Man,
Speaker 1: I wish we didn't think the whole thing it wasn't
Speaker 1: worth looking at. It was beautiful and it was I
Speaker 1: love what you said about not um essentially not taking
Speaker 1: away Kanye's humanity, because that's that's how we don't solve problems,
Speaker 1: is by flattening the other person, right. I spent a
Speaker 1: lot I've spent a lot of time with abusers, and um,
Speaker 1: they're interesting because you know, they're they're sort of simultaneously
Speaker 1: out of control and in control at the same time,
Speaker 1: you know, and they're usually filled with shame about their
Speaker 1: behavior too. It's not like they're doing this and they
Speaker 1: feel good about it. They feel. As one researcher said
Speaker 1: to me, I've never met a happy abuser ever. I mean,
Speaker 1: they're not happy either. Trevor in a ridiculously long Instagram
Speaker 1: Poe about Kanye and really to Kanye, I don't know.
Speaker 1: This must be like some special celebrity Instagram. This man,
Speaker 1: it's like paragraphs, but one part of it that really
Speaker 1: really stuck out and touched me, you know, he said,
Speaker 1: it breaks my heart to see you like this. I
Speaker 1: don't care if you support Trump. I don't care if
Speaker 1: you roast Pete. I do, however, care when I see
Speaker 1: you on a path that's dangerously close to peril and pain.
Speaker 1: I've woken up too many times and red headlines about
Speaker 1: men who have killed their excess, their kids, and then themselves.
Speaker 1: I never want to read that about you. If you're
Speaker 1: just joking about it all, then I'm an idiot for caring,
Speaker 1: and so be it. But I'd rather be the idiot
Speaker 1: who spoke up and said something to you in life,
Speaker 1: then the cool guy who said nothing and then mourned
Speaker 1: you in prison or the grave. Yeah, he should write
Speaker 1: a book. I got goose bumps, you know. And at
Speaker 1: the time where so many people can just ride the
Speaker 1: wave of the way the media is set this up.
Speaker 1: It's Kanye crazy, Kim trippling man. Let that man see
Speaker 1: his kids? Like, what role does the media play in
Speaker 1: shaping the one sidedness of it all? Because no one
Speaker 1: can find the nuance in the middle. And I know
Speaker 1: that the media plays a role in it. So you journalists,
Speaker 1: what did you do wrong? Um? Yeah, I mean what
Speaker 1: I would say, I have, I have a lot to
Speaker 1: say about this, So sit back. How does the media
Speaker 1: help shape this narrative that keeps people We've we've we've
Speaker 1: minimized the problems, the problems of wealthy, famous people. We
Speaker 1: we put them on a pedestal. Right, So so that's
Speaker 1: a particular problem with Kim and Kanye that you know,
Speaker 1: we don't feel for her because how could she have
Speaker 1: problems when she's when she's rich, or she's beautiful, or
Speaker 1: she has this you know, perfect butt or whatever. But
Speaker 1: I think there's a bigger problem with the media in
Speaker 1: minimizing domestic violence as a as a whole. I mean,
Speaker 1: if I could take the phrase domestic dispute and like
Speaker 1: blow it off the blandscape of media forever, I would
Speaker 1: because we're talking about crime, and there's no other crime
Speaker 1: I can think of where we downplay it and call
Speaker 1: it a dispute, like like Omar Mateen non fatally strangling.
Speaker 1: Strangling his first wife for a second wife is not
Speaker 1: a domestic dispute. It's attempted murder, and we need to
Speaker 1: call it what it is. To me, it also just
Speaker 1: feels like sexism, right. No one cares about the pain
Speaker 1: of women. People don't take it seriously, right, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's not seen as valid pain. And my anger at
Speaker 1: the media narrative about Kim and Kanye at before We've
Speaker 1: done that segment was that everyone was treating it like
Speaker 1: a joke. There was this he Kanye put a truck
Speaker 1: full of rose is outside of Kim's house. He like
Speaker 1: all of it. People, it was funny and I was
Speaker 1: looking at like this is scary. Love makes you crazy? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was just it was seen as a funny, kind
Speaker 1: of tabloid spat rather than a really insidious, deep domestic
Speaker 1: I always tell my daughter, like, if if a man
Speaker 1: hires an orchestra to come play on your lawn, like
Speaker 1: that's not romantic. Run run as fast as you can.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like grand justice. I mean, it's you
Speaker 1: so much now. I kind of hate the phrase, but
Speaker 1: love bombing, you know, all of this stuff he was doing,
Speaker 1: and I was looking at it, and I thought, I'm
Speaker 1: scared for this woman and the only other people I
Speaker 1: saw saying that other women. But the media coverage, just
Speaker 1: the way the story was framed, was frames as this
Speaker 1: is a mother and a wife, um who is in danger,
Speaker 1: in some sort of peril. It was like Kim k
Speaker 1: you know, doesn't want kindness flowers, ha ha. He's doing
Speaker 1: his best. It was weird. And even if it goes south,
Speaker 1: it's just called a crime of passion, Like it's still like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, you love, you'd be tripping sometimes. He's still
Speaker 1: a good person. But how do how do women who
Speaker 1: don't have the resources and the the high level of
Speaker 1: celebrity that Kim Kardashian have, How do we get the
Speaker 1: media to even look at these stories? Because there's a
Speaker 1: million Kim Kardashian's happening on a regular basis in this country,
Speaker 1: especially women of color, How do we get the media
Speaker 1: to start turning their eyes towards those those types of stories.
Speaker 1: I have no idea, And I think the distressing thing
Speaker 1: about all of this is if a woman with Kim
Speaker 1: Kardashian's resources and visibility, ty and wealth is this vulnerable
Speaker 1: and the world kind of just looks on and laughs.
Speaker 1: What does it mean for the woman who's undocumented and
Speaker 1: is afraid to go into the police station because there's
Speaker 1: a language barrier and she's afraid of getting deported, and
Speaker 1: her abuser uses that against her and her community are
Speaker 1: using that against her. What does that say about a
Speaker 1: woman who's being financially abused and doesn't have access to
Speaker 1: her bank account and has no idea about an escape route.
Speaker 1: Because the reason we didn't want to villainize Kanye is
Speaker 1: because abuses are very complicated people. There are so many
Speaker 1: men that people he would never beat his wife. He's
Speaker 1: the nicest guy ever, right, you know, they're really charismatic
Speaker 1: and charming, and we wanted to make it clear that
Speaker 1: the men that are doing this to women in your
Speaker 1: everyday life are often like Kanye in the sense that
Speaker 1: you're enamored with a part of them. You really like
Speaker 1: them to make you feel good. But there's also side
Speaker 1: to them that's much darker. And I don't know how
Speaker 1: we make that change where people are actually really concerned
Speaker 1: by the about the underprivileged and under resourced women, or
Speaker 1: and us even learning that super wealthy women who perhaps
Speaker 1: becomes stay at home moms and relied on their husband
Speaker 1: for income for the last fifty to twenty years, they're
Speaker 1: vulnerable too. It's it's a really hard thing because I
Speaker 1: don't think most people understand how difficult it is for
Speaker 1: one woman to escape, especially um the lower on the
Speaker 1: socio economic ladders she is. There is research done by
Speaker 1: a woman named Joan Meyer at George Washington University. She
Speaker 1: did research on custody cases where there were custody disputes
Speaker 1: and found that of the cases where abuse was alleged
Speaker 1: by a woman, they lost the kids. They lost the
Speaker 1: women lost the kids. So you abusers used that I'm
Speaker 1: going to have your kids taken away from you, and
Speaker 1: it works. That works, right. There's a there's you know,
Speaker 1: there's a guy that I spoke with years ago, a
Speaker 1: researcher who talked about how abusers, just like you said, Christiana,
Speaker 1: are they're charming. That's how they get victims in the
Speaker 1: first place. They're often very very quick courtships. I'm completely
Speaker 1: skeptical of fast courtships now, I have to admit, and
Speaker 1: they mess up victims lives because we want our victims
Speaker 1: to be a certain way right, we all have. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think even if you weren't a child of the
Speaker 1: eighties like I was, you still have an image of
Speaker 1: like the burning bed, right, like that, that's your that's
Speaker 1: your image, and the fact is, like that, that's not realistic.
Speaker 1: You know, people can't leave. Women can't leave because bureaucracy
Speaker 1: holds you in place. You can't, you know, get the
Speaker 1: name of your husband off your checking account without his permission,
Speaker 1: interacting with him. You can't sign your kids up for
Speaker 1: another school. I did a story on a woman who
Speaker 1: had been to shelter in and out of shelters for
Speaker 1: twenty years. She tried to leave. They had two girls,
Speaker 1: and he got really smart. The last time she tried
Speaker 1: to leave, she went to a shelter in Maine. She
Speaker 1: lived in Massachusetts, and he wrote a letter to the
Speaker 1: school system saying, you know, such and such has taken off.
Speaker 1: She's unstable, she's bipolar. I'm afraid that she's going to
Speaker 1: do something with with the kids, So don't let her
Speaker 1: register the kids out of school without my permission. Right,
Speaker 1: And he he's he and he ended up killing her,
Speaker 1: you know, and killed himself. So they know that our
Speaker 1: systems lock victims in place every bit as much as
Speaker 1: our own sort of social responsibility to not minimize this
Speaker 1: and not marginalize victims. Well, after the break, I want
Speaker 1: to talk about solutions to these issues, and I want
Speaker 1: to talk about the phrase toxic masculine. That's that's that's
Speaker 1: what I just saw you shifting your stay. Talk about
Speaker 1: that right back. You know, we talk about these events
Speaker 1: of violence, but we usually only talk about them after
Speaker 1: something terrible has happened. On the prevention side, ladies, what
Speaker 1: can we do to keep these crimes from happening in
Speaker 1: the first place. That's a good question. I will say
Speaker 1: that other countries are doing some interesting things. There's UM
Speaker 1: in the UK, for example, there's a there's a violence
Speaker 1: prevention hotline that anybody men or women, although it is
Speaker 1: men who call, can call and get help if they
Speaker 1: are in a moment that is UM problematic, I'll say problematic.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's not a solution in that it's gonna,
Speaker 1: you know, solve violence against women forever and ever, but
Speaker 1: it is what you're trying to do do. What you're
Speaker 1: trying to do is disrupt a moment of violence or
Speaker 1: potential violence. And so I think it's a useful tool.
Speaker 1: In the States, we just UH signed reauthorized the Violence
Speaker 1: Against Women Act UM. It had been sort of stagnant
Speaker 1: for roughly and for the first time ever, they have
Speaker 1: earmarked funds to UM figure out what works in anti
Speaker 1: violence prevention programs, and so I think to me that's
Speaker 1: a really positive step that UM we're sort of talking
Speaker 1: about not just UM how to stop the violence before
Speaker 1: it happens, but how to keep victims in their community
Speaker 1: and in their families. Because you know, we haven't talked
Speaker 1: about this and we probably don't have a lot of time,
Speaker 1: but shelter is not a very good UM response to like,
Speaker 1: take you know, a whole family out of everything familiar,
Speaker 1: allow them to suitcases, stick them in one room, you know.
Speaker 1: So I do think there's a lot of solutions out there,
Speaker 1: and I don't think that they are necessarily law enforcement solutions.
Speaker 1: I think that law enforcement often mays a terrible situation
Speaker 1: much much worse, and that we need to like in
Speaker 1: certain cities in UM San Diego, in UM, I think Baltimore.
Speaker 1: Here in Washington, d C. We have UM programs where
Speaker 1: and I think Denver has went where the domestic violence
Speaker 1: advocates will will go on calls with police officers, and
Speaker 1: I think that's really really important because just the police
Speaker 1: as a presence, with all of their gear and their
Speaker 1: tactical stuff, like their giant they're almost like machines and
Speaker 1: they walk into a room, they're intimidating, right, So they're
Speaker 1: perceived to make the situation worse. And to Rachel's point
Speaker 1: about you know, police not being the solution, I'll say
Speaker 1: that the subculture, for lack of about a word, I
Speaker 1: grew up in in South London was predominantly made up
Speaker 1: of West African and West Indian immigrants, right, And if
Speaker 1: I speak from the vantage point of that particular subculture,
Speaker 1: civic institutions have a lot of power, they'd say, so,
Speaker 1: whether that's the church um or whether those are like
Speaker 1: community groups that are linked to your tribe or your clan,
Speaker 1: whether those the mosques, local community centers. These civil institutions
Speaker 1: and the people that run them, so pastors and inman's
Speaker 1: and the deacons, etcetera, have a huge amount of authority
Speaker 1: over what people do. Right. You know, if you're having
Speaker 1: medical issues, you go to your pastor you're like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm just talking about the way immigrants subcultures and subcultures
Speaker 1: in ten tend to work. And from my perspective, I
Speaker 1: think that a lot of community based training needs to
Speaker 1: happen in a lot of civic institutions about understanding what
Speaker 1: abuses and understanding who are victim is and understanding that
Speaker 1: every man can't be her rehabilitated, and that women need
Speaker 1: to be protected and children need to be protected. And
Speaker 1: when a woman comes forward, she shouldn't be ostracized, she
Speaker 1: shouldn't be told to stay, but we also need to
Speaker 1: give her the means to escape. That means she remains
Speaker 1: within the community, because it's actually the isolation that means
Speaker 1: a lot of women return with their children, because when
Speaker 1: you leave the man, you leave the community. And for
Speaker 1: people I would say, especially of like minority descent, if
Speaker 1: you're of African or Asian extent, where being community it's
Speaker 1: more about the collective than the individual. That is incredibly
Speaker 1: devastating because you lose your cousins, you lose your you
Speaker 1: lose so much. I think a big part of the
Speaker 1: solution is going into all of these subcultures, all of
Speaker 1: these communities are specifically looking at like, Okay, how do
Speaker 1: we work with these local synagogues about spotting abuse and
Speaker 1: how they can help their women, because those are really
Speaker 1: those civic institutions have so much power that they can
Speaker 1: use for good, but oftentimes they're ill equipped, right, you know,
Speaker 1: they think, oh, okay, if you just pray, it'll go away.
Speaker 1: Keep praying for him, keep praying for him, and next
Speaker 1: thing you know, it's a funeral, you're burying that woman.
Speaker 1: So we need to really work through these civic institutions
Speaker 1: in my mind, and with various community leaders and helping
Speaker 1: men being able to support women and men because women
Speaker 1: aren't the only ones being abused. UM that need to
Speaker 1: leave these upper situations. Rachel, where are we with the legislation?
Speaker 1: And you know, is there a way to make restraining
Speaker 1: order is tougher? Like? Like, where are we on the
Speaker 1: I guess on the legal side of things, we have
Speaker 1: really good legislation, we just don't enforce it. We have,
Speaker 1: you know, a ban on convicted felons owning guns. But
Speaker 1: if you have a misdemeanor domestic violence charge and you
Speaker 1: live in um, you know, Mississippi, no one's going to
Speaker 1: take your gun. You know, you live in Michigan, no
Speaker 1: one's going to take your gun. So I think that
Speaker 1: it's a matter of enforcing the legislation that we do have. Now,
Speaker 1: there are a couple of states that have passed UM
Speaker 1: coercive control laws where you can't you can't you know,
Speaker 1: coerce someone into, you know, doing what you want them
Speaker 1: to do or whatever. California has passed a course of
Speaker 1: control off Connecticut, and then there's a few other states
Speaker 1: looking at them. I'm not sure where they're at right now.
Speaker 1: I know Maryland and New York were looking at them,
Speaker 1: and then the other the other piece of it is
Speaker 1: offering parole to victims who essentially killed their way out
Speaker 1: of UM a violent relationship. It was a killer killed
Speaker 1: kind of situation. And so there's a lot of states
Speaker 1: now looking at their parole and probation boards and seeing
Speaker 1: if there's alterations they can make. New York passed one
Speaker 1: a few years ago California. Wasn't there a woman in
Speaker 1: Florida who was taking in for SIMPLI firing warning shots? Yeah,
Speaker 1: the same time, the same time Trayvon Martin was killed.
Speaker 1: She was sentenced to twenty years. She's out now. But
Speaker 1: you know that that's it that it's an interesting example
Speaker 1: because that's one of the states that has stand your
Speaker 1: ground laws, and stand your ground laws were meant to
Speaker 1: kind of address the shortcomings of self defense, like, you
Speaker 1: know what if it wasn't somebody breaking into your house,
Speaker 1: but it was somebody threatening you out on the streets.
Speaker 1: So all these states have stand your ground laws, which
Speaker 1: is does seem to be like a growing movement, and
Speaker 1: yet stand your ground laws women almost can never use
Speaker 1: stand your ground laws almost never. So a lot of
Speaker 1: the problem isn't with the legislation itself. It's with the
Speaker 1: gender discrimination and the bias when it's implemented. And to
Speaker 1: speak to the legislation part, I think for black women, especially,
Speaker 1: engaging with the justice system comes with a lot of
Speaker 1: historical baggage. Um. It starts with do you feel comfortable
Speaker 1: call the police? Are the police going to shoot you
Speaker 1: when they arrive? Right? These are the questions going through
Speaker 1: a black woman who's being abused. Mind, if I have
Speaker 1: a teenage son at home, are they going to miss
Speaker 1: misidentify my teenage son as a suspect not my abuser?
Speaker 1: Like that, there are a lot of subterranean issues here
Speaker 1: that we need to unpack. Access to legal advice because
Speaker 1: we can we can have great policy and great legislation,
Speaker 1: but what happens when you can't afford a lawyer? You know,
Speaker 1: I think there's a really significant population of women who
Speaker 1: are at greater risk of domestic abuse, who even when
Speaker 1: we put the right legislation in place, will still not
Speaker 1: be able to access it and the law really work
Speaker 1: on their favor in the way it needs to write.
Speaker 1: And do you want to put someone in prison who
Speaker 1: is from your own marginalized community, which a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't want, right And you know, I think the
Speaker 1: abolitionist have really kind of brought this conversation to the
Speaker 1: four about like prison not necessarily being the solution, especially
Speaker 1: if that man is going to be out at some point.
Speaker 1: And you know, we've we've seen so many cases of
Speaker 1: men going to prison for domestic abuse, doing their stint,
Speaker 1: coming out killing another woman. Right, So we're kind of
Speaker 1: putting this problem away for a certain amount of time.
Speaker 1: So we look at the idea of restorative justice and
Speaker 1: what that looks like in some communities that may need
Speaker 1: to be the model that's prioritized because those women don't
Speaker 1: want their abuser in jail, They want their abuser to
Speaker 1: stop abusing them and abusing other people, but they're not
Speaker 1: going to engage with the justice, the justice system all
Speaker 1: or enforcement. So we need to figure out, so how
Speaker 1: do we help and protect them? Okay, so then let's
Speaker 1: end with this men garbage as terrible as men? What
Speaker 1: role can men play in ending the culture of misogyny
Speaker 1: and violence against women? Because we talk about the phrase
Speaker 1: toxic masculinity and I pulled this up because I want
Speaker 1: to make sure that I'm defining it properly. Toxic masculinity
Speaker 1: refers to the notion that some people's idea of manliness
Speaker 1: perpetuates domination, homophobia, and aggression. So my last question to
Speaker 1: both of you, what are the ways that men can
Speaker 1: help change the culture on this issue? You know, that's
Speaker 1: such a great question. And when I'm talking about this
Speaker 1: with the men in my life and how I intend
Speaker 1: to talk to my son about this, is that toxic masculinity, patriarchy,
Speaker 1: all of these constructs, this big academic language, it harms
Speaker 1: men to right. It doesn't allow you to experience the
Speaker 1: fullness of your humanity. You're not allowed to be empathetic,
Speaker 1: You're not allowed to cry when you need to, allowed
Speaker 1: to express the range of your emotions. So you curtail
Speaker 1: the human experience. You're not being yourself because you're so
Speaker 1: conscious of the perception of not being man enough. So
Speaker 1: don't think this only harms me as a woman or
Speaker 1: harms the children that look up to you. It's harming
Speaker 1: you because you become a prisoner of this construct. So
Speaker 1: that's where I always start the conversation. I'm like, this
Speaker 1: is bad for you because if you you know, humans
Speaker 1: are kind of selfish, right, So if you if you
Speaker 1: frame it as this is bad for women, and I well,
Speaker 1: fucking I'm not a woman, but you know that's how
Speaker 1: people think about it. But if you're like, now, this
Speaker 1: is really bad for you. This is why you're depressed
Speaker 1: and you can't say it, this is why you're going
Speaker 1: through and you can't even share it with your your
Speaker 1: home is that you're with all the time. So if
Speaker 1: you start from that place of like, okay, so this
Speaker 1: is what toxic masculinity does two men, and how it
Speaker 1: makes you harm your self, and then you say, this
Speaker 1: is what toxic masculinity does to the people around you,
Speaker 1: like the women that you love, And unfortunately it's kind
Speaker 1: of sad that we have to use the women that
Speaker 1: men are connected to as an entry point, because you
Speaker 1: should just care of a woman irrespective if she's romantically
Speaker 1: or biologically or community wise attached to you. But for
Speaker 1: a lot of men, they're not going to care unless
Speaker 1: that's their daughter, their mother, their sister. So you have
Speaker 1: to explain how like the behavior you perpetuate, how it
Speaker 1: affects the women in your orbit. And then you say
Speaker 1: you need to check your friends. That's what I always say,
Speaker 1: you need to check your boys because I can't do it.
Speaker 1: Like there are men that everyone knows that guy is
Speaker 1: an abusa and you still have him around. Why is
Speaker 1: that you should be ashamed? Like I'm a shame people.
Speaker 1: I don't care. I'd be like, why is he around?
Speaker 1: Why do you roll with him? I don't want to
Speaker 1: hang with you because you hang with him? Is you
Speaker 1: kind of using that language? Like why are you allowing
Speaker 1: this man still to have social access even though you
Speaker 1: know he gives women drinks, he gives them a bit
Speaker 1: too many drinks so he can fondle them, even though
Speaker 1: he shouts at his girlfriend, even though he's controlling, and
Speaker 1: you turn a blind eye because he's not doing it
Speaker 1: to you, But you're actually one of the few people
Speaker 1: that can check him right. And that's kind of like
Speaker 1: my three step way of unpacking this idea of toxic
Speaker 1: masculinity and then giving them something they can I get
Speaker 1: action on. And my whole thing is, and this is
Speaker 1: how my group of friends work. We see ourselves as
Speaker 1: a community and a family, and we have to be
Speaker 1: able to be radically honest with each other. If you
Speaker 1: have that type of dynamic with a man, and he's
Speaker 1: a man that you know has influence, you should be
Speaker 1: able to have those conversations. I mean, that's kind of
Speaker 1: how I approach it. I mean, I just think there's
Speaker 1: all kinds of ways that we can slightly reframe so
Speaker 1: many of the conversations that that we're having. And I
Speaker 1: have to say, like, I know more good men than bad,
Speaker 1: and I've been in a lot of prisons, so I
Speaker 1: know a lot of bad men. Yeah, I completely agree.
Speaker 1: It's just like I I think I can have this
Speaker 1: optimism about having conversations about toxic masculinity because my father,
Speaker 1: my husband, my cousins, like my friends. I'm surrounded bout
Speaker 1: like really remarkable men who are equally grieved by what
Speaker 1: men are doing to other women. So yeah, we want
Speaker 1: to emphasize there are good men, more good men than
Speaker 1: bad men, but more of those good meny to speak up. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I wish that we have more time, but we are
Speaker 1: out of time. This has been an amazing conversation. Christiana
Speaker 1: has always thank you for being back on the show.
Speaker 1: It's best, Send the best to the husband and that
Speaker 1: child of yours with all of that wonderful hand. And
Speaker 1: Rachel Louis Snyder the book is No Visible Bruises. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for all that you do on the
Speaker 1: journalistic side of this issue as well. Thank you both
Speaker 1: for going beyond the scenes with us today. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thanks Roy. For further resources and support, visit the National
Speaker 1: Domestic Violence Hotline at www. The Hotline dot org. The
Speaker 1: Hotline dot org See you next week. Listen to The
Speaker 1: Daily Show Beyond the Scenes on Apple Podcasts, the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, or wherever you get your podcasts.