Jan. 12, 2026 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:06:38
Feminism! Ana vs Pearl!
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Hi everybody, Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Inn.
Hope you're doing well.
So, as you may or may not know, I was kind of a champion-ish debater back in the day.
And I'm going to have a look at this debate at Word War Debate.
They do these fantastic debates in Atlantic City.
I'll be out there March 28th, 2026.
I hope you will join me there.
It's going to be very cool and exciting, and I promise to bring the fire.
And so Anna Kasparian and Pearl Davis were debating the topic of feminism.
And I haven't watched this debate.
I'm going to just dive in and we're going to have a look at some of the opening statements and how the reasoning and articulation and arguments are set up and unpack them a little bit.
And again, these are both very intelligent and accomplished women.
I'm sure they're both making great points.
But let's dive in.
This is going to be at 1.25 speed because I just can't listen to things at normal speed.
And so we're going to dive in. WorldWarDebate.com. You should check it out and join me there March 28th. And I'm also doing a VIP meet and greet. So I'd love to see you. I hope to see you there. And let's go straight into this debate on feminism. In a May 2024 appearance on Tim Poole's Culture War podcast,
my opponent, Pearl Davis, declared that women aren't really doing much. We're not having kids. We're not really contributing to the economy when you look at In fact, she uses this ridiculous assertion to argue that women should not have the right to vote. While it's true the birth rate has declined,
and we'll revisit that in a bit, women account for 47% of the American workforce. All right. So that is the first logical flipperoo. So I think, I don't want to speak for Pearl, of course, but when she's talking output, she's not talking about Jobs like HR or, you know, the sort of various government functional jobs that a lot of women do,
right? Women work a lot for the government. She's talking about material productive output, usually in terms of manufacturing and stuff like that. So saying that women don't produce much in terms of output when she's mostly looking at manufacturing. And then saying, well, but women are part of the workforce, almost half the workforce and so on is apples to oranges.
So you could hire a guy in your backyard to dig a hole and fill up the hole over and over and over again, completely pointless exercise.
You could pay him a hundred dollars an hour and that would add to the GDP, but is it adding to actual productive output, right?
So that is, that is a change, right?
Saying, well, what do you mean this guy is not producing anything?
Look at the income he's generating.
It's like, but that's not the same as, as output.
A birth rate going down is important because one of the ways that women contribute to the economy is having children so that there are future workers, right?
So if women are in the workforce consuming a bunch of often taxed dollars and so on.
which we'll get to more in a second, and doing a lot of not essential jobs or jobs mandated by the government, By government regulations and quota systems and requirements and other various forms of compulsions, then they're not having children. And so maybe the women are making some economic output in the here and now. But, you know, people make a million to a million and a half dollars over the course of their lifetime. So if a woman goes from having four children to having one child, right,
then that's she's making some money. Let's say she makes a million dollars in the here and now. But by having three fewer children, that's four and a half million dollars that are taken away from the economy in the future. And the answer for that, of course, tends to be endless immigration, but a lot of the immigrants are net economic negatives on the economy as a whole. So I just wanted to sort of point that out at the beginning. The Council of Economic Advisors found that women have contributed a substantial portion of the U.S. economic growth since 1970,
which wouldn't have been made possible without the feminist movement. Well, it's not the feminist movement, it's the government. It's the government saying you have to hire women that gets a lot of women hired. And this is just a sort of basic biological fact. In the past, women generally weren't hired when they were young and especially when they were married because they started having children. So baby boom, you had three, four, five kids, a family, and women generally aren't working because they're home raising the kids, running the community,
all of that wonderful work that women do. So it's not feminism. Directly. It's feminism using its power and influence on the state to force employers to hire women that has caused the rise in female employment, which is, you know, there are lots of wonderful, remarkable, amazing female entrepreneurs. But, you know, I'm talking on the whole, on average. So it's not feminism that caused men to hire women. It is, I mean, obviously talented women out there and some women are great in the economy,
but as a whole, in general, it's the government that make. People hire women. So it's not feminism. It's state power. And feminism's influence on state power is not unimportant. Unimportant, of course, but that is reality. Now there's something else. Oh, yeah. And so she's saying that there's been a productivity rise or an economic growth since 1970. And my rebuttal to that would be, no, there hasn't. Wages have been flat in real terms since the 1970s. Because this is just basic economics,
right? When you bring It simply drives down wages for everyone else. I mean, I don't know that that's hugely complicated, right? If you're going to say, well, now we've got to hire a whole bunch of women, then male wage is simply going to go down. So, no, there's not been big economic growth. There's been growth in technology and so on, but there's not been big economic growth since the 1970s. And part of that, of course, is going off the gold standard under Nixon,
and part of that is all of this stuff where raw meritocracy is not pursued anymore, but quota systems and numbers. Based upon political correctness are chosen. Because remember, on the left, all disparities in outcome are the result of prejudice, bigotry, and hatred,
right? So if women make less than men, it's not because women have different interests. It's not because women have children or anything like that. It's because men hate women. It's the only reason. It's just emotional. It's just emotional. And everything goes through that lens. So the other question, of course, is that if women have been so economically productive since the 1970s, why is there a 40 trillion plus national debt?
And why are there over $200 trillion in unfunded liabilities?
If somebody says, oh, this has been a huge productivity growth, then you would expect wealth to increase.
But debt and unfunded liabilities have increased to the point where they dwarf the actual economy.
They completely dwarf the actual economy.
So these would be my rebuttals.
Which wouldn't have been made possible without the feminist movement.
By 2017, women were responsible for nearly 40 percent of total gross domestic product, amounting to a whopping $7.6 trillion.
Right.
So gross domestic product.
if you look at COVID, COVID to a large degree, if you just look at the pharmaceutical sector, COVID increased the GDP. So GDP is not a measure of organic wealth or improved worker productivity. It is a measure of economic activity. And economic activity is not the same as wealth. Of course,
that figure doesn't include the trillions of dollars in unpaid labor. Yeah. This unpaid labor to me is just an NPC talking point. So if a woman has her husband go to work and she's raising the children,
then this is referred to by feminists as unpaid labor. I don't even know what to say about that because the idea that there's such a thing as unpaid labor So if I go out to the woods and I start just moving things around, right? I pick up some leaves, I pick up some growth, some old wood, and I just move it around, that's unpaid labor because nobody's going to give me a penny for it. If a woman is raising a guy's children and he's paying all the bills,
that's not unpaid labor because he's paid the bills. Unpaid labor is when people starve to death with unpaid labor. So if you're not starving to death, your labor is being paid for by someone. Okay,
tending to the household. And it's funny too, because do women think that men don't do anything around the house? They don't barbecue, they don't run the tech, they don't deal with cell phone issues, they don't do the mowing and other things that are going on outside. They don't sort of fix and upgrade. Maintain and repair and things like that. I don't know. It's just one-sided. And when it comes to certain sectors of our economy,
women are a dominant and indispensable force. Like in the healthcare industry, where they make up nearly 80% of workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Okay, so by that metric, it must be because the people who hire in the healthcare industry just hate men and are sexist against men. But of course, If you're going to talk about women in the healthcare industry, which is great, and women are wonderful nurturers and carers on average,
then that would be some explanation as to why women would make less than men. Because women prefer, in general, working with people, and men prefer, in general, working with things. And if you work right with things, then you make a lot more money, Right?
I mean, if you can sell a widget for $100 and you can produce 10,000 of them, you've just made a fortune.
But if you're working hourly rate, which is what healthcare tends to be, then you're just going to make less money as a whole.
So is she saying this is a problem?
Is she saying there must be institutionalized sexism against men in the healthcare industry because they're only 20% of the workforce or primary school teachers or wherever women tend to dominate?
That's 16.4 million women.
When it comes to education, in 1960, women earned less than 35 % of all bachelor's degrees.
Today, they earn roughly 58 % of all bachelor's degrees, which Pearl herself benefited from after graduating from Elmhurst University.
Okay, so women get more education these days. Is it quality education? Is it something that adds to the economy? Right? You could teach someone how to, you could spend four years teaching people how to use ancient obsolete technology like an abacus or Marxism. And would that add to the economy? These are just numbers. And of course,
women also make up the bulk of student debt. Student debt makes things, makes women somewhat unmarriable and also lowers the birth rate. Because if a woman has, say, $100,000 or $150,000 in debt, and a man wants her to stay home to raise his children, which is the only way the culture gets transmitted, then women are unmarriable. Because that way, She comes with this weird reverse dowry,
where in order to marry a woman and have kids, you have to immediately take on $100,000, $150,000, or I've heard tales, up to $400,000 or more. Then you,
as a man, have to take on $100,000 or more of debt. It's maybe sometimes less, and sometimes these interest rates are like 12.5%. It's crazy stuff, right? So if the women are educated,
then they're not raising their children. Where are the children going to go? Well, the children have to go to, I mean, grandparents and so on often, but often go to daycare. And so women go to work in often made-up jobs mandated by the government. And then they put their kids in daycare to be raised,
often by people who, you know, are quite foreign to the culture. And this is all counted as added economic activity, but it's not really, because a lot of times the women go to work for mandated jobs, and they make money, which then gets taxed. You need a second car, you need additional clothing allowances, lunches out, gas, insurance, and all of that. And they end up making virtually nothing Childcare providers like daycare and so on. So,
is it really adding a huge amount to the economic growth? It's not obvious, to put it mildly. Women also earn over 60% of master's degrees. Ah, so this would be sexism as well, right? So, why are women earning 60% of master's degrees? And of course, the question is, in what field, right? If you want to make money, then you get a master's degree or an undergraduate degree in petroleum engineering, right? That's Degrees in, you know,
the sort of fabled sociology, political science, undergraduate degrees in psychology that may not lead anywhere because you've got to do a lot of work after that to become a psychologist. It's really adding a lot of economic value. I hope to hear Pearl explain how a more educated and skilled population somehow translates to cultural decline,
especially as we compete with China in this increasingly multipolar world. Massive amounts of degrees in relatively economically useless subjects to its citizens. China is trying to have its citizens focus on STEM and things like that,
which women don't seem to be particularly drawn to, even though there's a great demand for them in STEM. The modern feminist movement also had a major impact on decreasing domestic violence, and that's according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Rates of intimate partner violence decreased by more than 60 percent from 1994 to 2010. Listen,
and nobody's going to argue with that. That's wonderful. I mean, I may have some questions about the data, but obviously that's a very, very positive thing. One of the big challenges, though, of course, is that when women, a lot of this has to do because women are split with their husbands and so on, and what that means, of course, is that the children are more vulnerable to abuse. So, when there's a non-biologically related male in the household,
a boyfriend, a stepfather, and so on, the rates of abuse against children in some categories grow up 30 times. So, there's benefits and costs to all of these things, which, of course, is important to point out. And that's thanks to protective order statutes and funding for shelters beginning in the 1970s and 80s. Also, women are choosing violent guys. I mean, let's not kid them. I mean,
these are not shotgun weddings. These are not arranged marriages. These are women who have years to date, to become girlfriends, to become fiancées, to get married. So if women choose to marry violent guys, and I know women always say, well, there was no evidence. And I've talked to thousands of people over the course of the last 20 years, and there's always evidence, always, always evidence. So listen,
it's great. Fantastic that intimate partner violence numbers are down, for sure, but there is still a responsibility. And the other thing, too, is that half of domestic violence cases are women on men. Not only did the two-income household become more financially resilient,
especially during economic downturns, women gained the ability to leave abusive relationships, an outcome correlated with improved child health and educational attainment. Okay, so what she's saying, and I don't know the data for this, so I'll obviously take her at face value. So what she's saying is that because women leave abusive relationships, that children do better as a result. And I mean, I'm certainly, I'm sure that that's true. If the woman is getting beaten up and things like that, then yes,
you'd get out of that relationship for sure. But you have to balance women who leave relationships and particularly marriages, not because of abuse, like the number one reason. Like most divorces are initiated by women, and the number one reason is dissatisfaction. Just not happy. It's not abuse or anything like that, which then opens up children to being abused by non-biologically related males or others within the household,
so it's complicated. A culture that protects people from violence is not one that's indicative of cultural decline. Pearl herself has benefited greatly from the feminist movement, thanks to Title IX in 1972, signed by Nixon, of course. Sex-based discrimination in any school program or activity that receives federal funding is prohibited. And that's interesting, because then wouldn't you say 60% of master's degrees are going to women,
therefore there must be misandrist or anti-male prejudice? I mean, I would try and square these two things. Pearl herself had a rather impressive record playing for Elmhurst University's volleyball team, having earned all-conference honors as a senior. She later pursued professional volleyball in London. She could have stayed in the United States and served in her role as a traditional woman,
but she didn't. And she could have been the traditional chaste woman living out her dream of everything women were supposed to do before feminism. Well, of course, I don't know what Pearl is going to say about all of this. The argument from personal hypocrisy is limited in its debate quality. Right. So it's sort of like saying, well, I think that roads should be privatized. It's like, well,
you came here on government roads. That's so hypocritical that, you know, I mean, if somebody's arguing that slavery should be abolished and they say, oh, the opponent says, I notice you're wearing a cotton shirt picked by slaves. Right. So it does not really, it's not really foundational to any kind of argument. So,
if somebody says, you don't exist, right, then you can say, well, you're talking to me, so you must assume that I exist. So, there is self-contradictory behavior, but people who are struggling to survive in a system have to make compromises with that system. And the other thing,
too, is that you learn more things later. You know, people will say, could say to me, well, you know, when you were younger, you were a socialist. And I'm like, well, yeah, when I was even younger, I believed in Santa Claus, but what does that have to do with anything? We grow and we evolve. In our thinking. And if somebody's in the Soviet system and they are told,
oh, you can't criticize the communist socialist system because that's what raised you, well, then you'd never be able to overcome any of that. But she is neither traditional nor chaste by her own admission. While feminists would have no problem with her personal choices, she has made a career bashing women for theirs. Bashing is just another one of these NPC words. So, bashing is just one of these emotional words that, you know, all criticism is bashing and so on. But, you know,
maybe Pearl has bashed women. I don't think she's, I mean, maybe in her volleyball career. Man, she's tall. Critics often argue that modern feminism has weakened families and resulted in a lower birth rate. They tend to dismiss empirical evidence demonstrating the insidious impact of the internet,
social media on modern relationships. They also brush economic instability under the rug, despite young people citing their personal finances as the main reason why they're holding off on marriage. Right, so that's interesting, right? And I would point out this contradiction if I were having a convivial chat with Ms. Kasparin. No, Mrs. Kasparin. I think she's married. I think her husband was a bartender. No, before that, he was a professional baseball player. Anyway,
So what I would point out is if you're going to say that the entrance of women has boosted the economy enormously and everybody is so wealthy as a result, then how can it be that birth rates are down because people are broke?
I mean, honestly, you can't have it both ways.
You can't say that women are producing massive value to the economy and also people can't have kids because everyone's broke.
That doesn't make sense.
The first place.
In lieu of discussing those factors, Pearl spends much of her time discouraging men from getting married in the first place.
During her debate with Trent Horn, she declared that men are better off shacking up without ever getting married.
Well, again, I'm not an expert on what Pearl says, but I would assume that she's telling men not to avoid marriage, but to not put themselves at the risk of divorce, which is a whole different thing.
Her reasoning?
Women are too fat and STD infected.
25 percent.
That's a law.
You did say that.
She did.
OK, so are women weighing more?
Yes, women now weigh more than the average man from a couple of decades ago.
So, yes, women are definitely not all.
I mean, Asian women, not so much.
Black women a little bit more.
So women are becoming overweight, which is negative for fertility and sexual attraction and so on and personal hygiene and health and joints and so on.
But as far as STD goes, Pearl just said 25 percent.
that's a lot. So I think Pearl is saying, and I'm sure she'll get into this in more detail, that 25% of women Have STDs, and I assume that that's what herpes or things that are more permanent rather than something you can deal with with antibiotics. Stop to think about how they contracted the STDs in the first place. Data from the National Library of Medicine show that modern men are just as promiscuous as modern women. Men and women are in bad shape,
and in the United States, we can discuss why, but feminism is not the reason. All right, so men have not evolved to say no to sex. Okay. There were times where 10 or 20 women reproduce for every man. There are times, often, this is one of the reasons why the West advanced because of monogamy, but there were times when the majority of men didn't reproduce.
So if a man has access to voluntary sex, men are just not programmed to say no.
And you can get mad about this, just evolution, right?
I mean, there've been these studies where some attractive opposite sex person comes into a bar, offers sex to the man, a lot of them say yes.
An attractive man offers sex to the woman, none of them say yes.
So it's just, there's a hardwired, I'm not saying people don't have free will and responsibility, they do, but this is just kind of hardwiring.
Thank you.
Nice job.
Okay.
Pearl, we got five minutes.
You're going to be on the clock and let's go.
Most debaters and commentators are elitists who tell average Americans from their ivory towers, what to think and how to feel.
My answer to this question not only comes from covering current events and researching the facts.
data, and statistics, but also in my professional experience interviewing over a thousand people in America and Western nations. Feminism has given women power, and power corrupts. And that's what's happening. Feminism is robbing men of their disposable income and their prime earning years. Well, And this is the argument, again, I'm not sure if she's going to cite the Women take vastly more out of the system than they pay in taxes, and men pay vastly more into the system than they receive in benefits.
So the government exists as a giant machine to transfer money from men to women, and women tend to be in more debt and therefore the national debt has exploded with the votes of women and so on and these kinds of things.
Feminism has empowered women.
It has empowered women to be sexually promiscuous. Feminists say that they fought for women to not subject themselves to the approval of men. I think in general, and this is sort of, it would be a suggestion that you just have to get your speech down and you have to have eye contact with the audience and you have to be firm and confident. You gotta, I rehearse opening statements like 20, 30,
40 times so that it's grooved into my brain. One of the reasons being that Everyone's kind of nervous or excited or pumped up in these situations, which can make your hands shake if you're holding a paper. I know these little things, but it's a whole communications thing. So I would not read. I would memorize. I prefer to pace and talk, but I guess they've got fixed microphones here,
which will be the situation when I go out March 28th. But I would say not to Memorize. Listen, I mean, actors can memorize Hamlet, which is like four plus hours of iambic pentameter. And so you can memorize five minutes. Why then are five to 10% of women between the ages of 18 to 25 on OnlyFans or other prostitution websites? Yeah,
that's obviously pretty catastrophic. And these were the kind of numbers like I could not believe, but they appear to hold up five to 10% of young women are on OnlyFans. There are more online prostitutes in America. Yeah,
gen z feminists have been so empowered to commit paternity fraud paternity fraud is unpunished in any state in the usa or any country in the west yeah and that's really one of the most horrifying crimes that can be committed against a man in in many ways done correctly a man will have to pay for a child he was fooled into believing was his until that child reaches maturity in some states That man will have will also have to pay for that kid's college.
That is slavery and is forbidden under the 13th amendment.
One-third of paternity tests are negative by the American Association OF Blood Banks.
All right, and I know that she knows this and it's just a point of clarification.
It's not that one-third of children are not their father's children or they claim father's children.
It's that when the man has suspicions, a third of the time he's born out because you get these paternity tests, because you have suspicions.
So it's a much smaller number.
Feminism has empowered women to rob men.
Rob men of their time, their resources, their reputation, their children and, in the most extreme cases, their lives.
Um, they do this through child support alimony, false allegations.
and paternity fraud. How many people in this arena Have a brother, a father, an uncle, or a friend who has gone through this meat grinder. And that's interesting. I guess these are opening statements,
not rebuttals and so on. I'm generally tempted to. I would just throw aside my opening statement and work on the rebuttals as a whole, but I guess that's not the format. Anna has been on the air for 15 years and is completely oblivious to these issues. It's a silent genocide of the lives of millions of men. Now,
the other thing, too, it's funny because when I was in the acting world, I was always told, like, yeah, people, most people are looking at the person who's talking, but some people are looking at you. And when you're talking about, you know, the carnage against men through the legal system,
when you're talking about a third of Gen Z being aborted, when you're talking about massive rates of STDs and, you know, paternity fraud and so on, you can't be smiling, right? Because that looks very strange. See, there's a little smirk or a smile. Honestly, You can't be doing that because it looks like you don't think it matters, any of these issues, and they do matter.
Certainly, things that are violent towards women matter, things that are violent towards men matter, and you have to find agreement on that, right?
Sidelines of the arena.
I have 33-year combat veteran Terrence Popp.
He served through three wars and was almost killed in two.
He got married, had two children, and served in the United States Army.
Terrence Popp was deployed to Iraq in 2004, and as a member of the Airborne Infantry, he was wounded by a roadside bomb and suffered a TBI and a stroke from the blast.
He was evacuated out of the country, and it took over two years until he had recovered.
While he was recovering, he was wounded by a roadside bomb.
his wife was plotting to divorce him. His wife murdered his six-year-old chocolate lab out of spite because he filed for divorce first. When he confronted her, the response he got was, I told you, I did not want you living here. And I think I met Terrence Popp many years ago at a men's rights conference that I gave a speech at. In the States,
what did he refer to himself? A warfighter? A gunslinger? Something like that. And I don't know much about the story. Individual anecdotes tend to be a challenge, unless you're tying them into a general principle.
At this point, he was forced to leave the marital home and live out of his car.
The divorce took away his home, his children, and left him penniless and saddled with a child support payment he could not afford.
Terrence had to pay $144 ,000 over a 12 -year period for a divorce that his wife was empowered by feminists to plan and execute.
Terrence went into court to fight for 50 -50 custody.
Terrence was called a murderer and an assassin in open court and was given 96 hours a month with his children.
96 hours a month is not a father.
While homeless, he spoke to many other men who would never get off the streets due to child support, arrearages and penalties, and the men constantly getting arrested for unpaid child support.
Now, I mean, look, it's a tough situation.
Children need a lot of resources.
And if there is a split up, for whatever reason, right, whether it's just or I don't know this guy's story, but children do need a lot of resources.
And this is one of the reasons why couples were intended to stay together and so on.
and so on.
The ease of divorce has also, I mean, this is all the public choice theory, right?
The ease of divorce has also, I mean, this is all the public choice theory, right?
So we say violence rates went down because women could get out of abusive marriages.
So we say violence rates went down because women could get out of abusive marriages.
That's very true.
That's very true.
I assume it's true.
Or I accept that what Anna is saying is true.
However, there's a flip side to that, which is if it's easier to divorce, women will take on more risky marriages with more risky guys, right?
So women want a guy in general who, you know, high status, makes a lot of money, tough and aggressive because that's what's needed to make a lot of money usually.
So they want, you know, the higher testosterone.
Sometimes that will come with the side effect of aggression within the home.
right? They will be less careful or particular about the marriages they get into. And when couples split up,
let's say they're two or three kids, those kids need a lot of resources. Where are those resources going to come from? Usually it comes from the father. And where are those resources going to come from? And of course, Terrence, you know, married a woman who, if she's as nasty as Pearl is talking about, then he made that choice too. The disparage of losing his children and his home, and his PTSD and constant pain from his wounds, he became suicidal. While at his post in 2008,
a former commander of his came to see him to secretly say his last goodbyes.
The next day, Mr. Pop's former commander put on his dress blues and went to the Holy National Veteran Cemetery in Blues Brains Out.
Darren's pop was notified of the death and was shocked because he was planning to commit suicide in the exact same manner.
So in effect, his former commander took the bullet that was meant for him.
Darren's pop decided he would not kill himself and has spent the last 20 years saving 576 men from suicide with comedy.
If you look to the left of the stage, Terrence is holding the dog tags for every live that he has saved.
Now, why am I telling you this?
Shout out to Terrence.
Yeah.
Now, why am I telling you this?
Because men and American veterans are put in this position because of the empowerment that feminists like Anna have pushed for.
Now, empowerment is an interesting word.
And again, because I'm a guy who studied politics for 40 years, I would talk about the violations of the non-aggression principle that feminists have clamored for and approved by the state.
There are millions of men that have died in this country from the political power that feminism pushes since...
Okay.
that's good. Yeah, that's a good definition. It's not just feminism. It's not just the idea. It's the political power that it pushes for. In 1970, an estimated 1.6 million men have committed suicide. If feminists cared about equality, why aren't they fighting for equality and divorce in family court as hard as they are fighting for abortion, working, or becoming sex workers? Thank you. Not bad. I personally, I mean,
it's interesting because the question of humanizing the debate is really important. Having Terrence there is important, but I would start with definitions Nobody has even defined what feminism is at the point,
right? So what is feminism? Is feminism equality? Well, no, because they said 60% of the master's degrees are going to women and so on, right? And 80% of the healthcare workers are women. So it's not equality. So what is feminism? And so if I were debating Mrs. Kasparian,
then I would say, talking about numbers almost like bribery. There's no definition. What is feminism? And then I would put forward my definition that modern feminism is female supremacy through political power. Because there's no cap,
there's no limit to how much more and more and more women want. And so it is female supremacy through political power. It's not equality, because women had equality before the law in many circumstances and instances and so on. But it's female supremacy through coercion, through violence, through political power.
And that's terrible.
That would be as terrible as white supremacy or black supremacy through political power.
I mean, and so, yeah, that would be my definition, and I would then make the strenuous case for that.
And then she would have to, I mean, she would either address that definition and prove that it's wrong, in which case I would make the case for it, or she wouldn't address that definition, in which case I would point out that a debate without definitions is just two people talking past each other based upon prior prejudices.
So we need to come up with a definition that we can agree on that has evidence behind it.
Okay.
This is going to be a heavy one.
We're going to go now to the opening interrogations.
We have 10 minutes.
Do we have that on the clock?
Okay.
I'll do this opening interrogations.
Okay.
Take it away.
10 minutes.
I think there's two very...
Who's interrogating who?
Whoever wants to be.
They're very intelligent, accomplished women, and it's very interesting to see this back and forth.
Again, aside from the specific anecdote that you shared, I want to hear you and said, please, we can be using the logo if you do that this further.
If you want to hear about this, then you're going to be using the logo.
If you which of course is tragic. Can you cite some actual studies that look at these statistics and back up what you say in regard to the outcomes of marriage and divorce in America? An excellent point from Anna,
that anecdotes are powerful and emotional, but we are trying to talk about a broad social movement that is in fact in throughout all of the developed world and so on. So that's a perfectly great point. 41% of 109 rape cases reported to police in a Midwestern city were admitted to be false by complaint. In one Midwestern city? And which Midwestern city was that? You know,
you can go from your ivory tower. I'm not in an ivory tower. Okay, so she asks for data, and then she says, oh, it's just, it's not enough data, right? So I would point out that if you ask for data, and I provide data,
saying you're dissatisfied with data is sort of pointless. Because then I would ask, okay, which city would satisfy you? Which chunk of data would you consider acceptable? And then you would find, I think, that it would be some impossible task or whatever, right? So if somebody says, that's a sad anecdote, I sympathize with Terrence, give me some data, and then Pearl brings forward some data, and it's immediately rebutted, then I would just say, well,
don't ask for data if you then reject the data. That's pointless. I'm on this debate stage, interrogating your assertions, and you've only provided an anecdote. No, because now she's provided data, which has been rejected. Right. Because if you look at the data, which I did,
of course, you'll find that women are twice as likely to fall into poverty after divorce. Right, because they can't stop spending. Alimony is paid out in 10% of divorces. I'm sorry, I didn't quite get that. Alimony is paid out in 10% of divorces. Okay,
so women are twice as likely to fall into poverty after divorce. I would also, of course, ask what percentage of women that is, because if it's only 2%, It's different than if it's 40%.
And Pearl says because they can't stop spending.
I don't know if that's true or not.
Alimony is paid out in 10% of divorces.
Okay, alimony is paid out in 10% of divorces.
And that could be the result of feminism because there is more equality in pay.
According to the Census Bureau, the average child support payment is $441 a month.
And only 60% of those payments get paid out.
Only 60% of those payments get paid out.
Women do not get child custody 90% of the time, as you have asserted before.
In fact, 95% of custody cases are mutually agreed upon outside of the courtroom.
Women get...
Well, no, but that's different, right?
So where it's adjudicated by the court, then women get a much higher percentage.
And it's interesting, and Anne has obviously done her research, and it's great data.
So she's saying that 95% of these cases are adjudicated outside the courtroom.
Mutually agreed upon outside of the courtroom.
Women get full custody 40% of the time.
Men do get full custody 20% of the time.
And 40% of the time, it's shared custody.
which I think is the ideal situation, assuming that neither spouse is abusive. Take your microphone out and hold it. It would be easier to hear you. Okay. Oh, because she's so tall. Right. So,
this going back and forth on the statistics, which, you know, the statistics are important, the facts are important, but I will say this in general. The way that I approach debates, and look, obviously, not the final say, it's just my particular preference, but the way that I approach debates is to look for self-contradictions, not to trade numbers. Numbers We saw this under COVID. We've seen this with global warming. We've seen this with a bunch of stuff, right? So numbers are highly suspect,
but I think it's really important to work on definitions and not knowing what feminism is and then trying to figure out, well, what's the minutiae of division between males and females in divorces and so on? None of that is going to convince anyone, right? So you have to find ways in a debate to change the minds of people who don't agree with you. Now, of course, it's like in politics, right? You don't go for the people who will never agree with you, there's less need to go for the people who already agree with you,
and you try and go for those people in the middle. And those people in the middle aren't going to be convinced based upon trading data back and forth. And of course, it's also interesting, and I would note this, I'm not sure I would respond to this as an opponent, but it's interesting that Anna asked Pearl for data and then started immediately questioning And then Anna is putting data with no context. So it would be,
it might seem sort of like a bit petty to go back, but that's just something that it's important to note that she says, where's the data? Oh, I don't agree. I don't like that data or you don't have enough source on that data. But now Anna is putting out a lot of data and not sort of saying where it's coming from or anything like that. So Pearl has to say where it's coming from,
but Anna doesn't. Alimony and medical care and dental are not covered by that. So a lot of times it does go above 50%. Again, you can go through the facts, the data, and the statistics and manipulate them any way that you want. Ah, I see. Now that's challenging, right? So I generally try not to put negative statements or kind of insults. I'm not sure if she's saying that Anna's manipulating the data,
but maybe the data is manipulated. But you can't say that something is manipulated without providing proof and evidence. Otherwise, it's just an ad hominem. I do try to avoid, I'm not always perfect, obviously, far from it, but I do try and avoid making those kinds of negative statements without proof. It's not my vision. There are 1.6 million men in this country. Men are nine times more likely to commit suicide. There are 1.6 million men in this country. I think she's referring to the suicide statistics,
but you don't want to blow past that kind of stuff. And as the moderator, I would say, sorry, you just said the 1.6 million men. What are you referring to? Just to make sure that's clear. You're a divorce. Compared to women, Comparative analysis is real difficult for you, isn't it? Yeah,
kind of snarky. And I think it is important. If you're going to cite numbers, right? And this is particularly true with AI, right? So if you're going to cite numbers, so if I'm going to say 1.6 million men have killed themselves, I think that's the number that's referred to, then what I would do is I would either research or go into AI and say, steel man me an argument against this, right? What is the number for women? Or something like that, right? So these days,
with AI in particular, you can run through these debates, you can take your points, and you can say, steel man me the argument against this. Steel man, straw man is making it too simple and easy to knock over. Steel man is the strongest case against what it is that you say, and have everything on hand to overcome the objections. Donors, and I will say,
here's my arguments. Where are the flaws? Where's the pushback? Here's where I think the counter-arguments might come from. What do you guys think? What have you seen? I'll have mock debates with people just so that if I'm bringing up data, I know it from 360 degrees. Now, I could say, well, just I over-prepare. I don't think you can over-prepare for debates as a whole, but anyway. Go ahead, Pearl. What's your next question? You have asserted that men shouldn't get married,
that instead they should shack up. I didn't say that. You did say that. With Trent Horn, word for word, you said it makes more sense for them to shack up, live with a girlfriend instead of getting married. Do you think the advice that you give to men is the type of advice that will fulfill their lives? Because I'll tell you one thing. The best part of my life is my husband. I love my husband. He's my rock. He's my foundation. And no,
my husband is number one. I love my career. Wait, what did someone say there? And, and, no, he's my rock, he's my foundation, and, and, no, my husband is number one. I love my career, but you know what my career did? When I met my husband, my career was already established. He, on the other hand, was couch surfing, he was in debt, and didn't know what he wanted to do with his life. Ooh. Oh, gosh. Oh,
boy. I don't know, man. I don't know that you're gonna get a bunch of points by putting down your husband. Because then you have to say, well, why were you attracted to him? Why did you want to marry him if he was couchsurfing? What did she say? Was couchsurfing? My career was already established. He, on the other hand, was couchsurfing. He was in debt and didn't know what he wanted to do with his life. Again,
I mean, I don't know, man. I can't imagine. I mean, I don't really have any criticisms of my wife at all, right? Yesterday, we just did our 23rd wedding anniversary. And we've known each other for 24 years, coming up on a quarter century. I mean, I talk about her on the show, and sometimes humorously, but I can't imagine saying, oh yeah, she was a loser when I met her. Because how, how, I don't know. Married him anyway,
you want to know why? Because I had the economic freedom to marry for love, not for some Chad to take care of me. How's Hollis? Hollis, you? Oh, he's 6'1", about your height. None, I don't want kids. I don't know anything about Anna Kasparian's husband, About the fact that she doesn't want kids, and I assume she's saying, I had the economic freedom to marry for love, so is he living off her income?
I think he became a coach at a high school shouting questions from there.
Please allow these two to debate each other.
Okay, what's her question?
I mean you don't really have much to answer, so I don't know what else to ask you.
Do you think you're helping men by discouraging them from entering fulfilling marriages?
What happens to men if they don't pay child support?
I mean, what happens?
What happens, Anna?
How many men do you think get arrested?
I don't know what the number is, but the idea that there's like a huge number of men getting arrested for not okay.
So this is tough, right if you are, especially when you're in front of a big audience and then with 74 000 views of the live stream.
So you have to answer questions that go against your perspective in a debate, otherwise you just look avoidant and defensive.
You look kind of political.
So what happens to men who don't pay child support?
They get arrested.
You gotta own that.
because they do, right? And you also, you can't discharge it. You have to pay, and child support can accumulate when you're in jail, and then you get out of jail. It's tough to get a job because you were in jail,
and you got to pay more. You could go back to jail. So that is, now you can say, I don't agree with that, right? But you have to acknowledge it for what it is. Doing what they're supposed to do. There's like a huge number of men getting arrested for not doing what they're supposed to do and take care of their children. It's not a huge issue. What happens to men when they don't get child support? Only 60% of child support payments get paid out. You gotta let her interrogate you. You gotta stop yelling questions at her. You can minimize men's problems all you want,
but I don't think you understand how privileged of a position you're in. In what way? How am I privileged? Men are the ones that are on the hook for child support. Men are the ones that are on the hook for alimony. It's easy for you to tell men to just take the risk when you're not in that position. So are you asserting that men shouldn't pay child support following a divorce? Do you believe that women should be financially responsible 100% after a divorce? Feminists wanted to be equal. So I say be equal. If you guys want equality,
50-50 custody, no child support, no alimony, no special privileges. Alimony is paid out in 10% of divorces. It doesn't matter if you're part of the 10%. It doesn't matter because you make it seem like it's a widespread issue when it's only 10%. Well, again, that's a problem, right? So if you're going to say, well, it's only 10%, therefore it's not an issue, that's not ideal. That would be like saying, well, only 10% of women get beaten up in relationships, therefore it's not an issue. And it's like, no,
that is an issue. Sexism is a sexist law against men. How is it sexist if a woman decided to forego a career Well, so the question is, of course, and this is the whole issue with at-fault divorce. If a woman decides,
let's take a sort of an example, right? So a woman has stayed home with a husband, he works, and there's no abuse, and he pays the bills and so on. Let's just take an extreme example. Let's say she ends up falling for the pool boy, she has an affair with him, and leaves the husband, right? Should he pay any alimony? Because it used to be at fault, right? Which is, if he beats her up, then yes,
he owes her money because she's got to flee for her physical safety, right? If he cheats and she finds out, let's say he has a kid by another woman, that's at fault then, right? But if the woman leaves the relationship and there's no abuse because she fell prey to lust or boredom or the number one reason is dissatisfaction,
should she get alimony? Well, no, of course not. Of course not. If I have a job, and I am unjustly fired, then I can sue for back pay or whatever it is, unjust termination or whatever, they'd break the contract. But if I quit my job,
I don't continue to get a paycheck. And if a wife quits her job, or a husband quits his job, being married, then of course you don't get paid. That is reality. Decided to be a stay-at-home mother,
and the marriage doesn't work out. She has no job. She has no income. So you think it's unfair to get support from her ex-husband so she can raise the kids? So she can pay. 60% of kids under five have daycare. Daycare is an option now. You want it to be men. Do you know how much daycare costs? You want it to be men. Here you have it. Do you know how much daycare costs? Do you think it's free? Let her answer. A lot of things are expensive, Anna.
I mean, it's men.
That's not an answer.
Women have 85 % of consumer spending.
Women spend money all the time.
You spend money on hair dye, You spend money on Botox.
You spend money.
You should think about it.
Oh, that's not good, in my humble opinion.
I sure am.
You spend money all of the time.
So you want it to be men.
Here it is.
You're equal.
Pay for daycare.
Equality means that when you have a child or children, you're both responsible.
You're both responsible.
Yeah, that's fair.
The idea that the woman should take 100 % of the costs on herself without any help from her husband or ex -husband is ridiculous.
How?
Well, of course, it depends if she leaves voluntarily without a situation of abuse. Now, again, I know people would make up abuse and things like that. But if the woman is just dissatisfied with the marriage, she's just not happy. The guy's not abusive. He's working hard. He's paying the bills and so on. And she's just dissatisfied. Then she's quit her job. And how do you continue to get paid if you've quit your job? Ah,
yes, but then women are trapped and blah, blah, blah. Well, okay, but if the man's got to, you know, he's got to make $10,000 or $5,000 a month, then he's, quote, trapped in having to work, too. So, I mean, it's hard to say that people get trapped by their prior choices. You know, if you chose to marry the guy and you chose to have children, you chose to be a stay-at-home mother, then yeah. There may be times when you want to leave and you say, well, it's not really practical. I don't have any money and so on. And yeah, so you will have to stay and you will have to work it out in the same way that the guy wakes up with a migraine. He's got to go to work because he's got to pay the bills. And,
you know, there's just times you have to do things that you don't want to do. And if the woman says, look, there's no abuse. I just, I'm not enjoying the marriage. And, you know, I mean, have they gone through marriage counseling? Have they done everything they can to make things improve? Have they tried to figure out, has she tried to figure out how to improve things? A lot of people will quit just because they're bored. A lot of people leave relationships because, as women say, they're dissatisfied. So if you quit your job because you just want to go do something else, why is your boss still obligated to pay you,
so to speak? And again, this is true. If the woman is making the money and the man is staying home and the man decides to leave the woman because he's dissatisfied or bored or thinks the grass is greener somewhere else, he shouldn't get paid either. Again,
the kid's a different matter, but Was that fair? Well, how is it fair that he doesn't get 50-50 custody? Well, first of all, why are you asserting that they don't? It's 50% his DNA. Why can't he have 50% custody? Let me answer your question, even though I should be interrogating you. I'll answer your question. Massive study out of Massachusetts that looked at 24,000 divorces. In those 25 divorces, they found that in only 8% of cases did men ask for custody. Right,
because the average American can't afford divorce fees, Anna. But women can afford to raise the children by themselves without support from the ex-husband. Well, so they're conflating alimony and child support. Of course, if you have children, you know, adult children, you know, 22, it's like a quarter century it takes sometimes for people to become economically independent. So child support is a different matter from alimony. And so Anna's point, which I understand and appreciate,
is that if the woman foregoes income in order to raise the man's children, then if the marriage doesn't work out, and that's a very abstract phrase, right? But if the marriage doesn't work out, then she needs to have some support to raise those children. And then, of course, you'd say, well, why is it that marriage has worked out so well in the past, so to speak, right? And most people who are considering divorce who end up not getting divorced end up happier that they didn't get divorced, Right?
So why is it that in the past, 80 % of blacks in America were married?
And now almost the same number of children are born outside of wedlock and only one out of four American black women will get married in her lifetime?
Is it because they were also abusive in the past?
Like something has changed with regards to the incentives.
If you go from 80 % marriage to 77 % illegitimacy for children being born outside of wedlock, that's not just because all of those marriages were abusive and the women are finally free.
There's something that has changed in terms of incentives.
That is very serious to society, and that would be my case, right?
Yes, there are bad marriages and people should get out of them, but when marriage laws change, people stick it out. Most people who stick it out end up being happy that they did. So we're also incentivizing breaking up the family, which puts children at risk and is bad for the environment and is bad for stability and is bad for depression and anxiety and is bad for the economy. Say,
oh, well, women have contributed so much to the economy, but if women are initiating most of the divorces, then housing demand goes through the roof because you need two houses, you need more cars, you need more duplicates of all these toys, you need double insurance, you know, everything, right? So, my point would be To say to Anna, do you think it's possible, is it possible that incentives have skewed women to be paid to divorce, to separate,
to not stay and work things out? Is it possible? Now, if she says it's not possible, then I would say, well, you don't know that, you can't know that. And what you're saying is that people don't respond to incentives. That basic foundational law of economics is that people respond to incentives. That's why when there's a sale, people go buy things, right? You have to make the case that people respond to incentives, and is it possible that the incentives in divorce have raised the divorce rate to the detriment of family stability,
and some women get divorced for reasons that are bad and some men get divorced for reasons that are bad because of these perverse incentives that you get more money.
Like, you know, when you change the law, then divorces go down.
So you're trying to figure out if people are responding to facts and evidence and also if they're open to changing people's minds.
The crack about that Pearl should do Botox is, I don't know, I mean, incomprehensible to me.
Uh, that would be like a guy I don't even know what that would be like, a guy making fun of me because I'm bald, like anyway.
So that is a uh, I I don't really follow the, the point of that how, that's just and and I think it's it's negative points.
But you want to know like, are people just holding on to a position like everything?
And I'd also say, is Everything that feminism has done good?
or have there been any negative aspects to feminism? Has it ever gone too far? Why do you think the national debt is so high? Why are the unfunded liabilities so high? Why has social spending and the national debt exploded since women got the vote? Are there any negatives at all to feminism? And if the person says,
no, there are no negative aspects to feminism, it's never gone too far, it's perfect, well, that's just a cult. And again, I'm not saying Anna would say that, but that would be an important question to ask if the person is going to defend no matter what,
or if they themselves have criticisms that you can both agree on, right? How does that make sense? What did you say? I didn't hear you. We were talking. You're complaining about the costs while simultaneously arguing that a woman should not get child support in order to raise the children that the former couple had together. Are you guys equal Yes,
equality means that you're both responsible for raising the children, and that includes the cost of raising the children. Right, right, so you should have equality, but not at the expense of men. 50-50 custody, 50-50, no child support, no alimony. That's equality. Alimony makes sense if the woman was a stay-at-home mother and doesn't have a source of income. How else would she take care of the kids following a divorce? By getting a job just like the men. Now, I understand all of that,
for sure. Had as a standard in many places that the child must continue in the lifestyle to which he's been accustomed, right? So if you have a family, the man brings home $150,000 a year, and the woman's being a stay-at-home mom, she'd be lucky to get a job making $40,000 or $50,000, which means that the children are going to be happier with the wealthier father than with the poorer mother,
and she has given up. Skills and experience and all this kind of stuff. And if the children are very young, she is going to have to stay home. Like somebody does have to take care of the children. She can't just go and get a job,
right? So if she had kids young in her early 20s and they were married for 10 years, she's 32. Maybe the kids are still, she's got three kids. One of them is still, let's say under four, under three. Then who is going to take care of the kids? And those are very real questions. Those questions. How these are solved is a big challenge. I mean,
obviously, the free market and contract law should be handling this, not the government. But one of the reasons that women do leave is because they get well paid to do so. And, you know, I would say, Anna, You said that women are in the workforce.
Women are in the workforce because they get paid, because incentives matter.
They wouldn't go and do it for free.
And if women are getting paid to divorce, then they're more likely to divorce.
And that's at the expense of the children.
So you're saying that a woman who doesn't have recent job history is just going to willy -nilly enter the workforce and easily get hired.
Do you care about the children or not?
Because you're making this about the poor ex -husband who doesn't want to pay the child support, doesn't want to take on any of the responsibilities of having children in the first place.
why is it that you seem to have a problem with men carrying out their responsibilities but when it comes to men are dying to care about their responsibilities men are fighting to be a part of their kids lives what's the empirical data on that i don't need data how many people in here have had a family or or a friend fight for their kid and not be able to get it the reason the reason i don't Data is a challenge,
right? That is a challenge. So you either have to argue data, evidence, or logic. Because at the moment, we're just But nobody's defining much of anything, right? And this is an age-old debate,
which is a woman who sacrifices income to raise the children, let's say, to make the case, right? So a woman gives up her job, gives up her education, gives up any chance of a career to raise a man's children, and then he just runs away and divorces her because he fancies his secretary because he wants to start a second family,
or whatever, like, whatever, he's a bad guy. It's very hard to go and get a job, right? Because she's been at home, she goes to try and get a job, and she's less likely to be hired because she's got two or three kids, maybe. And who's going to take care of her kids while she's working? Because otherwise, she's going to take her money and she's going to give it to the daycare and she's got very little left over for herself. And it's a very,
very tough situation. And you can say, well, it's 50-50 and so on. So the woman has taken an economic hit to be in the marriage. She has. And if the man just runs away and gives her nothing, not even for the children. And Pearl's saying, well, she should just go and get a job like men do. And it's like, yeah, but the man who's going to get a job had a job with a stay-at-home wife. The woman who's got the kids 50-50, he can afford,
right? He can afford to hire nannies or whatever. She can't. And those are just basic economic facts. And there's no great answer. To all of these things. I don't believe in state power. I don't think the government should get involved. But the kids need to eat. And I think Anna's point,
it does need to be addressed. And I mean, the best way to address it, of course, is to raise children peacefully, to teach them how to negotiate, to teach negotiation skills, and what it means to be married in school for kids or however they get educated, and for there to be marriage insurance, right? If you end up getting divorced, then the insurance company pays out. And therefore,
the insurance company has a direct incentive to make sure you guys stay married, which means that they're going to vet you ahead of time in order to get good rates for insurance. They want to vet you ahead of time. They want to check you for compatibility. They want to have you sit down with counselors to iron out any potential disagreements. And then they want to support you over the course of the marriage because otherwise they're on the hook. Legally marries you,
and the marriage doesn't work out. I mean, no individual person in the government pays that price. But if you have marriage insurance, which is what you would need for the sake of children, then the insurance company has a direct incentive to work to prevent incompatible couples from getting together. They will check up with you yearly,
how's the marriage going, in the same way that you get a health checkup if you have insurance, you'll get your blood work done. They'll check up, they'll provide good feedback and incentives and so on. So the People raised well are much more likely to get married and stay married. And you have social institutions in the free market that are heavily invested and incentivized to prevent divorce. And that's kind of what you need,
right? So all of this sort of back and forth, it's all about political power. And I understand where people are coming from. I mean, they're both making good points, in my humble opinion. And I hate to use this phrase, they're just talking past each other. Uh,
Anna on the left saying feminism is great, and Pearl saying there are negative aspects to it. That is a more defensible position, and to ask someone, are there any, have there been any negatives or excesses? I mean, this would be my approach, right? Again, this is just my approach, not perfect or anything, but I would say, I would gather together. Statements of feminists that are, like, there was something called SCUM,
the Society for Cutting Up Men. That was a very popular feminist movement in certain circles. In the past, there have been feminists who've become terrorists. There have been feminists who kill all men. There are feminists, like, all of this. So I would ask, are there any excesses or negatives to the feminist movement? And then Anna would have to say, yes, in which case I would say, well, what are they, in your opinion? Right? And that's important, right? Because there are. I mean, if I were to say there are negatives to the libertarian movement, like, yeah,
for sure. But if she says there are no negatives to the feminist movement, then I would read off these statements and say, do you agree with them? And if she did agree with them, the debate would be over. And if she didn't agree with them, then I would say, So you're not telling the truth.
So there are negatives to the feminist movement, but you just said that they weren't.
So i'm not sure how to trust what's coming out of your mouth if you just said, and again, i'm not saying, but that would be the way to do it in my opinion, but uh anyway, so we got another few seconds.
Happens, Anna is because lawyers tell them not to fight because it's so expensive and they won't win.
What is that based on?
You have to provide look, pearl.
I am open to be convinced, but I need more than anecdotes, I need more than vibes and feelings, because we're talking about something serious here.
but i need more than anecdotes i need more than vibes and feelings because we're talking about something serious here we're talking about raising children we're talking about the shared responsibility of raising children that of course in 90 of disputed custody goes to women that's not equal 90 that's a totally made-up statistic where are you citing that from
We're talking about raising children.
We're talking about the shared responsibility of raising children.
If you're going to cite statistics, you need your sources, like you sorry, this is you just you need your sources and uh, that's a good question.
All right, let's take a break there, all right?
Well, i'll stop here and i'd love to hear what you guys think.
Uh, don't forget, i'll be out there on the 28th and we're going to do a meet and greet, I think, the night before, so i'll be out in Atlantic City.
I'm looking forward to uh.
I miss the audience, I miss uh debates and I think it's going to be a great deal of fun and, I think, quite powerful.
I think quite powerful.
I have a lot of stored up truth from this half decade in the wilderness, so