00:05:09.120I am who I say I am. And I really want to underscore something for everyone who is
00:05:14.560listening because there's about 5,500 men incarcerated in Massachusetts. There's only
00:05:25.480about 220 women within the Framingham facility, and there's just a single facility for women.
00:05:33.960And so to have about 20 men within the women's facility, that means that facility is now 10% men. That entirely changes the population, the prison population. And men and women's crimes are very different.
00:05:52.500Women aren't held for those kind of highly violent crimes. So the average prison sentence for these women is only about four to five years. And anyone who works in prisons or understands prisons know that it is those who are incarcerated the longest who really create the culture within the prison.
00:06:17.140one they're incentivized hierarchy you know yeah so these men having multiple life sentences without
00:06:23.600parole being in there for so long also just being male and that you know asymmetry of of physicality
00:06:31.200and power that exists between men and women these these men really have a high capacity to control
00:06:37.560the culture within the women's prisons so this is i mean it's just dangerous on so many levels
00:06:45.800It's dangerous for the, the women who they're housed with, the women who they daily come into contact with, but it's, it's a real problem for the entire culture of that prison facility.0.67
00:06:56.280So yeah, there's a hierarchy. And when you, when you put a male in those spaces, it totally changes the dynamic of, of how things operate in these spaces, which is, is totally just absurd and crazy.
00:07:12.820um we we alluded to the eighth amendment right which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment
00:07:19.480incarcerated women are in these correctional facilities and they're fulfilling their sentence
00:07:24.160of course but that doesn't mean that they have no humanity or their own constitutional rights
00:07:30.260is there a legitimate eighth amendment argument that knowingly exposing women to a substantial
00:07:36.660risk of sexual assault or violence constitutes cruel and unusual punishment i mean to me
00:07:44.820it is very obviously cruel and it is certainly unusual so so all that to say is there talks of
00:07:51.540of pursuing you know a legal battle here by these women have you have you been able to talk with
00:07:59.280some of the female inmates? Many smaller level organizations who are fighting to get these1.00
00:08:07.160women represented. However, I want to impress on people that these women are under a lot of0.76
00:08:14.780pressure from inside the prisons to stay silent. So women who have previously spoken out about this
00:08:24.040in order to share information about what is happening inside, they are often directly
00:08:30.700punished, put in solitary or confined, or there are women who we know of who have lost
00:08:41.420their potentiality for parole because they have spoken out on this.
00:08:47.080So they are they are really directly, yeah, pressured to stay silent on this issue.
00:08:54.940And those who speak out have really done so at their own risk and detriment.
00:09:01.840You know, I'm sitting here just thinking, again, of the difference between just based on my knowledge, which which I will admit is is relatively limited.
00:09:09.320Um, but how I understand men's prisons versus women's prisons, um, and men's prisons, we know
00:09:17.360that HIV and AIDS runs far more rampant, of course, than in women's prisons. Is there a concern
00:09:25.780when putting these men who come from male facilities, when we were putting them in
00:09:30.560women's prisons, that they could be spreading some of, of these, um, diseases? I mean,
00:09:37.680is that a legitimate concern i mean there's there's that there's also in california there was0.93
00:09:44.900a condom machine put inside the women's prison why would they need condoms so we know there is0.70
00:09:54.860we know there's rape happening i mean prisoners don't um prisoners ultimately can't consent to
00:10:01.260sexual activity they are incarcerated so under um the the sort of legal statute they actually
00:10:06.660cannot consent to sex as in as they when they are incarcerated. And now there are condom machines
00:10:13.280in certain prisons. And we know there is forcible pregnancy happening. And meanwhile, there are also
00:10:20.000in some women's prisons in different states, there are infant units because some incarcerated women
00:10:27.460have become pregnant and some incarcerated women, they are pregnant when they become incarcerated.
00:10:33.720So there are some units for children. And now these men who literally are convicted child rapists and kidnappers, they are in facilities where there are children who come to visit their mothers and also child facilities on the premises.
00:10:52.140So it's really very dangerous. I mean, diseases, of course, are a massive problem, but the forced pregnancy is a real problem.
00:11:05.140problem. You know, one of the things that I thought was most compelling about the rally0.86
00:11:10.140and what I saw online and on social media was how there were women, people, but I think
00:11:16.360specifically women from all sorts of different ideological backgrounds, right? You have your
00:11:22.400pretty traditional liberal feminist, and then you had conservatives. Can you talk about how this0.99
00:11:29.940issue has actually really been unifying. I think we're made out to believe that it's divisive and
00:11:35.640it's 50-50, at least in, you know, our two political parties and how mainstream media
00:11:40.740purports these issues. But I have really grown to understand how this issue, despite what we're
00:11:47.400made to believe, it's really a unifying issue. What did you see on the ground just being there
00:11:54.460Yeah, this issue brings together exactly all kinds. And I think that there's a lot of within, I guess, gender ideology activism, there's a real push to divide and conquer women on this issue and to use right alignment as a wedge to silence more leftist or feminist women on this issue.
00:12:22.660But yeah, as you've seen on prisons, in sports, on the bathroom and locker room issues, it has been so remarkable to me to see constantly, constantly what I see is women coming together across the aisle, just absolutely cross-partisan participation.
00:12:44.700And, you know, you saw some of that when we were rallying with these Sophie rallies. There's been just a remarkable collaboration of women coming together. And I think it's been so powerful because, you know, on both sides, sometimes there is a push to have women ally themselves with their party first and as women second.
00:13:12.860And I think that the issue of gender ideology has really pushed women to come together as women first and our party affiliations second.
00:13:25.440Yeah, I mean, it's just people who want, I mean, who acknowledge what is real and what is true.
00:13:31.980It's crazy, again, that these issues across the board have, I guess, taken us to the point where we are now.
00:13:40.520Have you found, I just thought of just this in, you know, listening to you, have you found that liberal women who speak out on this issue face different kinds of backlash than conservative women do?
00:13:55.640Because of several people in my life who I know who would describe themselves as lifelong liberals, I mean, even in terms of their own family, like they've suffered some, you know, severance, if you will.
00:14:10.520of family ties you know maybe their kids won't talk to them anymore um i haven't had that in my
00:14:16.120family which you know totally transparent i've been conservative my whole life my whole family
00:14:21.760is conservative i live in you know a pretty rural part of tennessee so i haven't had to face that
00:14:25.640but i think liberal women are subjected to a different kind of backlash than conservative
00:14:32.500women when it comes to this topic yeah i think absolutely i think that women you know progressive
00:14:40.500Feminist women, women on the left have been the, it's like they try to use affiliation with the right as some kind of stigmata, you know, as some kind of like scarlet A that can be used against us.
00:15:01.400And for some women, it's effective. I mean, women, I've heard women trying to defend themselves like, you know, like, well, I'm not MAGA. I'm not a, you know, I'm not a, you know, radical Christian or to have to feel like they have to defend themselves against being an ally with other women. And I find that really sad.0.63
00:15:27.800So it was pretty shocking to me. I knew when I was beginning to speak out on this issue that it was going to confront some of my friends who I knew thought differently than me. But I've been really shocked that I've lost so many friends.
00:15:46.540And it really showed me something that it's funny. I ally with women on the right all the time who I know we have various different opinions on so many things. And yet we we can see each other. We see that we share values. We really understand that.
00:16:05.260And and I feel like the right is honestly much better at understanding that we can come together over shared values, even when we think there are, you know, different best practices of how to achieve those those those values.
00:16:21.020And I'm, I'm very disappointed in the direction that the left has gone.
00:16:25.580I'm like so many who, um, somewhat politically homeless.
00:16:28.880And also I just feel like I've stayed the same and the left has gone.
00:16:34.300I don't, I don't know where they've got, they have gone, they have marched off in a
00:16:37.580different direction and it's very, the left left me.
00:16:42.840And it's really disappointing that, you know, I, I had one friend who was a friend of mine
00:16:49.660for over 20 years. And when I first spoke out on this issue, she, she said to me, you know,
00:16:55.400like if, if you want to prove to me that you're not hateful, you know, if you want to prove that
00:17:00.900to me. And she had this like list of all these things that I was going to have to do to prove
00:17:05.420this to her. And I, you know, I just kind of said to her, like if 20 years of my friendship
00:17:10.520haven't proved anything to you about my character, I don't know what I can do for you today.
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00:19:24.240can click the link in the description scan the qr code or check the pin comment it's what it feels
00:19:30.440And I've been just reheartened about all of the connections that I've made through this issue. And I feel like I have felt that in coming together with women, you know, cross-partisan, that it's cool to stand together as women.
00:19:54.840It's cool to collaborate. It's cool to be women who love women. It's cool to be women who, you know, protect our daughters and our nieces and the students that we have in our classrooms.
00:20:08.980It's cool to come together and to feel solidified and to feel like we do love, we do share values. We do love the same country. We are together and we're not just divided across party lines, but that we share so much.
00:20:29.140And that is, although I desperately hate this ideology that is trying to dissociate kids from their bodies, that's trying to infiltrate women's private spaces and attack our boundaries and our rights.
00:20:46.000I hate that the ideology does that, but I have absolutely been heartened by all of the connections and relationships that I've built.
00:20:55.420yeah i agree with you and i i i very much feel that like it's weird because every every single
00:21:01.880day truthfully um i wake up just with this really deep sense of gratitude um and almost like calmness
00:21:08.640in all of the chaos of it amidst the mean comments and false headlines and and death threats and
00:21:15.600whatever there's just this level of calmness because um you do you meet amazing people you
00:21:21.120go amazing places. You have the ability for real and lasting impact. And it does, it leaves me
00:21:26.500feeling, uh, just, just gratified. And so thank you for saying that you make me feel less crazy.
00:21:33.380Um, this isn't an issue. I would say that first and foremost, that, that majority of the general
00:21:40.500public is aware about what's happening, what's really happening in women's prisons and to what
00:21:44.620extent, what would be your pitch for people to care? Someone might say, well, again, these are
00:21:50.260incarcerated women. What's your pitch here? Why should people care about what's happening?1.00
00:21:55.540And why should this motivate them beyond just this issue, but the entirety of gender ideology?
00:22:03.980I, I think that it, this issue in prisons really exposes that gender ideology impacts
00:22:13.900the most vulnerable women, the most marginalized women, the women who already have the most to
00:22:23.940lose. Women's prisons are very different than men's prisons. Most women who are in prison are
00:22:32.760in prison for very different reasons than men. Men, God bless them, I love them,
00:22:38.960um, commit a lot more crimes. They are a lot more, um, uh, uh, risk taking women are a lot1.00
00:22:47.360more risk averse. So the kinds of crimes that women are incarcerated for are more things like1.00
00:22:53.680they're very petty crimes. They're, um, they're more in the realms of theft. They're more in the1.00
00:22:58.880realms of trafficking, uh, drugs, um, prostitution, things like this. They, they are not high violent
00:23:07.900criminals in and the the difference between a men's a men's low security and a women's prison
00:23:15.660a women's prison is is very low security it is not these are not as nearly as violent places as men
00:23:23.380and I think we can see that across the board this ideology you know it impacts women in prison it
00:23:33.200It impacts girls, young girls in their locker rooms and in their sports.
00:23:39.120It impacts women in domestic violence shelters wanting to be alone.
00:23:45.360It really, it attacks our most vulnerable first.
00:23:52.100And although prison is a place for, you know, serving your sentence,
00:24:00.800it should also be a place for rehabilitation rather than re-traumatization. And incarcerated
00:24:07.920women have a lot higher rates of sexual violence. Many have been prostituted. And I think it really0.55
00:24:16.300behooves us to remember that most of these women are not doing that voluntarily. They have pimps.0.99
00:24:23.460They are under high levels of control in their lives before they end up in prison, many of them.
00:24:30.800So I think protecting them and remembering their, their plight is a value and taking