HEATED Debate On Marriage With Piers Morgan
Episode Stats
Words per minute
200.02328
Harmful content
Misogyny
25
sentences flagged
Hate speech
13
sentences flagged
Summary
Is divorce becoming more common in today's culture wars? On one side, there are feminists rejecting a dating concept, on the other, so-called 'Tradwives' who think it binds our societies together. Estee Williams, 25-year-old influencer, has amassed hundreds of thousands of followers by showing off her tradwife life online. She even gave up her job to be the perfect wife. Is she and others like her saving society or are they selling out the sisterhood?
Transcript
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Model Emily Radachowski, one of my favourite dimwits,
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sparked controversy recently by claiming that getting divorced before 30 is chic.
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So it seems that a lot of ladies are getting divorced before they turn 30.
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And as someone who got married at 26, has been separated for a little over a year, 32,
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If there is nothing better than being in your 30s, still being hot,
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figuring out what you want to do with your life,
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for all of those people who are stressed or feeling stressed about that,
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about being divorced, like, it's good. Congratulations.
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Well, divorce is certainly becoming more common.
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Marriage itself is becoming a fierce frontier in the raging culture wars.
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On one side, there are feminists rejecting a dating concept.
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On the other, so-called tradwives who think it binds our societies together.
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Well, tradwives spend their days dutifully cooking and cleaning
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Estee Williams, who's a 25-year-old tradwife,
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She even gave up a job to be the perfect wife.
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Well, joining me now is traditional wife and influencer, Estee Williams.
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And in the studio, the socialist and author, Grace Blakely,
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This might be the best line-up in the history of television
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All right, Estee Williams, let's start with you as the tradwife.
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Why do you think we should all go back to having tradwives in marriages?
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Well, I actually don't believe that everyone should be a traditional wife.
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And I think it's a lovely choice if a woman wants to simply be a wife
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And it's a simple way of living with traditional gender roles.
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It's balanced and we don't have to do it all as women.
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I think we've proven that it's possible, but at what cost, right?
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And in terms of what being a tradwife involves,
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So, what I mean by that is the husband, he is the provider of the home.
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He goes out, he works, and he knows how to protect his family if need be.
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And the wife, she's the homemaker, she does the cooking, she does the cleaning,
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and she takes care of the home and children, if there are any,
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It's adhering to traditional gender roles.
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Grace, I'm sure you thoroughly agree with this, aren't you?
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Look, I mean, what Asu's just said about the fact that women should be able to choose,
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And, you know, men should be able to choose as well.
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I think the feminist critique of traditional gender roles and gender ideology
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isn't that some people like to stay at home and others don't.
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It's that you shouldn't be bound to pursue a certain life
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based on the sex that you were born into at birth.
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The one issue I do have is, I know, actually, someone,
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a friend of mine whose sister got involved in the tradwife movement in the US, basically.
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She got married to someone who was like, this is what we're doing.
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She felt like she'd been controlled, like her life became very small,
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She couldn't escape because, you know, she'd lost all her friends,
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And it concerns me that sometimes we see this narrative on social media
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that women have to be a certain way in order to get a husband.
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So you have to be this, like, particular model of femininity for people to love you.
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because I don't think anyone should have to shave off any parts of themselves
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to be loved or to, you know, find a husband or, you know, anything like that.
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I think it's a good that we're seeing a return to traditionalism.
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How has the feminist movement of the last few decades,
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And when you look at it and see how women have progressed,
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do you think it's been largely a force for good?
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that perhaps we've lost that sense of gender rules,
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which actually worked very well for many people?
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You know, I saw a study the other day that said only 25% of...
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I mean, this is an American step, an American household to have families,
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so I guess there's positives and there's negatives,
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Like, 85, 150 years ago, the average woman had seven kids,
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I mean, you know, there's also much higher infant mortality,
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and women died very young, and, you know...
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I mean, women were more depressed than ever before.
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Women over the age of 45 are the least happy demographic.
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There are a lot of very complex reasons for that.
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Well, and the issue you have is women like Emily Ratajkowski,
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Again, I've said this before, marriage isn't marriage anymore.
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We have things like no-fault divorce, leave if you're unhappy, so...
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What does that mean, marriage isn't marriage anymore?
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Because there have been so many marriages over the course of history
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either the man or the woman has been very unhappy,
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and they've been forced, basically, to stay in a marriage.
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Why would you spend it with someone who doesn't make you happy?
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And this is the problem we have with women.
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I mean, there's a reason we have phrases like a man of his word, right?
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There's a balance and a compromise in relationships.
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They're about knowing and understanding yourself.
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Learning to, you know, know and understand another person.
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Eventually, potentially, if you want to, bringing children into the world and teaching them how to do that as well.
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Teaching them to balance a sense of their own identity with the love that they have for another person.
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And, you know, for example, I know an older woman, actually, who's a friend of our family, who got divorced at about 60.
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And she said, I got to a point after I'd stopped being a mother and, you know, I was just kind of getting on, I realized I'd lost my sense of who I was.
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And I didn't really feel like I knew who I was anymore because I'd always just been a wife and a mother.
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I would say a modern mentality is me before the family.
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I would say traditionalism is the family before me, especially in women.
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And so what I actually, it's interesting you said 60-year-olds because, you know, I've interviewed 600, 700 people roughly in the past year and a half.
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I've done hundreds of shows interviewing people about relationships.
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And what I find is the 60-year-olds tend to, a lot of those women led their daughters astray.
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You know, there's a reason we're in this mess, right?
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A lot of those women had the wrong mentality when it came to marriage and had exactly the mentality that you're talking about.
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Which is that one should prioritize balancing one's own sense of identity with compromise in a relationship with someone else.
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But that's, again, you know, I think that's an interesting point here, actually.
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And it's really unfortunate because I would say the women of our generation really are suffering because of the advice of the women of the past.
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That's an interesting point here, right, which is that we do live in a very individualistic society.
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And we're all told, actually, I think a lot of the time in our relationships as well, you have to be a certain way if you want to receive love.
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You have to be a certain level of attractiveness.
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All right, listen, it's actually been very interesting listening to this.
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Esty, in terms of trad values, like my wife puts the bins out, for example.
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She's just adopted that role in our house.
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I don't know if I should feel ashamed of myself.
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It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the 50s and the 60s, especially in our household.
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I enjoy the aesthetic, and I think that's where people get a little mixed up with my channel.
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But I, well, to answer your question, actually, I don't put the trash bins out.
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But I think we have this thing in our household where he does most of the outdoor work.
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Of course, he works and provides, and I'm the homemaker.
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In relation to what Pearl said, is part of a sense of being dutiful and having no problem,
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Yes, I believe that traditionalism can, it is putting your family before yourself.
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And I think it is having those traditional values that were once definitely more in place
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You know, you see self-love printed everywhere, right?
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And women, speaking of divorce and marriage, women are leaving marriage far more easier
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And they are doing it because they think there's something better out there for them, that the
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And they're going through divorce after divorce.
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And it's a sacred bond where two become one under God.
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And I think part of that is putting your partner's needs before your own every single
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And I think of my husband as much as I can and what will please him and make him happy.
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I think that's, you know, a lovely way to think about relationships, if it's reciprocal.
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You're talking about God and family and tradition.
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I thought women were supposed to, you know, recognize their place and learn not to speak
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You talked there about religion and about Christianity and about self-love.
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You know, the most important commandment, there's two most important commandments, love
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So, that requires a foundation of self-love and respect for oneself and knowledge of one's
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own identity and what one wants to be able to receive and give the love that you're going