Catholic author exposes toxic femininity...and its cure
Summary
Dr. Cary Grass is the author of The Anti-Mary Exposed, Rescuing the Culture from Toxic Femininity, a book that explores the concept of toxic femininity and how it intersects with Catholicism. In this episode, Dr. Grass talks about the recent controversy surrounding her book, and how the book became a target of cancel culture.
Transcript
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Have you ever wondered how to square feminism with Catholicism, or been part of trying to
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find a good side of feminism to praise and try to distinguish it from bad pro-abortion
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Don't you wish there was a different way of speaking about women, the role of women
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Well, there is a fascinating conceptualization of this in a book called The Anti-Mary Exposed,
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When the book first came out a couple years ago, I missed it.
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But there was a recent controversy over the book which sparked interest because the book
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just recently became a target of cancel culture.
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We have with us today the author of the intriguing and apparently very controversial book, Dr.
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Let's begin as we always do with the sign of the cross.
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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
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In the intro, I mentioned how your book, already a couple years old, but a book that's very
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controversial indeed, especially right after the Biden inauguration, has been the subject
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The book is called The Anti-Mary Exposed, Rescuing the Culture from Toxic Femininity.
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But first of all, tell us about this canceling of your book right after the Biden inauguration.
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Yeah, well, it was a Sunday afternoon right after the inauguration, and I got a notification
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from a bookseller that informed me that they couldn't post the book online to sell it than
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Because they got a message saying it didn't fit with community standards or whatever.
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And then they tried to post it to Instagram and got the exact same message.
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So I thought, OK, they're obviously owned by the same people.
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I put it on Facebook and on Instagram that this was happening, and people just were incredibly
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It shot up to 242 on Amazon's list, and it was number one in feminist theory, which was
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it's always so gratifying to see it anywhere near the top of feminist theory, because it's
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sitting next to books called I Hate Men and all these just awful books.
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So anyway, then Amazon sold out of it, and they actually stopped selling it.
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Those buttons that they have where you can still purchase it, and it says will be available
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So you could only buy it from a third-party seller, even though we know the publisher had
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already received an order for them, and we kept saying, can you put these back up?
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And so Amazon would put the buttons back up, and then they would come back down again within
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So the book just plateaued at 242 and couldn't go any higher at that point because you're
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not going to get ratings or rankings for a book that's not selling.
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So anyway, it was really interesting to see how that played out.
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So you've got a two-year-old book, it's the week Biden is inaugurated, and it's a book
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So it was kind of this perfect storm of a book to be targeted.
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So anyway, we'll see how it goes from here on out.
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Amazon has since put the buttons back the week later, and it's still for sale there, unlike
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But yeah, we'll see how it plays out over the coming year for sure.
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Well, the great part about all that is that it must be something to be revisited.
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So the good Lord sees to foil the plans of the evil one.
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And, you know, the powers that be at Amazon might not like a lot of things, and I think
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felt really empowered with the Biden administration coming in.
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That's when we started getting warnings about our YouTube channel, and then we're eventually
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The concept of the anti-Mary being really toxic feminism today.
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Well, it actually came to me when I was writing my book, The Marianne Option, and I was looking,
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it was actually during the election for Hillary Clinton against Trump.
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And I was looking at Hillary Clinton and looking at how powerful of a woman she was going to
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But simultaneously, I'm reading about Our Lady and how she, you know, even National Geographic
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has called her the most powerful woman in the world.
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And I thought, you know, these two things do not look the same.
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You know, there's something very, very different about Hillary Clinton than about Our Lady.
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And not, you know, it's not just that Hillary is sort of slightly different, but she's,
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everything that she stands for is diametrically opposed to who Our Lady is.
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And so that got me really thinking about the culture and seeing just the direction that
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So I have a chapter in that book called, Are We Living in the Age of Mary or the Anti-Mary?
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And from there, the publisher said, you know, can you just do a book on this topic?
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And so, you know, we signed the contract and then I sort of panicked, like, I hope there's
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And then I got started on the research and it was like a fire hose of information.
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You know, it's one of these things a friend of mine that read the book early on, right
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after it was published, said, you know, you can't unsee the anti-Mary.
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Once you sort of see it in the culture, it's just so obvious and so evident.
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And, you know, that's what I found in my research was just to see, you know, how many awful
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things and awful representations and distortions of womanhood there are out there.
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That we're being sold day in and day out and being told this is really what womanhood
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And, you know, it just ended up becoming a whole book, obviously.
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But the first half really focuses on this idea of the anti-Mary.
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And then the second half looks at who Our Lady is and why we have great hope in her and
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why she should be this model of femininity for all women.
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So what are some of the ways you suggest to fight sort of the anti-Mary culture that we're
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You know, it seems like every time I write a book, it leads to another book.
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And I've been kind of amazed at how, you know, one response that we could have is to really
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And I think that what ends up happening there is we get angry and we end up looking a lot
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And I've also was intrigued by the fact that I saw just how the culture was taken down.
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You've got all of these very saccharine, lovely magazines and fashion and, you know, all these
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And yet all of them were just laced with Marxism or with just, you know, distortions of sexuality
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And that's how the culture has been like they seem very innocuous.
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But if you look at the layers there, even Cosmo magazine was really set up to be just the
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These are the ways in which women have really been, you know, confused and deluded and led
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And it's interesting to even see, you know, they're not reading Marx or they're not reading
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Margaret Sanger, but these are the ideas that we have sort of picked up through the ether
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So that's really led me to do this work with Theology of Home.
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We're working on a third on Theology of Home because we're using beautiful visuals and we're
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We're using Catholic ideas to help women absorb these in the same way that we absorb the bad
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ideas, but in a way that's beautiful and compelling.
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Because I think a few people know that what Catholic women have, you know, we're said to
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We know how to deal with stress and deal with, you know, crosses and turmoil in our lives.
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So, so we always joke about how, you know, in these books, we're putting up pictures
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of, you know, illicit pictures of, you know, men that really look like men and are good
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dads and big families and pregnant women, you know, all these things that aren't supposed
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Because, you know, if you look at any commercial today, it's, it's the man and it usually he's
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an idiot that the woman has to come along and sort of help him, you know, diaper a baby
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So anyway, we wanted to really just represent truth, beauty and goodness, but in a way that's
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very absorbable by women in a way that we're used to absorbing content.
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You're not saying that men should never help in the kitchen or should never help change a
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No, but I think that's the thing is that they're absolutely competent.
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You know, I have a husband who, you know, is a much better cook than I am.
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And, you know, my kids are happy when he cooks, when I don't.
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But, but that this is the way that we've been portrayed is as, you know, men are idiots
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That's, that's this lie that men are enemy and that the patriarchy is bad.
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And then the other lie, of course, is that women that don't agree with these women, they're,
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And so we just wanted to show the opposite of that, something very, very beautiful.
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That also fits in line with, of course, who Our Lady is as a model of service and humility
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I think those are important elements that aren't, aren't out there.
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Now, you have a fascinating account in your book about the way some of this came to be
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Do you want to tell us a little bit about that?
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Mallory Millett is the sister of the late Kate Millett.
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But Mallory had been writing about her sister since her death and really trying to get Kate's
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story out because she felt a lot of guilt because she had been involved in Kate's life
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early on and been kind of a follower of Kate's.
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And she actually helped name her book, Sexual Politics.
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And Sexual Politics landed Kate on the front of Time magazine.
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But it also was sort of the backbone of all the women's studies programs that are now
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So Mallory's had this huge conversion and was really trying to get the truth out about
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So she recounts back in the day when they were all living in New York that Kate would host
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these events or they would be in someone's, one of her friend's apartments.
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Twelve women sort of chanting this Marxist litany.
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So Kate knew what she was doing, both with a number of 12 women, but also with this litany.
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And this litany was really part of this, you know, Maoist consciousness raising, very Marxist
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And, you know, I don't know if you have it there in front of you, if it's easier for you
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to read it, but, or I can just describe the gist of it.
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Ultimately, the, that what was behind their effort was to certainly destroy the American
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family, to destroy men, to destroy the patriarchy, to, and to destroy all of these things that
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And they did it through promoting promiscuity, homosexuality, prostitution, you know, all
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of these things that at that stage were really not mainstream.
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And you read this final line of their litany, and it's just amazing to see how successful
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And, you know, it's interesting to even think about how, even just last week, Madonna, Madonna
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was put something up on Twitter, something like death to the patriarchy.
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You know, Madonna is worth $850 million and somehow is blaming her, you know, lack of
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But it's just fascinating how successful these 12 women were in spreading out this idea that
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And so it's now just shorthand, you know, any woman can complain about the patriarchy and
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somehow everybody's like, oh, well, she's right.
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Or, you know, it goes completely unquestioned, 50 years out from that event.
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So it's really amazing to see just how successful these 12 women were, because, of course, they
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went on to, again, form these women's studies programs.
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They were all involved in NOW and NARAL and, you know, all these different ways that have
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But Mallory, on a different note, was, because she was so helpful, at one point we were talking
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about the title of the book, and she said, you've got to put toxic femininity in it.
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So it's pretty amazing to see her go from, you know, 50 years ago, naming her sister's
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book to, you know, almost 50 years to the day, helping me name my book.
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I know that she was, it really felt like that was an incredible, you know, grace that God
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showed her how much she's transformed who she was at that time.
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And of course, there was an occult element to it as well.
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This wasn't just, you know, Marxism, but there was also very much an involvement in
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the occult and these women and a desire to just erase men altogether, to really see lesbianism
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as the pinnacle of creation, or, you know, that was the goal to be aimed towards.
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So yeah, it's very sad realities in these lives, especially because most of them had
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major issues with their own parents, especially their mothers.
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There was a book that came out shortly before I published mine that was so insightful in
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And I don't think it was meant to be insightful in the way that I was using it, but it was
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just really revealing as to how broken these women were.
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You're writing a book about traditional motherhood, about the value of motherhood of women in the
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People are going to think, oh my gosh, she's a throwback to the old ages.
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I want them to get to know a little bit about Cary Grass.
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Who is Cary Grass and why would you write such a thing?
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You know, it's funny because I think that is the reaction because we've been conditioned
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to think that that's the reaction, that if you're not with a culture today, then you
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And, you know, I look at the 1950s and I say, the 1950s had to have some serious, maybe
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they had this veneer of looking lovely, but there were some serious pieces missing because
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you wouldn't have had the 60s be such a disaster if the family had been in better tact, if the
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faith had been in better tact, if people knew their faith better.
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So I'm never really advocating for going back to that model.
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But yeah, I grew up in Oregon, actually, very liberal state.
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And I think in many ways, it probably just turned me off because I saw the way people's
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lives were destroyed by rampant drug abuse and, you know, just living without God.
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My father passed away and I, you know, I asked all kinds of questions as a teenager, trying
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to figure out what, like reconciling his death and who I was and all these questions.
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And ultimately, it was really answered by the church and just led me in this incredible
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journey to find the faith and the truth of it and come to know Our Lady and all of that.
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But in the meantime, I was also, I just started studying philosophy.
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So I ended up finishing a doctorate in philosophy at Catholic University, actually finished it after
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I worked on it in labor and delivery because I was told I wasn't going to finish it.
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And so I finally finished it after my third child was born.
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But I've also lived in Poland and in Rome, working as a journalist and doing all kinds
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I lived in Washington, D.C. and was actually George Weigel's assistant for three years.
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We were both older when we got married and we've been blessed with five children.
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But yeah, I don't think that we really fit the 1950s model at all because we're both
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100% all the time between all the things that we're doing and just caring for our children.
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And yeah, it's both of us working really hard together to do the things that we've done
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And on a final note, Keri, let me just ask you about Our Lady, specifically your relationship
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with Our Lady and how she's helped in your life and how you feel she might help today's
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This is a very long, I could talk about this probably for about two hours.
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But the first thing that I struggled with in terms of talking about Our Lady is that she
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We can think of her as just a statue or very pious.
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And so I went back to look at what are the desires of every woman's heart.
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And certainly these things can become distorted.
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Even these women that you look at radical feminism and you see what these women were doing,
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they thought that they were actually doing very good things.
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But you can see this desire to do the good deep in them.
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It just was obviously very misguided and distorted.
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That's been turned more twisted into a kind of control and manipulation with our sexuality
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We can see that she's got this desire to be known and loved, but it's completely fulfilled
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And that's where everything else flows out of that.
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So her goodness, of course, is perfect goodness because it's in accord with God's will.
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Even when I was researching the marrying option, was just to see how much people spoke
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You know, this isn't an accidental attribute that she has, but it's very specific and very
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And this is why I believe women are made beautiful.
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Well, she's beautiful so that she can show others what God looks like, to show God's
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St. Therese has this great quote about how Our Lady is so beautiful that you would want
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And every apparition, it was always the person that saw her said, she was the most beautiful
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So that beauty, I think, is such a great idea for us to understand the kind of beauty that
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we're meant to cultivate and called to live and show others.
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But it was really funny because, of course, I wrote my book and I got to turn into the
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And I had never watched the Hallmark Channel before in my life.
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But somebody said, oh, watch the Hallmark Channel.
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But I watched a couple of movies with my daughters.
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After a couple of episodes, I was like, wait a minute.
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These are the three things that surround every Hallmark movie.
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You know, this desire to be known and loved, some desire to do the good.
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You know, it's some woman going home and saving a library or something.
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And the man that is entranced by her beauty and, you know, all of that.
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So it just really struck me that, you know, this is why Hallmark Channel is so popular because
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But ultimately, it comes back to who Our Lady is because she's the only one that can do all
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of those things in the right way because of her connection with God.
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So anyway, that's sort of the abstract understanding of, I think, why Our Lady can apply to all
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But, you know, on a personal level, I think I had a devotion to Our Lady for a very, very
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I was always intrigued by lures and other apparition sites.
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But certainly, my deep understanding of her love for her children did not happen until
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And so that's been a great grace to really understand the way that she loves us and the
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And I think, though, that every woman is called to spiritual motherhood.
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This isn't just for those of us that have children.
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But we all have this capacity to love others, to hold others, to be able to transform them
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And this is what we see with, you know, even within our bodies where we are meant to carry
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You can see this in, you know, references to Our Lady.
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The main part of the church, the nave, actually refers to navy or ship, this idea of carrying.
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So anyway, it's been really fun to sort of start looking at it.
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We've spent so much time trying to figure out how women can be like men that I've been
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trying to go back and help women see there's a whole nother side of femininity that we don't
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even understand anymore because we've been ignoring it.
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And certainly Our Lady has been incredibly instrumental in understanding that just because there's so
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much that's been written about her over the centuries.
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Carrie Gress, thank you so much for being with us on this episode of The John Henry Weston Show.
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And I would encourage all of you to please go out and get the book and read it.
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The name of the book is The Anti-Mary Exposed, Rescuing the Culture from Toxic Femininity.
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And there's much, much in there that we haven't covered yet.
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