The Matt Walsh Show - September 11, 2018


Ep. 101 - Why Serena Williams' Tantrum Has Nothing To Do With ＂Women's Rights＂


Episode Stats


Length

22 minutes

Words per minute

166.78671

Word count

3,782

Sentence count

225

Harmful content

Misogyny

33

sentences flagged

Hate speech

16

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

On the 17th anniversary of 9/11, we remember the events that changed the way we see the world and shaped the way our kids grow up. What are the three defining events for your generation? And why do they have a special place in your mind?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 You know, the one very strange thing that I've been thinking about on the 17th anniversary
00:00:07.020 of 9-11, as a parent of young children, the thing that comes to mind is that my kids will
00:00:14.660 grow up seeing 9-11 as this kind of event from the ancient past, right?
00:00:21.800 Something from which they are detached, kind of like how I saw when I was a kid growing
00:00:28.300 up, I remember when I learned about the Vietnam War or the Cold War, the JFK assassination,
00:00:35.200 when I was a kid, all of those events were relatively recent to me.
00:00:40.680 You know, they happened not long before my birth, and my parents remembered them and
00:00:46.580 told me about them, but still, it just felt like something ancient, and that's how things
00:00:55.700 that happened before you were born, I guess, always feel.
00:00:58.300 At least in modern society, that's how they feel.
00:01:00.540 I think maybe back in the old days, people felt more connected to the past, even the
00:01:05.220 past, the things that happened before they were born.
00:01:09.440 But in this modern day and age, when news moves so quickly, and I don't know, we're just so
00:01:15.340 immersed in things that are happening around us.
00:01:17.760 We're so immersed kind of in the present, and we have all this information coming at us
00:01:22.920 all the time.
00:01:23.560 We're so aware of everything that's happening in the world.
00:01:25.280 So it makes it harder for us to feel connected to the past.
00:01:28.300 And so that's how, it's kind of strange that that's the perspective that my kids will have
00:01:32.720 of 9-11.
00:01:34.400 Because it was an event that was, it was probably the defining event for my generation.
00:01:41.280 I remember I was a freshman in high school when 9-11 happened, and everything changed
00:01:46.320 after that.
00:01:47.040 In fact, it's very sad.
00:01:48.020 I was also thinking about this the other day.
00:01:51.260 For me and my generation, I was thinking like, what are the three, what are the three
00:01:55.960 defining events for, for my generation?
00:02:01.240 People who are, you know, in their late 20s, early 30s right now.
00:02:05.040 And I'm talking about national events, not personal events.
00:02:08.240 And so for me, those three events very easily, very clearly would be, there was first, there
00:02:14.540 was Columbine, which happened when I was in middle school.
00:02:18.320 And we're sadly so used to school shootings now.
00:02:24.440 But when that happened, it was unprecedented, or at least it felt unprecedented.
00:02:30.080 And it just changed school.
00:02:32.380 It changed from then on out.
00:02:34.220 School just felt different.
00:02:35.420 And there was this feeling of unease and danger that you had in school that never really
00:02:40.540 went away after that.
00:02:41.860 And then 9-11, which, like I said, happened, I think it was, I was in ninth or 10th grade
00:02:47.140 when that happened.
00:02:47.960 And then for me, the last thing, being as I grew up in Maryland, the last defining event
00:02:53.700 was the DC sniper, which I guess if you were in other parts of the country, you know, that
00:02:58.340 was more just like a news item.
00:02:59.680 But around where I lived, it was a very terrifying time for a couple of weeks, where you legitimately
00:03:07.300 thought that you might get shot when you're walking to the bus stop or when you come out
00:03:10.920 of your house, because that's what was happening.
00:03:14.440 And so I was thinking about how much fear, anxiety, suspicion, all of those things, those
00:03:23.260 defining events infused, not just into me personally, but into everyone who was growing up around
00:03:30.820 that time.
00:03:34.580 So it's kind of sad that I think every generation has tragic events that are defining for them.
00:03:42.300 But I also think that some generations have also great, you know, tremendous, spectacular
00:03:49.660 events that are also defining.
00:03:50.960 Think about the moon landing, you know, for my grandparents' generation.
00:03:55.100 But so far, I don't know if we really have anything like that, at least for me growing
00:03:58.440 up, all the big news events, the defining ones, throw the Iraq war in there as well.
00:04:03.040 I mean, they were all terrible things, right?
00:04:05.660 So in that sense, I'm glad that it happened long before my kids were born, because I don't
00:04:13.120 really want something like that to be a defining event for them.
00:04:16.140 But in another sense, considering 9-11 was a defining national event, I don't want my kids
00:04:22.480 to feel completely disconnected from it either, though inevitably, they will.
00:04:28.740 All right.
00:04:30.620 Now, switching gears to a much, much less important story.
00:04:35.660 There's been a lot of discussion about Serena Williams at the U.S. Open.
00:04:41.500 You know, I'm sure you've heard by now, Williams was docked by the umpire for having a bit of
00:04:45.900 a temper tantrum, smashing her racket, verbally abusing the umpire, and so on and so on.
00:04:50.700 She lost the match, but her hysterics successfully distracted from, you know, the fact that she 1.00
00:04:55.840 lost and overshadowed the woman who beat her, which is very selfish on her part.
00:05:02.480 And later on, she claimed that she was the victim of a sexist conspiracy. 0.97
00:05:08.740 So this is what she said.
00:05:10.200 She said, I've seen other men call other umpires several things.
00:05:13.980 I'm here fighting for women's rights and for women's equality and for all kinds of stuff.
00:05:18.980 I want to go, that's what I want to focus on.
00:05:21.700 I'm going to go back to that.
00:05:22.660 But I'll give you the whole quote.
00:05:24.720 She says, for me to say thief, and because she called him a thief, I guess, and for him
00:05:29.140 to take a game, it made me feel like it was a sexist remark.
00:05:32.160 He's never taken a game from a man because they said thief.
00:05:35.840 She also said, I just feel like the fact that I have to go through this is just an example
00:05:39.680 for the next person that has emotions and that want to express themselves.
00:05:43.100 They want to be a strong woman.
00:05:44.360 Again, they're going to be allowed to do that because of today.
00:05:47.720 Maybe it didn't work out for me, but it's going to work out for the next person.
00:05:52.480 Now, Verso, very courageous.
00:05:54.320 You see, she's a pioneer setting the stage for other women by having this meltdown. 1.00
00:06:00.120 Now, there are a few things here.
00:06:01.260 First of all, notice how she conflates her temper tantrum with strength. 1.00
00:06:07.740 And I think this happens way too often in our society.
00:06:09.840 She says that this makes her a strong woman.
00:06:14.060 She's being a strong woman by losing her cool and flipping out. 1.00
00:06:17.960 But, you know, a man would actually never get away with that.
00:06:23.240 If a male athlete threw a fit at a ref, which that happens all the time, right?
00:06:29.860 I mean, I don't watch tennis.
00:06:31.340 I do watch football.
00:06:32.680 And you see football players all the time, you know, getting angry at the ref, shouting,
00:06:36.920 coaches do it.
00:06:37.780 Okay, so that does happen.
00:06:38.760 And Serena Williams is not alone in that.
00:06:42.760 But here's what you would never see.
00:06:45.340 And a male athlete would never get away with this.
00:06:47.840 After the game, during the press conference, he couldn't say, you know what?
00:06:51.640 I was just being a strong man, okay?
00:06:53.420 I was being strong.
00:06:56.100 You know, that's what that...
00:06:57.440 I was in the ref's face, cussing him out.
00:06:59.900 I'm just being a strong man.
00:07:01.100 And you know what?
00:07:01.660 I'm setting the stage.
00:07:02.940 I'm a pioneer for other strong men so that they know that they can express their emotions too.
00:07:06.860 No, a man would never...
00:07:09.680 He'd be laughed out of the room if he said that.
00:07:12.340 As well, he should be.
00:07:14.280 And as well, Serena Williams should be too, because it is a laughable, ridiculous thing to say.
00:07:19.600 Second thing to take from this.
00:07:23.220 There's this whole meme about how women aren't allowed to get emotional. 0.77
00:07:29.020 They aren't allowed to lose their cool, but men are.
00:07:31.760 You know, that's what we're hearing.
00:07:33.920 We're told that men are never criticized for having tantrums themselves.
00:07:38.120 And in the tennis world, I've heard a lot of people argue that, well, John McEnroe used to be verbally abusive all the time.
00:07:45.260 And he would flip out and he would scream and shout and everything.
00:07:49.480 And he never got in trouble for it.
00:07:51.100 He was never criticized for it.
00:07:53.220 I've actually heard...
00:07:54.360 It's such an exceedingly stupid argument that it's almost unbelievable.
00:07:58.720 McEnroe was criticized all the time.
00:08:01.080 He got in trouble all the time for his temper.
00:08:04.020 I don't even follow tennis at all.
00:08:06.780 But McEnroe was one of the only tennis players I know precisely because of his bad attitude.
00:08:12.560 He's one of the only ones I know.
00:08:14.240 And the fact that he had a bad attitude is the only thing I know about him.
00:08:17.380 It was the thing that defined his career for people like myself who don't follow tennis.
00:08:24.660 So, in fact, no, it's Serena Williams who gets the kid glove treatment. 1.00
00:08:31.020 She's the one who's defended.
00:08:32.720 I don't think anyone ever defended...
00:08:34.520 Were people coming out defending John McEnroe when he acted inappropriately?
00:08:39.540 Did anyone ever come out claiming that he was a hero fighting for rights and so forth?
00:08:43.540 Did anyone ever do?
00:08:44.200 No, no one does that for men when they act like jerks.
00:08:47.840 That's the point, okay?
00:08:49.360 I'm going to try to put this as nicely as I can.
00:08:52.040 But it's when a man acts like a jerk, nobody is hesitant to call him a jerk.
00:09:01.560 And that's it.
00:09:02.540 We just say, well, that guy's acting like a jerk.
00:09:04.360 But if a woman acts like a jerk, well, there are some people who will call her a jerk. 1.00
00:09:07.780 But then there's this whole other group of people who will come out and say...
00:09:10.640 And celebrate her for it.
00:09:13.340 So, I don't think the jerky behavior of men is really celebrated very often.
00:09:18.820 I think it's almost always condemned, but no one has a problem condemning it.
00:09:23.500 But with women, the number of people who will condemn jerky behavior is, I think, that number is smaller. 1.00
00:09:35.200 Because there are those who will not only tolerate it, but will actually outright defend it and justify it.
00:09:43.820 But third, and this is the biggest point I wanted to focus on here...
00:09:48.820 And just using this as an example, okay?
00:09:53.040 Because you have Serena Williams and her claim that she's fighting for women's rights. 0.98
00:09:59.200 What was the exact quote?
00:10:00.240 She's fighting for women's rights, women's equality, and all that stuff. 1.00
00:10:03.420 Or something like that.
00:10:04.280 And other stuff, too.
00:10:05.980 You know?
00:10:06.120 So, we see here again, and I don't want to keep picking on Serena Williams, so just using that as a setup here to get to one of my favorite things to complain about, which is how we have taken this concept of rights.
00:10:22.420 And we have so cheapened it and turned it into such a shallow and ridiculous thing in American culture.
00:10:30.140 And that is particularly the case with women's rights. 1.00
00:10:32.640 So, we see here again how women's rights has become a meaningless phrase in modern American society.
00:10:39.240 used by feminists to reinforce this idea of this fantasy of patriarchal oppression. 1.00
00:10:48.040 And that's how it goes pretty much any time the left puts a qualifier in front of the word rights.
00:10:56.640 That's how it goes.
00:10:57.560 You know that it's going to be something shallow and petty and superficial the moment they put a qualifier in front of rights.
00:11:08.300 But I think of all the fake rights crusades that are going on in America right now, none have become more absurd or more frivolous than this idea of women's rights. 0.84
00:11:17.860 Whenever someone in America says that they're fighting for women's rights, it seems like it's always something dumb, like with, you know, Serena Williams, she's fighting for women's rights by cussing out the or shouting at the umpire in a tennis match.
00:11:33.180 I mean, that's, it's just a perfect example of what women's rights, women's rights have become in America, that Serena Williams is fighting for them by shouting at an umpire in a tennis match. 1.00
00:11:45.860 Um, it just seems like they're always, when, when, when this idea of women's rights comes up, the person who's talking about it, they're always referring to something silly like that, because there isn't any serious women's rights battle left to be fought in America.
00:12:02.900 Women have all of the same rights as men.
00:12:06.100 That fight is over.
00:12:08.620 And thankfully women won. 0.99
00:12:10.620 Women were fighting legitimately for rights for a long time. 1.00
00:12:14.860 They won, they succeeded, it's over now.
00:12:20.460 Great, that that's good.
00:12:22.740 And so we should just move on, you know, history should just move on to other and more real battles, but, but feminists have not allowed that to happen. 1.00
00:12:32.860 And now, in fact, you know, we must say that women not only have all the same rights as men, but they even have some rights that men don't have.
00:12:41.940 So if there's any legal inequality going on in America, it is definitely going on in the other direction.
00:12:48.060 For instance, women are the only ones who have the legal right to kill children. 1.00
00:12:53.000 Okay.
00:12:53.100 Now, um, through abortion, of course, that's not a right that I want or that I think men should have, or that I think anyone should have, but it is nonetheless a legal, legal right, a very powerful legal right that only women wield. 0.99
00:13:12.120 Women are empowered to be judge, jury, and executioner over human lives. 1.00
00:13:18.740 Men do not have that legal right. 1.00
00:13:23.180 Um, I mean, you could point all you want to, to, there are a lot of violent men out there who do terrible things, and that's true.
00:13:29.360 And feminists like to point that out in an effort to prove that women are, um, you know, second-class citizens in America or treated that way anyway. 1.00
00:13:37.780 But, um, in those cases, you know, when a man does something violent, when he kills somebody, it's illegal.
00:13:43.560 He's going to go to prison for that.
00:13:45.780 And there are quite a lot of men in prison for doing violent things.
00:13:49.400 And you could say, well, we, you know, we need, we need to do a better job of prosecuting violent men, um, and I'll, fine, I'll agree with you there.
00:14:01.760 But the fact is, men do not have the right, they don't have the legal right to violently victimize anyone.
00:14:10.820 And if they do violently victimize someone, and they, and they don't go to jail for it, it's because they were able to successfully argue that they never did that thing.
00:14:19.400 But if it's found out that they did do it, they're going to go to jail.
00:14:24.860 Now contrast that with something like abortion, where women have the legal right to kill a human being, a defenseless innocent human being. 1.00
00:14:32.760 Men do not have that right. 1.00
00:14:34.380 Um, I cannot think of any example of something that men are allowed to do legally that women are not allowed to do legally. 0.89
00:14:45.120 I can't think of any example.
00:14:46.440 I mean, the only thing you had left was, you know, you know, like in the military fighting on the front lines, but all that's changing now, too.
00:14:56.460 Um, so all of the, if there are any legal inequalities, it seems to go the other direction.
00:15:03.000 And we could also look at the fact that women get lighter sentences for the same crimes in federal court. 1.00
00:15:07.040 Uh, there are fewer women in prison, there are fewer women homeless, there are fewer women who are murder victims, uh, there are fewer female dropouts, uh, in high school, and on and on and on.
00:15:17.940 So the idea that, uh, women's rights must still be established in America, and that we need people like Serena Williams to fight for them is plainly absurd.
00:15:26.900 Now, here's the thing.
00:15:30.080 I'm not saying that men's rights need to be established either.
00:15:34.520 My point is, we need to stop qualifying rights.
00:15:39.420 So stop talking about women's rights. 1.00
00:15:42.500 Don't talk about men's rights, because that's, that's just as bad. 1.00
00:15:45.220 When you've got some men, you know, now you've got the men's rights activists on the other side who are trying to respond to the feminist.
00:15:50.460 And so they're being essential, they're becoming the antithesis of feminists. 1.00
00:15:54.320 They're becoming the, you know, feminists for the other side, which is, uh, which is no good either. 1.00
00:15:59.380 Because that entire way of looking at things is wrong and flawed.
00:16:05.020 We need to stop trying to divide people up into groups and give them their own special rights.
00:16:11.000 Because the whole idea is that all people are supposed to have the same rights.
00:16:17.140 That's human rights.
00:16:18.840 That's the concept here.
00:16:20.700 We, we should, we don't, we shouldn't be dividing it down and, um, and all that, you know, and, and, and divvying it up and separating and distinguishing people.
00:16:29.380 No, everyone has the same rights.
00:16:31.840 That's the idea that our founding fathers had.
00:16:34.380 Now, there was a, there was a glaring oversight for the founding fathers, because they said that all people have the same rights and people are created equal, except they excluded racial minorities and women from that, um, from that group.
00:16:49.120 So, it was very necessary for us to go back and correct that and make sure that we include racial minorities and women in that group.
00:16:59.380 And so, that's been done, thankfully.
00:17:02.540 And so, that's, that's it.
00:17:04.680 That's all we should do as far as that goes.
00:17:07.280 As far as rights go, that's it.
00:17:09.320 What we needed to do was, was correct the mistakes of the past and make sure that everyone in America really does have equal legal rights.
00:17:20.820 And once that was done, as far as rights go, that should be the end of the discussion.
00:17:25.880 And now you just let people go and live with that freedom.
00:17:34.160 And, um, and the, the, you know, how they choose to use those freedoms and the outcome of those use of them using those freedoms.
00:17:41.780 That's an entirely different discussion.
00:17:43.680 And that's not going to be the same.
00:17:44.860 It's not going to be equal.
00:17:48.440 But as long, as, as long as everyone is allowed to do legally the same sorts of things and legally they have the same opportunities open to them, then, um, then we can say that the fight for rights is over.
00:17:59.800 Now, there are, there are other human rights fights in America that still need to be had.
00:18:08.140 The one that I referenced earlier, for instance, there, there, there is still a group of human beings who are categorically excluded from the idea of human rights.
00:18:17.780 And those would be unborn children.
00:18:19.220 So that's a fight that still needs to be had.
00:18:21.540 We still are, we still, um, we still, after, after all this time, still have not reached a point.
00:18:29.800 Where everyone in America is included under the concept of human rights.
00:18:37.060 Which is a very, you know, it's, it's very sad when you think about it.
00:18:42.180 That we had, you know, we had this, the, the founding of America and supposedly everyone had equal rights, but of course racial minorities and women were excluded.
00:18:50.380 And then there was this battle for over a century, um, you know, a century and a half to get, um, to make sure everyone really was included.
00:18:59.800 And so we, we, we, we had just kind of established that and then almost immediately you have Roe v. Wade and now we're excluding a whole other group of people.
00:19:10.120 It's like, we almost got to the point where we had it right and everyone really had equal rights and then we ruined it.
00:19:17.560 Um, so that's still a, a fight that needs to be had.
00:19:21.880 Um, now I think, so, you know, you have the concept of, of rights, which again, that's just, as long as we all have the same legal opportunities and nobody is legally excluded from, you know, um, doing certain things or being treated a certain way, then, then, then you have rights.
00:19:43.940 Um, so there's no reason to talk about women's rights unless we're talking about unborn females who, who, um, who, you know, across the world anyway, are disproportionately affected by abortion. 0.89
00:19:54.320 You have sex, selective abortion, everything else, everything else. 0.74
00:19:57.920 But aside from that, we could put the rights discussion to the side, but we, we, we still could have a discussion and should have a discussion about other, about ways that our culture particularly degrades women. 0.98
00:20:09.560 Now that isn't that our culture removes rights from them. 0.59
00:20:13.460 These are not women's rights issues, but they are human issues.
00:20:18.460 And they are issues that seem to especially impact females. 1.00
00:20:24.120 You know, for example, you have the porn industry, pornography, which primarily trades in the debasement and objectification of women and children.
00:20:33.300 Um, for another example, you have the fact that femininity in our culture is constantly cheapened by this concept of transgenderism, um, who insists that they can become women by, you know, mutilate, mutilating themselves or putting on a dress or something like that. 0.61
00:20:49.820 So again, um, the idea of womanhood has been cheapened and objectified, um, and appropriated by men.
00:20:59.880 So that's an issue of, of women being degraded and debased in our culture. 1.00
00:21:04.100 And then for another example, to go back to it another time, women are victimized by the abortion industry and not just because girls are often targeted for sex selective abortion, but because women are lied to and taken advantage of and told to convinced, coerced into, um, denying the gift of motherhood, rejecting the life in their womb and embracing this life of regret and emptiness and guilt.
00:21:27.960 So pornography, so pornography, these are very real enemies of women in our culture because they defile women, they objectify, they cheapen, they degrade, they kill, but you'll notice that feminists with very rare exceptions, when they talk about women's rights, they're not referring to any of those things. 0.83
00:21:51.900 They usually support all of those things.
00:21:57.960 Those are the real battlefields, the real battles that need to be fought.
00:22:02.840 They, you know, they're on the wrong side of those where women are actually being victimized. 1.00
00:22:07.300 They're, they're usually in favor of all that, but then they're going to go and rally behind Serena Williams because, you know, because she got in trouble with an umpire in tennis.
00:22:20.640 So pretty much tells you everything you need to know about the state of feminism in, um, in modern America. 0.99
00:22:26.980 So, all right, I'm going to leave it there.
00:22:29.480 Thanks for watching everybody.
00:22:30.320 Thanks for listening.
00:22:32.360 And, uh, remember, remember to say a prayer for our country on, um, this anniversary of, uh, of 9-11.
00:22:39.380 Godspeed.