The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 153 - How Feminism Destroys Marriage

00:00:00.000 Today on the show, we'll talk about the poisonous effect that feminism has in a marriage. 1.00

00:00:05.200 Also, what are essential oils? Are they really essential?

00:00:09.680 Finally, the Huffington Post has noticed some really significant problems in the Rudolph the

00:00:15.540 Red-Nosed Reindeer story, but I've noticed an even bigger problem with the story,

00:00:19.780 and we're going to talk about all of that now on The Matt Walsh Show.

00:00:22.440 Yesterday, we discussed an article that has been getting some attention online,

00:00:31.520 mainly because feminists seem to really like it. The article was written by a woman who 1.00

00:00:37.120 complains about all the cooking that she did during her marriage, and she would cook while

00:00:43.120 her husband was at work, and it became very traumatizing for her to have to do all this

00:00:49.380 cooking because she decided that she didn't find it exciting anymore. It wasn't fulfilling.

00:00:54.620 So she boycotted and said, I'm not going to cook anymore. Then her marriage fell apart,

00:00:58.180 and now she has vowed to never cook a meal for another man ever again. The whole thing was

00:01:03.780 a very bitter, very angry, very self-centered, melodramatic diatribe. Well, I got a few emails

00:01:13.680 in response to that discussion. I wanted to share one email that came in. This is from Catherine.

00:01:20.480 She says, Matt, your podcast today was very offensive to me. The woman you mocked had legitimate 1.00

00:01:25.680 concerns. One of the reasons my own marriage fell apart is because I was expected to do all the

00:01:31.140 cooking and all the cleaning. Women are tired of that. Feminism doesn't hurt a marriage. You can't 1.00

00:01:37.340 have a healthy marriage without feminism. Marriages last if they are equal, all caps, period, all caps. 0.98

00:01:48.060 Okay, so you can't have a healthy marriage without feminism. And I had other emails that echoed 0.99

00:01:55.500 basically that same sentiment. And first of all, listen, I don't mean to be cruel or anything like

00:02:01.520 that. But I do wonder how someone who is divorced can make pronouncements about what constitutes a

00:02:09.520 healthy marriage. You know, I find this a lot. Whenever I talk about marriage, there are people who

00:02:14.800 they'll begin by admitting that they've been divorced at least once, and then they'll go on to talk about

00:02:20.800 and give all their wisdom on what makes a good, healthy marriage and so on and so forth.

00:02:26.640 I mean, is it possible that you might have some faulty ideas about marriage and perhaps

00:02:34.960 that's something that fed into the fact that you're no longer married? I mean, isn't that something

00:02:40.160 that certainly is something that you should maybe look into? I don't know. But I do think that

00:02:48.560 the opposite is the case here. Feminism is not essential to a healthy marriage. Feminism destroys 1.00

00:02:53.120 marriage. Not just feminism, by the way, but any ism. Any ism whatsoever. Marriage is not a place for 1.00

00:03:02.240 isms. You can't go into a marriage with some kind of political or ideological system as your guiding

00:03:10.640 principle in the marriage itself. I'm not saying that you can't have a political or ideological system

00:03:16.720 and be married. I'm saying that that system cannot be what what makes your marriage function. So even

00:03:24.000 though I'm a conservative, I also I would never say, well, you can't have a healthy marriage without

00:03:28.880 conservatism. Marriage really has nothing to do with the conservative political ideology, or at least

00:03:35.760 it's only connected in a very secondary sort of way. Marriage depends on the love and devotion that

00:03:44.240 both spouses have towards each other. That's what makes a healthy marriage. That's really it.

00:03:53.600 If you try to filter that love and devotion through an ideology, especially an ideology like feminism, 0.98

00:03:59.760 you're going to be in trouble because it complicates things. It dilutes things. It throws your priorities

00:04:06.960 all out of whack. So I have found that maintaining a successful marriage is extremely simple. Now,

00:04:18.240 I won't say it's easy all the time, and I certainly won't say that I personally have come anywhere close

00:04:23.200 to mastering the art of maintaining, you know, of mastering the art of marriage, I suppose. I'm no

00:04:31.760 expert or guru, but I do know that it's simple. There are a lot of things that we can we can tell

00:04:37.440 the answer is simple, even if it's hard sometimes to do. So it's it's simple with marriage. It's not

00:04:42.000 complicated. You just you love the other person, be willing to sacrifice for them, make their needs and

00:04:50.160 their desires a priority to you. And and and that's that's kind of it. I think if you do that, you'll

00:04:57.760 be fine. You'll be able to get through any challenge if you keep if you do that. And then

00:05:03.440 here's the other thing. This is this is part of that, but you have to serve your spouse without

00:05:09.280 keeping score. And this is where feminism really screws things up. I think it's with the scorekeeping. 1.00

00:05:15.680 Because once you get into the scorekeeping, you're in trouble. There has never been a healthy or good

00:05:24.560 or joyful marriage in history with a scoreboard. Anytime there's a scoreboard in a marriage that

00:05:32.400 once you start, once you once you notice that there's a scoreboard like hanging in your living

00:05:36.160 room, at least a metaphorical scoreboard, once you notice that you've got to go to the marriage

00:05:41.520 counselor because you're you're in trouble. Good marriages don't have scoreboards. Competitiveness 1.00

00:05:46.880 destroys a marriage, at least a certain kind of competitiveness. My wife and I are competitive 0.98

00:05:53.440 in in in other kinds of ways. Like we're competitive when it comes to board games. And I'm way better

00:05:59.520 at those. We're competitive about who's the better driver. I am by a mile. We're competitive about about

00:06:06.240 parallel parking. Again, I'm better at that. We're competitive about about who can guess the ending

00:06:12.240 of TV shows and movies. Anytime we're watching a TV show or a movie, you know, who can who can guess

00:06:18.560 what the twists are going to be and everything. Once again, I nail almost every single time. So I'm

00:06:24.320 better there as well. But there's that kind of I think that kind of competitiveness competitiveness is

00:06:30.320 is OK, although although it can get a bit intense at times. I'm not going to lie. I mean, my wife and I

00:06:37.840 have probably gone to bed angry at each other on more than a few occasions because of board games.

00:06:44.080 So that has happened. But I think the really bad kinds of competitions

00:06:50.400 are the competitions over who works the hardest, who does more around the house, who did this, who did that.

00:07:00.480 The competitiveness that disguises itself as a desire for equality.

00:07:08.560 That's the stuff that kills the marriage. And that's what feminism brings into the marriage. And 1.00

00:07:13.600 that's why it is lethal to a marriage. And you notice something about that.

00:07:20.240 Whenever somebody complains or, you know, says that they want equality in their marriage,

00:07:26.560 it always, have you noticed this? When someone says, oh, I just want my marriage to be equal.

00:07:33.360 When they say that, it always involves them doing less and the other person doing more. Have you

00:07:40.560 noticed that? So someone will say, I want things to be equal. And what they mean is, I want my spouse

00:07:46.640 to do the dishes more often or whatever. You never hear anyone say, I want things to be equal,

00:07:52.640 so I'll do the dishes. That never happens. So this desire for equality, this scorekeeping,

00:07:58.400 it's always self-serving. Anytime someone in a marriage checks the scoreboard,

00:08:04.160 they're always going to discover that they're ahead in that they've done more, they've done more around

00:08:11.440 the house. So now they get to kick back and let their spouse catch up. That's what's really

00:08:18.000 fascinating is that anytime you look at the scoreboard, you're always going to be ahead.

00:08:21.440 That's the problem with the scoreboard. The woman who sent the email, Catherine,

00:08:25.280 she says that in her former marriage, she was expected to do all the cooking and all the cleaning.

00:08:31.920 And so the question is, what did her husband do? Maybe he did nothing. Maybe he was a worthless,

00:08:38.480 useless oath. It's possible. There are people like that in marriages. Who knows? 0.99

00:08:45.040 But oftentimes you find that when one spouse is going on about, I always am the one who does this,

00:08:51.280 whatever this is, very often there are a million other things that the other person always does on

00:09:00.960 their own. So I think this attitude just doesn't work. A marriage can't work this way. It can only

00:09:06.960 work if your first priority is to serve your spouse and your family. But again, this is the problem with

00:09:14.800 feminism. Feminism wants nothing to do with that. Feminism doesn't want a woman to serve her husband 1.00

00:09:22.880 and her children. You're never going to hear a feminist say that. You're never going to hear a 1.00

00:09:28.320 feminist talk about serving their husbands. To a feminist, the idea of serving anyone, especially a man, 1.00

00:09:36.560 is repulsive. And that's why it doesn't work in a marriage, because that's what marriage is. 1.00

00:09:43.040 They say, oh, I can't serve. That's demeaning. That's degrading. That's belittling.

00:09:48.800 Well, if you can't serve, if you don't want to serve someone, then don't get married.

00:09:53.920 If you're a woman and you're not interested in serving your husband, then don't get married. It's 1.00

00:09:58.480 not for you. And if you're a man and you're not interested in serving your wife, then don't get 0.96

00:10:03.600 married. You're not man enough for marriage. You're not strong enough. You're not mature enough.

00:10:07.920 If you're not interested in serving, because that's what marriage is.

00:10:14.000 And by the way, I'm not trying to paint some unrealistic portrait here. People say, well,

00:10:23.200 marriage isn't 50-50. It's 100-100, because you always give 100% to your spouse. Well, yeah, but nobody

00:10:31.440 gives literally 100% all the time. Nobody is perfectly selfless, right? Nobody is. So I'm not

00:10:39.280 saying that in a marriage, your sole single only priority all the time is the happiness of your

00:10:45.360 spouse. It's not as if we should have no concern for our own happiness. I'm not saying that. That

00:10:50.800 would obviously be absurd. We're human beings, after all. And I do think sometimes people can go too far

00:10:58.400 in the other direction when they're making the point that, well, marriage is about service,

00:11:01.920 it's about giving to the other person, it's not about you, it's about them, so on and so forth.

00:11:06.800 That's true. But at the same time, we're not supposed to be martyrs. You don't want to martyr

00:11:11.200 yourself in a marriage, because that's not healthy either. But that's part of the service,

00:11:16.240 I think, is recognizing that your spouse is going to be selfish sometimes, needs to be selfish

00:11:22.640 sometimes, really. Selfish just in the sense of tending to their own happiness as well,

00:11:28.160 getting a break. And I could say in my marriage, my wife and I, as I said, we're not marriage experts

00:11:38.080 by any stretch of the imagination. I think we need to get a few more decades in before we can call

00:11:42.080 ourselves that. But one thing that we did figure out early on that's not hard to figure out,

00:11:48.080 seems pretty obvious, is that we both need to give each other breaks as often as possible.

00:11:56.400 That's just, I think it's a really important part of marriage. So it's become kind of an organic

00:12:05.120 thing for us. It's not systematic, so there's no scoreboard for this. We're not keeping track of

00:12:10.480 how many minutes of a break each person has gotten and making sure it's exactly even.

00:12:17.840 We don't do that. But I'll watch the kids sometimes so that my wife can go out on her own,

00:12:22.000 do her own thing. She'll watch them for me. And so if she's got something she wants to do,

00:12:26.240 like she wants to go out for drinks with her friends or she wants to go to a women's group 0.66

00:12:31.040 thing at church or whatever the case may be, I consider it a high priority to make sure that she can do

00:12:38.080 that because I know that she needs that time. And she recognizes the same for me. So I can say that

00:12:45.520 in seven years of marriage, pretty much any time that I've said to my wife, hey, I want to go out

00:12:51.440 with some friends or I want to go fishing on Saturday morning, pretty much any time I've said that,

00:12:56.880 she's said, yeah, absolutely. Let's try to make that happen. And so I try to do the same for her.

00:13:03.920 And I think that's important too. But the general idea, the underlying thing in a marriage is still

00:13:14.400 one of service and of kind of looking after the other person. And that's why feminism makes a 1.00

00:13:20.720 marriage dysfunctional. I think feminism makes everything dysfunctional. Feminism doesn't really, 1.00

00:13:26.000 feminism doesn't work in any context, whether it's at work or anywhere else in society, 1.00

00:13:31.120 but especially in a marriage, it doesn't work because feminism is always about keeping track 1.00

00:13:40.000 of where the man is and then making sure that the, that the woman is exactly even, 0.97

00:13:45.600 or even a little bit ahead. Like it's always about that. And it just doesn't work. And that's why I'm,

00:13:52.480 I've always been uncomfortable with this idea of marriage as an equal partnership. I think I've

00:13:57.200 talked about this before. That's, that's the, the popular modern enlightened thing is to say,

00:14:02.640 well, my marriage is an equal partnership. And in a sense, yeah, marriage is obviously a partnership.

00:14:06.880 And in a sense it is equal in that you're both serving and giving to the other person. So in that

00:14:12.000 way you could call it equal. Nobody is inferior to the other person. So you can call it equal in that

00:14:18.720 sense. But those are the only senses where marriage is, is, is, or can be, or should be equal.

00:14:27.040 In, in many ways, it's not equal. It's not equal, first of all, because men and women are different. 0.99

00:14:31.600 Not that one is superior and the other is inferior, but they're just different. You're just a different

00:14:36.000 person. So you're not the same. You are not literally equal to the other. You are different. And

00:14:41.600 you also have different skills. You have different, um, uh, you have different strengths

00:14:49.280 that you bring to the table. And so it's not equal in that sense either.

00:14:55.360 And just the, the point is that I think most of the time, and you could probably think about this

00:15:00.880 in your own life or in your own marriage, anytime that you've stopped and thought to yourself, well,

00:15:05.360 is this equal? Is it, is everything equal right now? Anytime you've stopped and thought that to

00:15:11.120 yourself, it's probably always in a selfish way. You know, it's always in a, it's a selfish way for

00:15:18.720 yourself in an accusatory way towards your spouse. And, um, that's the problem with it. And that's the

00:15:24.560 problem with feminism in a marriage. All right. So I've been getting some, um, messages about essential oils.

00:15:35.360 I don't want to get, I'm not going to get into detail about essential oils. I just,

00:15:39.680 I made a joke about essential oils on, on Twitter, um, yesterday. And so I've been, I've,

00:15:47.600 I've been getting all the essential oil defenders coming after me and I'll admit,

00:15:53.120 I have no idea what essential oils are. I don't know what they are. I have no idea.

00:15:57.600 I just, I, I keep hearing about them. My wife talks about them. I don't know if she uses them or not.

00:16:02.000 Maybe we have essential oils in the house. I don't know where they would be if we had them.

00:16:05.360 Maybe she doesn't hurt her friends. Talk about them all the time.

00:16:07.920 Anytime there's sickness in the house, like someone has a cold or the flu or whatever,

00:16:11.520 or a stomach bug, everyone's telling us, oh, you got to get essential oils, essential oils.

00:16:16.080 I don't know what they are. I, the only oils I know about are olive oil. And then the oil

00:16:19.680 that you put in your car, those are pretty essential to my life, but I don't think that's

00:16:22.880 what they're referring to. What I will say is this from the messages people have been sending me

00:16:27.040 about essential oils. Um, the, the one word that keeps coming up is people are telling me

00:16:31.040 that essential oils are, are homeopathic. And I do know that homeopathic is Latin for scam.

00:16:37.200 I know that. So anytime you're telling your, if it's homeopathic, it doesn't work.

00:16:43.680 And also someone on Twitter said to me yesterday, they said, uh, well,

00:16:46.560 people have been using essential oils for hundreds of years. It's a, it, it has to be

00:16:51.520 better than modern medicine. People have been using it for a long time. You see, I don't understand

00:16:55.920 that approach. I don't understand that attitude. Um, I don't understand advocating for a certain

00:17:02.640 medicine, uh, a certain medicinal approach by saying that people did it 150 years ago.

00:17:10.320 Uh, people died from colds 150 years ago. The life expectancy was like 55 back then.

00:17:17.200 Why would I want to practice their version of medicine? Society has, has, there are many ways

00:17:24.160 in which modern society has not progressed and has actually regressed. And I'd be the first to point

00:17:29.360 that out. But one area where I think we, we should be all able to agree one area where there has been

00:17:35.040 pretty much a steady unbroken progression is in the area of medicine. Our medicine is definitely

00:17:42.320 better now than it was at any other point in history. I don't think there's any doubt about that.

00:17:47.680 And, uh, you can see that in any measurable, whatever measurable you want to look at,

00:17:53.360 whether it's life expectancy, infant mortality, whatever it is, it just in every conceivable way,

00:17:59.120 uh, our medicine is, is better now. So I'm, you know, I'll, I'll generally stick with the modern

00:18:05.200 versions when it comes to that. But I will also say that I do believe that the psychosomatic placebo

00:18:14.800 effect is a real thing and it, and it, and it, and it does work in that way. So if you really believe,

00:18:22.000 if you really believe that a certain random thing like oil makes you healthier, then it may not really

00:18:28.880 be making you healthier, but it will make you feel better. So in that sense, go ahead and do it.

00:18:33.840 I used to swear by Zycam. I don't know if you've heard of Zycam, but it's, you can find it in the,

00:18:39.360 in the cold and flu section of the drugstore. And so I used to take Zycam all the time and I would

00:18:45.760 swear by it. I used to swear that it was a wonder drug, uh, because anytime I felt even slightly a

00:18:51.680 little bit sick, I would take Zycam and then it would go away. And so I went through about two years

00:18:56.400 and I never got a cold. I never got sick. And I would tell everybody it's, I would,

00:19:00.320 I would preach the good news of Zycam to everyone, everyone that would listen. I would tell them, 0.98

00:19:04.080 I would say, I'm telling you, Zycam is what is keeping me healthy. Zycam will make me immortal,

00:19:09.280 I believe. But then one day I happened to stumble across an article that someone shared on Facebook

00:19:15.760 claiming that Zycam is a scam and it doesn't actually work. And so then I started researching it

00:19:21.280 and I discovered that there is no evidence or proof whatsoever that Zycam really does anything.

00:19:28.720 And as soon as I discovered that Zycam stopped working and then I started getting colds again.

00:19:32.800 Um, so there was, I had, my mind had, I had been tripped. I had tripped myself into feeling better.

00:19:41.760 And then the illusion fell apart and, um, and it didn't work anymore. The placebo effect was destroyed.

00:19:48.960 So what I'm saying is, you know, I'm, if the essential oils are homeopathic, then I'm pretty

00:19:53.920 sure they don't do anything. But if you believe that they do something, then keep believing it

00:19:59.520 and don't research it. Don't look it up. Ignorance is bliss. If you believe in it, then in some way,

00:20:06.320 it will make you feel better. And that's, and that's great as far as I'm concerned. All right. One last

00:20:11.760 thing, Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer is coming under fire. The Huffington Post put out a video

00:20:20.240 this week highlighting the problematic elements of the story. The, the story encourages bullying

00:20:25.680 and racism for one thing and homophobia somehow. I don't remember there being a gay reindeer in the

00:20:31.440 story, but apparently maybe there was, there's homophobia. Look, I think all of these criticisms

00:20:35.760 are perfectly valid and important and warranted as I'm sure you agree. But as I've been thinking

00:20:42.960 about this since Huffington Post brought it up and you know, I've been thinking about Rudolph the

00:20:46.960 red-nosed reindeer now. Um, and I've realized that there's a bigger problem with the story

00:20:56.080 and it has to do with plausibility. Now stay with me here because I know you're thinking,

00:21:01.600 what are you talking about, Matt? What a story about a flying reindeer? How is that implausible?

00:21:06.720 Well, I know on the surface, it seems like it makes perfect sense, but just let's review.

00:21:11.520 Let's just think about this for a second. And somehow the Huffington Post, they missed this.

00:21:15.200 Okay. They're criticizing all these other parts. They missed this part of the story.

00:21:19.520 Santa is about to head out with all the toys, but then he sees that it's foggy. So he goes,

00:21:26.560 well, we're going to have to cancel Christmas. No Christmas. It's foggy. We can't go out. We can't see.

00:21:30.160 You know, how am I supposed to fly this sleigh when I can't see? But then he says, hey, hold on a

00:21:34.880 second. Where's that freak with the shiny nose? Yeah. Get him in here. Um, and, uh, and, and maybe 0.98

00:21:40.320 he can finally be of some use. And so they fly off with Rudolph leading the way through the fog and

00:21:45.600 everybody lives happily ever after. Right? Not so fast. This doesn't actually make sense. Think about

00:21:54.880 it. Santa was about to cancel Christmas because of a patch of fog, but then Rudolph bailed him out.

00:22:02.240 So am I supposed to believe that Santa had never run into fog before? He flies around the entire world

00:22:10.080 in December and he never hit bad weather, never fog, never a snow storm, never, never a blizzard,

00:22:18.160 never a rain storm, nothing. He had no contingency plan for bad weather and had to rely on the

00:22:23.760 convenient facial deformity of a socially scorned reindeer. Not to mention he carries out this

00:22:29.680 operation at night. And this is the first time he ever needed a headlight. Something is not adding

00:22:36.320 up here. That's all I'm saying. Now I know you might argue. And I thought about this too. I said,

00:22:41.200 well, uh, well, we don't know exactly when the Rudolph story took place. Maybe it was,

00:22:46.640 maybe this was, um, Santa's first ever mission. Well, that doesn't work either. Watch the show,

00:22:53.040 do your research, look at the kinds of toys that are in Santa's Santa's sack that he's bringing to all

00:22:59.920 the kids. There are toy trains in there. What does that tell you? Well, steam locomotives didn't exist

00:23:06.000 before the 19th century. Saint Nick was born in the fourth century. That's 1500 years. That means he

00:23:11.680 was on the job for at least 1500 years. And never once had he dealt with fog in 1500 years.

00:23:22.320 I'm not buying it. I'm just not buying. Now, don't get me wrong. Um, I don't doubt the general

00:23:29.280 historical veracity of Santa and Rudolph. I'm just saying something is wrong here.

00:23:36.560 Santa wanted Rudolph on that sleigh, but it had nothing to do with the fog.

00:23:43.760 So what was the real reason? I don't know.

00:23:47.200 I don't know. But I'm going to find out. Cue dramatic music.

00:23:54.480 And I want to thank Huffington Post for bringing up this subject. Um, so that maybe finally we can

00:23:58.800 get to the bottom of all of these mysteries. Hope you guys have a great weekend. I'll talk to you next

00:24:05.120 week. Godspeed.

The Matt Walsh Show - November 30, 2018

Ep. 153 - How Feminism Destroys Marriage

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