Cozy with Liyah (Episode 2, Men with Microphones 🤬)

The speaker starts by thanking everyone for the support received for her podcast. She discusses the topic of "men with microphones" and how it can refer to various platforms like podcasts, YouTube, TikTok, etc. She mentions watching a podcast episode where a male host made disheartening comments about an OnlyFans creator and her family's support. She talks about the evolution of sex work and how it provides opportunities for women and LGBTQ individuals to liberate themselves. She discusses the sexual revolution of the 70s and how women were able to challenge traditional gender roles and expectations. She criticizes the continued presence of misogyny, racism, transphobia, and homophobia in society. She expresses frustration with men who talk negatively about women while claiming to be straight. She touches on gender roles in society and relationships, expressing frustration with societal expectations placed on women. Good morning, America. I'm kidding. It should be the afternoon. But hi, everybody. So welcome to episode two of Cozy with Leah. And I appreciate everyone for coming to get cozy with me in another week. Your girl's tired. Your girl is exhausted. And she's feeling a little under the weather. I don't know if you can hear the stuff stuffiness I got going on. But it's making my nose itch. And like, like, and I don't mean like, it's blowing my nose. Like I mean, it legitimately itches. And so if you see me itching, like my nose or like, the sniff, I just please refrain from the ignorant comments for once. Okay. Well, we got a topic today, honey, I know y'all saw that bustle title today. And we're gonna get into it. But first of all, I wanted to thank everyone for all of the support that I received for my launching, launching of my podcast, and my first episode dropping on Sunday, the 14th. For me, the podcast was, I talked about this before, but it was a podcast that I wanted to invest in for my own self care. And that's exactly what it's become. And I'm so excited to be in this position to be able to, you know, speak with compassion and speak with empathy on topics that are super difficult to have, like, with, like, topics are difficult to include in conversation. And I received a lot of good encouragement last week, and a lot of people who are excited for what I have to put out what I have to say. And I'm excited. I don't want to, you know, go without, go forward in the episode without thanking everyone. And then also thanking my mom and my sister Mari. They have been my biggest, like, fans since I was young, and just like all the things I do with the arts and the things I do with my involvement, and also just me as a person as Leah. And it's super beneficial to have that support system. And for me to be able to invest that. And to know I have that is super encouraging, because I know with them behind me, I can do anything. And so I wanted to thank both of them for their support with this podcast, and also just being, you know, our little trio, and the most influential woman in my life. So I'm not gonna keep going, because I will cry. But yeah, love you. That was my mom and Mari. So this episode made with microphones. So this was obviously one can pull that men with microphones is referring to men with podcasts. So I think for me, that's the first thing that jumps out. But there's also I recognize there's other things that men with microphones can represent men with YouTube pages, TikToks, Twitter spaces. I don't know, I think that's about it. But it honestly can be anything. It can be anything that was microphones. So one of the reasons why I wanted to talk about this was because I recently watched an episode of a podcast. And I didn't have to, I should say, I ended up watching the episode, but because I saw a clip from it, where this man is on his podcast called whatever podcast, I think, I don't know if it was Brian Atlas or not. That's the guy who was like the main host of it. But a male host on the show. Hadn't there was a guest invited who was a self proclaimed OnlyFans creator. And she was talking about how her family feels she stopped doing OnlyFans. And they felt very strongly that her parents are like kind of feeling her failing her by not by supporting her still with everything she's doing. And she's like, you know, it's my parents. And he was like, that's probably worse, that they're supporting you while you do that. And I think, for me, it was kind of disheartening to hear. Because a lot of parents do make very harsh decisions when it comes to stuff like that. And like, especially OnlyFans sex work, that's something that's been a more attainable thing of sex work, you can do it from your house. A lot of times, sex work was not always like that, where you could just be in your house and say, What am I going to post on the internet today, don't have to leave your room, don't have to even leave your bed. And for some people make bans, just being in the comfort of their own home. And that's not how it used to be. It evolved from being something that was very harmful, and can still also be very harmful. Because people forget that like the harmful platforms of platforms, like the harmful ways that sex work can be done is still being done. But there's been a more accessible and safe way to do it, that people are trying to kind of use as a way to liberate themselves as well. Most specifically women and LGBTQ people, which I think is super important to talk about. One thing that struck me in like US history and when I was in high school was the sexual revolution that was going on in the 70s. And that was when, you know, people were like, be free, love yourself, hippies. And, you know, Woodstock just happened. And people were doing drugs and psychedelics. And Charles Manson was around. And it was a lot of stuff going on. And in that came a revolution where people were just like, love who you want to love and do all sorts of stuff. And that's where women were also able to liberate themselves in terms of, you know, men have been defined as like the kind of the breadwinner of the house, the alpha, the whatever, the beginning. And that, that was something that men were described as the breadwinners, the provider, and the one who's taking care of everything. And the alpha, that's how especially a lot of men podcasts define it. And during this revolution, women were able to say, you know what, if he can do all these things, and because with these, you know, levels of self power comes with it. So men were able to, you know, there's a lot of in those situations where men are the breadwinners, and they're taking care of their family. Women have a hard time leasing their husbands, especially when there's things like abuse, adultery, other stuff, like, maybe she wants to branch out and create her own life. There's a lot of that stuff made it harder for women to do that. And so when women were finally being able to, you know what, I can do that I can do this. Women have had an opportunity to also take on some of the stigmas, not stigmas, but like, some of the roles that men take on, like being able to sleep with whoever they want to sleep with. Women were like, well, why can't I? And that's what they did. They flipped the script. And I think it was such a beautiful thing for women to step into their authority and step into their strength, and not just let men get to do what they want to do. And men didn't like that. And some were very, you know, traditional about it. Especially with like, if you continue to move forward and like, the stigma with sleeping with someone of the same sex, because also you guys think about in the 70s, this was pre like AIDS, HIV, and all all the stuff that happened in the 80s. So with that stuff, then you have more stigma with LGBTQ, and women and everything else. And then all the stigma was like, women leading a pure, modest life. Then stepping out of that caused a lot of men to just kind of want to crush that. And so and that that seems like Oh, it was so long ago. No, it wasn't even 100 years ago. It wasn't even the 70s was not even if I'm doing my math. So 23 minus 23 is 2000 to 70. It was about like what 53 years ago. At the start of the 70s. That's my grandparents older than that. So not that long ago, like, if we're being very honest, people have a habit of thinking everything is just so far away. Anyways. I think it's interesting to see this stuff perspires still today, considering it's 2024. Oh, it's 2024. What the heck? 54 years ago. Anyway, wait. We're not going to get into this. Don't don't. No, that was so embarrassing. Is it? Wait. 24. This is bad. Hold on 24. Minus 30. Because you're going back. Right. I was right before. Why was I anyways. But because it was that long ago, at the start of that time, and where that stuff was starting to like perspire from. It's just interesting to see people now continue that trend of misogyny, racism, transphobia, homophobia, when we have clearly evolved into understanding that this stuff is not black and white. Gender roles, gender identity, sexual identity, all that stuff is going to be a gray area. And it's just sad to see people continue to be so hell bent on a binary scale, where it completely boxes people out. And they don't care if it inconveniences someone's life, because that's how they think it should be. And we live in such a, like, egocentric, like, system. The patriarchy is so focused on only one kind of person. And those are the people that we know are in power, are natural oppressors. And so that's your thing, natural, I guess. But the oppressors that have always been there, they've always been the oppressor. And I think, for me, it's hard to listen to podcasts like this, when, like men in my generation, men my age, sit here and talk about women, the way they do, especially considering some of them say they're straight. Sounds like you hate women. So if you hate women, but you're straight, where do we go from here? But I'm not, I'm not gonna go there. I'm not gonna go there, because my mom's gonna get angry about that. But you know, think about that. So one thing I want to talk about is gender roles, I kind of touched on it a little bit. But not just in like society, but like in relationship and like, in whatever, so many people have this expectation, they feel like they have the right to insert their opinion about how women should be in society, in life, in school and what kind of professions they should have, what type of household things they should be in charge of. In a relationship, what do women do? So let's get like societal. Women have always been like labeled as the nurturing, motherly, you know, kind of like the, I don't know, but just like, this mother, I think women are naturally associated with being mothers. And I think that is something that's frustrating, because people then also break down womanhood to being able to produce a child, which is not what womanhood is about. Not just because we would be excluding our trans sisters. But people forget that not just cisgender women, not all cisgender women are able to have kids. And some of them, it's like a medical, so are you saying because this woman can't, by your own definition, by what these misogynists and conservative people define womanhood as, they always go to biology. Someone who has this part is able to produce a child. Okay, well, this person who has the part that you feel is associated with womanhood is not able to produce a child. So how are you able to say that that's what womanhood is about? Guess what? It's not. And it's much more than that. And I think someone who can define being a woman, a lot of times, if you ask them, they have no elaborate answer. And I learned that from a friend in my capstone, that actually, when you, when a lot of times with cis people are asked, what makes you your gender? People don't know what to really answer, because they've never had to question that about themselves. And I think that's something we should start challenging ourselves with. And in gender roles, we allow ourselves to step outside of those things. And it challenges the idea that all women have to be a certain way, which is also something we learned in gender and sexuality studies, gender essentialism, which assumes that all men are a certain way and all women are a certain way. And it focuses again on the binary. So looking at like expectations of women's bodies, and like how everyone's body should look, how their personalities are the nurturing, motherly, sweet, emotional, sensitive, their abilities, like all this other stuff, like being pure and modest, like how women should be. That that is not how that's supposed to work. And a lot of men, one of the main topics I hear about is what they imagine and what they think that women should what they think women's place is in the world. And I think that is so crazy to me that a lot of men won't be with women who make more money than them. They won't be with women who don't know how to cook, but don't know how to cook and clean themselves. Interesting. They won't be with women who don't want children, which can be debated depending on if you want children yourself, that's different. But expecting that out of women is insane. Also, women who don't want to be stay at home moms, I think that's totally fine. If you want to be a stay at home mom, I think being a mother is a job. And I think a lot of people do that job amazing, especially stay at home moms, but there are some people who don't do that job, and they don't have to. And I think to assume that all people, all women should want to be stay at home moms is absolutely insane. And I think another thing with like, expectations is women's bodies, the way they expect women to look to act to behave. That is something that I've never understood. And I think the way that the media treated Lizzo was a perfect example of how the expectation of women's bodies extended further out than just, you know, being bigger than the average woman. They used her as like, a candidate for like, why obesity is bad, and why big girls shouldn't be able to do this. And basically also taking away her sexual nature, because if people do that, it's dehumanizing, that if they don't look or fit this European beauty standard, or look a certain way, they're not allowed, they don't have the right to be sexual, they don't have the right to want to work, they don't have the right to talk about sex and all this other stuff. And while I'm private about stuff like that, for my own sake, I do believe that it's interesting to see people like, degrade others, based on what they are attracted to. There's a huge thing that I've discussed with my female counterparts, about men only, only standing up for women's rights, when it's women they're attracted to. Huh, what an idea. That is such a shallow thing to do, to only be okay with women's rights that apply to women that you're attracted to. Because for some reason, you feel like you are able to get away with it. For example, some men are okay with a lot of other women having OnlyFans, even though some men are not. There are some men who are on these podcasts also, that are okay with women having OnlyFans. Like, first of all, thank you so much for granting us free will. Like, if it wasn't for that, like, you really think that she, come on. Like, you, okay, thanks. But in that, they feel like there are certain people that don't deserve to be on there. Women who are bigger, women who don't have perky boobies, people who don't have the disproportionately sized body that men have come up with in their minds of what they think is attractive. If they don't fit that mold, a lot of men feel like they don't deserve to be in that industry. And also in the same way that with the women that they do feel are attractive, they expect a certain type of woman out of that person. Because she's involved in OnlyFans, they expect her to be on a go in a sexual way all the time, which is such a, like, it's such a, it's such a bad way. I'm just gonna say it's something that promotes rape culture. And I think it promotes this idea that if women present themselves sexually, that they are asking for and that they owe men a conversation, or they owe men something sexual or some type of gratification. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. And I think people forget that oftentimes when it comes to gender roles. Because that's another thing that women are expected of is to satisfy their partner, their male partner, specifically. And I, it's not that I feel like women can't do what they want to do. That is totally fine. But I think when you have such a point of view of women doing it for you and not even themselves, what's the point of interacting in that way? I personally am not a person that wants to just interact with someone sexually just to interact with someone. That's for my husband. Like, that's for me. That's like for me, I'm just saying for me, that is for my husband. And as long as there's no ring on my finger, there is no reason for me to be doing any of that. And that's, that's, that's one woman's opinion. So who's to know what the next woman thinks. But to put all this box of we need to all be doing this, incorrect. And there's so many other things that go into like, women's sexual abilities and what what men like their needs and like everything like that. Insane. And then also, it's important to remember that when it comes to these gender roles, they affect men to like men on this podcast, don't just, you know, harm other women and like, non binary and trans people, gender queer, like all those different types of people, but they also affect themselves. Because when you tell people that men are the breadwinners, that they're supposed to be the one to provide the table, guess what, there might be a man out there who's a stay at home dad, and his wife is bringing them the checks every month and paying, taking care of them financially. He's at home taking care of the kids and cooking and cleaning. And you're telling me that you think that's a beta male, because he is able to provide for his family in a way that works best for him and his family situation. Mind you, once again, most of these men are single. I think it's absolutely bizarre. As a woman who finds myself always wanting to work and like find a career for myself, and figure out what works for me, I would hate to every day, not be in the workforce, especially now that I figured out what I want to do. I'm so passionate about going into that. And if I were to be able to find a partner who's like, I want to make sure that while we create a life together, that I'm supporting you and our family, and I'll stay home with the kids. If we were in a financial space to do that, I would be all for it. I would absolutely support that to let my husband stay home while I work. But people who have these ideas of gender roles, a lot of times, they expect men to stick to the opposite. So they expect women to be nurturing and empathetic and sensitive. They expect men to be rough, and straight to the point, and not be emotional, not be nurturing, and not be all this stuff, because for a woman. And I think, I don't understand how that phenomenon comes around. Because there's no gender to adjectives. Maybe in like other languages, sometimes you, the way that you word it is depending on like, you can make an adjective feminine and masculine. In the English language, we don't have that. Funny does not belong to either men or women or anything else. It doesn't belong to a certain gender. It's funny. If you're funny, you're funny. It's the same thing with anything else. Nurturing, sensitive, rough, straight to the point, all those things, they don't belong to a certain gender. It belongs to people. Adjectives describe nouns. Adjectives are descriptive words. They're not supposed to satisfy a certain agenda that you have. And so I think it's interesting how people do that. Next is how men talk about feminism. So in terms of the way that feminism is viewed a lot of times, it's such a negative connotation. A lot of times, it's men who feel like they're just not really understanding towards the frustration that a lot of women and allies have when it comes to feminism. Because believe me, you don't have to be a woman to be a feminist. You don't have to identify as a woman to be a feminist. You don't. And a lot of times when it comes to anti-feminist conversations on these podcasts, they're referring to abortion and like female leadership and like how they feel like women are too sensitive. The pink tax, the Me Too movement, that was such a huge thing. And I did want to touch on this a little bit because I do think, so I do want to give a trigger warning obviously with the topic that I'm about to discuss because I think it's important to recognize the role that men like this play in things like the Me Too movement. Because they, it all correlates to what I was talking about before with like gender roles and like expectations of women and how they carry themselves. They have this expectation of women being pious, pure, modest, and when they do all these things, they have these expectations for women and then a woman who they expect to do the same thing is assaulted. They are so quick to blame the woman. There's a sense of victim blaming. Well, what were you doing? What were you wearing? What were you saying? Oh, you told him yes earlier that day? Oh, you're an OnlyFans model? Sounds like it was warranted. What? That's so insane to me. How people can sit here before they even understand the facts of what's going on, even if they do, not looking at it case by case and recognizing that not every single situation looks the same is something that is scary. It can put people in a position where they're being taken advantage of and not just ways like that, but emotionally. And it puts them in such a bad place because men lead into the hierarchy that the patriarchy gives them. And it's just sad, especially because the Me Too movement doesn't just affect celebrities. It affects people in regular, everyday, boring, non-celebrity life too. Like in corporate America, like feeling like you can't report your boss because, oh, well, you know, he's a traditional man and he's da da da, and they're going to assume that I was doing this if I, oh, they're going to view me this way. Those are comments that men make that people adapt into their thinking. And then sometimes it's not even other people victim blaming. Sometimes the victim blames himself because of these thoughts of gender roles and how those are expressed to them. And maybe they've heard multiple times and they believe that maybe this can't happen to me because I did this and because I did that. Like retracting your consent and stuff like that. And that was a huge thing that people that we were talking about. And I think also the lock and key concept, done. Like frustrates me to no end. The concept that if you don't know what it is, it's the concept that a master key, mind you, this is referring to male and female anatomy. The key being male anatomy, the lock being female anatomy. So it goes that a key that can unlock every lock is a master key, but a lock that can open to any key is a shitty lock. And so for me it's hard to hear stuff like that because it immediately weaponizes the idea of women's sexuality. And men being viewed as once again the alpha and the oh, he's a dog, he's just, you know, he's a player, he's king, he's doing this and he's doing that. But a woman being degraded and being broken down and kind of like, you know, dehumanized in the sense of, oh, you do this? But like, no one's going to talk about how all of those keys were like, I just don't understand how the people will go on these platforms and talk about this stuff and not even understand what they're doing. And what they're saying about how that affects people and specifically women and non, I really, it's bad. And it's also just sad because these things seem like they make sense to them, but there's a whole group of people from many different communities that will tell you that you are dead wrong. And so I also wanted to wrap up to the point of why this is important to talk about, because oftentimes people forget that this isn't just, you know, a podcast to listen to, you know, while we're taking a shower and, you know, oh, it's fine, we're just gonna do this and do that. And we're going to talk about this and I'm going to rant about why women are, you know, wrong if they do only fans, but I expect a woman to be this way, that way and have this many bodies and all the other stuff. There's so much like hypocrisy that is so deep in these podcast topics that they don't even realize they're being hypocrites. And it's violent. Violence isn't just blood and guts and gore. It's the intention to harm other people, because you can't, you don't have to, we've learned, there's science and there's research to back this up that violence isn't just physical violence. And I think it can be verbal, it can be emotional. And there's a huge common thing with like, attacking women. And I think it's sad, as a woman, and someone who wants to make sure I protect other women, and was raised by women, to see men like this, take these harmful opinions and conversations on to a podcast, where someone could hear it, that is completely unbaked, like, that's completely biased, and not really understanding towards the audience, how harmful those things are, and how they can be said. And repeat them, and they create an entire reproduction of a generation of boys that continue to contribute to rape culture. And then more young people are at risk to being victims, and survivors, and people with experiences. And it makes me sad, as someone who also has experiences in those contexts. And I, I rage at that stuff. Like, the takeaway from this is that we are not here to fit into a mold that was made by men. We're not. I've never been a woman to allow men to talk to me and treat me a certain way. I've had many low moments where I've allowed that to happen. But I've never been okay with it. And a lot of times, women who end up in those situations, where they know their worth, and they know that they're better than what they're experiencing, will continue to allow themselves to experience this, because they feel like they deserve it, because all they've been told is their role, and they have to play their part in society. Otherwise, you're going to ruin, you know, the routine of the world, and like, society, and how it goes, and like, you not playing your part is letting everybody else down. In this certain sense of like, societal guilt, almost. That, wow, maybe I'm not doing my job as a woman. But in reality, it's not you who failed them, it's them who failed you. And as a woman, as a feminist, as a sister, as a godmother, as an aunt, as a friend, as a mentor, I refuse to like, idle by while men are given platforms to talk about stuff like this. Because I don't find it to be interesting at all. I actually find it to be very infuriating. And these are people's kids, like, mind you. These men did not just spawn onto the earth, out of the sky, full grown. They learned this. People aren't born racist. People aren't born homophobic. People aren't born all these bigoted things. They learn, whether it's from their family, their friends, the internet, the whatever, they learn how to be bigots. And they learn how to be misogynists. And it's all fun and games on a podcast until the things they say is taken off the podcast. And now it's applied to real life. And now you have people who feel like it's okay to do certain things to women because they're not doing their role, they're disobeying, they're out of order. So I, as a man, have every right to put them in their place. And they don't. And my message to people who see that type of stuff and hear that type of stuff on a daily basis, especially for any of my male listeners who are tuned in, you should think about that. Because some people are tired of hearing it. I, for one, I could really be done with it. I could. And I really would. I don't care what, I'm not here to satisfy any type of narrative that men have about women and fit into a mold, like I was saying before. I know that the person that God has for me is going to accept me flaws and all. And things that I don't even consider flaws, things that are just who I am and a part of me. And if that's something, if another thing that a man thinks is not attractive, then guess what? I was never meant for you. And I don't want to be meant for you. Because why would I want to be digestible when I can be myself and someone still accept me the same way? Interesting how that works. And I, I'm not doing that anymore. I refuse. Um, I feel like this is a good conversation. There was a lot of talking out in the hallway. You hear that? It's McMaster. It's going to happen. So, the reason I chose this topic was because there has been so much conversation, like, I'm a debating type of girl and I love to have conversations about that. And I feel like yesterday and recently I've been having a lot of discussions about gender and like the place that it has, like the opinions that, like the place that it has in society and also the opinions that differ between men and women. And a lot of these men have so many different opinions about women's issues, women's bodies, women's space and their expectations of themselves and their goals. I for one am tired of it. So, I thought, let's make this an episode. Yeah. So, I appreciate everyone who listened. And I will make sure I, I hope everyone liked it, first of all. I know I got a little bit more political, I guess. I don't view this stuff as like politics because they're people. You know, when it comes to human rights and human, like, experiences, I don't view this as political. But some people might and that's fine. And that's what this podcast is for, is to open up those doors that people might be uncomfortable with. And also recognize that a lot of this is my opinion. This is how I feel about it. And this is also on my podcast. So, like, I felt like I had a chance to talk about things that I agree with and things that I felt about what it means to be a woman and how men on these platforms take those things for granted. And would rather make a negative out of something that is not, you know, fitting that mold again, that we were talking about, rather than trying to understand maybe why those things don't align rather than point making judgments and telling people what they deserve and what they and what as men they deserve and what as women we don't deserve. Because I guess what they don't call that. So, that is my TED talk for the day. I feel good getting off my chest. So, I appreciate you for tuning in. Thanks. So, we're going to end with our ins and outs of the week. So, my end of the week is reading my Bible more. My end is also not being sick. So, we're bringing in good health for the week. And then also, better spending habits. We're also bringing that in for the week. What we're leaving out of the week is going to bed late. Super, super late, past 3 o'clock in the morning. We're also leaving out people pleasing and listening to what people have, the expectations that people have of me compared to my ability to do everything at my own pace. And we're also leaving out people who make you chase them. Because I will not chase anyone who doesn't want to be in my space. If you don't want to be in my space, guess what? It's on you, babe. And so, I'm fine with that. I think that's all I have to say. I think. I think that's it. Okay. Yeah, we're done. Okay. Thanks, everybody. So, don't forget to tune in every Sunday at 2 p.m. There will be a new episode of Cozy with Leah. And thank you for getting cozy with me again. Peace.