00:00:00: Music.

00:00:08: And welcome back everybody this is bitch breathe and I am your host ricardia Bramley.

00:00:14: So we're starting a brand-new season if you will and I thought about a lot of subjects I could start with but there's one that's been really really present on my mind lately so I thought as always,

00:00:27: go with what bubbles up strongest and so today I'm going to talk about not surprisingly women us again uh-huh but I am going to come at this,

00:00:40: from a point of view that is not always easy.

00:00:44: Because it requires of myself and I guess of us collectively to take a really good look at our contributions

00:00:53: the way our lives and our Collective situation looks today so the title of the podcast as you've already seen.

00:01:03: Or of this episode is when women are the problem so.

00:01:09: Many many years ago and for many many years I worked in.

00:01:14: The film business as an actor and many years before that I was a boarding school kid I went to boarding school for almost eight years and these two episodes of My Life.

00:01:28: Apart from the fact that they taught me many many really really good things also taught me.

00:01:35: A lot of life lessons around being a woman and being a woman in the presence of other women and it's this presence of other women that were going to focus on today so in boarding school,

00:01:49: when you were new I came in the middle of the year so there weren't a whole lot of other people who also joined at that time it was very common to be.

00:01:58: A very big object of interest and,

00:02:02: this goes especially for male interest after all hey meat market and there's a new chicken on the field so everybody sort of checks you out and.

00:02:13: That seems kind of normal first off so do the women the women check you out to they will this is

00:02:20: keep in mind dating myself 30 years ago now but some things unfortunately have not changed but there was a lot of competition now there was this new girl maybe she was prettier or thinner I certainly wasn't richer but I had

00:02:34: possibly in their eyes assets that they didn't have or that everybody already knew so they no longer seemed that valuable in any case it my life became very very difficult.

00:02:45: People would group up against me women that is and really exclude me now when you're in a regular school and people do that you go home in the afternoon hopefully there's one or two parents there.

00:02:59: Who can catch some of that downward falling that you're doing they can cheer you up they can cheer you on maybe you have friends outside of school that you can hang out with this is not an option in boarding school in boarding school at four o'clock

00:03:13: you're still in boarding school and so it all continues

00:03:16: so my strategy back then against this isolation through other women who didn't want to be my friends because the popular girls said you shouldn't be was to be friends with boys and I kept that strategy for a very long time that

00:03:30: my boys were just my best friend's male Energy felt safer to me even and even more reliable than that of the women around me,

00:03:40: and I thought about that the other day because so often we talk about how men have shaped us in our childhoods through the absence.

00:03:48: Other father through the presence of a father who wasn't really useful and we do also speak about how women shape us but.

00:03:57: I don't think I necessarily put enough emphasis sometimes on how women shaped how I would be with them with us and then ultimately with myself

00:04:06: and to stand there and say that male Energy felt safer when I thought that the other day I thought hmm that's not so good.

00:04:14: Right and since then of course A lot has happened and it's not always like that but just to sort of stand there and see okay what happened there,

00:04:22: and to realize that men unless they're threatening physical violence because in that moment I have no chance but men didn't feel

00:04:30: scary or not as scary as much as women did women felt like the true enemy growing up and a certainly in business later when I got into film business

00:04:43: sometimes you'd walk into a casting room and I promise

00:04:47: it literally felt like you were being punched in the solar plexus that's the kind of energy that comes your way when you walk into an audition and there's a lot of people who look like you because obviously there's typecasting going on and everyone's vying for that tiny slice of cake that doesn't taste all that good anyway

00:05:05: but because it's been made scarce it suddenly has a value and as a commodity.

00:05:11: Right so just this for backgrounds how how I came to talk about this so fast forward were in this

00:05:18: I don't know how many wave of feminism there's this whole idea of Sisterhood I went into the yoga scene and it became a lot better,

00:05:26: I have to say I really think a lot a lot is happening in the collective female Consciousness which is so encouraging and I'm so happy about it but recently,

00:05:37: again I came into a situation where suddenly it had been flipped around again I was back in a situation that looked all too familiar and looked nothing like Sisterhood.

00:05:48: So I wanted to look at this topic today and ask more questions rather than sort of have a whole bunch of tools and solutions I hopefully have some but I wanted to.

00:06:01: Examine more than I wanted to solve so the first.

00:06:08: Aspect that I thought about was why do women hurt each other.

00:06:14: How even though we've done all this Awakening and everybody got a ticket on the woke train if you will why do we hurt each other.

00:06:23: So much and.

00:06:25: Why does it sometimes happen to us and I'm absolutely by the way including myself and all of this why does it happen to us that the aggression and the hurtfulness is so much stronger towards females sometimes.

00:06:39: I asked myself why does that happen how can I forgive men for having done some really really awful things to us but the women who will carry that garage I will hold onto it like a fucking Trophy and.

00:06:53: When I asked myself that question I realize it's because I'm used to that.

00:06:58: I'm used to holding this pain that women have inflicted upon me and that I have inflicted upon us and so when you are in the habit.

00:07:09: Of holding on to pain to a certain very specified group it's very hard not to do that because.

00:07:17: See if we're hurting each other.

00:07:20: And this is not a new insight but I think a very important one we hurting ourselves so we are used to this cycle of inflicting pain on ourselves and as a result

00:07:31: on others

00:07:32: and the other way around and so we keep being in this pain cycle that is clearly identified as female it can come through our mothers our grandmothers sisters it's not just women out there it's,

00:07:45: been carried forth for quite a while now get into this whole generational thing in a moment as well but just to sort of recognize.

00:07:54: If we're holding on to pain a grudge against another woman because maybe yes she has been very unfair to us.

00:08:02: We can't really get out of that.

00:08:06: Without taking a good look at how often this has happened not in terms of numbers but in terms of how much of a history a density of pain is there through our lives and to.

00:08:18: Separate what this woman is doing to us a we feel she's doing to us in this moment from what all the women and all of us have done to each other in our personal and Collective history.

00:08:30: So is understanding why women hurt each other and the second question I looked at was.

00:08:38: Why do we as women not recognize this conditioning there's a lot of literature about it out there now a lot of workshops I personally have visited some great teachers and workshops around this topic and have been really able to heal a lot of this sort of

00:08:53: clenched and sometimes it felt really good pain,

00:08:58: and bordering on hatred actually to myself to others again I can't there is no other here there never is but especially with us women so why are women not recognizing the conditioning,

00:09:09: because it's so subtle sometimes it's so subtle we don't even realize sometimes I still make a self-deprecating comment about myself so that another woman will feel better,

00:09:22: so instead of empowering Other Women by being an empowered female myself I.

00:09:28: Especially in the acting Arena I began to tell jokes about myself so that women would feel better around me I would make myself look clumsier than I was I would say how I don't like being skinny I am.

00:09:43: Coincidentally because

00:09:44: I don't know I'm my father's daughter he just eats also and doesn't doesn't gain weight but I would make myself apologize for being thinner than the other women in the room and so on and so forth and I know you've been through this too I'm sure or maybe you've been

00:10:00: the other woman that witnessed this kind of taking down of this Co female in the room right so

00:10:07: as long as we can't recognize the conditioning recognize that we've been conditioned to fight against each other that's one part that we know but also to feel

00:10:18: isolated from each other.

00:10:21: I'm not even talking about this active fighting oh she has thinner legs or Dora forget all that I'm too old for all that bullshit but I'm talking about

00:10:29: not feeling with each other not sharing a space not being able to have the generosity towards this other woman too

00:10:38: allow her to be as strong and as beautiful and as vivacious and big as she wants to be,

00:10:46: that is hard when we don't recognize that that is what we're doing we're not allowing the other to be her full self.

00:10:54: And so getting back to what I touched upon just before the generational aspect why do older women guard the patriarchy like they benefited from it and like there.

00:11:06: The people who come after them the women who come after them like they're going to benefit from it nobody does but this whole idea of

00:11:14: guarding the patriarchy which is something I learned in a great Workshop here in Berlin is really valid and I noticed it in

00:11:22: women who came before me for example my mom or teachers that I had that they would just sort of almost protect.

00:11:31: The guy and I mean this goes to extremes even to this day whether it's female genital mutilation or just your mother your grandmother saying oh that's just boys

00:11:40: it's probably because he likes you that he's being so mean or this apologetic argument towards men like there's some sort of,

00:11:48: dick driven brainless playful and Charming harmless you know Co human

00:11:56: that doesn't fly with me there there cannot be an apology for men because that's just how they are but that's exactly how the patriarchy gets guarded that's what we do and I

00:12:08: no I've made that mistake myself and I still try to sort of self correct but just recognizing in the other women not the enemy

00:12:15: not oh my God they're so dumb or they're so old they don't get it no understand how they came to this decision to guard the patriarchy.

00:12:25: Because of fear because if you didn't guard the patriarchy you are now on the outside of it.

00:12:32: And you know we all know this back in the day you did not want to be on the outside of

00:12:39: patriarchy because it essentially meant maybe you weren't going to be financially stable if you left a marriage for example this is way back right

00:12:48: or you weren't going to get that promotion that you want to because everyone who's making the decision about your promotion is male and so on and so forth so recognizing where we guard the patriarchy ourselves

00:13:01: and then maybe stepping out of our comfort zone.

00:13:04: And helping that other woman even if we don't like her maybe I know this is hard to do but to recognize we.

00:13:13: Other ones who can guide the patriarchy but we're also the ones who can challenge it.

00:13:17: And take it the hell down and then this one that follows now was very painful for me to recognize that that is indeed what is going on and that is why is it so much easier sometimes.

00:13:31: To and I'm using this word hate other women more than men so I've noticed it in myself and in friends around me.

00:13:41: In a very heteronormative contexts keep in mind that.

00:13:46: Men have done awful things in relationships to their spouses in their business relationships in the kind of decisions they take personally and professionally.

00:13:57: And they've been.

00:13:59: Forgiving they've been understood or people women just moved on from these transgressions but when a best friend.

00:14:09: Let us down in a really really deep way when she hurt us in my case me.

00:14:17: I couldn't I couldn't let it go I felt deceived and hurt on a level that I felt a man could have never ever reached and why was it so easy to forgive an ex-husband who was

00:14:31: such.

00:14:33: A horrible horrible person as it turned out in the end for example now but it wasn't easy to forgive my best friend who had totally.

00:14:43: Totally let me down when I needed her most and even.

00:14:47: Really really just dropped me off her radar when that happened that took,

00:14:53: longer than the other situation and I ask myself why am I still hating on her but not on him when what he did was a thousand times worse than what she did and the painful answer I came,

00:15:06: was I have higher expectations of women then I have of men.

00:15:12: So here's me putting men also in this horrible context of act you're on you're going to underperform every time anyway when it comes to relationships so I'm not even going to expect too much from you

00:15:24: and then the other side of that hypocrisy is

00:15:27: but you as a woman I'm going to hold you to twice no 10 times the standard that I hold the man so if you fuck up.

00:15:36: You're a bad person and I will hold on to that Grudge and I will hunt it down anytime's it tries to escape me so,

00:15:45: there's a double standard here it's easier to yeah

00:15:50: dislike to strongly resent the women the women we loved and love in our lives than men that seemed really painful to me how could I do that too

00:16:01: my best friends even if we didn't mean to be together anymore but.

00:16:06: To sort of hold on to it much more than I did to the to the other guy that was a painful realization so maybe,

00:16:16: in terms of not solution but in terms of thoughts around the subject maybe there's a way to soften and to equalize this standard a little bit that we have around what it is we expect of men and so there by not making them

00:16:30: any less of a human than they are and what we expect of the women and not expecting her to be infallible and perfect.

00:16:40: The next one I came to really relates to a situation I have just been in not too long ago in a new context and I realized I had become the target.

00:16:53: So this was harking back to very old days I hadn't been in this situation for an extremely long time so for me to suddenly have become the target of female resentment,

00:17:04: was

00:17:05: surprising it was very surprising because here we are in this feminist wave everybody so woke you got your hashtag me too and down with the patriarchy and all this Sisterhood talk and audre Lorde who's one of my favorite authors for like

00:17:19: 25 years suddenly being quoted all over the place and suddenly I'm in a situation I'm like I'm sorry.

00:17:25: How did this happen where is this coming from I haven't been confronted and hate it on in this way for and.

00:17:34: Incredibly long time I didn't even realize people still operated this way now I know this is very very naive but keep in mind I had been in the yoga scene for

00:17:45: what is now had returned to it 10 years right and in that same people

00:17:50: aren't perfect of course but they are constantly trying to transform at least the good ones

00:17:55: you know if they're not just sort of utilizing yoga as a fashion statement but actually trying to do the work then they're trying to transform and so yes there are transgressions but you can deal.

00:18:06: With them because everyone's in an effort to reflect and understand but suddenly I had come been completely taken out of that context and I was being attacked.

00:18:17: And I felt you know unfairly treated I kept looking at myself how did I contribute to this why is this in my movie The kabbalist would say and in that context they have some really really great

00:18:28: teachings around this situation and so why is this happening.

00:18:33: And how am I going to deal with it because I don't want to be that woman it kept bringing out the worst kind of reptile sort of feelings inside me that I really really resented and felt,

00:18:46: very repelled by so I wondered how do you deal with this now when you feel you're being poorly treated and.

00:18:54: There are always two sides to the story and I will never for a moment pretend that I understand the other side always but what I did understand was that I did not,

00:19:05: one to accept being treated this way and I wasn't going to go the old route of boarding school time and acting why I'm just going to then hate back or hit back,

00:19:17: and the.

00:19:18: Self-deprecating and and sort of you know trying to level with this person said they would like me it's just not how we operate anymore and I40 is at least I'm hoping so when I realized,

00:19:29: that's being understanding of how this other woman got to this position that she holds that was already really helpful.

00:19:38: To just understand that doesn't mean I agree with it that doesn't mean I like her more but I understand how she got here.

00:19:44: Right and the second part was that even though I understand it I don't have to take it I don't have to,

00:19:52: take on your history of shits or your resentment towards me I don't have to take it on there are boundaries I can draw and draw them you do at some point because if you don't draw them obviously.

00:20:07: It's going to get really really hard to protect yourself so.

00:20:12: In realizing that there is a way to set up boundaries that can be very very difficult and tough and have a lot of consequences was the way forward for me.

00:20:22: Was to understand you know that whole idea of be kind but don't take any shit.

00:20:29: And sort of traveling that route so that you don't become this woman who hates another woman who then counter-attacks in anyway what's the point really

00:20:38: it's only going to fire back on you right and to understand that just because everyone's more emotional or I'm going to go ahead and rephrase that,

00:20:48: seems more emotional than men are or men in business are that doesn't mean you can't get this under control and what it mostly means is that we don't dish out

00:20:58: more than necessary because this is a female opponent and there's a Temptation there that.

00:21:06: I think I began to really temper as all these years of yoga and stuff go by is to kept keep looking at.

00:21:13: Where am I dishing out even more strongly because this is a woman and is there a way to have a much more a much significantly more measured response.

00:21:24: And I found that if we look at how this person arrived here how both are very emotional how there are lessons that need to be learned by that a person and by ourselves that we can then have a measured response that works.

00:21:37: For us.

00:21:38: It might not look like it works with the other person but that's just the situation right as soon as there's two people there's going to be two different perspectives but just to keep coming back to our own and examine how we got here.

00:21:51: And then lastly my very last one with all this.

00:21:58: Opposing polarity dichotomy Duality between the male the female between men and women.

00:22:07: And then each of them identifying as the other and everything in between the fluidity that's luckily happening now also in in gender and sexuality in the interaction of the male the female energy

00:22:22: I ask myself well we know about that but what if.

00:22:31: In all these developments of men having all the power women getting underpaid and all this stuff what if it's been us all along.

00:22:43: Where have we in a major major way in a painful way how did we let this happen.

00:22:53: Because yes we're physically often not in the same realm with a guy a man will often be physically stronger than us so there are those situations.

00:23:02: Yeah what are you going to do especially historically our if you're in an abusive relationship physically abusive relationship even if they don't actually become physical.

00:23:12: The fact that they could the fact that that potential is in the room is already a game changer and that's not however the context I speak of what I mean is what if.

00:23:24: Are not recognizing each other not holding each other not being safe with each other.

00:23:30: And in fact aligning with I'm going to call him the enemy right now with the male part of the population.

00:23:37: Has allowed all of these things to go on more strongly and a lot longer.

00:23:43: Because that's exactly what happened in my opinion and I love to hear yours especially if you don't share mine what if.

00:23:51: We don't need them to cooperate so much we don't need them to understand so much.

00:23:59: We don't need them to take the first step.

00:24:03: Because we as a species do it for and with each other.

00:24:09: We take the first step We Gather we regroup we understand each other's hurt and we make it a fucking party a big big Collective.

00:24:21: Shift in Consciousness that all the power we ever needed and ever will need.

00:24:28: To keep this feminist wave also alive so it doesn't go dormant again is us we are what we need.

00:24:38: We don't necessarily need all the man to get on board and for all the old white men to understand what the fuck they've done wrong maybe what if we can take that out of the equation because we.

00:24:52: Our and I've said this in an episode before half of the population what if it's been us all along.

00:24:59: I want to keep it with that open question because I would love for us to have more answers to it than what I can provide as an only person.

00:25:08: Here in this little podcast of mine what if it's been us all along what if we recognize that how will we change.

00:25:17: How we interact with each other and what we do even just today.

00:25:23: But also going forward I'm really curious so that was.

00:25:31: Really really for me.

00:25:34: Super important topic it's one I've been wanting to talk about forever because of course it has shaped my life and I know that of.

00:25:42: All the women around me in such incredible ways and often underestimated ways that I'm happy I was able to

00:25:50: address it today please go ahead if you like what you heard to rate to review the podcast on iTunes I have

00:25:58: been asked how to do that by a lot of people so you have to sort of scroll down underneath all the episodes on Spotify for example and then you can rate,

00:26:08: the episode and then of course on iTunes as a way to do it.

00:26:11: As well so it really helps visibility and for other people to find the podcast I'd really be happy if you could do that all right I hope you're well I hope things are going okay for you in this incredibly confusing time.

00:26:26: And I'm looking forward to speaking to you next time until then.

00:26:30: Music.