Episode 176 - How Good Girl Conditioning Shows Up in Dating with Dr. Jennie Young
How much time do you spend overanalyzing the texts you send to a potential partner or giving guys on dating apps a chance because they seem to have the traits you’ve been taught to look for? If you’re tired of continuing conversations because you feel like you should, giving someone the benefit of the doubt when the evidence in front of you says otherwise, or second-guessing whether you’re being too picky, this episode will help you recognize how good girl conditioning can shape the way you date. Today’s guest, Dr. Jennie Young, creator of the Burned Haystack Dating Method, helps you see the patterns in your dating life more clearly so you can trust your judgment and make choices that create more peace and safety.
Want to take this work deeper? Join Sara live for one hour for her free workshop, SPEAK UP. There’s no replay, so bring the conversation you keep avoiding. You’ll learn the Three Speak Up Skills and figure out what’s keeping you stuck.
Here’s what you’ll uncover in this episode:
Why “good” is a more abstract and gendered term than you may realize
How good girl conditioning can make it harder to see the meaning behind someone’s words and behavior
How being trained to see “potential” in men can affect the choices you make in dating
Why treating politeness as protective can actually work against you
Why you need to give yourself permission to walk away when the evidence tells you something isn’t right
Register for SPEAK UP: sarafisk.coach/voice
Find Jennie here:
burnedhaystack.substack.com/p/burned-haystack-dating-method-quick
www.facebook.com/groups/9116647515019601
Find Sara here:
pages.sarafisk.coach/difficultconversations
youtube.com/@sarafiskcoaching1333
Transcript
Sara Bybee Fisk 00:59
My interview today is with Dr. Jennie Young, and she is one of the women I have a huge brain crush on. She is so smart, and I'm so excited for you to listen to how she and I talk about her work. A little bit about her. She teaches English, writing foundations, and women and gender studies at the University of Wisconsin in Green Bay. She is also an associate dean in the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, and her PhD is in applied rhetoric and discourse studies, which means that she studies language for a living and what it reveals about the people using it. Now, she is the creator of the Burned Haystack Dating Method, which you might be wondering why do I care about dating? I care about it because so many of my clients are dating and finding it difficult to know, ahead of spending a lot of time and energy and effort with a possible match, whether or not it's worth their time. And so when I found the Burned Haystack method, what I loved about it was how it opened up a completely different world of meaning underneath the words that were being shared in dating profiles and in messages exchanged between potential people on these dating apps. I joined the group, and what I found fascinating was I learned so much about rhetoric, but I also saw mirrored in the journey of the women in her group how important it is to be able to take small steps toward empowerment and control over what happens in your world at different stages. And we're gonna talk specifically about what I mean by that in the episode, so listen for that. Jennie's work and my work meet in the same place, meaning good girls who are programmed to worry about am I overthinking? Am I just being too pic- too picky? Should I give him a chance? That is good girl conditioning at work. We give men the benefit of the doubt. We answer every message to be polite. We run good girl math and decide that it's too mean to just block someone the first time that they misbehave because that feels too harsh. And if we boil everything down, what I love most about Jennie's work is that she empowers women to trust the evidence in front of them and then take whatever action they want to from there. She helps women, she helps good girls stop blaming themselves for men's bad behavior. And this method has blown up.
Sara Bybee Fisk 03:56
It is now an international sensation, and I encourage you, if you are curious about how rhetoric can help you better understand written messages, spoken messages, even messages that come through pictures and images, buy her book, The Burned Haystack Dating Method, and you are gonna learn so much from Jennie and from our interview today.Jennie, I... This is such... I've been excited all week to say that.
Jennie Young 04:24
Okay.
Sara Bybee Fisk 04:25
I have... I joined Burned Haystack Dating Method even though I've been married to the same man for 26 years now because at first I was very curious about, um, some clients who I have who are dating and having a terrible time, and I realized that I wanted to offer them more than just our weekly coaching. I wanted to offer them a different framework, a different, you know, something. And so-
Jennie Young 04:50
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 04:50
... I found Burned Haystack, and I just fell in love with your brain. I ab-
Jennie Young 04:55
Oh, thank you.
Sara Bybee Fisk 04:56
I-
Jennie Young 04:56
That's so nice of you to say.
Sara Bybee Fisk 04:58
Such admiration for smart women who can take something that seems to apply kind of in this area-
Jennie Young 05:06
Mm-hmm
Sara Bybee Fisk 05:06
... and make it accessible in other areas, and I think that is one of the gifts of what you have done, is you've taken language-
Jennie Young 05:14
Mm-hmm
Sara Bybee Fisk 05:14
... which we are all confined by, not just English, right? And the, the particular-
Jennie Young 05:19
Right
Sara Bybee Fisk 05:20
... ways that English is derived and used and what it means. But then taken that and actually opened it up as a lens-
Jennie Young 05:28
Mm-hmm
Sara Bybee Fisk 05:28
... specifically over dating.
Jennie Young 05:31
Right.
Sara Bybee Fisk 05:32
And I just have a whole list of things that I would love to talk about with you.
Jennie Young 05:36
Great. I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having me on.
Sara Bybee Fisk 05:39
When you think about the big themes-
Jennie Young 05:44
Mm-hmm
Sara Bybee Fisk 05:44
... that good girls have challenges with when they go not just into dating relationships, but into any relationship, whether it's a relationship with someone at work-
Jennie Young 05:57
Mm-hmm
Sara Bybee Fisk 05:57
... a personal romantic relationship that's long-standing at home or, you know, community members, neighbors, whatever- What are some of the big things that you see women struggling with as they try to find a way to make that relationship have more room for them and their preferences?
Jennie Young 06:20
Yeah. I mean, I think we've gotten real confused about what the word good even means, e- especially in a gendered way. Because if we use the phrase, "He's a good man," people tend to associate that with honesty, strength, um, intelligence, discernment. Like, all these things that would actually be protective probably of p- maybe his family and community, but also of himself. Whereas we've rewritten that meaning for women in a way that renders women vulnerable in a negative way, right? Where it's become almost an erasure of boundaries. So if, if I'm good, you know, the, the, even the notion of being good is being weaponized against women in all kinds of ways. Definitely in patriarchal religions, but also, you know, in families. Like, you be a, you be a good girl means a different thing to a little girl than, than he's a good boy means to a boy, and to everyone else, right? So it's a very gendered word.And I think we have to, you know, we all have internalized misogyny, right? Even, like, the most feminist among us because we grew up in this society, and I think we have to be really intentional about what we think. You know, we get to decide kinda what good means. That's one of those very abstract terms. And I think about that kinda thing constantly. Um, same thing with kind. You know, what does kind mean? Kind doesn't mean you do everything everybody wants you to do. Like, that might hurt you. Sometimes kind means being clear, being firm, right? I wear, I wear a ring that says, "Be kind," and then on the inside it says, "Of a bitch." And I like that because it gets the two sides of that coin, and also, like, reinforces the notion that you can be both. You can also be a really nice bitch.
Sara Bybee Fisk 08:17
That's right.
Jennie Young 08:18
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 08:19
My work centers around, like, helping women know the skills and the steps-
Jennie Young 08:24
Mm-hmm
Sara Bybee Fisk 08:24
... to have a hard conversation.
Jennie Young 08:26
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 08:27
And how the conversation has to start, how you have to stay in it and not lose yourself or your message-
Jennie Young 08:34
Mm-hmm
Sara Bybee Fisk 08:34
... and then to be able to handle what happens after when there's pushback or misunderstanding.
Jennie Young 08:40
Mm-hmm.
Sara Bybee Fisk 08:42
And it's interesting to me how often women spend so much time in the beginning of that, I call it good girl math. They're in their head-
Jennie Young 08:53
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 08:54
... calculating, "Is saying this worth the pushback, worth the risk, worth the possible disappointment?" And so-
Jennie Young 09:02
Right
Sara Bybee Fisk 09:02
... they're calculating, they're rehearsing, they're writing it out, they're s- texting it to a friend, "Is this too much? Is this too hard?Um, am I gonna get in trouble for saying this?" And then they're waiting for the right mood, the right time, and it's this endless calculating-
Jennie Young 09:17
Yeah. Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 09:19
... that sucks up so much of their time-
Jennie Young 09:21
Right
Sara Bybee Fisk 09:22
... and energy and brain space.
Jennie Young 09:24
That men never have to engage in.
Sara Bybee Fisk 09:26
That's right. Because?
Jennie Young 09:29
Right. Well, because they're safer in the world, right?
Sara Bybee Fisk 09:32
Yeah.
Jennie Young 09:32
Like, part of the reason women do all this calculation and emotional labor is just to protect ourselves, right? The, where- whereas men generally don't have to account for that.They pretty much know, like, you know, what's the worst that's gonna happen to them. It, it's just not nearly as bad. So I mean, there's, there, this is actually a very logical fear. It's sad that it's still so prevalent in 2026, but ...
Sara Bybee Fisk 09:59
It is so sad. And in a couple of the, the men thinky pieces, I just have to laugh- ... that I read commenting about Burn Haystack, you know, they were very concerned about, "But I'm a good guy-
Jennie Young 10:12
Right
Sara Bybee Fisk 10:12
... and I might be eliminated by your overly picky, overly, you know, um, your, your burning method-
Jennie Young 10:21
Right
Sara Bybee Fisk 10:21
... completely missing-
Jennie Young 10:23
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 10:24
... the dynamic of a w- a woman, o- a, a bad date for a woman could result in being murdered, being hurt, you know, being-
Jennie Young 10:31
Right
Sara Bybee Fisk 10:31
... being sexually assaulted-
Jennie Young 10:33
Right
Sara Bybee Fisk 10:34
... being recipient of, of physical or verbal aggression.
Jennie Young 10:37
Right.
Sara Bybee Fisk 10:37
And a bad date for a man, the stakes are, are so much lower.
Jennie Young 10:41
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 10:41
So your whole method exists-
Jennie Young 10:45
Mm-hmm
Sara Bybee Fisk 10:45
... to help women avoid not just those type of situations-
Jennie Young 10:50
Mm-hmm
Sara Bybee Fisk 10:50
... but being in positions where all of that good girl programming-
Jennie Young 10:56
Mm-hmm
Sara Bybee Fisk 10:57
... is called out and put to use-
Jennie Young 10:59
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 10:59
... to make men more comfortable.
Jennie Young 11:01
Yeah. And there, there's an irony in what those men are saying because the truth is that, a- and I wasn't trying to achieve this, but actually good men benefit from Burn Haystack Method. They get selected way more often.And it was interesting when I was on my book tour, um, in the spring, a lot of, a lot of partners came with, with women to the book tour events, and the men, and they thanked me. They were like, "I actually wasn't really getting selected, and my girlfriend told me she picked me because of Burn Haystack." So there's actually a collateral benefit to truly good guys.But the guys who claim to be good guys are rarely a good guy. Like, the fact that they're claiming it is usually a red flag.
Sara Bybee Fisk 11:49
Absolutely. What are some of, what are some of the particular ways that women are trained a- as good girls-
Jennie Young 11:59
Mm-hmm
Sara Bybee Fisk 11:59
... that get in the way of them being able to see past the language to the meaning?
Jennie Young 12:07
Yeah. Um, wo- women are socialized to be mothers re- regardless of ... And, and I think that happens subconsciously. I'm, I'm not even saying their parents are always doing that intentionally or that society is. But if you think about, like, the notion of the mother, to be a good mother, so if we're talking about actually being a mother, you have to be willing to tolerate someone being upset with you, someone being angry with you, someone not following through on their chores, someone who's potentially screaming, "I hate you," and slamming doors, right?Because these are things that children do. The problem is that we socialize women so hard toward all those qualities, or I guess, like, toward being willing to do those things, or being good at tolerating that, in a way we don't socialize men to do those things. And then it just sort of like bleeds into every other aspect of our life because it's so elemental. Like, we're talking about literally procreation, like how do we continue the species? That is all wired into how we socialize women to be mothers, and if you take that exact same skill set, it's really destructive in romantic pairings or at work or in the church. And that's why, you know, one of the toxic rhetorical patterns on the dating apps is, "Are you my mother?" And there's a lot of men looking for their mothers on the dating apps which is, you know, somewhere between cringey and really disturbing.
Sara Bybee Fisk 13:42
And really disturbing, and also I think this was in reading some of the, the explanation of that pattern, that you made a distinction that has really benefited me. I have five children.I was trained from the time I was-
Jennie Young 13:56
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 13:56
... very young to be a, a mother, and in Mormon land, you know, the more children you have, the more faithful you are.
Jennie Young 14:01
Yes, yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 14:03
And children are entitled.
Jennie Young 14:05
Yes. Right.
Sara Bybee Fisk 14:06
Are entitled.
Jennie Young 14:06
It's part of the developmental process.
Sara Bybee Fisk 14:08
That's right. Yeah.
Jennie Young 14:09
Yeah. Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 14:09
And some- something about how that was said, either by you or by someone in the community, just really crystallized that, yes-
Jennie Young 14:15
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 14:16
... the entitlement-
Jennie Young 14:17
Mm-hmm
Sara Bybee Fisk 14:17
... coming from a child is-
Jennie Young 14:19
Yes
Sara Bybee Fisk 14:20
... important, an important part of their survival-
Jennie Young 14:23
Yes
Sara Bybee Fisk 14:23
... and development.
Jennie Young 14:25
Well, and, and to ... Oh, sorry.
Sara Bybee Fisk 14:26
Yeah, no, please, go ahead.
Jennie Young 14:27
Well, the other piece that goes along with that is that we are wired to love our children sacrificially.
Sara Bybee Fisk 14:35
Exactly.
Jennie Young 14:35
Like, any one of us would lay down our lives for our children, right? In a heartbeat, without thinking of it.And that's appropriate because that's protective in an evolutionary sense. But there's a lot of men, and notice if you ask a lot of men, even, like, the quote unquote good guys, "Tell us about your wife," or, "Tell us about your mother," what do they start with? She put everyone before herself. She really wanted to go to college, but she didn't because she stayed home. She didn't focus on any of her own interests because she was nurturing ours. And these are all ... This is considered good. That's what we equate with good, is literal self-sacrifice.
Sara Bybee Fisk 15:14
It is a huge problem because what works during one phase of-
Jennie Young 15:19
Yep
Sara Bybee Fisk 15:19
... your life for a specific-
Jennie Young 15:21
Yep
Sara Bybee Fisk 15:21
... purpose just gets perpetuated-
Jennie Young 15:23
Yeah, forever
Sara Bybee Fisk 15:24
... and becomes ... Yeah. It becomes the-
Jennie Young 15:25
Yep
Sara Bybee Fisk 15:25
... operating system forever.
Jennie Young 15:27
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 15:27
And so in particular, being trained to be the nurturers just contributes to, like, the mental load and the entitlement that grown men now-
Jennie Young 15:39
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 15:39
... exhibit as if they were still a child, entitlement.
Jennie Young 15:43
Right.
Sara Bybee Fisk 15:44
How can she be withholding sex if you're not entitled to sex?
Jennie Young 15:47
Right. Oh, they, they very much feel entitled to sex, all of, of, a, a shocking percentage, yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 15:52
Yeah.
Jennie Young 15:52
With anyone, apparently.
Sara Bybee Fisk 15:54
Yeah. How can, how can you be, you know-
Jennie Young 15:57
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 15:57
... how can you be entitled to her care when you're a-
Jennie Young 16:00
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 16:00
... a grown man? So there's all these examples, and what I see on my side of the equation is the discomfort that women have-
Jennie Young 16:08
Mm-hmm
Sara Bybee Fisk 16:08
... with stepping out of those roles.
Jennie Young 16:10
Yes. Right, right, which makes sense. If-
Sara Bybee Fisk 16:13
Yeah
Jennie Young 16:13
... if that's what your identity was molded to be, of course that's gonna be really uncomfortable.
Sara Bybee Fisk 16:20
One of the ones that they have a lot of discomfort with is stepping back from how women are trained to see potential.
Jennie Young 16:29
Yes, which is another great characteristic for a parent or a teacher.
Sara Bybee Fisk 16:34
That's right. That's right, and it has a lot of, like, value-
Jennie Young 16:38
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 16:38
... when, when you're nurturing a child or a student.
Jennie Young 16:42
Right. And look, we can blame s- a lot of rom-coms on that too, right?
Sara Bybee Fisk 16:47
Absolutely.
Jennie Young 16:47
That's always a trope in, like, contemporary romance regardless of the, the genre. The, like, sh- you know, she meets the bad boy, or the depressed boy, or whatever it is. And then-
Sara Bybee Fisk 16:57
Yeah, the man who's still living in his mother's basement-
Jennie Young 17:00
Right
Sara Bybee Fisk 17:00
... but she sees potential in him.
Jennie Young 17:02
Right.
Sara Bybee Fisk 17:03
And that one is particularly hard because there is just such a sense of I can love this person into-
Jennie Young 17:12
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 17:13
... the, a better version, their ideal self-
Jennie Young 17:15
Right
Sara Bybee Fisk 17:16
... and then they will love me for doing that for them.
Jennie Young 17:20
Right. Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 17:22
And that's how I secure their love-
Jennie Young 17:25
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 17:25
... is they become grateful to me-
Jennie Young 17:28
Mm
Sara Bybee Fisk 17:28
... for this, you know, betterment in their life-
Jennie Young 17:31
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 17:31
... that is, that is because of me. And it's, it's just a hook because the-
Jennie Young 17:37
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 17:37
... opportunity to guarantee that someone will love you-
Jennie Young 17:41
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 17:42
... by, by what you have given to them, by how you have transformed your life, is one of the key, I think, aspects of, of patriarchy in that we can't ... W- we have to be loved for what we do for other people.
Jennie Young 17:56
Yeah. Well, it's very transactional. It's very capitalistic, right?
Sara Bybee Fisk 17:59
Yeah.
Jennie Young 17:59
There's a supply and a demand and a value and an output and, and a profit.
Sara Bybee Fisk 18:05
That's right.
Jennie Young 18:06
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 18:06
Another thing that makes women feel really uncomfortable is blocking without a word.
Jennie Young 18:13
Yeah. At least initially, but what I hear over and over again is, and this is true for me too, the more you do it, it gets real easy.You, you have to kinda like sit with the discomfort of making the transition to doing that, but once you do, it's like, yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 18:28
Yeah. I think women believe, with good reason, that politeness-
Jennie Young 18:34
Mm-hmm
Sara Bybee Fisk 18:34
... is protective.
Jennie Young 18:36
Yes.
Sara Bybee Fisk 18:37
And that if I am going to engage with this dangerous species, right-
Jennie Young 18:43
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 18:43
... that kills and maims and wounds and hurts women-
Jennie Young 18:48
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 18:48
... and I want to have a relationship with a healthy, loving man, my politeness is one of my only kind of protective mechanism.
Jennie Young 18:57
Right. Mm-hmm.
Sara Bybee Fisk 18:58
How would you help a woman understand how politeness actually works against her?
Jennie Young 19:04
Well, I, I would say, like I understand why we all go to that assumption. And, and depending upon what the context is, there might be cases where that's true. It's, it's not true on the dating apps, and I'll explain why. We- the reason it's not protective is because being polite sort of like conveys that you're going to be an easy target.It's a, it- it's a, like a lowering of oneself because you're showing deference to someone who hasn't earned it and, and whom you don't really have to pay it to, right? Um, I think sometimes it helps to think of this i- in a real-life context. So let's l- let's say you are in a bank robbery situation, right at the beginning. If you're standing right by the door and you can see the bank robber across the bank and he has a gun, you still have the choice to leave at that point. You're literally in the doorway. It is way safer to get the heck out of the bank than to negotiate with the bank robber. If he's got you locked in and we're now in a hostage situation and he has a gun, then we're talking about a whole different set of like rhetorical strategies. But on the dating apps, you truly, you really are standing in the door all the time. The door is open all the time, and you don't need to explain why you're closing it. You don't even, y- you know, you, you can just slam it and be gone. So I, I might have pushed that metaphor a little too far, but what I'm saying is there's, there's number one, best case scenario, you're wasting your time being polite to this person you're never going to speak to again, so that's no good. Worst case scenario, and I say worst case but it happens constantly, is that you're gonna end up absorbing a lot of aggression and abuse, and why would you wanna do that? That serves no way and it, and it's toxic and destructive, so just be gone. It just doesn't, there's no reason to say goodbye to someone with whom you have no pre-established relationship. Now, if you're at the point where you've been talking for days and there's a date on the calendar with a place and a time, yeah, you should probably make a very brief announcement that you've changed your mind and then block him.
Sara Bybee Fisk 21:32
What I love about the option to just block and leave is that it really tests that pleaser, that-
Jennie Young 21:40
Mm
Sara Bybee Fisk 21:40
... the inner pleaser-
Jennie Young 21:42
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 21:42
... for a lot of women, and it's the first step in-
Jennie Young 21:45
Mm-hmm
Sara Bybee Fisk 21:45
... doing something that is-
Jennie Young 21:47
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 21:47
... forbidden.
Jennie Young 21:48
Yeah. Right.
Sara Bybee Fisk 21:49
Right?
Jennie Young 21:50
Right.
Sara Bybee Fisk 21:50
That, that feels like a little can I do this, a little-
Jennie Young 21:55
It's like taboo almost.
Sara Bybee Fisk 21:56
Yeah.
Jennie Young 21:57
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 21:58
Taboo, but exciting, like I-
Jennie Young 22:00
Yeah. Oh, yeah. It becomes wildly empowering
Sara Bybee Fisk 22:03
... wildly empowering.
Jennie Young 22:04
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 22:04
And that's what I've seen over and over. 'Cause I go into Burn Haystack. It, it pops up in my, you know, Facebook feed almost immediately. That's how much I'm there.And when I read the stories of other women-
Jennie Young 22:16
Mm-hmm
Sara Bybee Fisk 22:16
... how they go from, can I do this, is this okay, am I, am I-
Jennie Young 22:22
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 22:22
... allowed to do this-
Jennie Young 22:24
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 22:25
... to just being able to look at the language-
Jennie Young 22:30
Mm-hmm
Sara Bybee Fisk 22:30
... to see the patterns-
Jennie Young 22:32
Mm-hmm
Sara Bybee Fisk 22:32
... and to make a decision about is this for me.
Jennie Young 22:37
Right.
Sara Bybee Fisk 22:38
Because I think one of the things that you are very clear about is that this method is for women to understand what language is revealing-
Jennie Young 22:49
Mm
Sara Bybee Fisk 22:50
... so that they have a choice.
Jennie Young 22:52
Right, right. Exactly. Yeah. It's all just information.
Sara Bybee Fisk 22:56
And then they get to do with what they want.
Jennie Young 22:58
Right.
Sara Bybee Fisk 22:58
Some of my favorite posts in the group are when they have very different takes on the very, the, the same thing.
Jennie Young 23:06
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 23:06
And it's fascinating, but, but when they can justify why they would make a different choice.
Jennie Young 23:12
Right. Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 23:13
Because I think that's another skill that when you live in patriarchy and misogyny, no one ever asks you, what are your reasons-
Jennie Young 23:22
Yeah. Right
Sara Bybee Fisk 23:24
... for doing this-
Jennie Young 23:25
Right
Sara Bybee Fisk 23:25
... for, for doing this?
Jennie Young 23:26
Yeah, that's really true.
Sara Bybee Fisk 23:29
Yeah. What are your, have, what do you think of this?
Jennie Young 23:32
Right.
Sara Bybee Fisk 23:32
What are your reasons for either proceeding or not?
Jennie Young 23:34
Yeah. Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 23:36
And for women to slow down and say, "Okay, now that I see what the pattern is or could be-
Jennie Young 23:41
Right
Sara Bybee Fisk 23:42
... what is my choice here?"
Jennie Young 23:44
And who does this serve?
Sara Bybee Fisk 23:45
Yeah.
Jennie Young 23:45
'Cause it hardly ever serves women.
Sara Bybee Fisk 23:49
That, yeah, that is a, that is a huge point. One of my, um, favorite things that I see also happening over and over in your group is that language reveals the pattern, but so many times women already knew.
Jennie Young 24:10
Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 24:11
Can, can you say a little bit more about w- how you notice that or kind of the meaning that you make of that?
Jennie Young 24:17
Yeah. Well, I mean- Like, I, I guess I experienced that myself. When I, when I first got on the dating apps, it's, it's very easy to gaslight yourself and to be gaslit by, by other, you know, voices. Because I kept thinking, like, "It must be me. I must be the problem here. All these conversations are so weird, and these men are acting so bizarre." But I kinda knew that wasn't true. And, you know, because of sort of like what I do and probably my personality, I, I think I pretty quickly got to like, "This is absolutely not okay. None of this is okay with me." But it's... You know, even then, it, it, it took me a beat. Um, and, and since then I've heard over and over again, you've, you've given words to what I always kinda felt inside. I mean, women's intuition is a real thing. Like, it- it's, you know, it's, it's been serving us for millennia, and it, you know, it, it tends to be correct. But w- with a bunch of cultural voices and social scripts, you know, pounding against it, you start to doubt yourself. But once you have, like, the skillset to break it down, to deconstruct the stuff that never made sense, it gives you the confidence to realize that your own intuition did make sense. Somebody said something recently. It was so brilliant the way she said it, and I don't... She said something about, "It's not, it's not that intuition is not logical. It's just that it's so much faster than logic that people doubt it." And she said it better than that, but that was the gist of it.
Sara Bybee Fisk 26:01
It was really interesting for me to just see that over and over and over again because I learned in a... I, I was taking a, a, a course in a therapeutic model that I wanted to use with my clients, that there are three ways of knowing things, right? You can know in your head, you can know in your heart, and you can know in your gut.
Jennie Young 26:16
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 26:17
And as we were talking through which of that information was q- most quickly discounted, it was the gut-
Jennie Young 26:25
Yeah. Right
Sara Bybee Fisk 26:26
... because women's intuition is seen as, you know, silly, less reliable, or, uh, women are emotional, women are not logical.
Jennie Young 26:36
Right.
Sara Bybee Fisk 26:37
But one of the things that I love about your work is that it pairs, like, the logic-
Jennie Young 26:43
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 26:43
... with the gut.
Jennie Young 26:45
Well, and even, even the dichotomy of heart, mind, gut is a very masculine, patriarchal conception. Like, if you really start digging into, um, certain branches of philosophy, um, phenomenology is one of them.Like, anything that pushes against, uh, uh, Descartes, like the Cartesian mind-body divide. Because even your brain is an organ in your body. Like, none of this is-
Sara Bybee Fisk 27:16
Yeah
Jennie Young 27:16
... separate. And science is learning crazy things about the whole gut-brain connection, right? So I, I think that's another thing that's been leveraged against women, is that we're too susceptible to our bodies.And I'm thinking, "What, what do you men think you're operating on?" Like, are you machines? Like, do you, are you plugging yourself into something at night? 'Cause we're all, like, working with the exact same raw mater- material, and it's holistic.
Sara Bybee Fisk 27:44
I love that you said that because that catches, you know, something that I'm repeating 'cause I think it's helpful. But it, it's just reiterating that same kind of, you know, separation from... Yeah.It's all-
Jennie Young 27:56
Yeah. And it is. It's helpful to think about it that way.
Sara Bybee Fisk 27:59
Mm-hmm.
Jennie Young 27:59
And, but then also to, like, think about it the other way. Yeah, I think.
Sara Bybee Fisk 28:03
Yeah.
Jennie Young 28:04
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 28:04
When you are helping women see how language reveals power dynamics-
Jennie Young 28:11
Mm-hmm
Sara Bybee Fisk 28:13
... what is something that surprises women who are just beginning to learn this work the most?
Jennie Young 28:18
Yeah. I, I think they're surprised by how subtle those clues can be.So if we talk about one of the most toxic rhetorical patterns, and you already know this one, is disciplinary directive, and it's kinda disturbing. Like, if I were gonna make a Venn diagram of all the patterns, I feel like that one is probably the most toxic and the most common, which is troubling. Like, I would like to believe that the most toxic is some kind of an outlier.
Sara Bybee Fisk 28:50
Right.
Jennie Young 28:50
So the fact that those are one and the same is, like, really, really disturbing. And we look at how that manifests grammatically, and sometimes it's very extreme. Sometimes it's literally men yelling at you and telling you h- what you have to do or, and what the consequences will be if you don't, and why he's in charge. And it's very abusive and aggressive, and there's name-calling.And sometimes it sounds like, "Hey, give me a call." And women say, "Well, there's nothing wrong with that." Well, there's not if you're already in a relationship with him or if it's your best friend saying, "Hey, give me a call," even if it's your boss. But if it's a strange man on the internet ordering you to do anything, it's disciplinary directive. And what we keep finding is that these guys who present at the very low-key end of that spectrum, over time still become abusive. Because that's a much different way of speaking than saying, "Hey, I've really enjoyed chatting with you. I don't know if you're interested, but if you are, I'd love to talk more. Are you open to a phone call?" That's a different man who says it that way.
Sara Bybee Fisk 29:57
The disciplinary directive in particular is one, uh, that I, I just see all over the place now.
Jennie Young 30:05
I know, I know.
Sara Bybee Fisk 30:06
Uh, it's on men's T-shirts.
Jennie Young 30:09
It is.
Sara Bybee Fisk 30:09
It's, it's on their, the bumper stickers on their cars.
Jennie Young 30:13
Yes.
Sara Bybee Fisk 30:13
It is, uh, it's in the way that they just kind of move through life. And if it's not something that, you know, the listener is familiar with, Jennie just gave a great example, and you can find more examples in, uh, in her book and in the myriad of things that she writes about- But I find that there is something that is appealing to some women-
Jennie Young 30:36
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 30:36
... about a man who will come across as... They, they misread it as confidence-
Jennie Young 30:44
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 30:44
... or-
Jennie Young 30:44
Or responsibility
Sara Bybee Fisk 30:45
... responsibility.
Jennie Young 30:47
Yeah. Yeah, and, and I understand why. I mean, there's also a problem with Peter Pan syndrome and a lot of men who can't even take charge of their own lives, right? So, uh, you know, and they don't have jobs and w- whatever, whatever else it is.So I, I, I kinda get that because I think women think, "Well, here's someone who, like, knows what he wants, and, you know, is, is tr- he's not afraid to be direct," and, and, and that m- might all be applicable in some cases, but not if it's ordering you around before you've met.
Sara Bybee Fisk 31:20
That's such... Yeah.
Jennie Young 31:21
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 31:21
And, and I think what, what I just wanna restate there is the context really matters, right?
Jennie Young 31:26
Right. Yeah. So much.
Sara Bybee Fisk 31:27
You are just meeting this person. You are just beginning to get to know each other, and he's already-
Jennie Young 31:31
Right
Sara Bybee Fisk 31:31
... ordering you around.
Jennie Young 31:32
Yeah. I saw a T-shirt. You just said T-shirts.I s- I was at a concert this weekend, not, not a religious con- just a, like, an outdoor concert at my apartment complex, and there was a young couple there, and the man had on a T-shirt, and I mean, young, like, in their 20s, and on the back of it, it said, "Hey, men. Get up. Go to church. Take charge. Lead your family." And I was like, "Who are you talking to?" Number one. But also, like, I mean, he, I guess he's disciplinary directing other men, but I'm sure there's a lot of people who look at that and they're like, "Wow, there's a man with values," which is true, but, uh, they're not the values that are gonna serve her well 10 years down the line or 10 weeks down the line probably.
Sara Bybee Fisk 32:16
Absolutely. I go to, um, a gym. It's actually a rec center, and there's a lot of... I work out with mostly old men, which I will-
Jennie Young 32:23
Okay
Sara Bybee Fisk 32:23
... I will take older men over young gym-
Jennie Young 32:26
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 32:26
... bros most-
Jennie Young 32:27
Right
Sara Bybee Fisk 32:27
... any day.
Jennie Young 32:28
Yeah, yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 32:29
But, um, there's a man there who whenever he looks at me, I just feel the ick.
Jennie Young 32:35
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 32:35
And his T-shirts are all, you know, patriotic, uh-
Jennie Young 32:40
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 32:40
... big flags. Wolves not sheep was the one that-
Jennie Young 32:44
Oh, God. Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 32:46
... he, he wore, and so it's really... I've loved having this lens to just put over the things that I see because it is, it is everywhere.
Jennie Young 32:57
It's everywhere, and the examples you just gave are really interesting because... So that's, like, what we, we call semiotics or visual material rhetoric, but it's very much of the moment, right? Like, when we were growing up, the American flag was for everyone. Now somehow it's been co-opted by just, you know, the g- more conservative. I mean, I... Not totally. I think we need to try to take it back and even things out.But right now, if you see a man who's always wearing stuff like that, you kinda know exactly where he stands politically, even to where, you know, animals are now politicized, wolves over sheep. We all know exactly what that's talking about. Those things are all coded now, and they're coded in ways that are, are crist- crystal clear to those of us, like, in this discourse community of 2026 America. It's fascinating but also pretty upsetting.
Sara Bybee Fisk 33:47
It is fascinating and very upsetting. Um-
Jennie Young 33:48
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 33:49
... and it just makes me want to have every woman in the world learn rhetorical discourse analysis.
Jennie Young 33:59
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 33:59
And because what has opened up to me, and I, I'm interested in kinda how you see this for the other women that you know and have worked with, and there's this whole world-
Jennie Young 34:10
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 34:10
... meaning-
Jennie Young 34:11
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 34:12
... that is available just to be seen. And I, for example, when I started doing this work myself, I was very kinda disconnected from my emotions, and I didn't like to feel them.I was really t- you know, scared to present as, like, an angry woman. That was bad.
Jennie Young 34:30
Right.
Sara Bybee Fisk 34:31
God didn't like that.
Jennie Young 34:33
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 34:34
And I find that for a lot of... Well, it was my experience in later doing this work with others, our e- our emotions are this whole world of information for us-
Jennie Young 34:45
Yeah, yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 34:46
... about what is going on in our bodies, in our psyches, in our subconscious, and I feel like the same kind of world has kind of opened up with-
Jennie Young 34:54
Mm-hmm
Sara Bybee Fisk 34:54
... language as I have, you know, read your material and, and interacted with the women in the group. And so what do you see kind of becoming available to women as they understand the hidden language of, or the, the hidden world of meaning in language?
Jennie Young 35:11
Yeah. I mean, it truly is... Like, these, these methods that we use in Burnt Haystack, applied rhetoric generally, critical discourse analysis specifically, these are decoder rings. It's, it's like holding, you know, a magnifying gla- not even a magnifying glass 'cause that just makes things bigger. It's more like it lets you, I think you used the word layers. It lets you see through the layers that you are moving through already, but you're not seeing them ac- I don't mean you. I mean everyone, right?Like, but this is, this is a set of skills and ways of thinking that is actually very learnable. You know, I, when I first started Burnt Haystack and I, I was like, "Yeah, I'm gonna talk about critical discourse analysis on Instagram," people were like, "All right. Well, good luck with that." Um, and now, you know, there's hundreds of thousands of women who are truly experts-
Sara Bybee Fisk 36:07
Yeah
Jennie Young 36:07
... in critical discourse analysis, like, to the point that they can explain PhD-level content to other people on the internet regardless of their education level. Like, this is really, truly available to everyone if it's explained properly.And you do need, like, a sandbox. You need a place and time to j- just experiment and play with it and talk about it and turn it around and look at things from different angles and bury things and unbury things. And, and that's what we do in the Facebook group, um, for sure. But once you internalize it, you'll never not see it. And, and that that can be unpleasant in some ways, right?
Sara Bybee Fisk 36:49
Yeah.
Jennie Young 36:49
Like, it's, it's sort of nice to go through life like this, but I don't know. E- even when we try, we know it doesn't really ... Like, we're, we're still w- we're still subject to the negative forces even if we're not seeing them.So I think it's better to live in reality.
Sara Bybee Fisk 37:08
Being subject to them, having to live with them and see them, though-
Jennie Young 37:13
Mm-hmm
Sara Bybee Fisk 37:13
... is so different than being hostage to them, right?
Jennie Young 37:17
It is. It is.
Sara Bybee Fisk 37:19
You just, you just can't see-
Jennie Young 37:20
Right
Sara Bybee Fisk 37:21
... it happening. And-
Jennie Young 37:22
Yes
Sara Bybee Fisk 37:22
... over and over, the women that I have referred to your group, who I continue to coach, they all say some version of, "Yeah, dating on the apps in particular is still kind of this exercise in frustration. It feels-
Jennie Young 37:38
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 37:38
... futile sometime, and I'm just spending a lot of time just burning."
Jennie Young 37:42
Yes.
Sara Bybee Fisk 37:43
But there is power in knowing that I'm not going to get caught up in what could be, like, anywhere from a bad relationship to just a really crappy, boring date.
Jennie Young 37:55
Right. And, and there's also something to giving women a vocabulary to talk about this, either in community or just inside our own heads. And even if that vocabulary is the word no, like nope. Like, that's very powerful.But we can give ... Like, there's shortcuts to giving people that language. You don't have to go get a PhD in critical discourse analysis. Like, there's other ways to have all the knowledge and information.
Sara Bybee Fisk 38:25
If somebody wanted to begin to understand this work, what would you suggest is one of those ways?
Jennie Young 38:34
Um, I think it depends on sort of, like, how your brain works. If you, if you learn best in com- in, like, a sort of free-flowing social community, um, like, the, the Facebook group is great. It's free. You know, it's huge. There's always stuff going on in there.If you're someone who likes things laid out more methodically, then you wanna go to a book. Like, then that's a better way to learn. Um, you know, whether, whether it's my book or a, you know, a textbook on critical discourse analysis or, or just applied rhetoric. Um, there's a great book we use in a lot of women and gender studies classes, and it's, it's called Threshold Concepts. Threshold, it's, it's, like, Threshold Concepts in Gender Studies or something. But it gives you just sort of like a, a, a very solid foundation of a lot of the terms that we use in deconstructing patriarchy. I, I write a Substack that's free. Everything's in, in front of the paywall. I launched a new community just, like, three days ago 'cause I didn't want all of my life's work at the mercy of Meta. For one thing, Meta keeps c- kicking me out of my own group. So I do have a, a new community on Circle called ... It's just Burnt Haystack on Circle, and that's, like, a smaller, more curated experience. It kind of presumes some level of knowledge of Burnt Haystack, so it, like, for people who've read my book or who've been in the Facebook group for a long time, we can get into, like, deeper conversations in there, where on, on Facebook I'm constantly teaching. Like, it is a public scholarship project. Commenting and posting is not always open, 'cause it's just, there's just, like, almost 300,000 people in there and it, it would be chaos, and it's always being targeted by scammers. But it's very much a, like, a teaching site, whereas the community on Circle is more like, no, we've already got the basics here. We wanna go deeper.So there's a variety of, of inroads. Um, just fair warning though, there's also a lot of fa- of fake Facebook groups out there, probably other places that I don't even know about. There's tons of Reddit forums of men who are very angry. But if you, if you are not already in the Facebook group and you wanna join it, just make sure, make sure you see my face as, as the admin, 'cause otherwise I ... Like, I have not approved any of those other Burnt Haystack groups on Facebook, and they are teaching some crazy stuff, and they're letting men in, and it's just all really bad, and I, I don't have the money to fight it legally. So-
Sara Bybee Fisk 41:04
Yeah
Jennie Young 41:05
... I tried, but it, yeah, it, it, like, ran down my bank account real quick and I just had to decide let, to let it go.But you do have to be careful, but if you're being discerning, there's a lot of different ways to learn, and there's a lot of different ways to learn for free.
Sara Bybee Fisk 41:20
There's a ton of different ways to learn. I mean, there's a ton.
Jennie Young 41:23
Yeah. Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 41:24
And the, the resources that you've made available, um, it, are, are really incredible. I have benefited so much from them.And one of the particular y- you ... This is a long time ago when I kinda first joined. I've been in the group for several years now. You had a series of posts that are still available, I checked this morning, in-
Jennie Young 41:41
Oh
Sara Bybee Fisk 41:42
... in Facebook, in, in the Facebook group, breaking down some of the kind of foundation of-
Jennie Young 41:48
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 41:48
... critical discourse.
Jennie Young 41:49
They're, they're in featured posts, right?
Sara Bybee Fisk 41:51
That's right. They are.
Jennie Young 41:52
If you scroll way back. Thank you for re- I forgot about those.
Sara Bybee Fisk 41:54
Yeah.
Jennie Young 41:54
I know exactly what you're talking about now.
Sara Bybee Fisk 41:56
Yeah.
Jennie Young 41:56
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 41:56
There, and, and the reason that I wanted to bring it up is because, you know, my kind of big operating theory of the world and why it's so shitty right now is that we don't have enough women who are able and confident and feel safe enough to speak up about their figured worlds.
Jennie Young 42:16
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 42:17
And figured worlds is a, you know, a term that I'm borrowing from one of these posts about-
Jennie Young 42:22
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 42:23
... how worlds are created for us, and we-
Jennie Young 42:26
Yep
Sara Bybee Fisk 42:26
... just, we don't even realize that we're participating-
Jennie Young 42:30
No
Sara Bybee Fisk 42:30
... in the figured world that patriarchy has created.
Jennie Young 42:33
Right. A- and they're fascinating.This is a concept that comes out of cognitive linguistics, which is the intersection of brain science and, you know, rhetorical, like, language-based linguistics. And they are powerful And there's a lot of them
Sara Bybee Fisk 42:49
They're very powerful.
Jennie Young 42:49
They're very powerful, yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 42:51
Just so that, you know, listeners have a, um, a concrete example, the, the, what- the example that you used in the post was, you know, there's a, a male figure walking a woman who's dressed in white down the aisle. She's walking toward another male figure dressed in a tuxedo, and there's a pastor or some kind of religious clergyman there. And we're so familiar with that world, and it's-
Jennie Young 43:15
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 43:16
... but if you decode that, it's the-
Jennie Young 43:18
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 43:18
... world of traditional marriage.
Jennie Young 43:20
Mm-hmm. The woman being given away, one man to another. Yep.
Sara Bybee Fisk 43:25
Yep, yep. And we just have, we have all of this programmed feeling about it.We're just kind of sucked into this figured world. And what my goal is, which I think is why it aligns so beautifully with your work, is I want women to create new figured worlds.
Jennie Young 43:42
Yes. A- and you can do that. Like, it's been, it's been done before. Yeah. And we're doing it now.
Sara Bybee Fisk 43:49
And we're, and- and that's- that's the thing that I see so clearly, is that women are, and the new figured world has to do with doing the choosing.
Jennie Young 43:59
Yep.
Sara Bybee Fisk 43:59
It's-
Jennie Young 43:59
Burn- literally burning shit down. Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 44:02
... literally. Yes.
Jennie Young 44:03
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 44:04
And for so many women, the first act of knowing, "I can have total control over my domain and my life and my experience in this little tiny place of just on the dating apps-
Jennie Young 44:17
Yeah. Right
Sara Bybee Fisk 44:18
... is so incredibly empowering.
Jennie Young 44:20
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 44:21
And it is one of my favorite things to, to watch in-
Jennie Young 44:25
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 44:26
... you know, in my clients, in their progression-
Jennie Young 44:28
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 44:28
... and the women in the group, that they have, they have their own little world in-
Jennie Young 44:33
Right
Sara Bybee Fisk 44:33
... this dating app, if they will allow and give themselves permission. They're not just joining-
Jennie Young 44:38
Right
Sara Bybee Fisk 44:38
... the figured worlds of men.
Jennie Young 44:41
Right. Well, and the dating apps, and I think my students came up with, with this figured world, but they're like, if you're on a date, like if you're on Tinder or whatever, it's more like shopping for people on Amazon Prime, right?
Sara Bybee Fisk 44:53
Mm-hmm.
Jennie Young 44:54
Like, we're filtering for features.
Sara Bybee Fisk 44:55
Filtering.
Jennie Young 44:55
We're like, "I kinda like that. Put it in my cart-
Sara Bybee Fisk 44:58
Yeah
Jennie Young 44:58
... and then I'm gonna order it, and it'll show up at my door and have sex with me," or whatever. Like, it- it's so objectifying, and the apps themselves are highly commodified and-
Sara Bybee Fisk 45:11
Right
Jennie Young 45:12
... and gamified and objectified and everything else. But the other thing they don't want to admit is that most of the apps, the mainstream apps for sure, they have way more men than women.Three, three to four times as many. And what that creates is an economy in which women's bodies become the object that is being sold. And it, it's like you have to almost just try not to think about it if you're on a dating app. And- and I'm pragmatic enough that I can set that aside, because I reckon it is still the most likely way people are gonna meet right now. But-
Sara Bybee Fisk 45:47
Yeah
Jennie Young 45:47
... but yeah, you have to really think about how that's being constructed and whether you want to just step into it and play along or, or take ownership of it and be like, "I'm gonna use your game and game it right back against you," whether you is, like, the app or the man or whatever it is. It can be done, but it has to be done kind of purposefully.
Sara Bybee Fisk 46:08
That encapsulates so well why I love this method. It's because there are lots of systems-
Jennie Young 46:14
Mm-hmm
Sara Bybee Fisk 46:14
... that we are not going to change overnight.
Jennie Young 46:17
Right. Right.
Sara Bybee Fisk 46:18
Capitalism, toxic capitalism, patriarchy-
Jennie Young 46:20
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 46:20
... you know, misogyny, sex, all the isms. But we can still carve out a place-
Jennie Young 46:26
Yes
Sara Bybee Fisk 46:26
... to have a different experience-
Jennie Young 46:29
Right
Sara Bybee Fisk 46:30
... in that system that actually contributes to the changing of the system.
Jennie Young 46:35
Absolutely. We can co-opt the games being played against us and win over everybody.
Sara Bybee Fisk 46:40
Totally.
Jennie Young 46:40
And that's what's happening. Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 46:42
And I love that. And I'm so grateful for it. Even i- it's, I mean, I, this is, like, such a fangirl moment for me-
Jennie Young 46:48
Aw
Sara Bybee Fisk 46:48
... even as a mar- you know, 26-year-married woman, because it has opened that up for me-
Jennie Young 46:53
Yeah. Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 46:54
... when I'm dating.
Jennie Young 46:55
There's a lot of women in the Burn Haystack communities who are already married or just not even interested in dating.
Sara Bybee Fisk 47:01
Yeah.
Jennie Young 47:01
It's definitely, people are using it across the, you know, different domains of life.
Sara Bybee Fisk 47:06
Yeah. I have one more question-
Jennie Young 47:08
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 47:08
... and it's my favorite part of your Substack, This Man Must Be Mocked.
Jennie Young 47:13
Yeah. Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 47:15
You talk about using satire to combat just the sheer ridiculousness and the-
Jennie Young 47:23
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 47:23
... avalanche of mockable men who deserve to be mocked-
Jennie Young 47:30
Right. Right
Sara Bybee Fisk 47:31
... as, as an actual tool, right?
Jennie Young 47:33
Yes.
Sara Bybee Fisk 47:34
Not, not just for the fun of doing it. And it is so fun. You guys have to read some of those. They're so good. But why do you think satire is such a tool, especially for our time now?
Jennie Young 47:44
Yeah. So the, historically, the reason it was so powerful is because women authors weren't allowed to say what they wanted to say in a serious way. It wouldn't have gotten published. Um, but if they could do it through satire, which people found entertaining, they kind of found, a, a lot of these early women satirists found like a, you know, like a side door into making political, social statements in a way that people would actually read. And I mean, that happens every day on McSweeney's and other, um, satire sites. So it is, yeah, I mean, it's always been a really powerful political tool.But I, I think also, like, we just take men way too seriously. Like, why are we acting like the incels should be taken seriously? They're hilarious, right? And like, I understand they can also be dangerous. That's, that's true. Some of them are. But they just don't deserve the level of seriousness. And same thing with tradwife culture. Like, there's a, I see a lot of influencers now thinking, okay, but you realize while she's in her pioneer kitchen, she's filming that on her smartphone. I posted a reel about that fr- uh, Big Time Adulting was the content creator yesterday. And yeah, we just, we've gotta mock it more because- I mean, partly for fun, partly for political action, but also just because we've got to shrink it back down to size. Like, let's not give it gravitas that it does not deserve.
Sara Bybee Fisk 49:13
And we have to be honest about all of the mechanisms that produce this thing that we're just trained to admire.
Jennie Young 49:20
Right. Right, we need to-
Sara Bybee Fisk 49:21
Or trained to compare-
Jennie Young 49:22
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 49:22
... ourselves to. Yeah.
Jennie Young 49:23
Right. Yeah, yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 49:24
The trad wife example is, is excellent.
Jennie Young 49:27
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 49:27
Jennie, is there, is there anything as we wrap up here that you wanted to say that I didn't ask you about or that you would like to add to the conversation?
Jennie Young 49:36
I don't think so. This has been a really fantastic discussion.I enjoy podcasts, some more than others, and I just want to say, thoroughly enjoyed this one. Like, this was really fun for me because of the way you facilitated it, so thank you for that. Um, no, I, I guess if there's anything I, I would want to say to people listening is, is just that if you're new to this and you're feeling bad about yourself, just join us 'cause we will change that. Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 50:05
It is my favorite group- ... on the internet-
Jennie Young 50:08
Oh, good
Sara Bybee Fisk 50:08
... thank you.
Jennie Young 50:09
Good
Sara Bybee Fisk 50:10
And it is because of the transformation that happens for women. I always say, you know, of course, who doesn't love a big transformation, move that bus moment-
Jennie Young 50:19
Right
Sara Bybee Fisk 50:19
... where it goes from-
Jennie Young 50:20
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 50:20
... an old, ugly something to a brand-new shiny.
Jennie Young 50:23
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 50:23
But more often than not, it's in taking these little steps over and over and over and over and over again that really-
Jennie Young 50:28
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 50:28
... creates the huge transformation, and you have made that available in such an accessible way. The amount of your free content truly is staggering.I was thrilled when I saw you offering that circle group-
Jennie Young 50:42
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 50:42
... that had a paid tier because, I mean, Dr. Jennie Young, you deserve to be paid.
Jennie Young 50:48
Oh, thank you.
Sara Bybee Fisk 50:48
Yeah. You're welcome.
Jennie Young 50:49
I mean, it's just gotten to the point where I ki- I kinda have to be paid somewhere. I mean, number one, that software is super expensive. Like, I had to pay for it.
Sara Bybee Fisk 50:59
Yeah.
Jennie Young 50:59
Um, but also just in order to free myself up to do more of this work, I have to not be, you know, doing everything for free all the time 'cause I have, I'm tired.
Sara Bybee Fisk 51:10
Yeah, moder-
Jennie Young 51:11
Yeah.
Sara Bybee Fisk 51:11
Moderating a community-
Jennie Young 51:12
Yeah, yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 51:12
... of hundreds of thousands of women for free.
Jennie Young 51:14
Yeah. No, but I'm keeping that. Like, that's staying.
Sara Bybee Fisk 51:16
Yeah.
Jennie Young 51:16
This is not like a s- a switcheroo. I mean, unless Facebook takes it down, but I'm trying very hard to protect it.
Sara Bybee Fisk 51:22
Well, on behalf of at least me and my clients, thank you very much for your time and your generosity with this work. It is truly amazing, and s- just so much fun.
Jennie Young 51:32
Oh, well, thank you.
Sara Bybee Fisk 51:32
Like, how often do you get that, that combination of, of work- ... that really uplevels your intellect, it gives you a new way of seeing-
Jennie Young 51:39
Yeah
Sara Bybee Fisk 51:39
... the world, and just, just go read some of those This Man Must Be Mocked.
Jennie Young 51:43
Yeah. Yeah. They're entertaining, yeah. Well, thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate this.
