Introduction to the #MeToo Moment

John Dehlin [00:00:29] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, John Delind. It's November 17, 2017. We're on a roll. It's our third interview of the day on Mormon Stories. But there's just a few topics that we couldn't ignore. And I think we saved for sure, we saved the most important topic for last.

John Dehlin [00:00:51] It's a sobering topic. It's a serious one. It's one that's scary and it's intimidating, but it's one that we've got to cover, and we're going to cover it in more than one episode here on Mormon Stories. But today, tonight is our first start. So many of you have heard the news in the past several weeks about Harvey Weinstein and sexual assault abuse that he has been charged with and most certainly is guilty of. And of course, now what we're seeing is this huge long list of other men throughout the United States, you know, including a senatorial or candidate or Judge Roy Moore. And then for those who think that these sorts of issues only happen on the conservative or Republican side of the aisle, yesterday Al Franken came out as someone charged with groping and forms of sexual harassment or abuse as well.

John Dehlin [00:01:59] And in many ways, the nation is being rocked by this topic. Some of the topics include sexual harassment, rape, groping, and, you know, I'll just give a little bit of a commentary from a kind of privileged, probably uninformed white male perspective. You kind of think of. You start with rape, and you think, oh, well, rape happens, but it's rare. And it happens with just really bad people, rape. So, you know, it's something we need to be thoughtful about, but, you know, it's rare. And then you think, okay, you know, I've heard about, you know, the casting couch and sort of on the job, just really explicit sexual harassment and assault.

John Dehlin [00:02:52] But that's kind of stuff that happened in Hollywood in the 40s that really doesn't happen in the 21st century. And then you even think about microaggressions and smaller forms of sexual, you know, inappropriate sexual comments or harassment, and you think, yeah, that's something that, you know, maybe inappropriate people in the workplace do, but it's, you know, we're in the 21st century and we've kind of. We've kind of moved beyond all that. And for me, maybe one of the most important things that has been jarring my mind is just how incredibly pervasive all of these things are in 2017.

Mehrsa Baradaran on Harassment as Everyday Reality

John Dehlin [00:03:38] And it's just kind of the water that women swim in. And this was brought to my attention most forcefully from an article that Mehrsa Baradaran, our guest, recently sent a link to. It's an article called the Unforgiving Minute that she shared on her Facebook page and basically said, hey, everybody, you know, listen to this, read this article all the way through. And I'm posting it right now in the Mormon Stories Live Facebook feed.

John Dehlin [00:04:11] But it's a great article, and it sets up this idea. It's sort of like, hey, men, welcome to reality. This isn't just some. This isn't about you, first of all. But this isn't about something that's rare or isolated. This is the water that women swim in. And as a listener, Sally just posted drowned in. It's the reality of sexual inappropriateness in the 21st century and probably for the history of humankind. And so Mehrsa Baradaran is someone that I interviewed recently on Mormon Stories. It's definitely by far one of my favorite interviews of all time on Mormon Stories.

John Dehlin [00:04:56] She attended byu. She attended NYU Law School, if I'm remembering correctly. She became a professor of law at Brigham Young University and then switched over to University of Georgia, where she is currently on the law school faculty. She's published a couple phenomenal, groundbreaking books. And she's just a thinker and a wise person who I thought would be a great first person to bring on to Mormon Stories to share some of her experiences and wisdom about these issues.

John Dehlin [00:05:31] So, Mehrsa Baradaran, welcome back to Mormon Stories. Thank you so much for taking your evening out, or at least part of your evening out, because it's a Friday evening in Georgia to talk about this very important issue.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:05:45] Thank you so much, actually, for having me and for tackling this issue. I mean, I think this is such an important issue, and up until now, it's been one of these issues that women talk about with each other all the time. And I think the difference now is that men like you and others are like, you know, not that you didn't care before, but you're kind of saying, oh, right, there's this whole world that we didn't know. We can talk about why now and what are adequate responses. But I'm really grateful, actually, and I'm just really happy that this is coming out because, like, you know, your, your listeners say, and like the article said it, all of these revelations came as no surprise to any of us women who have, you know, worked, you know, I worked on Wall street, if you've worked in Hollywood, which I don't know, in publishing, any field that is typically male dominated, which is any field you've known these stories, and we share it with each other, you know, with girlfriends saying, oh, that guy's creepy, or don't go over there and everyone within any office, don't go to that guy's office, don't get a ride home from that guy.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:06:54] So this is not new. But the difference now is, oh my gosh, it's being taken seriously and people are talking about it and people are having consequences. And so I think this is a watershed moment and I think there are reasons to be careful that we do this right. But it's also a real opportunity and we can talk about that. We talk about why now and what to do, et cetera.

John Dehlin [00:07:17] I love it. So let's dive in. Let's begin. Mehrsa, to the extent that you're comfortable and you don't have to share anything in terms of your direct personal experiences, but you can if you want. And we don't need to just keep it to a Mormon context. We could do it just to a US context. There's so many of us that are just oblivious to what's going on. Can you talk us through the types of experiences that you or other women have faced in your life? And the purpose of this first segment is to help people feel, because what we learned through Mormon stories is if you can hook people through emotions and get them to feel what other people experience, then they're a lot more open to the information and the logic and the analysis that follows. So again, share whatever you feel you're comfortable sharing. We're not trying to get gritty details.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:08:17] Sure, sure. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:08:19] Tell us just about how this has been an influence either in your life or in the life of others that you know.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:08:25] Absolutely. I mean, I first brushed up against it, as many people did. I mean, I. I was blessed to have family and parents. I was not violated or abused in my home, which I am so grateful for. Like, people whom I trusted never abused me. And so that I think is a huge blessing and is a reason why I've been able to handle some of these things in ways that I don't know. Maybe others who have experienced a more sort of personal abuse haven't. But I'll tell you, I mean, my first experience with sexual assault was when I was 11. You know, again, nothing, you know, to the extent, but where a stranger man assaulted me in a way that was traumatic, I didn't speak to it to anyone.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:09:16] I felt fear and rage and anger. I Felt violated. Right. And then since then, there have been episodes, you know, in middle school and high school, college, you know, in the workplace. And more than just assault or besides that, there's been a lot of. Or several circumstances where there's a fear.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:09:40] You enter an office, you go into a setting. And again, I didn't have a, you know, long. You know, I didn't have a nightlife. You know, I was a Mormon, so for most of my dating life. And so I think I escaped some of this. But I remember many instances of feeling physical fear when I was, you know, with a man alone. And even if they didn't, you know, cross the boundaries, there's this idea that they could, and there's nothing you can do. And once that has happened to you several times, once a man has sort of breached that space where you're fearful, every other time that thing is in the room.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:10:30] And so all of us, a lot of women, I think, have the sense that there are places you avoid, there are people you avoid, there are situations that are inherently dangerous. And these are just things. And this is the water we swim in. These are things that we know. And not that it's your fault if anything happens, but. But just you are not safe in this world in the company of certain men. And so that. That, I think, is what's coming out. Right? And I think many of us sort of just exchange information in the workplace or in college as a way of protecting each other.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:11:10] Like, don't go out with this guy, or, don't get in that car. Avoid this professor. This guy's creepy. And so we exchange this information. All of a sudden, these creepy guys are being, like, brought up, like, hey, everyone, this is that guy that we were warning you about. And so all these women, I mean, in all of these instances, everyone was like, yeah, everyone knew. Everyone knew, right? And women are the first ones that we. We. I think in every situation I've been in, we share information, we warn each other. And I think now it's all just come out. And. And I have theories as to why now, but I think this is great.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:11:48] And I think if men are surprised, I believe you, that you're surprised, but believe us also that we aren't. That we've all experienced this. And I think some of us are reticent. I'm more reticent to share some of the nitty gritty because I feel like, you know, there's still a little bit of that trauma that you face, and you. I think it's less important than just Saying, look, this is out there, and this is a thing that we fear.

John Dehlin [00:12:21] This is so beautiful. Thank you. The first thing that comes to my mind is just my basic sort of multicultural diversity class that I took in my psychology PhD where they talk about privilege. And I first learned about it through the lens of this idea of driving while black. That.

How Systemic Bias Enables Abuse to Persist

John Dehlin [00:12:41] And people don't believe this. White people didn't believe it. I didn't believe it. That to be a black person in the United States, and we've talked about this with Shawn Carter and Darren Smith and others on Mormon stories, that there are things that a black person has to care about that nobody else has to think about if they're just white. And that could include a policeman pulling you over anytime. Wearing a hoodie in the dark could lead to you being shot.

John Dehlin [00:13:11] Walking through a grocery store or a retail outlet could very mean that the managers of the store, because you're a person of color, assign someone to follow you around to make sure that you don't shoplift something. And as I hear you talk about being a woman in the United States in 21st century, I feel the same sort of thing. So many white men, or even men of color and white men have no idea what it's like to just walk around and be a woman.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:13:40] Right. Right. I mean, this is my. You know, I was talking to my husband, this is a couple months ago, and he was saying, oh, you know, I was alone. They were out somewhere else, my husband and my kids. And I was like, oh, I want to go for a walk, and I should go to, you know, Memorial park, which is right next to my house. I'm like, I can't go there. It's, you know, it's getting dark. And he's like, why can't you go there? And I'm like, because it's dark and I'm alone, and it's a park. And he was like, like, what do you mean?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:14:06] You know, and he is a as open mind. And I'm like, you know, and I'm not like, I'm not saying I'm gonna get raped out there, but, like, I'm, you know, and I am not the fearful type. I do. I go running by myself in the woods all the time, where a lot of women are like, you're crazy. Why would you do that? But every time I'm alone, like, if I did go to the park, there was a guy there. I would have fear. Like, you know, I would not be able to be comfortable. I would have my eye on this guy. The whole time.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:14:35] Because I would know the likelihood is that that guy has no ill feelings toward me, but I would know that if he did, I couldn't protect myself. You know, I just not physically would not be able to physically protect myself against any man.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:14:50] I'm five, two, I'm small. Some women may be, but the majority of women can't, you know, protect ourselves against the majority of men. And there's this aggression that you fear. I mean, we all took self defense classes and we all are taught, you know, walk with your keys, you know, in your knuckles. We all have these strategies when we walk through parking lots at night.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:15:14] And then there are the strategies that you have when you're at work. And this is, I think, the problem. There's a parking lot at night scenario, but there's the guy at your office scenario that I think is more pernicious. Because this guy is not gonna, he's not a stranger that's gonna rape you, you know, under in a parking lot. This guy is gonna make you very, very uncomfortable. And he's in a position of power and you have to play nice and you can't make him mad. And this is that part of the power of, you know, there's an economic power, there's a gatekeeper power. And so these women, you say, well, why would you do that?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:15:49] There's a lot of women who slept with Harvey Weinstein who didn't want to and didn't make a fuss about it. And the reason is because you don't want to make him mad. Right. You do need him to help you, and it's just easier to just make him happy, you know, and grit your teeth. And these are the situations that are complicated because it looks maybe like consent, but what it is is submission and it's resignation to power and to physical aggression. And so make these bargains, you know. And I've been in situations with men who are in huge positions of power. I'm nobody to them.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:16:27] I'm a peon, right. An associate who's just trying to work and you just have to play nice and you want to get out of the way and you just, you want to disappear and you want to not be attached, but also not draw anger from this person.

John Dehlin [00:16:48] Yeah. And I'm going to follow up with a question that's kind of related. When this stuff about Harvey Weinstein started breaking, you would hear people, all these famous people that you know, were feminists, that you know, were sympathetic, who were people of power. I don't know if it's Meryl Streep or Angelina Jolie or whoever, people that are probably really rich, probably quite powerful, who all knew that this was going on and yet they never spoke up about it until now. How do we make sense of. And you've already kind of talked about this, but talk about it more. How is it that for months, years, decades, these really egregious or even semi egregious characters that kind of everyone talks about and warns each other about.

John Dehlin [00:17:39] How is it that up until 2017, they've never been called out, they've never been brought to justice, they've never been held accountable? How has that happened? How did it happen?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:17:52] Yeah. So here's my theory. One theory, one theory is that it was the election. Here's why I say that. I think that night a lot of I took my daughters and to election day in pantsuits. This was meant to be. And put aside that Clinton was an imperfect candidate. But for women like me, who was, you know, an unapologetic feminist my whole life, right, this, you know, and the game was that we were going to march along and there was slow progress and we were going to play. We knew these barriers were out there, right? We knew the Harvey Weinstein's and the Wall street guys and we knew that there was this game.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:18:33] But we were, you know, trudging along and we were seeing slow progress. We were seeing slowly, women get into the boardroom and women gatekeepers. Slowly, slowly, slowly. And then you have this election. And here's the significance of this election. I outlined this thing that I. There was this New Yorker article right before the election that I think really spoke to what this meant. There's just one paragraph that I want to read from that. And this is before the election, this is what we all thought. So it says there's something both grotesque. This is Margaret Talbot as a New Yorker, she says there's something both grotesque and bracing about the confrontation between Clinton with her disciplined professionalism.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:19:13] And this is what we all were. We were disciplined professionals, right? We knew the rules of the game. And Trump with this increasingly frenzied assertion of male prerogative. And this is the Weinstein's, right, the male prerogative. And it says like the female protagonist of a quest narrative or, or perhaps of a dystopian fantasy, Clinton has made it through all her challenges to face the bullheaded minotaur of sexism at the end of the maze. Okay, so this idea and that related to me, Clinton, she takes down sexism embodied in Donald Trump. I mean let's be real here. Donald Trump is the embodiment of white male free privilege and sexism.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:19:56] I mean, after that tape came out, was there any doubt that this was a Harvey Weinstein out there? This was a woman who did this was a man who didn't respect women. But just as bias, I mean, this is the Miss America Padgett guy. This is the man that women like me have been trying our entire lives, right, to avoid and to change our, you know, to force some evolution in the male thought. And so when that night when Clinton lost to Donald Trump, I think there was a lot of women like me. I mean, for me, I was like, you know what? Eff it, like, slow progress is not working, right?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:20:35] Burn it all down. So I think that is the moment where a lot of women. And there was rage. I mean, there was the Women's March and there was just like this. That was unleashed in women across the country. That is just like. Like f this, right? Like, no, right? Not my daughters. No way. Right? And I have these three daughters and they are now going to grow up with a Trump presidency. And so I think this is when women in the Harvey Weinstein circle, this is when, I mean, the New York Times reporters broke this. And everyone's all of a sudden like, call them out, name them.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:21:10] Because this gentle, slow progress, this is not working. We've got to start fires. And so I think this moment is very much anger and fed up ness and just burn it all downness. And so. And I think we should use it wisely because I can see the fire engulfing us as well. But I think this is a promising start.

John Dehlin [00:21:35] I love it. And I think that has to be a contributing factor. I really, personally, I really believed the argument. And listen, we have Mormon stories listeners that are Republicans and Democrats. That's fine. We have Mormon stories listeners that don't hate Trump. We don't want our listeners to think that we assume that we're all on the same page politically. Personally, I believe there are good reasons to be Republicans. Good reason to be Democrats, bad reasons to be Democrats, bad reason to be Republicans. I hope that people can transcend their partisanship to allow for a conversation that may include anger about Donald Trump without thinking that we all assume that being liberal and Democrat is the answer, the one true answer. So I'm just gonna give that disclaimer.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:22:25] I also wanna be clear that Bill Clinton was also that guy, right? And Harvey Weinstein was a liberal. He. So I actually, I 100% agree with you. I don't even think there's more people on the right that are sexist than on the left. I think this is cross male. It is this alpha maleness that exists on both sides. But you cannot deny that Donald Trump is an alpha man who sees women as beautiful objects, as did Bill Clinton. I mean, if it were some other man, I would say the same thing. It's not his politics, it is his gender.

John Dehlin [00:23:02] Yeah, we've got Roy Moore and we've got Al Franken. Like, it's everywhere. It's everywhere. So, but yeah, Trump, I mean, those comments he made to that on that television camera about grabbing women, like it's. He's admitted it. Right, he's admitted it. And there's a huge line of women who have come out and made those accusations. But so I am with you. I think Hillary Clinton is probably, in my opinion, one of the most qualified people to ever run for president ever. Right, so I'm with you on that rage. Talk just briefly about before the rage. What were the structures in place, whether it was occupational power, laws, money, fear, culture. What were some of the other structures that allowed perpetrators to just never be called out?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:23:59] Yeah, So I mean, I think this, there's a. Some of this is just the sexual assault. There are bad men who, I mean, there's a gradient, right? So there are men, there are just serial assaulters, there are a few bad eggs who feel entitled to female bodies. This is, you know, the New Republic guy, this is Weinstein, who see women as theirs and they're clearly violating. Right. I mean, beyond them are just the rapists, Right? And so I think there's a gradient, but there's also the structural sexism. Right? So there are systems where you've got male, alpha male, gatekeepers, right? Because I want to say alpha male because there are men who suffer from this as well, right?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:24:47] Gay men. Right. Transgender people. There are people who don't fit that alpha male norm. All suffer in the patriarchy. Black men, right. I think that they're a threat to that white male power as well. Women, you know, are an obvious example of people who, you know, are opposite that alpha male power. So you've got these structures, whether, you know, it's a Wall street bank, you know, frap, any enterprise that's sort of run by frat boys, right? So it was Wall street, now it's Silicon Valley. And you see the frat boys kind of move from Wall street to Silicon Valley and to Hollywood. And there's this boys club, right, that are.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:25:25] They're the gatekeepers. They get to decide whose ideas are good and whose ideas are not and who gets pushed. And this is why this New Republic ousting this guy, I can't remember his name now, but he was sort of a cultural critic, so. So he was the one that decided whose artwork, whose books, whose movies were promoted, and he was sexually assaulting women, right? And he was also a sexist. And so these gatekeepers, Harvey Weinstein gets to make and break careers, you know, Bill Clinton again, right? I mean, all of these men in these positions of power, and if they have this, you know, proclivity toward abusing women, it's not just this sort of, you know, sexual power.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:26:09] It's also economic power. It's this dominance of a gatekeeper versus someone who just wants to pass through the gates, right? It's Hillary Clinton fighting sort of like the Minotaur at the end. And I think this is the structure that I hope we're able to tease out. Because not only does it harm women physically, like the ones that were sexually assaulted, but it also harms the women who are not sexually assaulted who won't go to the couch, right? So there was this great David Graeber article. I love David Graeber. He's one of my favorite authors. And he wrote about his mom, who was an actress or a struggling actress and felt a sense of failure because she wasn't able to break through.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:26:53] And when he would talk to her about it, she said that it was, you know, the casting couch. And she made these things like she was not willing to make the sacrifices to become an actress. And so the subtext is that she wasn't willing to sleep around to get there. And she says that she felt, even to the end of her life, she felt like a failure. And he says. He's like, this is why I want to get my hands around Harvey Weinstein's throat. Because even if those guys didn't touch my mom, they still made her feel like her life was worthless, that she didn't have talent and that she was a failure.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:27:27] So this is what it means to have gatekeepers who are sexual assaulters. And this is what it means for people like us who want to pass through the gates and who want to be deemed the next, you know, professional success and don't want to make those sacrifices, don't want to go to that hotel room, Right? And don't want to be seen as bodies and not minds. And this is. I mean, this is an example. I was at the gym the other day, and when I'm at the gym, I'm sort of. In my world, I am one of these people who is not a person who lives in my body.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:28:01] I'm a person who lives in my mind, right? I'm always just, you know, I'm a klutz, right? I bump into things because my thoughts are what drive me and not sort of. I'm not a graceful person. I don't inhabit my body in the way that, let's say, ballerina might, right? Obviously. So I was in the gym and I was listening to probably like a history or something and was just really drawn into it. I went to the water fountain to get a drink, and there's a gym guy there, and he sort of yells at me. He's like, hey, you're beautiful. And I was just like.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:28:33] I had to, like, pause my book. It's like, you're beautiful. Hey, beautiful. Like, he's just. And. And I was just like, why. Why are you. Why are you talking to me?

John Dehlin [00:28:44] First of all, that's not a compliment you're saying, right?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:28:46] Why are you yelling at me? You know, I mean, it wasn't like. It wasn't like a smile, and it was. It felt like aggressive. I mean, yes, what he wanted from me was a smile. And that's honestly what I gave him. I smiled at him, I said, thank you, and I walked away. But it felt like, oh, like here I was in my mind, thinking through ideas, and in one second, you've reduced me to a female body. And it isn't a compliment to me, you know, And I. And I don't want to sound like, of course, who wouldn't want to feel beautiful? But in that moment, I wasn't. Seeking wasn't a welcome thing, and it wasn't the right way. It felt like a violation, and I just avoided from the rest of my workout. I knew where that guy was, and I avoided where he was because I didn't want to engage in that way.

Personal Reflections and Power Dynamics

John Dehlin [00:29:40] I'm going to self disclose a little bit of vulnerability here. There was an event last year that I attended where everybody really dressed up. And I noticed that a few of my friends had really, really dressed up. And in some ways, I'll just say that the dresses that they wore were kind of sexy. And maybe that's not a good word to use, but that's the best way I could describe it.

John Dehlin [00:30:06] So it was a public event. I was introducing a couple of my friends, and I made the comment, you know, some joke about how great they looked, or don't they look amazing? And in my mind, I was just thinking, well, you know, everybody wants to look good. People like to be complimented, and they're clearly going extra bored to look extra good. It just seems appropriate in every way to kind of compliment them for that or call that out. And I got called out kind of directly and saying, hey, don't comment about that. And I felt confused.

John Dehlin [00:30:46] I felt like I broke a rule, but I didn't understand why. And what I hear you saying is, anytime a woman feels objectified around their appearance, even if it's a compliment, you look thin, you look great. What a great dress. It can be experienced as demeaning. Is that right?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:31:07] I am actually not saying that. I. Not. Not to me. The reason why that one felt particular, because it felt aggressive. Like, he wasn't saying, oh, you, you look very nice. He was yelling at me without a smile. You know, it was. It was. It felt like a violation. Like what? He. He was demanding something from me. When I dress up and I go out, I love when people tell me I look nice.

John Dehlin [00:31:35] Males and females.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:31:36] Males and females, whoever. I mean, honestly, I'm not, you know, if someone says, you know, you look nice or there. But there is a sense in which, like an unsolicited catcall that feels aggressive, that's different, right? Like, hey, look at me. Hey. You know, like this, like, asserting of control, right? You owe me something. And that's what I felt from this guy, right? Hey, hey, hey. And I was trying to ignore or I didn't hear, and it was this demanding, hey, look at me. You owe me. I'm telling you, you're beautiful and you need to acknowledge me. And I felt like, what do you want from me, right?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:32:21] Like, I'm just going about my business. And it felt. Felt like something I wasn't willing to give at that moment, right? And I did. I made a smile and I nodded. And he still. It still felt like an aggression. So I don't think in that situation I would have felt offended by you. But I won't speak for all women.

John Dehlin [00:32:42] Oh, no. Right.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:32:44] But I do think that I can see the response by some men of saying, like, it's so confusing. We can't, you know, compliment women on the sexual assault thing. I think the. It's easy. I really do. I mean, I think if people are saying, you know, I'm confused about sexual assault, that you should not be. Right? I mean, I think.

John Dehlin [00:33:07] Spell it out, spell it out, spell it out.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:33:09] Okay, so if she wants you, right? I mean, someone said, like, I think there's an snl. Like, if your penis is out and she is fully clothed. No. Right. Like. And that's. That's the Louis CK thing, right? That was another shocker. Like what? Right.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:33:26] So obvious. Like, if you're showing body parts to a woman who hasn't asked that, that's aggressive, right? I mean, that's obvious. If you are putting your hands on someone who has fear, right? If you see fear in her eyes, that is not consent, Right.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:33:45] If she is into it, you know, go for it. Right? So I don't think. I don't think you have to keep asking, but there is a sense in which some of this stuff these guys had to know. It's about basic human empathy. Put yourself in her position and. Sick, right? Does she like it or does she not?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:34:12] And. And, you know, I think with a lot of these guys, I think they knew. I mean, this. You know, even the Al Franken, like, the hands on the. Like, she was asleep. You know, that woman in the picture, she couldn't have consented. You know, if she's asleep, she can't consent. If she's 14, she can't consent. You know, so some of these are drunk.

John Dehlin [00:34:34] If she's drunk. Drunk.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:34:36] Well, that gets confusing, too. If she's. If she's drunk and she wants to have sex with you, that's fine, right? If she's drunk and passed out, she's not consenting, right? So I do think there is blurriness. I mean, there was. There have been issues. And this is where I worry about some of this stuff happening is I think because a lot of. Because sexism is the water we swim in. And a lot of men out there think women just lie about this stuff. I think, like, one or two liars here, like the UVA rape story. I don't know if you remember that, but the Rolling Stone broke this.

John Dehlin [00:35:16] Wasn't that with Duke lacrosse team, uva.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:35:20] Yeah. It was a UVA rape thing. And it got. It wasn't true. And there was a big blowback about rape on campus and how. So. So I think. I mean, look, men can lie, and we still believe other men who don't lie, but when a few female liars. I worry about this me too. Moment where all of a sudden, if you do have people who are coming out there and lying, which I think we should say, okay, that one's a lie. But all these are not lies. I worry a little bit that we're gonna see a blowback of, like, you know what? They're all lying.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:35:53] This is an overreaction. What? Women are hysterical. Men are being victimized. So I think we have to be careful. I mean, there's nothing we can do about the lies, but we do have to be careful to parse out what is true and what is not and look at the whole system of things as opposed to individual bad actors.

John Dehlin [00:36:10] Yeah. I mean, okay, on the one hand, as I was reading this article that you shared the unforgiving moment, one of the messages that kept coming through is, men. It's not about you. Right. But it's so easy. As a man, my immediate reaction is like, oh, my gosh. Like, I've been accused of. I've been accused falsely before. I have legit been accused falsely before. And so for me, I know mentally, my reaction should just be, this is the women. This is the woman's moment. This is about a long, millennial overdue correction that needs to happen in our society. And every day, I live in fear that someone's gonna use this moment as a way to hurt me. And I shouldn't have even brought it up now, but I guess I'm just

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:36:56] acknowledging that's really important. I am very empathetic to that. And my first thing. My first reaction to Al Franken and Louis CK Who. I love those guys.

John Dehlin [00:37:09] Me too. Yeah.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:37:10] I mean, I read Al Franken's autobiography. I loved it. And I. A huge Louis CK fan. My first reaction was disgust, and my second was empathy for them. Sadness for what this means for their life, because I didn't. I want to forgive Al Franken, and I want. And I do. And I want to give him a second chance. And I. I feel like Louis ck, I mean, those apologies, I felt for them. Like, I'm sorry that you screwed up, and I want to give you a second chance. That's me. Right.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:37:43] But I also. And I. And especially, you know, the men who will get falsely accused, because there will be men who are falsely accused, and there already have been men who are falsely accused. And that is a real tragedy. I really do think it is, because there's so many men out there who are getting away with it. And anytime someone's falsely accused of something, and that's a life destroyer.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:38:04] And so I think I have so much empathy for that. And I guess the response is that we've got to focus on structures. And so what I said, like, what do you. What do we do with someone like Al Franken? Like, do we force him out? I mean, does he resign over this? And. And I'm of two minds on the Or Donald Trump. Right, Donald Trump, right. I mean, yeah, like, forget that. But I think with, you know, on the one hand, like, I do want to believe in second chances and mercy, but on the other hand, there has to be justice and retribution and there has to be a cleaning out.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:38:42] There has to be a sense of, like, we're not going to tolerate this, you know, And I'm sorry that there are victims in this. Not the falsely accused, but the marginal perpetrators. Right. I mean, because Al Franken was not falsely accused, but maybe his violations didn't rise quite to the level of Harvey Weinstein. I mean, Harvey Weinstein should go to jail. I mean, that man raped lots of women. I mean, if the allegations turn out to be true, Bill Cosby raped women. You know, I think criminal, you know, that that's. I have empathy, but I also think there are laws and you violated the law so you can go to jail.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:39:20] But for these marginal ones, I think there is counter to the mercy. There is a sense of messaging to future generations and to men. Like, we're not going to be a society that tolerates this. We can't be. We don't want to be. Maybe we were in the past and there was an era where this was okay, but we're trying to evolve together, you know, and there was a lot of human history where this would not. I mean, this would be nothing like, you know, I mean, women were being raped regularly. Right. Women were being burnt as witches. And I'd love to get into this history because I think it feeds into this.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:39:57] But we're trying to evolve. And so this is where I think maybe we do clean house and not take down structures, but sort of like dust up the personnel a little bit. Right. Maybe a bunch of women come into those gatekeeper positions and take out those men, men who were abusing their positions of power, maybe. And of course, power corrupts. And women are going to be terrible too, you know, in their positions of power, but they won't be terrible. Like in this way. You know, it's rare for women to sexually abuse and that.

John Dehlin [00:40:36] Yeah. One of the early comments from a woman was, hey, women do this too. And I try to think about it. I'm. When was the last time you ever heard about a woman, like serially abusing lots of people? It seems more rare.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:40:50] It's rarer, I think. And part of that is the power dynamic. That's just the male dominance that we've had and there's the physical power. I mean, like I said before, it's rare that A woman could sexually assault a man. She could. A child, and, you know, but. But again, I think it's much more prevalent to see a man do that to a child than a woman. I could be wrong, but the data seems to point that in that direction.

John Dehlin [00:41:18] Got it. Okay. Anything else you wanted to say about the Me Too movement? And, I mean, I was moved by all the. I mean, so many women saying me too. I just thought of that as kind of all positive in the sense. Sense of just helping us all tap into how just incredibly pervasive this is, even with loved ones. So I hear you're concerned about the MeToo movement and how to some extent, what we want to guard against our false accusations and anything that would undermine the credibility of the real and legitimate abuse and suffering that goes on. Any other thoughts for against the MeToo movement that you wanted to explore really quickly?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:42:03] No, I thought it was great. I thought it was a force of solidarity, and there wasn't a lot that made me uncomfortable about it. I really liked it.

John Dehlin [00:42:11] Okay. Okay. All right. So let's dig into the Mormon element about this a little bit. And, you know, there's just the very real concrete sort of examples of. Of what goes on. But let's start sort of from the theoretical, the philosophical, even the doctrinal, you know, and this is, I think, the answer. There's going to be one word that's really obvious that sort of starts the conversation. But to what extent Mormon history, Mormon doctrine, Mormon theology, Mormon bureaucracy, to what extent does Mormonism maybe feed into this as being a problem? How and where? So that we know how Mormonism may or may not prime us for these sorts of abuses?

Religion, Patriarchy, and the Roots of Gender Inequality

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:43:03] Oh, boy. I mean, I think the history of Judeo Christian religion was male. Male dominance, patriarchy.

John Dehlin [00:43:17] Right?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:43:17] Patriarchy and Mormonism started with a bang with polygamy, you know, and what is polygamy if not male dominance of female bodies? I mean, I. You know, and then there's the doctrinal Adam and Eve. Right. I think the story of Adam and Eve and how that's told and that is central to Mormonism, but also collectively to Judeo Christianity. How that story is told reveals a lot about what we feel about women. You know, and I think religion has evolved over time. But. But the way that that started this goes back to Augustine, right? Augustine paints sex and the female and male, but more female body as sinful.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:44:05] And so he paints Eve. He conceptualizes Eve as the introduction of sin. Right. And so. And I think this concept is still with us. I mean, it Goes back, you know, there's this great book called the History of Misogyny. And then there's another great book called Adam and Eve. It's by Greenblatt, it's a brand new one. And he tracks Adam and Eve's history from Augustine to Milton. But this History of Misogyny talks about in, you know, back in prehistory, there was female gods and much more equality, right? You prayed to female gods and male gods. They were in charge of different things. And Earth was conceptualized as a woman.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:44:43] And the Greeks, you know, as the market economy comes through, and I'll skip that. I think not everyone is interested in prehistory like I am. But the idea of Pandora was the first time where you see this male dominance or this femaleness kind of.

John Dehlin [00:44:58] Tell us the quick story, tell us the quick story.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:45:00] Pandora is this, you know, Greek myth. And what's important here is that when you open Pandora's box and it's female, all sorts of confusion and all the problems in the world come from Pandora's box. And the idea here is that men are, you know, autonomous and great. And then when a female enters their life, it's like all hell breaks loose, right? Like, then you have children and then you have love and sex and all of these confusing things. And then there's this idea that, like, women, especially beautiful women, cast a spell on men. There's something like enigmatic, like, I like her, but she also has this weird power over me that I can't resist.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:45:44] Like, why is she making my body do these things? And why is she bringing all this confusion into my life? And so there's just centuries of trying to tap that and control that, you know. And so, you know, in the Islamic world, the veil becomes this sense of ownership. So veiled woman were a property of a man, right? That's where the veil comes from is if you were veiled, you were owned by some house, and if you unveiled you were anyone's property so you could get raped. And the only people who were persecuted in pre Islamic history is women who pretended to be veiled but didn't own house.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:46:21] So they were trying to protect themselves. So the veil is very much when women become property. But on the Christian side, this idea of sort of, you know, Pandora and the Greek myths. But then Eve, she's conceptualized as like the sin, right?

John Dehlin [00:46:35] And then Mary, she tempted, she's not so Mormon, but in traditional Christianity, she tempted Adam.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:46:42] Yes. And she causes humanity to fall. Right? And it's true. I mean, you can see the Conceptualism, like, man is this rational being. And then once there's a woman, all of a sudden sex is involved, right? And then there's all sorts of confusion. And so that's the fallen nature of man is this sex and. And procreation. And so, so these myths, I think, get. Then they turn women into this, like, enigma and sin. So sin is embodied in the female body. And then you have this idea of witchcraft, right? So sex misogyny is not quite like racism, where racism is like, okay, you know, those people are dirty and disgusted.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:47:20] You don't actually think women are dirty and disgusting because you have to sleep with them. Right? So there's this engagement of men and women that you can't avoid, but there's this mystery about them. And so this is when, like, they start blaming women for witchcraft, right? Because there's just. We don't understand why, you know, why do they cause so much pain and harm in our lives? And we're not going to ask them, right? And they're not autonomous beings, so they must be witches, right? And so that's that history. It's the same as this Eve thing. And then of course, there's the Madonna, right? And so she is the pure counter to Eve.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:47:53] So you have two choices in this era. You can be Eve, this fallen woman with sin. Your body is sinful and therefore property of any man anytime he wants to sin. Or you can be the Madonna and you can be pure. And the second, you and a virgin.

John Dehlin [00:48:08] And a virgin.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:48:09] Virgin, Right. A virgin who birth's a child. Right. Like, I mean that. So that is the conception. So there's this stuckness. But either way, as a woman, you're judged by what men are doing or not doing to your body. And this is the prehistory of Mormonism. So I don't.

John Dehlin [00:48:30] Can I just add, there's Bathsheba with David, there's Delilah with Samson.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:48:36] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:48:37] You've got the New Testament Paul saying women should stay silent in the church. And then in Judaism, we just had Torva Mirvis on Mormon stories, an ex Orthodox Jew, and she talked about how Jewish women had to wear either a hat or different types of hair, like a wig, because somehow just the female hair was too much. And how they couldn't show their collarbones.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:49:03] Yeah, you're unclean. If you have your period, you've got to go to some other place. Islam too. I mean, obviously Islam. Saudi Arabia. I mean, forget it, right. In Iran, I mean, you know, you're veiled. When I was eight years old, I Went to school and I had a veil, you know, and, you know, growing up, like, it was just like, this is bullshit, right? Like, I remember, and my mom was a feminist in Iran. But there is this sense of, like, your body is innately sinful, you know. And so I think Mormonism sort of comes into this trajectory. And there's something uniquely American about Mormonism in that, you know, in that era, especially in the evangelical sort of rebirth, where we are adopting more fundamentalist views of the Bible and starting to see it more as literal than before.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:49:55] You know, I think in the founding era, the founders did not, you know, see it, especially Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. They were just kind of like, yeah, I mean, the Bible's some good advice, you know, and all of a sudden, in the era of the 1820s, 1830s, you get this revivalism. And so all of a sudden you get women in church not being able to speak, and this is this backwards thing. And so you've got polygamy. And then, of course, you come into this century in the 1950s, you've got this feminine mystique. And so here's where I think. So I wanted to bring this up because this book, Fascinating Womanhood, do you know about.

Mormon Teachings on Women and Sexuality

John Dehlin [00:50:30] Who's the author? Yeah, tell us about it.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:50:32] Helen Antlein, and she's a Mormon, and she wrote this book called Fascinating Womanhood, and it's marriage advice. And every Mormon woman that I knew in college had a copy. I mean, some of us. Some of us were laughing at it. But here, I mean, I want it. I want to read you some of this advice to Mormon women. And she says, women are.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:50:54] Men appreciate. This is what men want from a woman. They want a smile, someone who's childlike and angelic. The ideal woman is someone who has domestic skills. There's all this advice in here about, you know, how to make men feel like they're stronger than you, how to act like a child. I mean, there's this whole. This whole book is about how to make yourself demure, submissive, childlike, be a domestic goddess, and how to make your man feel strong and big and important. And I think it infantilizes, actually both genders. I feel like it makes men to be like toys in female hands. Like, you can manipulate your husband by telling him how strong and how buff he is, and.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:51:43] And by acting so demure and. And childlike, and you can get him to do these things for you. But this is. I mean, the proper. What's her name? That woman who does a proper feeding and maintenance of Husbands. I mean, this is that theory, too, where a proper housewife does this and that. And I think that's where Mormonism, you know, there's a lot still of that in Mormonism. And I think this.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:52:10] I think Mormonism doesn't have the same problems as the rest of the country. I mean, I think even with the sexual assault stuff, I mean, you have Jeff Flake and Mitt Romney and our Mormon leaders, the political leaders are not these sexual assaulters. I mean, I really do think Mormon politicians were pretty consistently against Trump because we do feel like there's this purity and chastity and.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:52:39] But there's an element of that purity and chastity that's also, you know, in that Madonna whore paradigm. Right. So as long as women in the church follow this chastity, modesty, keeping in this purity, right. Then you will gain respect. And if you're a fallen woman, and this is where Mike Pence comes in, right. I won't have, you know, lunch with a woman who's not my wife. And I think a lot of Mormon men are like that. So as a professional woman, I felt that at BYU a lot, where I felt like my presence in a room made men nervous and men. Men who I needed to mentor me and men who I needed to sit with me and talk to me and not see me as sexual.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:53:27] And I don't. I was never. There weren't guys at BYU law who were sexual assaulters. I can tell you that there wasn't that gossip. But there were men there who felt uncomfortable with a woman in the room. And so that. That's a problem too, you know, because you're not getting that, you know, mentorship. You're not getting that, you know, tailwind that pushes men up to leadership positions. You're impeded because you're seen as this Eve, this fallen woman, because you could lead them to cheat on their wives. And you don't want that. Like, I am not interested in you sexually. I have the ability to look at this person and not think sex like I can.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:54:10] I'm just talking about business, right? And I think, you know, this idea. I remember one time walking into a room, this older colleague of mine with my sister, and we wanted to talk to him about some paper we were writing or something, and he was like, oh, you two beautiful Persian women. And she was trying to make a compliment, but I felt, like, reduced to this small because it was just like, thank you, but, like, I need you to take my idea seriously, right? I need you to not look at me Like a woman for a second. I need you to look at me like a colleague with an idea. And so this is that. That problem that I think, you know, women face, and that's a struggle as well.

John Dehlin [00:54:55] Yeah. Love it. People are loving it. Online I'm having, you know, people are writing. Preach it. Somebody wrote. Great discussion. John, Your guest is doing an excellent job explaining the name nuances. People are loving it. Mirsa. So thank you. Thank you. I guess some of the other obvious things about Mormonism and patriarchy and even religion and Christianity, if you go back to Judaism, it's male rabbis. If you go to Catholicism, it's male priests. If you go to Mormonism, it's the all male priesthood. That's a thing. And then you've got like the Book of Mormon. And this is one of the most profound moments I've had in my explorations of the problems with Mormonism was to discover that the Book of Mormon mentions like two or three hundred men by name. And it mentions like three or four women by name.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:55:46] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:55:48] And there's like no positive role models for. And then of course, there's the discourse at church where it's always the prophets and the leaders, the male prophets and apostles who get the stories told about them. And very, very rarely it's the women. Do you want to talk about that? How that affects.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:56:04] I mean, I think that, yeah, absolutely. I mean, you can't be a woman in the church and feel like you're part of any leadership. But, you know, I think the idea in, you know, women in the church, in this, you know, fascinating womanhood, is this idea to the extreme, is that you have a different sphere. Right. Men are leaders. It's, you know, priesthood versus motherhood. You know, you should follow, feel happy in your role as a mother, and it's just as important. So, you know, I think there's a lot of women who would say no. And I think recently we're seeing a lot more of that.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:56:38] But I do want to, I mean, I think less discussed because that, we do discuss that quite a bit. And I think it's a very important conversation. But less disgust is this idea that sin. And we've talked about it a little bit, but that, but once you conceive of sexuality as sin, sin, and you live in a male dominant world, women inherently become the bearers of temptation.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:57:08] And women also are taught not to show that desire. Right. And so I think this harms both parties. Right. It makes men, of course, you know, the natural initiators, and that's fine. That's, you know, maybe historical or whatever, but it also makes women feel shame.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:57:31] And this is the part of the sexual abuse that I think this is the reason why a lot of this stuff doesn't come out. And the reason why even me, I don't want to talk about this stuff because even though I know that the instances in my life where a man has violated me, I feel red hot shame. I feel not guilt and I do feel the anger, but I feel shame.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:57:58] And I think this is the idea even women who like to have sex and who want, you know, who've left the church or who are out there, not in the church maybe, but there's still this idea. Women who enjoy sex and this is apart from sexual assault, obviously that's different. But there, there is this, this shame surrounded in female sexuality. And so this is part of why a lot of these victims don't come out. And this is why I tend to believe women when they come out with these details. Of course there are the liars. But a lot of these women, when they come out, it's so painful, you know, and it's like, well, why didn't you come out for 10 years?

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:58:38] Because I blamed myself, because I felt shame, I felt guilt, I felt mad at myself, you know, And I think this is where you see in some of the me toos, women coming out all of a sudden where, you know what, it's not shameful anymore, where we all have these experiences.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:58:57] So I think that that is in Mormonism. And I remember talking to girlfriends a lot about this stuff, you know, just feeling, you know, that you were the, acted upon as opposed to the sort of in control of your own sexuality.

Mehrsa Baradaran [00:59:18] And you know, I think this persists in our culture and in our chastity talk and in our modesty talk and in. We tell women to cover up and to hide and to be ashamed. And part of that is that the focus is on their bodies and the focus is on the male gaze. Right. Whereas I don't, and again, I don't want, I don't want to be seen as a body, I don't want to be seen as a sexual being unless I do. Right, right. Unless I'm with someone who I want. But otherwise, you know, and I want to be treated as like anyone else would be, like a man would be treated.

John Dehlin [01:00:04] Right.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:00:04] I mean, it's complicated. I don't know what if we know what equality looks like. But I have sensed it with certain male, I mean, I do. And the majority of my male colleagues, I have that relationship with the majority of the men I interact with in my life, I go in their offices and I feel completely safe. I feel like they respect me as a human, I respect them as a human. And there's just not that boundary crossing. I have one male colleague I could be alone with in a room for days on end and nothing weird would happen because we have this relationship that is strictly platonic. And I think that that is something that we all need to. Mormon men need to cultivate platonic, non sexual relationships with women. I think this is crucial. I think very few Mormon men who are married have truly platonic relationships with women.

John Dehlin [01:01:02] They have, they have either avoided, I mean, most often. And I think I've been guilty in this in the past. Yeah, she's too cute. I don't want to, I don't want to, you know, go have lunch with her or oh, I'm hiring someone. I don't want to ever be, be in a position. And that. How devastating is that to women's careers, to women's ability to progress, to the way, to me, to them, everybody? Really quickly, we're doing this really extended series on Mormon stories about inappropriate bishops, interviews with children and adults, and just a couple points that have come out of that. And then I just want to get your perspective on all that.

Church Leadership and Accountability to Youth

John Dehlin [01:01:41] You've already talked about body image and shaming and how too often the women or the girls are held responsible for the men's thoughts. And we're even finding out that in a lot of these bishops interviews you could have a male and a female have some sort of sexual interaction. Maybe there's two different bishops and almost reliably the female gets punished more than the male does when it's the two people who are interacting in the same relationship. Right?

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:02:10] Yeah. I mean, it's a sense of like, the man can't help it, but the woman. You should have put the stop on things. Right. You should have walked out. He can't help it. Once he's turned on, it's like there's only one way to go or whatever. I mean, I've heard that argument. And of course, I mean, a man in a position of power talking to a woman about this sexual. You know, I always thought that that was really weird.

John Dehlin [01:02:32] So Bishop's interviewing 12 year old girls about masturbation. You're not a fan?

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:02:36] Absolutely. I mean, I didn't know what masturbation was when I was 12 and I remember being, having this talk and I was just like, I don't know, I don't care. I just don't. I don't want to hear it from this person, you know, I don't know this guy, you know? And, yeah, it was. It's not. I don't think it's okay at all.

John Dehlin [01:02:57] And there's just also this idea, and I just want to highlight this because someone who I really care about wants to make sure I keep mentioning it. And I think it's legitimate. There's. There's not only the. The shame and the stigma around female sexuality, there's also the opposite of that, which is just ignoring women as sexual beings and sort of just. And Jennifer Finlayson, 5, talked about this in an Early Mormon Stories episode because we. We either heap a whole, you know, mountain of shame on female sexuality or we pretend like women aren't sexual beings at all so that once they get married, they don't even think about their own pleasure. And that hurts them and men, because they're not having the healthy sexual relationships that they could.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:03:48] Yeah. And if you look at this historically, because I look at everything historically, but it used to be that early in history, the fear, the male fear, was that women's sexuality was so, so much so insatiable that it had to be tamped down. Right? So the idea was that women were too sexual. Like they just wanted to have sex all the time. And this idea that, like, you can have, you know, women could just never be pleased, that has shifted over time to women avoid sex. And women do it to oblige their husbands and that they're not into it, you know. And so somewhere in this, that, you know, the truth got lost, which is women are just as sexual as men and that there's a range of sexuality among women.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:04:36] Some women are, some women aren't. It depends on the man. It depends on the mood. It depends on the day, depends on the time of month. I mean, tell me, an ovulating woman is not a sexual baby, right?

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:04:49] I mean, biology begs to differ. Right? Because that's. That's when. Right. Anyway, so I think, yeah, we just get it wrong. And part of this is because female voices have been absent from the. From the narrative. We haven't been telling our own stories. And this is where I think we're seeing this shift and this watershed moment of, like, you know what? Why don't you let us talk and. And tell you about our sexuality? And in fact, we need to. We don't even know about our sexuality because we've been abiding by a different script. So why don't you Give us some time to think about this.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:05:24] And I want, you know, for the next generation to say, you know, before a man sort of explains to women this is what female sexuality is like, to hear from women what female sexuality is like, you know, and childbirth and all of these things that I think men have been, you know, responsible for because it's this power, this control, but also this idea of sexuality too. And you know, I was thinking about this in the gym context, like, you know, you were saying, what, do you want to be seen as a beautiful woman or not? And I think sometimes I don't want to be seen as a beautiful woman.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:06:03] I don't want to be seen as an ugly woman. I just don't want to be seen as a woman in a way that is sexual. Do you know what I mean? I just sometimes want to have the privilege of walking around in the world as neither beautiful or ugly. I just don't want you to focus on that. I just want to be a being. I want to be Mehrsa. I want to walk around and I want to be someone who has my ideas and my thoughts and I just don't want to be pigeon folded and my value or my worth or my, the thing that is automatically visible is my looks.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:06:42] Do you know what I mean? And I think that's maybe too much to ask. Maybe it is, maybe because that's just how we're wired. But it would be nice once in a while to feel just meh.

John Dehlin [01:06:57] You know, Sally, one of our listeners wrote, you want to exist, right?

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:07:03] Yes. As a person of, as a mind disembodied.

John Dehlin [01:07:08] Right, right. Okay, I'm gonna read a few comments from our listeners and I want you just to respond. Is that okay?

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:07:14] Sure.

John Dehlin [01:07:15] Sarah writes, in my experience, the man gets punished more harshly because he is the priesthood holder and should know better. Thoughts for Sarah.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:07:25] Yeah, that's probably right. Yeah, that's probably right.

John Dehlin [01:07:28] Sometimes.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:07:30] Sometimes. Sometimes. Although I don't know what we're talking on punishment, maybe in church punishment, probably. But as far as shame, I think women get a lot of that shame where men are, you know, maybe the narrative is like, well, forced. Men are going to do. He should have known better, he shouldn't have done it. Where a woman, she was a home wrecker, she was, you know, whore, a slut. There aren't even the equivalent of those words for a man who does it. He was not, not honoring his priesthood, but his character doesn't change. And I think sometimes a woman becomes a slut immediately.

John Dehlin [01:08:05] Got it. Sandra writes, my Experiences in Mormonism with males were that strong, honest females scared. Most Mormon male leaders thought responses to that. Mirsa.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:08:17] Absolutely, absolutely. I think there has been, I have sensed it, a fear of strong women in the church. And you look at it in the excommunications, historically in the silencings and in church conversation. I think this is cultural. I think we're scared of strong women. I think this goes back to Hillary Clinton and forget Hillary. I mean Hillary is just so, I mean, think about the rage against Hillary. I think this is kind of indicative. But there are a lot of women who become seen as, I mean, think about it, a bitch.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:08:54] What do you call, what is that word? Abrasive. You know, harsh. Harsh, you know, an elbow breaker. You know, these are words that are lobbied against women in positions of power. I had some, someone tell me once, you know, I think all my worst bosses were women.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:09:11] And I just, I don't know, I mean, is that true or is it because they just seemed worse because they were aware boss. And you know, I experienced this at work where I'm a second generation feminist. work I had the benefit of having the first generation of feminists come in before me and they were like the, you know, busters of barriers. And I remember coming into the law firm and these women were like, you know, nutcutters, what do you call it? I mean, they were just like, you know, tough because they. That's the kind of woman who could become a partner at a law firm.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:09:45] And by the time I got there, I didn't have to be necessarily. But there is this sense of when you become in a position of power, there is a whole different dynamic. And now that I am in a position of power over a lot of students, you know, I'm a senior professor and people come to me and they ask me for stuff. And I do see that a lot of them I have to avoid the mom and the girlfriend or the shrew. I think there are these three places that you get placed. I've had this, I mean I had, I wrote this article a while back that kind of went viral, which was weird.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:10:22] But it was like teaching while women. And it. When I first started teaching at byu, it was a disaster. I had like my male dominated classes. They just did not respect me at all. And what I had to do was to step into the role, play the role, which is not one that comes naturally to me, of a hard ass. Like take no nonsense. On my first semester, I was just me. I was, you know, bubbly and open and the men didn't respect me. And what this meant for the classroom is it got out of control. And so I advised a bunch of people, and I talked to one of the.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:10:59] My colleagues at Harvard Business School, and she said, she's like, you've got to be the alpha in that classroom. And so what happens? And I'll tell you what happens. Every year. Every year, I've been teaching for eight years, and it's never failed within the first week or two of class, some dude in the back row, some frat boy, raises his hand and challenges you. I have been teaching for eight years, but I'm a young woman of color or woman, whatever. And this dude will say, you said this, but doesn't the case say this? I mean, this is A1L who is coming in and trying to usurp your authority.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:11:35] And at that moment, and what I used to do is like, oh, that's a good point. You know, let's think about this. And at that moment, I lost my power with the class. That guy was the alpha. And for the rest of the class, they kind of dominated it. And I would get horrible. I mean, horrible reviews. And I felt like it was just out of control. And now what I do, and this woman taught me this at hbs, is when that guy does it, you put him down immediately and without mercy.

John Dehlin [01:12:02] Meaning what?

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:12:03] Meaning what you say you prepared. I mean, no, you're wrong about this case, because they are wrong. You know? You know more than they do. Right. And so what they're trying to do is to upset your authority. They're not. They don't do it to the men. They do it to the young women. And every young woman I know has this experience. And when I put this blog post up, I got a ton of reviews like, yes, like this is happening. So I. So what you do is just say you assert authority. You become the alpha male, which is not our nature. Our nature is to be kind and welcoming and to make everyone feel comfortable.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:12:37] But you don't make that guy feel comfortable. You make him feel like he was wrong. And you know what happens is that he's fine with it. Like those guys. It happens to me every year. And you feel like, okay, that guy's gonna feel embarrassed, and I'll lose that guy, but I'll gain the class. But that guy, by the end of the class, totally respects you. So I. So this is why I come in. I dress conservatively. I don't smile. For the first two months of class, oh, my gosh. I walk into class Every year I teach contracts. I walk into class. You can ask my students.

Navigating Authority and Respect as a Woman

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:13:07] I'm their toughest person. Professor, right? I don't smile. I come in. I start asking questions. We do Socratic method. I start asking. I'm a different person in the classroom. Start asking questions, and you don't let up. My class is the one they most prepare for, but they also really like me now.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:13:25] They learn a lot. They treat me as a professional. I'm not their girlfriend. I'm not their mom. I'm not their best buddy. It's been a sacrifice because I'm not. I can't be their friend anymore. But at least I gain their respect. And by the end, they all respect me. And then by the end, I can let up. After two months of just asserting control, I then can be their friend, and I can be cool and I can, you know, be funny and myself. And by then, they've already given me that authority that I think a lot of my male colleagues are just given on the first day of class.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:13:58] So I think this is. This is what it means to be a woman or a young woman or a woman of color. I don't know which of those is true. But to enter a man's world is. You've got to play your cards differently. You have to understand certain things.

John Dehlin [01:14:15] And part of me thinks that's really cool. Badass. And another part of me is like, oh, it's kind of sad that a woman has to kind of be more like a man to be able to make it in a man's world. Does that make sense?

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:14:25] I am conflicted about it, and I think at one point I won't have to do it. And I don't know if, you know, when I go fully gray or when I'm much older or maybe at some point it just won't happen. And to be honest, I have let up as I've gotten more senior, because I think now they enter my classroom and the reputation is set. Like, she's a hard a. You know? But I want to be clear that I don't shame anybody. I'm not mean to them. I don't embarrass them. No one comes out of my classroom. Shame. They do feel afraid if they don't know the material. But it's not because I don't. I give them fear. It's because I don't make them feel comfortable in the way that they expect, like a girlfriend or a mom to.

John Dehlin [01:15:07] Okay, you know, when you say, put him down, you don't insult him. Oh, no, you just correct them. You correct him.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:15:12] I correct them in a harsh way.

John Dehlin [01:15:14] Got it. Or stern way.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:15:17] Yeah, stern way.

John Dehlin [01:15:18] Okay, I want to be sensitive to your time tonight because you've been so generous. Maybe there's two more questions that we should cover. One is I like your bullet 7 easy step guide on how not to sexually harass women. We've talked about that, but let's summarize one point that I heard once. We talked about consent already. One of my dreams for Mormonism is, is that every year in Relief Society, priesthood, Sunday school, whatever, there's a lesson on consent. And one of the things that I learned in a episode I did on Mormon stories about rape, I had a woman say that consent is a hell yes and a high five.

John Dehlin [01:16:02] In other words, it's really overt. Now, I know that there's probably exceptions to that, but that's just a way to make sure I get that point in. But more important, because consent's so important. But tell us what some of your points to an Easy Step guide would be on how not to sexually harass women.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:16:20] I mean, I think it's easy at work, from the hours of nine to five, when you're in an office setting, you never make a pass at a colleague, ever. That's just never. Okay. But if she wants to ask if you want to go after hours out with a colleague at work and take her out, fine. But during office hours, Right. If she's a colleague, that's especially if you're in a position superior to her. I think that's a really important part of consent, because you don't know if that consent is real. You don't know if it's because you're superior and she's an inferior. So anytime where consent can be coerced, you've got to be really careful because she can look like she's consenting, but what she's actually doing is she's fearful for her job, she's fearful for her prospects, her reputation.

John Dehlin [01:17:12] Yeah, you're talking about the workplace, which is so important. One of the things that we deal with in the post Mormon community is just kind of Facebook and the Internet. Right. And I don't expect you to just sort of have those things top of mind. But I'm sure women make Facebook comments. Women make Facebook post posts. I'm sure there's lots of men reaching out to women with private messaging saying, this or that, oh, you're so great, or oh, you're so wonderful. I loved what you said. And then I'm Sure. That inappropriate comments can be made just on social media. Any. Any rules or perspective or guidelines you can give about kind of the social media world.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:17:52] You know, I am tend to think like, you know, sending pictures of body parts, like, that's not okay. Other than that, I mean, I. I don't know. I've never. I've never been in a situation where. Because for me, sexual assault is about that fear and it's about. I think comments can be unwanted and comments can be too private. Like, you know, if you're asking questions about someone's sexual life, you're making them very uncomfortable. But I. Again, we've got to be clear that there's a range of behaviors, right? There's inappropriate, uncomfortable, over the line, and then there's sexual assault, and then there's rape. And, you know, so I think we all need to be very careful to separate these things and to not sort of, you know, shame to help educate men, be soft on men who we feel like aren't predators.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:19:02] You know, I think there are men who are predators like the Harvey Weinsteins, and we got to be hard on those guys. But there's maybe men who don't know and, you know, who can be taught along. And I think there's inappropriate behavior that can be called out without calling that person a rapist or sexual assaulter. And I think I just want us to be careful about the words that we use in shaming because a public lynch mob can form on the other side, too. And I want to be careful because I. Mostly because there are wrongs here.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:19:42] And if we go overboard into calling behavior that is inappropriate or uncomfortable sexual assault, I think we lower the standard, the sort of the severity of sexual assault sometimes.

John Dehlin [01:20:02] And I'm going to be stepping into probably a little bit of sensitive territory. Sometimes you hear men say, say, oh, well, that feminist is too strident, she's too harsh. And then sometimes I think to myself, yeah, if somebody quietly educates me in private, I'm going to be a lot more likely to want to change than if I hear, than if I see somebody who's raging all the time and thrashing and criticizing and there's nothing positive about men. And so how do we navigate this idea of, number one, it's not about the men. Number two is it's not the woman's job to be caring about the man's feelings and delivering the message in the right way.

John Dehlin [01:20:45] That's on the one extreme. But on the other extreme, if you don't feel shamed and awful and Dehumanized, you're probably going to be a little bit more open to the messages than if you're. So to what extent can we even want women or feminists to sort of moderate their tone?

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:21:04] Yeah, no, so not tone point. This is a really important or approach

John Dehlin [01:21:08] or to take a strategic approach versus, you know, a non strategic approach.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:21:13] I think this is a really important topic because I think public shaming never works. However, if there are violent, I don't believe in, you gotta be, you know, innocent until proven guilty. Cause that's sort of like the court of law.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:21:28] But, but I have seen public shaming of men where I felt like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like this is not, this is not. Okay. So, so, so I think on the one hand, I think before there's public shaming of, of individuals, I think it's one thing to just publicly shame systems, the system and, and all of that.

Public Accountability, Reform, and Reasons for Hope

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:21:56] And it's okay to publicly shame people like Weinstein. And where there is a pattern of behavior, where there are victims who are giving detailed accounts and when the charge is one of assault, rape, harassment and serial. And I think we're being very clear now that these are people that are doing this. Publicly shaming men where their situations are murdered.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:22:21] I think you find out what the situation is, you report it to the authorities if it's a crime or whatever. But being careful about ruining someone's reputation and life sometimes because this can be used for women and it has been used for women. And what you don't want is women who have been the victims of this for so long. Right. With a scarlet letter to all of a sudden adopt the tone of the patriarchy and throw it back in the face. We don't want to, you know, create this. But I also want to defend the raging feminists because I think sometimes when you hear this stuff and it's a lifetime of this and it's a lifetime of just playing it cool and sometimes you just get so angry and you get angry at like man and men.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:23:21] And so I get that rage. And you know, I'm like 40 this year. And so I don't rage like I used to, but I remember an era of just rage. And I will tell you, I had a really beautiful friend in college and I would walk BYU and I would walk around campus with her and men could not keep their eyes off of her and they couldn't keep themselves from asking her out and talking like she would be buying lunch. And I was with her because I was her best friend buying lunch in the library, and men would not leave her alone. And I remember, like, and the way they looked at her like I was.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:24:01] I was. Was on her behalf, just scant, like, how dare you look at her like, you know, and one after the other. And the men just felt all of them, like they were the only one that day that was asking her out. Meanwhile, like, every other guy that we passed had been doing this. And so I remember during that era just hating men because I saw them at their worst, like, ogling my friend, not treating her like a human, and constantly violating her personal space. And she didn't mind because she was way nicer than I was.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:24:37] But so I get. I get what it's like to rage at men. And I do want men to also have that compassion to us. To say, girl, like, I believe that you have seen things I haven't. I'm sorry. You know, and not personally, but, like, gosh, like, I'm sorry, you know, but yes, like, for us feminists out there, let's also have compassion on the men, too, because the patriarchy hurts all of us in different ways. And I think we just have to treat each other as broken humans and flawed humans in different ways.

John Dehlin [01:25:17] I love it. Okay, two final questions. Number one is, what can. You know, you and I may have a complicated relationship with the church, but there's still a church and there's still Mormonism. It's a raging patriarchy to this day. Is there anything that people can do in a Mormon context? And I don't even expect you to have an answer, but anything come to mind? Is the church just sort of irredeemably patriarchal, or are there things that can be done?

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:25:48] No, absolutely not. I mean, I think if we're saying the church is irredeemably patriarchal, we're also damning US society. And I. I am not a pessimist. I'm an optimist because I'm alive. As Baldwin said, I really am an optimist about the church. I think the church is changing dramatically in my lifetime.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:26:07] I think the changes have to start in young women's. I think the way we teach our young women's. And I know a lot of this is like local control and everyone teaches differently, but we've got to get right this purity, chastity, sex talk. And for women, older women in the church, I think we have to mentor young women. I think we need more women who come in there and share their voice and their life experience. And for men to allow strong women to teach doctrinal Lessons to not just be domestic goddesses and to understand that women are complicated like men are and women are different.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:26:50] Right. Women aren't just, you know, don't fit one mold. They're not all like. There's this one perfect, you know, Mormon woman, sort of like this platonic form, and she is a relief society mother, and she bakes and she knits, and some of us aren't that way. And for men, I think there's many roles that men can fit. And I think we need to be expansive about what kind of woman they are. Right.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:27:14] Who is this person? And seeing them as varied identities and also to allow that women are not just mothers, they are leaders. They're thinkers, they're creators, they're artists, professors. They're professors. They're really readers. They're bookworms, they're dorks, they're gamers. I mean, you know, they're the same things that men are. And I think we let them do that and allow young women, the young women's program to be more varied.

John Dehlin [01:27:48] Isn't it just outrageously crazy that a major world religion can shut women out of leadership systematically? I mean, isn't it kind of like this Harvey Weinstein moment where you're like, how did this ever endure?

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:28:04] Yes, Mormons are not the only ones. I mean, there are plenty. They're in good company here. Right. But you are seeing a change. I mean, you're seeing in the evangelical movement a lot of change. Female leaders, female voices out there starting their own churches. And. And I think with the Kate Kelly's of Mormonism, I think there are these path breakers and these people who, with sharp elbows, break things down. And then the women that come in after them, they follow them in and they're building a movement. There is this phenomenal book called America the Anxious where she's talking about women and happiness and she talks about Mormons at the end.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:28:49] She's not a Mormon. She's this Brit who comes to America and she's like, americans are obsessed with happiness. And she's like. She's like, I'm gonna go to Utah where everyone seems to be happy. And so she goes and she interviews a bunch of Mormons, like, why are you guys so happy? And then she talks to a Mormon feminist. I can't remember who it is, but it's someone in Provo. And she talks about, like, the reason why Mormons are happy is that they have this, like, male female role structure, but that there's this dark undertone where if you're a feminist, can't fit into that. You also can't be happy.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:29:20] I think this is something the church has to reckon with where the plan of salvation and the plan of happiness, because the plan of happiness works. If you're willing to be in these roles. And I think the church needs to make it work. If you want to challenge those roles, if you don't want to follow those roles and the marriages that don't. I mean, my marriage is not in that role structure and it can work.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:29:47] You know, you're challenging tradition and you're challenging systems, you're challenging your own inclinations. And it takes work. And I think it would be the same in a church structure like any family. It would take some growing pains, but I think we're capable and we can do it.

John Dehlin [01:30:06] Love it. Love the optimism. Alright, last question. And this is your question. What can we do to raise our children, sons and daughters, to not repeat this behavior? What can we do as parents for our children?

Raising Children and Closing Reflections

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:30:20] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:30:21] You said you have a funny story to share.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:30:22] I have a funny story. So my daughter, my middle daughter is into theater and she's 10 and she was in this play. She's been working so hard and it was, you know, she just loves it. It was a quick Christmas story, so that Ralphie Christmas story. And it was community theater and she's one of the kids and so excited. So we went to see it over the weekend. And the play, I mean, she was lovely. She was great. It was wonderful. But it was really sexist. So, I mean, not there was no female roles, but there's like this song where the wife is like this 1950s wife and she does a song like, this is what a woman does.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:31:03] And it was fascinating womanhood. It was like a woman bakes and a woman sews and a woman. And I was like, this is 2017. My husband and I look at each other like, what is this? Right? And it was so backwards. Like, why did they pick this play? Why have this song? Right? Anyways, I was like, just, this is crazy, you know, Was it satire?

John Dehlin [01:31:23] Was it trying to be satire?

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:31:24] I kept thinking like, surely this is satire. But it was straight up, you know, and so, and, and, and so. And I am one who is constantly pointing out things to my daughters that are sexist and racist. And we talk about this stuff all the time. And so in the car ride home, I was just like, oh, you were so great. And the songs and whatever. And she was like, yeah, I knew there was going to be one song in there that you weren't gonna Like. And I was like, let me guess. And she's like, you know, it was a mom song. And I was like, yeah, you know, she was like, I knew you weren't gonna like it.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:32:00] And I was like, you know, do you. Do you want to talk about why I don't like it? You know, she's like, no, Mom, I know. And so, you know, but her friend was in the car, and so she was like. I was like, you know, the reason why I like it is because it's sexist. And she got so mad at me, she's like, mom, why can't you enjoy anything? Like, why can't you, like, not talk about sexism for once and just enjoy play? And I. I felt like, okay, this is a huge parenting fail. Like, I totally should have waited. I ruined it.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:32:29] So that's my funny story. And just, like, trying to funny in that, like, I screwed up that moment. But I feel like, honestly, sometimes it's like trying to stop a wave when I try to point out trying to raise girls in a sexist world. It's like, everything, every message, like, every Disney princess movie until Frozen, every book, every.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:32:58] Everything, like the media, it's like this wave of sexism and gender roles that are not. I don't want my girls to fall into. And, you know, call it whatever you want, but I'm constantly pointing this stuff out, and. And sometimes I find good times to do it, and sometimes I don't. But it sometimes feels like I can't stop. I just need to, like, just. And I'm not trying to fight it because I let them watch this stuff. I just want them to be critical thinkers and to be able to parse this out. And I think this is what we have to do to our children, is just to be able to give them critical reasoning and to help them dissect the messages that they're getting.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:33:38] Because like you said, like we started out saying, this is the water we swim in. We've got to let them see the water for what it is. That's the only way we're going to change it is for them to just identify this is what sexism looks like, and to just identify it, and then maybe later on they can change it. I don't know.

John Dehlin [01:33:58] Yeah. So just lots of conversation for the boys and the girls, right?

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:34:02] Boys and girls. I don't have boys, but yes, of course. Of course. Maybe more. More so for the boys.

John Dehlin [01:34:08] Yeah. Yeah. All right, Mehrsa Baradaran, tell us about your two books really quick. Just because they're achievements.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:34:14] Thank you. I wrote the Color of Money. That was a recent one. And how the Other Half Makes.

John Dehlin [01:34:21] So check out those books if you care about really good books. And Marisa, it means so much that you'd be willing just sort of last minute to be the first to talk about this issue. We need to talk about it. We're going to do a series on it.

Mehrsa Baradaran [01:34:35] It's a super important topic and I'm so glad you're tackling it.

John Dehlin [01:34:38] Well, I'm honored that you would allow us and share with you your perspective. So come back on Mormon Stories anytime. Marisa Baradaran, everybody. All the best to your partner and your children and your family. Keep up the great work. We're so proud to call you one of us in some way or another. So thank you for joining us on Mormon Stories. Thank you so much and all our listeners. Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for the comments and questions on Facebook. Please continue discussing. Please share this with everyone.

John Dehlin [01:35:09] Please talk about this openly. It's the only way things are going to change. For everyone who supports Mormon Stories of the Open Stories foundation, please thank you for your support and please keep supporting us and we'll keep providing you with this sort of content if you have additional perspectives. If you're a woman and you have additional perspectives to share, we do want to interview at least three to five women about their experiences with sexual assault, sexism, all that sort of stuff. So please write us@mormonstoriesmail.com or reach out to me in a message and we want to get a few more stories. But everyone take care. Have a wonderful weekend and check us out again soon on Mormon Stories. Take care, everybody.

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