[PREVIEW] Episode 576: The Wife Economy

Absolutely.

And, you know, later on in this conversation, we're going to talk a little bit about the difference or try to tease out maybe what the differences are between the trad wife and the housewife as these sort of feminine archetypes, I guess, because I do think there's something there.

They're related, but very different and kind of... different approaches towards, let's say, monetization and liberation.

But I want to talk about the Mormon of it all first, because I don't want to get around that before we get into reality TV, because what you said about Mormons being weird is so, first of all, So true.

Mormons are so weird and so American in a way that even other even strands of like American Protestantism like aren't like there's something so, so American about Mormonism.

And a lot of it has to do with their the emphasis on small business ownership.

Yes.

And enterprise, as well as the sort of more like esoteric elements.

But what you said about them being conservative in a different way, they're not conservative, but they are conservative, but in a different way than you would think of like...

Baptists, right? Or evangelicals or whatever.

This is not American evangelical Christianity or nobody is doing any kind of like tongue rituals or like... you know, covering up in a way that is because the devil is going to get you or something.

Like there's no like fire and brimstone conservative.

Although they

are, they do have their special underwear.

Of course, of course.

So we cannot discount the special underwear.

No.

Anytime you're talking about Mormons, you gotta bring that up.

We cannot.

But do you know what I'm

saying? Like there is something very...

I feel like evangelical Christians kind of, especially the ladies, you know, they will kind of like, they'll have like one shoulder out, one leg out, and they kind of like tease it.

Oh, but I'm conservative or something.

Mormons are very different.

And I think their approach

to all of that is very different.

Can we talk about this for a little bit?

Yeah, and Mormons have, of course, there is now a pretty wide range of Mormons too, of course, right? So you have more what you could call fundamentalist Mormons who, you know, observe The special underwear, which is very real, which comes from the church and which, you know, is they literally release it every year.

And for women, there's different sizes of of, you know, strap and all this stuff.

And it is it is quite controlling.

But then you have all the way to, you know, the these Mormon influencers that we're talking about.

You know, you would you would they certainly do not wear underwear.

the underwear in, in public.

And I know for when I interviewed some of these women, it was like, Oh, you're clearly not wearing underwear because you're wearing garments that can't support any kind of underwear.

So like we've, we've, which is of course what the new shows are about is, is new Mormons.

So, but, but I would say Mormonism is interesting because like, What I meant by it's not so straightforward conservative is Mormonism at its core is a deeply and explicitly patriarchal religion.

The man is the head of the household.

The cosmology of the Mormon faith, the Church of Latter-day Saints, is that men are the heads of the household.

Women provide for the family and the household, and they grow their families as big as possible so that they can literally ascend and live in heaven forever.

So, and it's very serious and literal.

They don't think they're going to like, their spirits will ascend to heaven.

It's like, no, you're going to go, you're going to wake up in your coffin and you're going to rise up and go live on these other planets, much of which is chronicled in the Book of Mormon.

the lyrics are actually really helpful in understanding the Mormon religion.

So, and then in that ascension, the faith is metered out in an incredibly, meted out in an incredibly top-down structure that is very, very highly controlled by, you know, a group of apostles.

That's like a tiny group of men.

Then there's a bigger group of men.

And then it goes all the way down to your church and your ward or whatever and And then in your ward, you are having to really perform as a good Mormon to keep your name in the books, to keep being able to do these rituals you have to do.

And these are, again, the Mormons that actually adhere the most to the religion.

But in that aspect, Mormonism is not necessarily culturally conservative as much as it is like controlling to me.

Like it's a much more like high control organization than it is, I don't know, a more kind of explicitly conservative or like past focused religion.

Absolutely.

And, you know, later on in this conversation, we're going to talk a little bit about the difference or try to tease out maybe what the differences are between the trad wife and the housewife as these sort of feminine archetypes, I guess, because I do think there's something there.

They're related, but very different and kind of... different approaches towards, let's say, monetization and liberation.

But I want to talk about the Mormon of it all first, because I don't want to get around that before we get into reality TV, because what you said about Mormons being weird is so, first of all, So true.

Mormons are so weird and so American in a way that even other even strands of like American Protestantism like aren't like there's something so, so American about Mormonism.

And a lot of it has to do with their the emphasis on small business ownership.

Yes.

And enterprise, as well as the sort of more like esoteric elements.

But what you said about them being conservative in a different way, they're not conservative, but they are conservative, but in a different way than you would think of like...

Baptists, right? Or evangelicals or whatever.

This is not American evangelical Christianity or nobody is doing any kind of like tongue rituals or like... you know, covering up in a way that is because the devil is going to get you or something.

Like there's no like fire and brimstone conservative.

Although they

are, they do have their special underwear.

Of course, of course.

So we cannot discount the special underwear.

No.

Anytime you're talking about Mormons, you gotta bring that up.

We cannot.

But do you know what I'm

saying? Like there is something very...

I feel like evangelical Christians kind of, especially the ladies, you know, they will kind of like, they'll have like one shoulder out, one leg out, and they kind of like tease it.

Oh, but I'm conservative or something.

Mormons are very different.

And I think their approach

to all of that is very different.

Can we talk about this for a little bit?

Yeah, and Mormons have, of course, there is now a pretty wide range of Mormons too, of course, right? So you have more what you could call fundamentalist Mormons who, you know, observe The special underwear, which is very real, which comes from the church and which, you know, is they literally release it every year.

And for women, there's different sizes of of, you know, strap and all this stuff.

And it is it is quite controlling.

But then you have all the way to, you know, the these Mormon influencers that we're talking about.

You know, you would you would they certainly do not wear underwear.

the underwear in, in public.

And I know for when I interviewed some of these women, it was like, Oh, you're clearly not wearing underwear because you're wearing garments that can't support any kind of underwear.

So like we've, we've, which is of course what the new shows are about is, is new Mormons.

So, but, but I would say Mormonism is interesting because like, What I meant by it's not so straightforward conservative is Mormonism at its core is a deeply and explicitly patriarchal religion.

The man is the head of the household.

The cosmology of the Mormon faith, the Church of Latter-day Saints, is that men are the heads of the household.

Women provide for the family and the household, and they grow their families as big as possible so that they can literally ascend and live in heaven forever.

So, and it's very serious and literal.

They don't think they're going to like, their spirits will ascend to heaven.

It's like, no, you're going to go, you're going to wake up in your coffin and you're going to rise up and go live on these other planets, much of which is chronicled in the Book of Mormon.

the lyrics are actually really helpful in understanding the Mormon religion.

So, and then in that ascension, the faith is metered out in an incredibly, meted out in an incredibly top-down structure that is very, very highly controlled by, you know, a group of apostles.

That's like a tiny group of men.

Then there's a bigger group of men.

And then it goes all the way down to your church and your ward or whatever and And then in your ward, you are having to really perform as a good Mormon to keep your name in the books, to keep being able to do these rituals you have to do.

And these are, again, the Mormons that actually adhere the most to the religion.

But in that aspect, Mormonism is not necessarily culturally conservative as much as it is like controlling to me.

Like it's a much more like high control organization than it is, I don't know, a more kind of explicitly conservative or like past focused religion.