Feminism! Ana vs Pearl!

Stefan Molyneux

Stefan Molyneux takes on a debate about feminism between Ana Kasparian and Pearl Davis in his Freedomain podcast. He discusses Pearl's arguments on women's roles in the economy, tying them to falling birth rates and broader effects on society. Molyneux breaks down some common misunderstandings in economic data and digs into the nuances of gender expectations and family life. In the end, he questions what modern feminism really means and encourages people to join the conversation.  Stefan will be there March 28, 2026, he hopes to see you there!  Find Word War Debate on X: https://x.com/WordWarDebate  GET FREEDOMAIN MERCH! https://shop.freedomain.com/  SUBSCRIBE TO ME ON X! https://x.com/StefanMolyneux  Follow me on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@freedomain1  GET MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING', THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI, AND THE FULL AUDIOBOOK! https://peacefulparenting.com/  Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!  Subscribers get 12 HOURS on the "Truth About the French Revolution," multiple interactive multi-lingual philosophy AIs trained on thousands of hours of my material - as well as AIs for Real-Time Relationships, Bitcoin, Peaceful Parenting, and Call-In Shows!  You also receive private livestreams, HUNDREDS of exclusive premium shows, early release podcasts, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!  See you soon! https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2025

Transcript

00:00:00Hi, everybody, Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Inn. Hope you're doing well. So, as you may

00:00:05or may not know, I was kind of a champion-ish debater back in the day. And I'm going to

00:00:13have a look at this debate at Word War Debate. They do these fantastic debates in Atlantic

00:00:18City. I'll be out there March 28th, 2026. I hope you will join me there. It's going

00:00:22to be very cool and exciting, and I promise to bring the fire. And so, Anna Kasparian

00:00:28and Pearl Davis were debating the topic of feminism. And I haven't watched this debate.

00:00:36I'm going to just dive in, and we're going to have a look at some of the opening statements

00:00:39and how the reasoning and articulation and arguments are set up and unpack them a little bit. And

00:00:47again, these are both very intelligent and accomplished women. I'm sure they're both making

00:00:51great points. But let's dive in. This is going to be at 1.25 speed, because I just can't listen

00:00:57to things at normal speed. And so, we're going to dive in. Word War Debate. WordWardDebate.com.

00:01:03You should check it out and join me there March 28th. And I'm also doing a VIP meet and greet.

00:01:09So, I'd love to see you. I hope to see you there. And let's go straight into this debate

00:01:14on feminism.

00:01:15In a May 2024 appearance on Tim Pool's Culture War podcast, my opponent, Pearl Davis, declared

00:01:21that women aren't really doing much. We're not having kids. We're not really contributing

00:01:26to the economy when you look at output. In fact, she uses this ridiculous assertion to

00:01:31argue that women should not have the right to vote. While it's true the birth rate has

00:01:36declined, and we'll revisit that in a bit, women account for 47% of the American workforce.

00:01:42All right. So, that is the first logical flipperoo. So, I think, I don't want to speak for Pearl,

00:01:51of course, but when she's talking output, she's not talking about jobs like HR or, you know,

00:02:02the sort of various government functional jobs that a lot of women do, right? Women work a lot

00:02:07for the government. She's talking about material productive output, usually in terms of manufacturing

00:02:15and stuff like that. So, saying that women don't produce much in terms of output when she's mostly

00:02:22looking at manufacturing, and then saying, well, but women are part of the workforce, almost half the

00:02:28workforce and so on, is apples to oranges. So, you could hire a guy in your backyard to dig a hole

00:02:36and fill up the hole over and over and over again, completely pointless exercise. You could

00:02:41pay him a hundred dollars an hour, and that would add to the GDP, but is it adding to actual

00:02:46productive output, right? So, that is a change, right? Saying, well, what do you mean this guy is

00:02:53not producing anything? Look at the income he's generating. It's like, but that's not the same as

00:02:57output. A birth rate going down is important, because one of the ways that women contribute to

00:03:03the economy is having children so that there are future workers, right? So, if women are in the

00:03:08workforce consuming a bunch of often taxed dollars and so on, which we'll get to more in a second,

00:03:12and doing a lot of not essential jobs or jobs mandated by the government, by government regulations

00:03:19and quota systems and requirements and other various forms of compulsions, then they're not having

00:03:24children. And so, maybe the women are making some economic output in the here and now, but, you know,

00:03:31people make a million to a million and a half dollars over the course of their lifetime.

00:03:35So, if a woman goes from having four children to having one child, right, then that's, she's

00:03:40making some money. Let's say she makes a million dollars in the here and now, but by having three

00:03:44fewer children, that's four and a half million dollars that are taken away from the economy

00:03:48in the future. And the answer for that, of course, tends to be endless immigration,

00:03:52but a lot of the immigrants are net economic negatives on the economy as a whole. So, I just wanted to

00:03:58sort of point that out at the beginning. The Council of Economic Advisors found that women

00:04:02have contributed a substantial portion of the U.S. economic growth since 1970, which wouldn't

00:04:08have been made possible without the feminist movement. Well, it's not the feminist movement,

00:04:12it's the government. It's the government saying you have to hire women that gets a lot of women

00:04:17hired. And this is just a sort of basic biological fact. In the past, women generally weren't hired

00:04:21when they were young and especially when they were married because they started having children.

00:04:26So, the baby boom, you had three, four, five kids, a family, and women generally aren't working

00:04:30because they're home, raising the kids, running the community, doing all of that wonderful work

00:04:34that women do. So, it's not feminism directly, it's feminism using its power and influence on the

00:04:41state to force employers to hire women that has caused the rise in female employment, which is,

00:04:48you know, there are lots of wonderful, remarkable, amazing female entrepreneurs, but, you know,

00:04:51I'm talking on the whole, on average. So, it's not feminism that caused men to hire women. It is,

00:05:00I mean, obviously talented women out there and some women are great in the economy, but

00:05:03as a whole, in general, it's the government that make people hire women. So, it's not feminism,

00:05:09it's state power and feminism's influence on state power is not unimportant. Unimportant,

00:05:15of course, but that is reality. Now, there's something else.

00:05:18In 70.

00:05:19Oh, yeah. And so, she's saying that there's been a productivity rise or an economic growth

00:05:23since 1970. I mean, my rebuttal to that would be, no, there hasn't. Wages have been flat

00:05:28in real terms since the 1970s because this is just basic economics, right? When you bring

00:05:34half the population into the workforce, it simply drives down wages for everyone else.

00:05:38I mean, that's, I don't know that that's huge, hugely complicated, right? If you're going to say,

00:05:43well, now we got to hire a whole bunch of women, then male wages simply going to go down. So, no,

00:05:50there's not been big economic growth. There's been growth in technology and so on, but it's not been

00:05:54big economic growth since the 1970s. And part of that, of course, is going off the gold standard

00:05:59under Nixon. And part of that is, is all of this stuff where raw meritocracy is not pursued anymore,

00:06:04but quota systems and numbers based upon political correctness are chosen. Because remember, on the

00:06:09left, all disparities in outcome are the result of prejudice, bigotry, and hatred, right? So, if women

00:06:14make less than men, it's not because women have different interests. It's not because women have

00:06:20children or anything like that. It's because men hate women. Only reason is just emotional. It's just

00:06:26emotional and everything goes through that lens. So, the other question, of course, is that if women

00:06:33have been so economically productive since the 1970s, why is there a $40 trillion plus national

00:06:38debt and why are there over $200 trillion in unfunded liabilities? Right? If somebody says,

00:06:45oh, this has been a huge productivity growth, then you would expect wealth to increase. But debt and

00:06:50unfunded liabilities have increased to the point where they dwarf the actual economy.

00:06:55They completely dwarf the actual economy. So, these would be my rebuttals.

00:06:59Which wouldn't have been made possible without the feminist movement. By 2017, women were

00:07:04responsible for nearly 40% of total gross domestic product, amounting to a whopping $7.6 trillion.

00:07:12Right. So, gross domestic product, if you look at COVID, COVID to a large degree, if you just look

00:07:18at the pharmaceutical sector, COVID increased the GDP. So, GDP is not a measure of organic wealth or

00:07:27improved worker productivity. It is a measure of economic activity. And economic activity is not

00:07:34the same as wealth. Of course, that figure doesn't include the trillions of dollars in unpaid labor.

00:07:40Yeah. This unpaid labor, to me, is just an NPC talking point. So, if a woman has her husband go to work

00:07:52and she's raising the children, then this is referred to by feminists as unpaid labor. I don't even know

00:07:59what to say about that because the idea that there's such a thing as unpaid labor. So, if I go around, if I go

00:08:05out to the woods and I start just moving things around, right? I pick up some leaves, I pick up

00:08:10some growth, some old wood, and I just move it around, that's unpaid labor because nobody's going

00:08:15to give me a penny for it. If I'm raising it, if a woman is raising a guy's children and he's paying

00:08:20all the bills, that's not unpaid labor because he's paying the bills. Unpaid labor is when people

00:08:26starve to death with unpaid labor. So, if you're not starving to death, your labor is being paid for

00:08:30by someone. Women do every year, tending to the household, raising children, and caring for ailing

00:08:36parents. Okay. Tending to the household. And it's funny too because do women think that men don't

00:08:43do anything around the house? They don't barbecue. They don't run the tech. They don't deal with the

00:08:50cell phone issues. They don't do the mowing and other things that are going on outside. They don't

00:08:58sort of fix and upgrade and maintain and repair and things like that. I don't know. It's just

00:09:03one-sided. And when it comes to certain sectors of our economy, women are a dominant and indispensable

00:09:10force. Like in the healthcare industry, where they make up nearly 80% of workers, according to the

00:09:15Bureau of Labor Statistics. Okay. So, by that metric, it must be because the people who hire in the

00:09:20healthcare industry just hate men and are sexist against men. But of course, if you're going to talk

00:09:26about women in the healthcare industry, which is great, and women are wonderful nurturers and carers

00:09:29on average, then that would be some explanation as to why women would make less than men. Because

00:09:37women prefer, in general, working with people and men prefer, in general, working with things.

00:09:41And if you work right with things, then you make a lot more money, right? I mean, if you can sell a

00:09:49widget for $100 and you can produce 10,000 of them, you've just made a fortune. But if you're

00:09:53working hourly rate, which is what healthcare tends to be, then you're just going to make

00:09:57less money as a whole. So, is she saying this is a problem? Is she saying there must be

00:10:04institutionalized sexism against men in the healthcare industry because they're only 20%

00:10:10of the workforce or primary school teachers or wherever women tend to dominate?

00:10:14That's 16.4 million women. When it comes to education, in 1960, women earned less than 35%

00:10:21of all bachelor's degrees. Today, they earn roughly 58% of all bachelor's degrees, which

00:10:26Pearl herself benefited from after graduating from Elmhurst University.

00:10:30Okay, so women get more education these days. Is it quality education? Is it something that

00:10:36adds to the economy? Right? You could teach someone how to, you could spend four years teaching

00:10:41people how to use ancient obsolete technology like an abacus or Marxism. And would that add to

00:10:49the economy? Well, these are just numbers. And of course, women also make up the bulk of student

00:10:55debt. Student debt makes things, makes women somewhat unmarriable and also lowers the birth

00:11:02rate. Because if a woman has, say, $100,000 or $150,000 in debt, and a man wants her to stay

00:11:09home to raise his children, which is the only way the culture gets transmitted, then women

00:11:14are unmarriable. Because that way, she also, she comes with like this weird reverse dowry,

00:11:21where in order to marry a woman and have kids, you have to immediately take on $100,000, $150,000,

00:11:28or even, I've heard, you know, I've heard tales up to $400,000 or more. So, if you want to have

00:11:35your wife raise your children, which is, and I mean, of course, both men and women raise children,

00:11:40but in general, it's the women who would stay home. If you want your child to be breastfed for

00:11:44the recommended year and a half of breastfeeding, which is very healthy and good for the children,

00:11:49then you, as a man, have to take on $100,000 or more of debt. It's maybe sometimes less,

00:11:56but then sometimes these interest rates are like 12 and a half percent. It's crazy stuff, right?

00:12:01So, if the women are educated, then they're not raising their children. Where are the children

00:12:07going to go? Well, the children have to go to, I mean, grandparents and so on after the

00:12:10go to daycare and so women go to work in often made up jobs mandated by the government. I've

00:12:16worked in HR. I've seen it. I've seen it up close and then they put their kids in daycare

00:12:23to be raised often by people who, you know, are quite foreign to the culture and this is

00:12:27all counted as added economic activity, but it's not really because a lot of times the

00:12:32women go to work for mandated jobs and they make money, which then gets taxed. You need a

00:12:37second car, you need additional clothing, allowances, lunches out, gas insurance and

00:12:43all of that. And they end up making virtually nothing after they hand the money over to

00:12:46childcare providers like daycare and so on. So, is it really adding a huge amount to the

00:12:53economic growth? It's not obvious to put it mildly.

00:12:57Women also earn over 60% of master's degrees.

00:13:01Ah, so this would be sexism as well, right? So, why are women earning 60% of master's degrees?

00:13:07And of course, the question is in what field, right? If you want to make money,

00:13:09then you get a master's degree or an undergraduate degree in petroleum engineering, right? That's

00:13:15going to be your number one thing. So, what are they getting degrees in? You know, the sort of

00:13:19fabled sociology, political science, undergraduate degrees in psychology that may not lead anywhere

00:13:26because you've got to do a lot of work after that to become a psychologist. Is it really adding a lot

00:13:30of economic value?

00:13:31I hope to hear Pearl explain how a more educated and skilled population somehow translates to cultural

00:13:38decline, especially as we compete with China in this increasingly multipolar world.

00:13:43Yeah, well, but you see, China isn't giving degrees, massive amounts of degrees in relatively

00:13:48economically useless subjects to its citizens. China is trying to have its citizens focus on STEM

00:13:53and things like that, which women don't seem to be particularly drawn to, even though there's a

00:13:58great demand for them in STEM.

00:14:00The modern feminist movement also had a major impact on decreasing domestic violence, and that's

00:14:05according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Rates of intimate partner violence decreased by more

00:14:10than 60% from 1994 to 2010.

00:14:14Listen, and nobody's going to argue with that. That's wonderful. I mean, I may have some questions

00:14:19about the data, but obviously that's a very, very positive thing. One of the big challenges,

00:14:23though, of course, is that when women, a lot of this has to do because women are split with their

00:14:29husbands and so on. And what that means, of course, is that the children are more vulnerable to abuse.

00:14:37So when there's a non-biologically related male in the household, a boyfriend or stepfather and so

00:14:42on, the rates of abuse against children in some categories grow up 30 times. So there's benefits and

00:14:50costs to all of these things, which, of course, is important to point out.

00:14:56And that's thanks to protective order statutes and funding for shelters beginning in the 1970s and 80s.

00:15:02Also, women are choosing violent guys. I mean, let's not kid them. I mean, these are not shotgun weddings.

00:15:08These are not arranged marriages. These are women who have years to date, to become girlfriends, to become

00:15:16fiancées, to get married. So if women choose to marry violent guys, and I know women always say, well, there was

00:15:26no evidence. And I've talked to thousands of people over the course of the last 20 years, and there's always

00:15:29evidence. Always, always evidence. So listen, it's great, fantastic that intimate partner violence

00:15:34numbers are down, for sure. But there is still a responsibility. And the other thing, too, is that

00:15:41half of domestic violence cases are women on men.

00:15:46Not only did the two-income household become more financially resilient, especially during economic

00:15:51downturns, women gained the ability to leave abusive relationships, an outcome correlated with

00:15:57improved child health and educational attainment.

00:16:02Okay. So what she's saying, and I don't know the data for this, so I'm obviously taking her at face

00:16:06value. So what she's saying is that because women leave abusive relationships, that children do better

00:16:12as a result. And I mean, I'm certainly, I'm sure that that's true. If the woman is getting beaten up and

00:16:17things like that, then yes, you'd get out of that relationship, for sure. But

00:16:21you have to balance women who leave relationships, and particularly marriages, not because of abuse,

00:16:31like the number one reason, like most divorces are initiated by women, and the number one reason

00:16:34is dissatisfaction. Just not happy. It's not abuse or anything like that, which then opens up

00:16:40children to being abused by non-biologically related males or others within the household. So

00:16:45it's complicated.

00:16:48A culture that protects people from violence is not one that's indicative of cultural decline.

00:16:53Pearl herself has benefited greatly from the feminist movement, thanks to Title IX in 1972,

00:16:59signed by Nixon, of course. Sex-based discrimination in any school program or activity that receives

00:17:04federal funding is prohibited.

00:17:05And that's interesting, because then wouldn't you say 60% of master's degrees are going to

00:17:11women, therefore there must be misandrist or anti-male prejudice. I mean, I would try and

00:17:17square these two things.

00:17:19Pearl herself had a rather impressive record playing for Elmhurst University's volleyball team.

00:17:25Having earned all-conference honors as a senior, she later pursued professional volleyball in

00:17:31London. She could have stayed in the United States and served in her role as a

00:17:35traditional woman. But she didn't. And she could have been the traditional chaste woman

00:17:43living out her dream of everything women were supposed to do before feminism.

00:17:48Well, of course, I don't know what Pearl is going to say about all of this. The argument

00:17:53from personal hypocrisy is limited in its debate quality, right? So it's sort of like saying,

00:18:00well, I think that roads should be privatized. It's like, well, you came here

00:18:05on government roads. That's so hypocritical that, you know, I mean, if somebody's arguing

00:18:12that slavery should be abolished and they say, oh, the opponent says, I notice you're wearing a cotton

00:18:17shirt picked by slaves, right? So it does not really, it's not really foundational to any kind

00:18:23of argument. There are certain exceptions which have to do more with metaphysics and epistemology.

00:18:30So if somebody says, you don't exist, right, then you can say, well, you're talking to me,

00:18:35so you must assume that I exist. So there is self-contradictive behavior, but people who are

00:18:41struggling to survive in a system have to make compromises with that system. And the other thing,

00:18:47too, is that you learn more things later. You know, people will say, could say to me, well,

00:18:52you know, when you were younger, you were a socialist. And I'm like, well, yeah, when I was

00:18:55even younger, I believed in Santa Claus. But what does that have to do with anything? We grow and

00:18:59we evolve in our thinking. And if somebody's in the Soviet system and they are told, oh, you can't

00:19:10criticize the communist socialist system because that's what raised you, well, then you'd never be

00:19:14able to overcome any of that. But she is neither traditional nor chaste by her own admission.

00:19:19While feminists would have no problem with her personal choices, she has made a career bashing

00:19:24women for theirs.

00:19:26Bashing is just another one of these NPC words. So bashing is just one of these emotional words

00:19:34that, you know, all criticism is bashing and so on. But, you know, maybe maybe Pearl has

00:19:39bashed women. I don't think she's I mean, maybe maybe in her volleyball career and she's tall.

00:19:44Critics often argue that modern feminism has weakened families and resulted in a lower birth

00:19:51rate. They tend to dismiss empirical evidence demonstrating the insidious impact of the internet,

00:19:56social media on modern relationships. They also brush economic instability under the rug,

00:20:01despite young people citing their personal finances as the main reason why they're holding

00:20:06off on marriage.

00:20:07All right. So that's interesting, right? And I would point out this contradiction if I were

00:20:11having a convivial chat with Mrs. Kasparin. No, Mrs. Kasparin. I think she's married.

00:20:15I think her husband was a bartender. No, before that, he was a professional baseball player.

00:20:19Anyway, so what I would point out is if you're going to say that the entrance of women has boosted

00:20:26the economy enormously and everybody is so wealthy as a result, then how can it be that birth rates are

00:20:32down because people are broke? I mean, honestly, you can't have it both ways. You can't say that

00:20:36women are producing massive value to the economy and also people can't have kids because everyone's

00:20:41broke. That doesn't make sense.

00:20:44The first place. In lieu of discussing those factors, Pearl spends much of her time discouraging

00:20:48men from getting married in the first place. During her debate with Trent Horn, she declared

00:20:53that men are better off shacking up without ever getting married.

00:20:57Well, again, I'm not an expert on what Pearl says, but I would assume that she's telling men not

00:21:04to avoid marriage, but to not put themselves at the risk of divorce, which is a whole different

00:21:08thing.

00:21:09Her reasoning? Women are too fat and STD infected.

00:21:1425%, that's a law.

00:21:16You did say that.

00:21:17She did.

00:21:17Okay, so are women weighing more? Yes, women now weigh more than the average man from a couple

00:21:23decades ago. So yes, women are definitely not all. I mean, Asian women, not so much. Black

00:21:28women a little bit more. So women are becoming overweight, which is negative for fertility and

00:21:36sexual attraction and so on, and personal hygiene and health and joints and so on. But as far as

00:21:45STD goes, Pearl just said 25%, that's a lot. So I think Pearl is saying, and I'm sure she'll get into

00:21:53this in more detail, that 25% of women have STDs. And I assume that that's what herpes or things that

00:21:59are more permanent rather than something you can deal with, with antibiotics.

00:22:03Stop to think about how they contracted the STDs in the first place. Data from the National Library

00:22:09of Medicine show that modern men are just as promiscuous as modern women. Men and women are

00:22:14in bad shape. And in the United States, we can discuss why, but feminism is not the reason.

00:22:19There you go. All right. So men have not evolved to say no to sex. Okay. There were times where

00:22:2910 or 20 women reproduce for every man. There are times often, this is one of the reasons why the West

00:22:35advanced because of monogamy, but there were times when the majority of men didn't reproduce.

00:22:41So if a man has access to voluntary sex, men are just not programmed to say no. And you can get mad

00:22:47about this just evolution, right? I mean, there've been these studies where some attractive opposite

00:22:52sex person comes into a bar, offers sex to the man. A lot of them say yes. An attractive man offers

00:22:57sex to the woman. None of them say yes. So it's just, there's a hardwired, I'm not saying people

00:23:02don't have free will and responsibility. They do, but this is just kind of hardwiring.

00:23:06Thank you. Nice job. Okay. Pearl, we got five minutes. You're going to be on the clock and let's go.

00:23:13Most debaters and commentators are elitists who tell average Americans from their ivory towers

00:23:19what to think and how to feel. My answer to this question not only comes from covering current

00:23:23events and researching the facts, data, and statistics, but also in my professional experience

00:23:28interviewing over a thousand people in America and Western nations. Feminism has given women power

00:23:33and power corrupts. And that's what's happening. Feminism is robbing men of their disposable income

00:23:39and their prime earning years. Well, and this is the argument again, I'm not sure if she's going

00:23:43to cite the data, maybe she will, but this is the argument that women take vastly more out of the

00:23:49system than they pay in taxes and men pay vastly more into the system than they receive in benefits.

00:23:55So, uh, that the government exists as a giant machine to transfer money from men to women and

00:24:02women tend to be in more debt and therefore the national debt has exploded with the votes of women

00:24:07and so on and these kinds of things. Feminism has empowered women. It has empowered women to be

00:24:13sexually promiscuous. Feminists say that they fought for women to not subject themselves to the

00:24:18approval of men. I think in general, and this is sort of, it would be a suggestion that you just have

00:24:26to get your speech down and you have to have eye contact with the audience and you have to be

00:24:31firm and confident. You got to, I rehearse opening statements like 20, 30, 40 times so that

00:24:37it's grooved into my brain. One of the reasons being that, uh, everyone's kind of nervous or

00:24:42excited or pumped up in these situations, which can make your handshake. If you're holding a paper,

00:24:47I know these little things, but the whole, it's a whole communications thing. So I would not,

00:24:51uh, read, uh, I would, uh, memorize, uh, I prefer to pace and talk, but I guess they've got fixed

00:24:58microphones here, which will be the situation when I go out March 28th. But I would say not to read,

00:25:05but simply to, uh, memorize. Listen, I mean, actors can memorize Hamlet, which is like four

00:25:10plus hours of iambic pentameter. And so you can memorize five minutes. Why then are five to 10%

00:25:18of women between the ages of 18 to 25 on only fans or other prostitution websites? Yeah, that's

00:25:24obviously pretty catastrophic. And these were the kind of numbers, like I could not believe,

00:25:28but they appear to hold up five to 10% of young women are on only fans. There are more online

00:25:33prostitutes in America than female Walmart employees. One of three women will catch an

00:25:39STD at some point in their lifetime. 90% will catch HPV, which is incurable. Feminism has empowered

00:25:45women to abort an eighth of the world population and a third of Gen Z. Feminists have been so

00:25:50empowered to commit paternity fraud. Paternity fraud is unpunished in any state in the USA or any

00:25:55country in the West. Yeah. And that's really one of the most horrifying crimes that can be committed

00:26:00against a man in many ways. Done correctly, a man will have to pay for a child. He was fooled

00:26:05into believing was his until that child reaches maturity. In some states, that man will also have

00:26:11to pay for that kid's college. That is slavery and is forbidden under the 13th Amendment. One-third

00:26:16of paternity tests are negative by the American Association of Blood Banks. All right. And I know

00:26:22that she knows this, and it's just a point of clarification. It's not that one-third of

00:26:26children are not their father's children or their claimed father's children. It's that when the man

00:26:32has suspicions, a third of the time, he's born out because you get these paternity tests because you

00:26:37have suspicions. So it's a much smaller number. Feminism has empowered women to rob men. Rob men of

00:26:43their time, their resources, their reputation, their children, and in the most extreme cases, their lives.

00:26:48Um, they do this through child support, alimony, false allegations, and paternity fraud. How many

00:26:56people in this arena have a brother, a father, an uncle, or a friend who has gone through this meat

00:27:02grinder? And that's interesting. I guess these are opening statements, not rebuttals and so on. I'm

00:27:11generally tempted to, I would just throw aside my opening statement and work on the rebuttals

00:27:15as a whole, but I guess that's not the format. Anna has been on the air for 15 years and is

00:27:20completely oblivious to these issues. It's a silent genocide of the lives of millions of men.

00:27:27Now, the other thing too, uh, it's funny because when I was in the acting world, I was always told

00:27:34like, yeah, people, most people are looking at the person who's talking, but some people are looking at

00:27:38you. And when you're talking about, you know, the carnage against men through the legal system,

00:27:43when you're talking about a third of Gen Z being aborted, when you're talking about massive rates

00:27:48of STDs and paternity fraud and so on, you can't be smiling, right? You, because that looks very

00:27:54strange. Let's go back. See, there's a little smirk or a smile. Uh, honestly, uh, you, you can't,

00:28:01you can't be doing that because it looks like you don't think it matters any of these issues and

00:28:07they do matter. Yeah. Certainly things that are violent towards women matter. Things that are

00:28:12violent towards men matter. And you have to find agreement on that, right?

00:28:16Sidelines of the arena. I have 33 year combat veteran, Terrence pop. He served through three

00:28:21wars and was almost killed in two. He got married, had two children and served in the United States

00:28:27army. Terrence pop was deployed to Iraq in 2004. And as a member of the airborne infantry,

00:28:32he was wounded by a roadside bomb and suffered a TBI and a stroke from the blast. He was evacuated

00:28:37out of the country and it took over two years until he had recovered. While he was recovering,

00:28:40his wife was plotting to divorce him. His wife murdered his six-year-old chocolate lab out of

00:28:45spite because he filed for divorce first. When he confronted her, the response he got was,

00:28:49I told you, I did not want you living here.

00:28:53And, uh, I think I met Terrence pop, uh, many years ago at a men's rights conference

00:28:57that I gave a speech at. In the States, uh, what did he refer to himself? A gun,

00:29:02a warfighter, a gunslinger, something like that. Uh, and, uh, I don't know much about the story.

00:29:10Individual anecdotes tend to be a challenge unless you're tying them into a general principle.

00:29:19At this point, he was forced to leave the marital home and live out of his car.

00:29:21The divorce took away his home, his children, and left him penniless and saddled with a child

00:29:26support payment. He could not afford. Terrence had to pay $144,000 over a 12-year period for a

00:29:32divorce that his wife was empowered by feminists to plan and execute. Terrence went into court to

00:29:36fight for 50-50 custody. Terrence was called a murderer and an assassin in open court and was

00:29:41given 96 hours a month with his children. 96 hours a month is not a father. While homeless,

00:29:47he spoke to many other men who would never get off the streets due to child support arrearages and

00:29:51penalties and the men constantly getting arrested for unpaid child support.

00:29:54Now, I mean, look, it's a, it's a tough situation. Children need a lot of resources.

00:30:00And if there is a split up for whatever reason, right? Whether it's gestured, I don't know this

00:30:06guy's story, but children do need a lot of resources. And this is one of the reasons why

00:30:11couples were intended to stay together and so on. The ease of divorce has also, I mean, this is all the,

00:30:18the, um, public choice theory, right? So we say violence rates went down because women could get

00:30:26out of abusive marriages. That's very true. I assume it's true. Or I accept that what Anna is

00:30:31saying is true. However, there's a flip side to that, which is if it's easier to divorce,

00:30:38women will take on more risky marriages with more risky guys, right? So women want a guy in general who,

00:30:45you know, high status makes a lot of money, tough and, and, uh, aggressive because that's what's

00:30:50needed to make a lot of money usually. So they want, you know, the higher testosterone. Sometimes

00:30:54that will come with the side effect of aggression within the home, right? So because women

00:31:00don't have to get married young, or there's no particular incentive to get married young,

00:31:06then because they can get out of marriages with a lot of money, they will be less careful or

00:31:12particular about the marriages they get into. And when couples split up, let's say the two or three

00:31:17kids, those kids need a lot of resources. Where are those resources going to come from?

00:31:22Usually it comes from the father and where are those resources going to come from? And of course,

00:31:27Terrence, uh, you know, married a woman who, if she's as nasty as, as, uh, Pearl is talking about,

00:31:33then he made that choice too.

00:31:35Yeah. The disparage of losing his children and his home and his PTSD and constant pain from his

00:31:39wounds, he became suicidal. Well, at his post in 2008, a former commander of his came to see him

00:31:44to secretly say his last goodbyes. The next day, Mr. Pop's former commander put on his dress blues

00:31:49and went to the Holy National Veteran Cemetery and Blues Brains Out. Terrence Pop was notified of

00:31:54the death and was shocked because he was planning to commit suicide in the exact same manner.

00:31:57So in effect, his former commander took the bullet that was meant for him. Terrence Pop decided he would

00:32:02not kill himself and has spent the last 20 years saving 576 men from suicide with comedy.

00:32:09If you look to the left of this, he was actually kind of funny. I don't know if his channel is

00:32:13still on YouTube, but he could have some pretty funny videos.

00:32:15Stage, Terrence is holding the dog tags for every live that he has saved.

00:32:19Now, why am I telling you this? Shout out to Terrence. Yeah.

00:32:23Now, why am I telling you this? Because men and American veterans are put in this position

00:32:27because of the empowerment that feminists like Anna have pushed for.

00:32:30Now, empowerment is an interesting word. And again, because I'm a guy who studied politics

00:32:35for 40 years, I would talk about the violations of the non-aggression principle that feminists

00:32:40have clamored for and approved by the state. There are millions of men that have died in

00:32:45this country from the political power that feminism pushes since... Okay, that's good. Yeah,

00:32:48that's a good definition. It's not just feminism. It's not just the idea. It's the political

00:32:53power that it pushes for. 1970, an estimated 1.6 million men have committed suicide.

00:32:58Time. It's not good. If feminists cared about equality, why aren't they fighting for equality

00:33:03and divorce in family court as hard as they are fighting for abortion, working, or becoming

00:33:07sex workers? Thank you.

00:33:11Not bad. I personally, I mean, it's interesting because the question of humanizing the debate

00:33:16is really important. Having Terrence there is important, but I would start with definitions

00:33:24of terms. So nobody has even defined what feminism is at the point, right? So what is feminism?

00:33:32Is feminism equality? Well, no, because they said 60% of the master's degrees are going to women

00:33:38and so on, right? And 80% of the healthcare workers are women. So it's not equality. So

00:33:43what is feminism? And so if I were debating Mrs. Kasparian, then I would say, talking about

00:33:53numbers is almost like bribery, and there's no definition. What is feminism? And then I would

00:34:00put forward my definition that modern feminism is female supremacy through political power,

00:34:07because there's no cap, there's no limit to how much more and more and more women want. And so

00:34:13it is female supremacy through political power. It's not equality, because women had equality before

00:34:17the law in many circumstances and instances and so on. But it's female supremacy through coercion,

00:34:23through violence, through political power. And that's terrible. That would be as terrible

00:34:27as white supremacy or black supremacy through political power. I mean, and so yeah, that would

00:34:32be my definition. And I would then make the strenuous case for that. And then she would have

00:34:38to, I mean, she would either address that definition and prove that it's wrong, in which

00:34:41case I would make the case for it, or she wouldn't address that definition, in which case I would

00:34:44point out that a debate without definitions is just two people talking past each other based upon

00:34:49prior prejudices. So we need to come up with a definition that we can agree on that has evidence

00:34:55behind it. Okay. This is going to be a heavy one. We're going to go now to the opening

00:35:03interrogations. We have 10 minutes. Do we have that on the clock? Okay. I'll do this opening

00:35:07interrogations. Okay. 10 minutes. I think there's two very, very, whoever wants to be. They're very

00:35:13intelligent, accomplished women. And it's very interesting to see this back and forth.

00:35:16Aside from the specific anecdote that you shared, which of course is tragic, can you cite some

00:35:23actual studies that look at the statistics and back up what you say in regard to the outcomes

00:35:29of marriage and divorce in America? An excellent point from Anna that anecdotes are powerful and

00:35:37emotional, but we are trying to talk about a broad social movement that is in fact in throughout

00:35:43all of the, um, developed world and so on. So that's a perfectly great point.

00:35:4941% of 109 rape cases reported to police in a Midwestern city were admitted to be false by

00:35:55complaint. In one Midwestern city? And which Midwestern city was that?

00:35:59You know, you can go from your ivory tower. I'm not in an ivory tower.

00:36:03Okay. So she asks for data and then she says, oh, it's just, it's not enough data.

00:36:09Right. So, uh, I would point out that if you ask for data and I provide data saying you're

00:36:16dissatisfied with data is sort of pointless because then I would ask, okay, what, which

00:36:23city would satisfy you? Which chunk of data would you consider acceptable? And then you

00:36:29would find, I think that it would be some impossible task or whatever. Right. So if somebody

00:36:33says, uh, that's an, that's a sad anecdote. Uh, I sympathize with Terrence, give me some

00:36:38data and then Pearl brings forward some data and it's immediately rebutted. Then I would

00:36:43just say, well, don't ask for data. If you then reject the data, that's pointless.

00:36:47All right. I'm on this debate stage interrogating your assertions and you've only provided an

00:36:52anecdote. Uh, no, because now she's provided data, which has been rejected.

00:36:56Right. Because if you look at the data, which I did, of course, you'll find that women are

00:37:01twice as likely to fall into poverty after divorce. Right. Because alimony is paid out

00:37:06in 10% of divorces. I'm sorry. I didn't quite get that. Alimony is paid out in 10 fall into

00:37:13poverty after times that women are twice as likely to fall into poverty after divorce.

00:37:19Right. Okay. So women are twice as likely to fall into poverty after divorce. Uh, I would

00:37:25also, of course, ask what percentage of women that is, uh, because if it's only 2%, it's different

00:37:30than if it's 40%. And Pearl says, because they can't stop spending. I don't know if that's

00:37:35true or not. Alimony is paid out in 10% of divorces. Okay. Alimony is paid out in 10% of

00:37:42divorces. And that could be the result of feminism because there is, um, more, more equality in

00:37:49pay. According to the census bureau, the average child support payment is $441 a month and only

00:37:5760% of those payments get paid out. Only 60% of those payments get paid out. Women do not get

00:38:06child custody 90% of the time, as you have asserted before. In fact, 95% of custody cases

00:38:13are mutually agreed upon outside of the courtroom. Women get...

00:38:18Well, no, but that's a different, right? So where it's adjudicated by the courts,

00:38:21then women get a much higher percentage. And it's interesting. And Anne has obviously done

00:38:27her research and it's great data. So she's saying that 95% of these cases are adjudicated

00:38:32outside the courtroom. Mutually agreed upon outside of the courtroom. Women get full custody 40% of the

00:38:39time. Men do get full custody 20% of the time. And 40% of the time it's shared custody, which I think

00:38:45is the ideal situation, assuming that neither spouse is abusive.

00:38:49Anne, uh, Pearl, excuse me, before you respond, if you could, um, take your microphone out and

00:38:54hold it, it would be easier to hear you. Okay.

00:38:56Yeah. Cause she's so tall.

00:39:02Right. So this going back and forth on the statistics, which, you know, the statistics are

00:39:10important, the facts are important, but I will say this in general, the way that I approach debates

00:39:15and look, obviously not the final say, it's just my particular preference, but the way that I

00:39:20approach debates is to look for self-contradictions, not to trade numbers. Numbers are highly suspect.

00:39:25I mean, boy, we've heard, seen that we saw this under COVID. We've seen this with global warming.

00:39:30We've seen this with a bunch of stuff, right? So numbers are highly suspect, but I think it's

00:39:34really important to work on definitions, uh, and not knowing what feminism is and then trying to

00:39:39figure out, well, what's the minutiae of a division between males and females in divorces

00:39:45and so on. Uh, none of that is going to convince anyone, right? So you have to find ways in a debate

00:39:51to change the minds of people who don't agree with you. Now, of course it's like in politics,

00:39:55right? You don't go for the people who will never agree with you. There's less need to go for the

00:39:59people who already agree with you. And you try and go for those people in the middle. And those people

00:40:04in the middle aren't going to be convinced based upon trading data back and forth. And of course,

00:40:12it's also interesting. And I would note this, uh, I'm not sure I would respond to this as an opponent,

00:40:18but it's interesting that Anna asked Pearl for data and then started immediately questioning the

00:40:25data. And then Anna is putting data with no context. So it would be, it might seem sort of like

00:40:31a bit petty to go back, but that's just something that, that it's important to know that she says,

00:40:35where's the data? Oh, I don't agree. I don't like that data or you don't have enough source on that

00:40:39data. But now Anna is putting out a lot of data and not sort of saying where it's coming from or

00:40:45anything like that. So, so Pearl has to say where it's coming from, but Anna doesn't.

00:40:50Alimony and medical care and dental are not covered by that. So a lot of times it does go above 50%.

00:40:55Again, you can go through the facts, the data, and the statistics and manipulate them any way that you want.

00:41:01Ah, see now that's, that's challenging, right? So I generally try not to put negative

00:41:10statements or kind of insults. Like she, I'm not sure if she's saying that Anna's manipulating the

00:41:15data, but maybe the data is manipulated, but you can't say that something is manipulated without

00:41:19providing proof and evidence. Otherwise it's just an ad hominem. And I, I do try to avoid, I'm not always

00:41:24perfect, obviously far from it, but I do try and avoid making those kinds of negative statements

00:41:28without proof. It's not manipulation. There are 1.6 million, there are 1.6 million men in this country.

00:41:34Men are nine times more likely to commit suicide. There are 1.6 million men in this country. I think

00:41:39she's referring to the suicide statistics, but you don't want to blow past that kind of stuff.

00:41:43And as the moderator, I would say, sorry, you just said the 1.6 million men. What are you referring

00:41:46to? Just to make sure that's clear. It's your divorce. Compared to women. What's the number for

00:41:49women? It's lower. Really? What is it? Comparative analysis is real difficult for you,

00:41:55isn't it? Okay. Yeah. I kind of snarky. And I think it is important if you're going to cite

00:42:01numbers, right? And this is particularly true with AI, right? So if you're going to cite numbers,

00:42:07so if I'm going to say 1.6 million men have killed themselves, I think that's the number that's referred

00:42:11to, then what I would do is I would either research or go into AI and say, a steel man

00:42:19made an argument against this, right? And, or what is the number for women or something like that,

00:42:24right? So these days with AI in particular, you can run through these debates. You can take your

00:42:30points and you can say, steel man made the argument against this. Steel man, straw man is making it too

00:42:34simple and easy to knock over. A steel man is the strongest case against what it is that you say

00:42:39and have everything on hand to overcome the objections. Uh, also what I do when I am going

00:42:46to go into a debate is, uh, I will have a live stream with donors and I will say, here's my

00:42:52arguments. Where are the flaws? Where's the pushback? Here's my, here's where I think the counter

00:42:56arguments might come from. What do you guys think? What have you seen? Uh, I'll have mock debates,

00:43:00uh, with people just so that I, if I'm bringing up data, I know it from 360 degrees. Now I could

00:43:09say, well, just, I over prepare. I don't think you can ever prepare for debates as a whole, but

00:43:13anyway. Go ahead, Pearl. What's your next question? You have asserted that men shouldn't

00:43:20get married, that instead they should shack up. I didn't say that. You did say that with

00:43:23Trent Horn, word for word. You said it makes more sense for them to shack up, live with a

00:43:28girlfriend instead of getting married. Do you think the advice that you give to men is the type of

00:43:33advice that will fulfill their lives? Because I'll tell you one thing, the best part of my life

00:43:37is my husband. I love my husband. He's my rock. He's my foundation. And, and no, my husband is

00:43:44number one. I love my career. Wait, what did someone say there? And, and no, he's my rock.

00:43:50After your career. He's my foundation. And, and no, my husband is number one. I love my career. But

00:43:56you know what my career did? When I met my husband, my career was already established. He, on the other

00:44:00hand, was couch surfing. He was in debt and didn't know what he wanted to do with his life.

00:44:04Ooh. Oh, gosh. Oh, boy.

00:44:16I don't know, man. I don't know that you're going to get a bunch of points by putting down

00:44:22your husband. Because then you have to say, well, why were you attracted to him? Why did

00:44:27you want to marry him if he was couch surfing? What did she say?

00:44:30Was couch surfing. My career was already established. He, on the other hand, was couch

00:44:35surfing. He was in debt and didn't know what he wanted to do with his life.

00:44:39Ooh. Again, I mean, I don't know, man. I, I, I can't imagine. I mean, I don't really have

00:44:45any criticisms of my wife at all, right? We just, yesterday, we just did our 23rd wedding

00:44:49anniversary. And we've known each other for 24 years, coming up on a quarter century. I mean,

00:44:55I, I talk about her on the show and sometimes humorously, but I can't imagine saying, oh,

00:45:03yeah, she was a loser when I met her. Because how, how, I don't know.

00:45:07Married him anyway. You want to know why? Because I had the economic freedom to marry for love,

00:45:11not for some Chad to take care of me. How tall is he? Oh, he's 6'1", about your height.

00:45:17None. I don't want kids. I don't. Right. Right. I, I don't know anything about Anna Kasperian's

00:45:27husband, about the fact that she doesn't want kids. And I assume she's saying, I had the economic

00:45:35freedom to marry for love. So is he living off her income? I think he became a coach at a high

00:45:42school. There's no two shouting questions from there, please. Allow these two to debate each other.

00:45:46Okay. What's your question? I mean, you don't really have much to answer. So I don't know what

00:45:52else to ask you. Do you think you're helping men by discouraging them from entering fulfilling

00:45:55marriages? What happens to men if they don't pay child support? I mean, what happens? What happens,

00:46:02Anna? How many men do you think get arrested? I don't know what the number is, but the idea that

00:46:07there's like a huge number of men getting arrested for not. Okay. So this is tough, right?

00:46:11If you are, especially when you're in front of a big audience and there was 74,000 views

00:46:16of the live stream. So you have to answer questions that go against your perspective

00:46:24in a debate. Otherwise you just look avoidant and defensive. You look kind of political.

00:46:30So what happens to men who don't pay child support? They get arrested.

00:46:33You got to own that because they do. Right. And you also, you, you can't, uh, discharge

00:46:39it. Uh, you, you, you have to pay and child support can accumulate when you're in jail and

00:46:44then you get out of jail. It's tough to get a job because you were in jail and you got

00:46:47to pay more. You could go back to jail. Um, so that, that is now you can say, I don't

00:46:52agree with that. Right. But you have to acknowledge it or what it is doing what they're supposed

00:46:57to do. There's like a huge number of men getting arrested for not doing what they're supposed

00:47:02to do and take care of their children. It's not a huge issue. What happens to men when

00:47:07they don't really 60, only 60% of child support payments get paid out. You got a lot of her

00:47:11to interrogate. You got to stop yelling questions at her. You can minimize men's problems all

00:47:16you want, but I don't think you understand how privileged of a position you're in. In what

00:47:20way? How am I privileged? Men are the ones that are on the hook for child support. Men are

00:47:24the ones that are on the hook for alimony. It's easy for you to tell 10, tell men to just

00:47:28take the risk when you're not in that position. So are you asserting that men shouldn't pay

00:47:31child support following a divorce? Do you believe that women should be financially responsible

00:47:36100% after a divorce? Feminists wanted to be equal. So I say be equal. If you guys want

00:47:40equality, 50, 50 custody, no child support, no alimony, no special privileges. Alimony is paid

00:47:46out in 10% of divorces. It doesn't matter if you're part of the 10%. It does matter. It

00:47:49does matter because you make it seem like it's a widespread issue when it's only 10%. Well, again,

00:47:54that's a problem, right? So if you're going to say, well, it's only 10%, therefore it's

00:47:57not an issue. That's not ideal, right? That would be like saying, well, only 10% of women

00:48:04get beaten up in relationships, therefore it's not an issue. And it's like, no, that is an

00:48:07issue.

00:48:08Doctrine is a sexist law against men. That's sexist.

00:48:11How is it sexist?

00:48:12Well, so the question is, of course, and this is the whole issue with at fault divorce. If a woman

00:48:21decides, let's take a sort of an example, right? So a woman has stayed home with a husband. He works

00:48:29and there's no abuse and he pays the bills and so on. Let's just take an extreme example. Let's say

00:48:35she ends up, uh, falling for the pool boy. She has an affair with him and, and leaves the husband,

00:48:41right? Should he pay any alimony? Because it used to be at fault, right? Which is, uh, if he beats

00:48:50her up, then yes, he owes her money because she's got to flee for her physical safety, right? Uh, if he

00:48:55cheats and she finds out, uh, let's say he has a kid by another woman, uh, that's at fault then,

00:48:59right? But if the woman leaves the relationship and there's no abuse because she fell prey to lust

00:49:08or boredom or the number one reason is, is dissatisfaction, should she get alimony? Well,

00:49:14no, of course not. Of course not. If I have a job and I am unjustly fired, then I can sue for back

00:49:23pay or whatever it is, unjust termination or whatever, they break the contract. But if I quit my job,

00:49:27I don't continue to get a paycheck. And if a wife quits her job or a husband quits his job

00:49:32at being married, then of course you don't get, you don't get paid. So the idea that there should

00:49:38be alimony, if there's, if the man is not a fault, uh, is to me kind of incomprehensible. Child

00:49:44support's a different matter, but that is a reality. Decided to be a stay-at-home mother and the marriage

00:49:50doesn't work out. She has no job. She has no income. So you think it's unfair to get support from her

00:49:56ex-husband so she can raise the kids? So she can pay. 60% of kids under five have daycare. Daycare

00:50:02is an option now. You want it to be men. Do you know how much daycare costs? You want it to be men.

00:50:06Do you know how much daycare costs? Do you think it's free? Let her answer. A lot of things are

00:50:10expensive, Anna. I mean, it's men. That's not an answer. Women have 85% of consumer spending. Women

00:50:15spend money all the time. You spend money on hair dye. You spend money on Botox. You spend money.

00:50:19You should think about it. Oh, that's not good. In my humble opinion.

00:50:26I sure am.

00:50:31You spend money all of the time. So you want it to be men. Here it is. You're equal. Pay for daycare.

00:50:39Equality means that when you have a child or children, you're both responsible.

00:50:44You're both responsible. Yeah, that's fair. The idea that the woman should take 100%

00:50:48of the costs on herself without any help from her husband or ex-husband is ridiculous.

00:50:55Well, of course, it depends if she leaves voluntarily without a situation of abuse. Now,

00:51:01again, I know people would make up abuse and things like that. But if the woman is just

00:51:04dissatisfied with the marriage, she's not happy. The guy's not abusive. He's working hard. He's paying

00:51:08the bills and so on. And she's just dissatisfied. Then she's quit her job. And how do you continue

00:51:14to get paid if you've quit your job? Say, ah, yes, but then women are trapped and blah, blah, blah.

00:51:19Well, okay. But if the man's got, you know, he's got to make $10,000 or $5,000 a month, then he's

00:51:24quote, trapped in having to work too. So, I mean, it's hard to say that people get trapped by their

00:51:29prior choices. You know, if you chose to marry the guy and you chose to have children, you chose to be a

00:51:33stay-at-home mother, then yeah, there may be times when you want to leave and you say, well,

00:51:37it's not really practical. I don't have any money and so on. And yeah, so you will have to stay and

00:51:41you will have to work it out in the same way that the guy wakes up with a migraine. He's got to go

00:51:44to work because he's got to pay the bills. And, you know, there's just times you have to do things

00:51:48that you don't want to do. And if the woman says, look, there's no abuse. I just, I'm not enjoying

00:51:52the marriage. And, you know, I mean, have they gone through marriage counseling? Have they done

00:51:57everything they can to make things improve? Have they tried to figure out, has she tried to figure out

00:52:01how to improve things? A lot of people will quit just because they're bored. A lot of people leave

00:52:05relationships because as women say, they're dissatisfied. So if you quit your job because

00:52:11you just want to go do something else, why is your boss still obligated to pay you, so to speak?

00:52:16And again, this is true. If the woman is making the money and the man is staying home and the man

00:52:22decides to leave the woman because he's dissatisfied or bored or, you know, thinks the grass is greener

00:52:27somewhere else, he shouldn't get paid either. Again, the kid's a different matter, but yeah.

00:52:32Was that fair? Well, how is it fair that he doesn't get 50-50 custody?

00:52:36Well, he, first of all, why are you asserting that they don't? It's 50% his DNA. Why can't

00:52:42he have 50% custody? Where has feminists been? Let me answer your question, even though I should

00:52:46be interrogating you. I'll answer your question. Massive study out of Massachusetts that looked at

00:52:5124,000 divorces. In those 25 divorces, they found that in only 8% of cases did men ask for custody.

00:52:598%. Right, because the average American can't afford divorce fees, Anna.

00:53:03But women can afford to raise the children by themselves without support from the ex-husband.

00:53:08Well, so they're conflating alimony and child support. Of course, if you have children, you know,

00:53:15adult children, you know, 22, it's like a quarter century it takes sometimes for people to become

00:53:20economically independent. So child support is a different matter from alimony. And so Anna's point,

00:53:27which I understand and appreciate, is that if the woman forgoes income in order to raise the man's

00:53:31children, then if the marriage doesn't work out, and that's a very abstract phrase, right? But if

00:53:38the marriage doesn't work out, then she needs to have some support to raise those children. And then,

00:53:45of course, you'd say, well, why is it that marriage has worked out so well in the past,

00:53:49so to speak, right? And most people who are considering divorce, who end up not getting divorced,

00:53:54end up happier that they didn't get divorced, right? So why is it that in the past, 80% of

00:54:01blacks in America were married? And now, almost the same number of children are born outside of

00:54:08wedlock, and only one out of four American black women will get married in her lifetime.

00:54:14Is it because they were all so abusive in the past? Something has changed with regards to the

00:54:18incentives. If you go from 80% marriage to 77% illegitimacy for children being born outside of

00:54:27wedlock, that's not just because all of those marriages were abusive and the women are finally

00:54:31free. There's something that has changed in terms of incentives that is very serious to society,

00:54:35and that would be my case, right? Yes, there are bad marriages, and people should get out of them.

00:54:40But when marriage laws change, people stick it out. Most people who stick it out end up being happy

00:54:47that they did. So we're also incentivizing breaking up the family, which puts children at risk,

00:54:51and is bad for the environment, and is bad for stability, and is bad for depression and anxiety,

00:54:56and is bad for the economy. Say, oh, well, women have contributed so much to the economy,

00:55:00but if women are initiating most of the divorces, then housing demand goes through the roof,

00:55:04because you need two houses, you need more cars, you need more duplicates of all these toys,

00:55:09you need double insurance, you need everything, right?

00:55:11So my point would be to say to Anna, do you think it's possible? Is it possible that incentives

00:55:21have skewed women to be paid to divorce, to separate, to not stay and work things out? Is

00:55:28it possible? Now, if she says it's not possible, then I would say, well, you don't know that,

00:55:32you can't know that. And what you're saying is that people don't respond to incentives. That

00:55:36basic foundational law of economics is that people respond to incentives. That's why when there's a

00:55:41sale, people go buy things, right? So you have to make the case that people respond to incentives,

00:55:48and is it possible that the incentives in divorce have raised the divorce rate to the detriment of

00:55:54family stability, and some women get divorced for reasons that are bad, and some men get divorced for

00:55:59reasons that are bad because of these perverse incentives that you get more money. Like, you know,

00:56:03when you change the law, then divorces go down. So you're trying to figure out if people are

00:56:10responding to facts and evidence, and also if they're open to changing people's minds. The crack

00:56:17about that Perl should do Botox is, I don't know, I mean, incomprehensible to me. That would be like a

00:56:25guy, I don't even know what that would be, like a guy making fun of me because I'm bored? Like, anyway.

00:56:30So that is a, I don't really follow the point of that, and I think it's negative points. But you

00:56:38want to know, like, are people just holding on to a position? Like, everything, and I'd also say,

00:56:44is everything that feminism has done good, or have there been any negative aspects to feminism? Has it

00:56:49ever gone too far? Why do you think the national debt is so high? Why are the unfunded liabilities so

00:56:53high? Why has social spending and the national debt exploded since women got the vote? Are there any

00:56:58negatives at all to feminism? And if the person says no, there are no negative aspects to feminism,

00:57:09it's never gone too far, it's perfect, well, that's just a cult. And again, I'm not saying

00:57:13Anna would say that, but that would be an important question to ask, if the person is going to defend

00:57:17no matter what, or if they themselves have criticisms that you can both agree on, right?

00:57:23How does that make sense?

00:57:24What did you say? I didn't hear you. We were both talking.

00:57:26You're complaining about the costs, while simultaneously arguing that a woman should

00:57:31not get child support in order to raise the children that the former couple had together.

00:57:37Are you guys equal or not?

00:57:39Yes, equality means that you're both responsible for raising the children, and that includes the

00:57:43cost of raising the children.

00:57:44So you should have equality, but not at the expense of men. 50-50 custody, 50-50,

00:57:48no child support, no alimony. That's equality.

00:57:54Alimony makes sense if the woman was a stay-at-home mother and doesn't have a source of

00:57:57income. How else would she take care of the kids following a divorce?

00:58:00By getting a job just like the men.

00:58:04Now, I understand all of that, for sure. And one of the things that the courts have done

00:58:09is they have had as a standard in many places that the child must continue in the lifestyle

00:58:16to which he's been accustomed, right? So if you have a family, the man brings home $150,000

00:58:22a year, and the woman's being a stay-at-home mom, she'd be lucky to get a job making 40 or 50K,

00:58:27which means that the children are going to be happier with the wealthier father than with

00:58:33the poorer mother. And she has given up skills and experience and all this kind of stuff.

00:58:38And if the children are very young, she is going to have to stay home. Like somebody does have to

00:58:42take care of the children. She can't just go and get a job, right? So if she had kids young in her

00:58:48early 20s, and they were married for 10 years, she's 32, maybe the kids are still, she's got three

00:58:53kids. One of them is still, let's say, under four, under three, then who is going to take care of the

00:59:00kids? And those are very real questions. Anna is, to me, completely right to raise those questions.

00:59:06How these are solved is a big challenge. I mean, obviously, the free market and contract law

00:59:10should be handling this, not the government. But one of the reasons that women do leave is

00:59:18because they get well paid to do so. And, you know, I would say, Anna, you said that women are

00:59:24in the workforce. Women are in the workforce because they get paid, because incentives matter. They

00:59:27wouldn't go and do it for free. And if women are getting paid to divorce, then they're more likely

00:59:32to divorce. And that's at the expense of the children. So you're saying that a woman who

00:59:38doesn't have recent job history is just going to willy-nilly enter the job force and, or workforce,

00:59:43I should say, and easily get hired. Do you guys care about this? So do you care about the children

00:59:47or not? Because you're making this about like the, oh, the poor husband, the poor ex-husband,

00:59:52doesn't want to be making this about like the, oh, the poor husband, the poor ex-husband,

00:59:56who doesn't want to pay the child support, doesn't want, you know, to take on any of the

01:00:01responsibilities of having children in the first place. Why is it that you seem to have a problem

01:00:05with men carrying out their responsibilities? Men are dying to care about their responsibilities.

01:00:12Men are fighting to be a part of their kids' lives. What's the empirical data on that?

01:00:17I don't need data. How many people in here have had a family or a friend fight for their kid and

01:00:22not be able to get it? The reason, the reason that the- So I don't need data is a challenge,

01:00:27right? That, that is a challenge. So you either have to argue data, evidence, or logic.

01:00:34Because at the moment we're just, nobody's defining much of, much of anything, right? And this is an

01:00:39age-old debate, which is a woman who sacrifices income to raise the children, let's say, to make

01:00:44the case, right? So a woman gives up her job, gives up her education, gives up any chance of a

01:00:49career to raise a man's children. And then he just runs away and, and divorces her because he

01:00:57fancies his secretary because he wants to start a second family or whatever, like whatever, he's a

01:01:01bad guy. Well, what, what happens? She, it's very hard to go and get a job, right? Because she's been

01:01:11at home, she goes to try and get a job, and she's less likely to be hired because she's got two or three

01:01:17kids, maybe. And who's going to take care of her kids while she's working? Because otherwise she's

01:01:22going to take her money and she's going to give it to the daycare and she's got very little left

01:01:25over for herself. And it's a very, very tough situation. And you can say, well, it's 50-50 and

01:01:31so on. So the woman has taken an economic hit to be in the marriage. She has. And if the man just

01:01:40runs away and gives her nothing, not even for the children, and, and, and Pearl saying, well,

01:01:44she should just go and get a job like men do. And it's like, yeah, but the man who's going to get a

01:01:48job had a job with a stay at home wife, the woman who's got the kids 50-50, he can afford, right? He

01:01:54can afford to hire nannies or whatever. She can't. And those are just basic economic facts. And there's

01:02:01no great answer to all of these things. I don't believe in state power. I don't think the government

01:02:06should get involved, but the, the kids need to eat. And, and, and I think Anna's point to like,

01:02:13it does need to be addressed. And I mean, the best way to address it, of course, is to raise

01:02:18children peacefully, to teach them how to negotiate, to teach negotiation skills, and what it means to

01:02:23be married in a school for, for kids or however they get educated. And for there to be a marriage

01:02:30insurance, right? Which is that if you end up, if you end up getting divorced, then the insurance

01:02:39company pays out. And therefore the insurance company has a direct incentive to make sure you

01:02:44guys stay married, which means that they're going to vet you ahead of time in order to get good

01:02:48rates for insurance, right? They, they want to vet you ahead of time. They want to check you for

01:02:52compatibility. They want to have you sit down with counselors to iron out any potential disagreements.

01:02:56And then they want to support you over the course of the marriage because otherwise they're on the

01:03:00hook, right? The government is not on the hook. Like if the government legally marries you and the

01:03:06marriage doesn't work out, I mean, no individual person in the government pays that price. But if

01:03:11you have marriage insurance, which is what you would need for the sake of children, then the

01:03:15insurance company has a direct incentive to work to prevent incompatible couples from getting

01:03:20together. They will check out with you yearly. How's the marriage going? In the same way that you

01:03:25get a health checkup. If you have insurance, you'll get your blood work done. They'll check up,

01:03:29they'll provide a good feedback and incentives and so on. So the free market would handle this kind of

01:03:34stuff. People raised well are much more likely to get married and stay married. And you have

01:03:40social institutions in the free market that are heavily invested and incentivized to prevent

01:03:45divorce. And that's kind of what you need, right? So, so all of this sort of back and forth,

01:03:49it's all about political power. And I understand where people are coming from. I mean, they're both

01:03:56making good points in my humble opinion, but, and I hate to use this phrase, they're just talking

01:04:01past each other. But, uh, say Anna on the left saying feminism is great. And Pearl saying there

01:04:08are negative aspects to it. That is a more defensible position. And to ask someone, are there

01:04:17any, have there been any negatives or excesses? I mean, this would be my approach, right? Again,

01:04:24this is just my approach, not perfect or anything, but I, I would say, I would gather together

01:04:28statements of feminists that are like, there was something called SCUMM, the society for cutting

01:04:33up men. That was a very popular feminist movement in certain circles. In the past, there have been

01:04:38feminists who become terrorists. There've been feminists who are kill all men. There are feminists,

01:04:41like all of this. So I would ask, are there any excesses or negatives to the feminist movement?

01:04:47And then Anna would have to say, yes. In which case I would say, well, what are they in your opinion?

01:04:52Right. And, and that's important, right? Because there are, I mean, if I were to say,

01:04:56there are negatives to the libertarian movement, like, yeah, for sure. But if she says there are

01:05:02no negatives to the feminist movement, then I would say, I would read off these statements and

01:05:05say, do you agree with them? And if she did agree with them, the debate would be over. And if she

01:05:11didn't agree with them, then I would say, so you're not telling the truth. So there are negatives to the

01:05:16feminist movement, but you just said that there weren't. So I'm not sure how to trust what's coming

01:05:20out of your mouth. If you just said, and again, I'm not saying, but that would be the way to do it.

01:05:25In my opinion. But anyway, so we got another few seconds.

01:05:29What happens, Anna, is because lawyers tell them not to fight because it's so expensive and they

01:05:34won't win. What does that mean?

01:05:36They won't win.

01:05:38You have to provide, look, Pearl, I am open to be convinced, but I need more than anecdotes.

01:05:44I need more than vibes and feelings because we're talking about something serious here.

01:05:48We're talking about raising children. We're talking about the shared responsibility of raising

01:05:53children. That, of course, in 90% of disputed custody goes to women. That's not equal.

01:05:5990%? That's a totally made up statistic. Where are you citing that from?

01:06:05If you're going to cite statistics, you need your sources. Like you, sorry, this is, you just,

01:06:11you need your sources. And that's a good question on Anna.

01:06:14Let's take a break there.

01:06:15All right. Well, I'll stop here and I'd love to hear what you guys think. Don't forget,

01:06:19I'll be out there on the 28th and we're going to do a meet and greet, I think the night before.

01:06:24So I'll be out in Atlantic city. I'm looking forward to, uh, I miss the audience. I miss

01:06:29debates and I think it's going to be a great deal of fun. And I think quite powerful. I think quite

01:06:34powerful. I have a lot of stored up truth from this half decade in the wilderness. So, uh, love to

01:06:40hear what you think. Um, and to check out the debate, word war debate, word, well, it's right there

01:06:46on the page, word war debate, uh, dot com. I thank them for the invitation. I look forward

01:06:50to seeing everyone out in Atlantic city and lots of love from up here, my friends, freedom

01:06:53main.com slash today. If you'd like to help out the show, take care. Bye.

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