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Notes from America with Kai Wright

How to End the Dominion of Men

Notes from America with Kai Wright

WNYC Studios

News Commentary, Politics, History, News

4.41.5K Ratings

🗓️ 29 March 2021

⏱️ 51 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Andrew Cuomo’s just the latest. Why is masculinity so often conflated with domination? And how do we separate the two? Kai turns to a historian and to a novelist for answers. Linda Hirschman, author of Reckoning: The Epic Battle Against Sexual Abuse and Harassment, tells the story of how a small group of women in a room in Ithaca, New York, came up with two words that attempted to change the law, and the workplace, forever. But as you'll hear, victory really has a thousand mothers. Many of the social movements against sexual harassment and assault, including #MeToo, have been pioneered by Black women like Carmita Wood and Tarana Burke, but violence against Black women is often overshadowed or missing from conversations. Kiese Laymon, author of the essay collection How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America and the forthcoming re-release of Long Division, talks to Kai about the role of masculinity in this violence through his own journey to manhood -- what he has learned, had to unlearn, and how he and Kai are both still wrestling with it. Companion listening for this episode: The 'Indoor Man' and His Playmates (10/2/2018) Playboy wasn’t just about the pictures. Hugh Hefner’s magazine helped create a new ideal for the so-called alpha male -- built on the notion that women were there for the taking. The Dream Was Not Mine (9/17/2018) Jennifer Willoughby and Saily Avelenda each woke up one day wanting to make a change. They ended up toppling two political giants. “The United States of Anxiety” airs live on Sunday evenings at 6pm ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts. To catch all the action, tune into the show on Sunday nights via the stream on WNYC.org/anxiety or tell your smart speakers to play WNYC. We want to hear from you! Connect with us on Twitter @WNYC using the hashtag #USofAnxiety or email us at [email protected].

Transcript

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0:00.0

This is the United States of Anxiety, a show about the unfinished business of our history and its grip on our future.

0:08.0

This issue is still trivialized and dismissed when we know actually that sexual harassment is a routine everyday experience for very many women and girls.

0:15.0

Even in the 21st century every woman still has a story.

0:19.0

You bore this alone. You bore this alone for a very long time.

0:23.2

The harassers are getting away with it because their power is shielding them from both discovery and punishment.

0:28.9

I heard by her choice.

0:30.9

High body, my choice.

0:32.1

Boys will be boys. It's kind of like a get out of jail free card for any given situation.

0:39.1

It can't be the sisterhood against the old boys club. it has to be everybody speaking out about this

0:45.0

what's going on why so many men abuse physically emotionally in other ways the women and girls

0:49.2

and the men and boys that they claim to love What's going on with men?

0:54.0

Welcome to the show.

0:57.0

I'm Kay Wright.

0:59.0

It's been quite a remarkable few months for New York's governor, Andrew Cuomo.

1:03.2

First, he absurdly won an Emmy for performing the role of a governor responding to the pandemic

1:09.5

with authority, or really for sort of playing the TV dad foil to Donald Trump's crazy guy neighbor.

1:16.3

But we now know that all the while the governor was withholding unflattering information

1:21.4

about his actual response to the pandemic.

1:24.3

We also know that in the eyes of at least half a dozen women who have worked for Governor Cuomo,

1:29.7

the TV dad was kind of Trumpian in other ways too. The governor is now facing

1:37.4

is now facing multiple investigations. Without explicitly saying it, he implied to me that I was old enough for him and he was lonely.

1:47.2

I now understand that I acted in a way that made people feel uncomfortable.

...

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