Episode 6: Conformity and Child Marriage - Transcript
CA: [00:00:00] hi teamsters. I'm Carey Ann
AE: [00:00:16] and I'm Allison. And this is podcast without an audience where two
CA: [00:00:21] friends pick two topics and find intersectionality
AE: [00:00:25] or not. And do I have a treat for you? Okay. I'm so excited. What is this? So I want you to reflect when I show this to you the last time that we experienced this together. Okay. In my hand, I have my eighth grade
and in my eighth grade diary is. The gems of the world. I swear to God.
CA: [00:00:56] My favorite poem of all time is in your eighth grade diary.
AE: [00:01:01] The, I thought that I was very deep. I thought that I, you were so deep. It was really good at poetry. My handwriting is atrocious. Of course it, and I have a lot of feelings.
CA: [00:01:16] I mean, think about, a lot of that is still true though
AE: [00:01:18] Though.
Think about the time in your life when you have so much angst and so little control of your life and no
CA: [00:01:28] processing skills, no processing skills teaching you about meditation and mindfulness,
AE: [00:01:34] especially not. You know, so angsty, Alison, so these, these poems are dated. The one I'm going to read to you is dated February 7th, 2005.
Okay. My body is ready. So just to do some, some background, 2005 was kind of a hard time. It was in the Bush administration. Okay. And, um, that's what my poem is about. So this way would have been, I guess, in the eighth grade. Okay. So what are you in the eighth grade? 1213,
CA: [00:02:10] 2005, 14, 13
AE: [00:02:12] to 14, 13 to 14. This poem is called "president."
The people all come together to put in their thoughts and opinions for their choosing one person. With a heck of a lot of commitments for some, they like a donkey for some, they like the elephant, but they all tell lies, kiss babies. And they usually like them intelligent. People have their thoughts on how one guy will get smushed.
Whoever thought that that guy wouldn't be George Bush,
CA: [00:03:00] still
AE: [00:03:00] my beans. The last time I read this, I threw up into my arms.
A lot of, a lot of fluids. That's the thing. Okay. We are fighting in a country where they didn't ask for help. We have many people dying, left, lifeless by themselves. My point is this we're just changing the rhyming scheme here. My point is this. They dig us in a hole, leaving us on happy to rot and to spoil
and then it says, love Allie do
CA: [00:03:38] ours.
AE: [00:03:40] So I, I forget, like, the reason that I wanted to talk about this today was just kind of, um, understanding that a lot of people have thoughts and feelings when you assume that they're incapable of like knowing what's going on around them. So even as a 14 year old, I could understand that, you know, in my 14 year old brain, I really wasn't happy with what was happening, uh, in the political climate.
So I'm really, um, looking forward to the Donald Trump poetry we'll be reading about.
CA: [00:04:14] Um, it's so interesting. I had a, um, similar like poem journal and I wish I could find it, but I remember so distinctly, uh, Writing, probably a little before 2005. Maybe, in like 2003 ish. Or 02, I don't know, um, that a poem about going and being involved in world war three Oh one now is going to mean, Oh yeah.
Wow. Very deep. I'm sure it was horrible. What a statement? Thank you. I am so.
AE: [00:04:49] So political at such a young age who knew, I know, is
CA: [00:04:53] there any chance I can convince you to read my very favorite poem from there?
AE: [00:04:56] Let me see, let me see if I can find it. So I do have a lot, so, uh, I, I cut out pictures of, um, things and I put them in there.
Let me give you one. Um,
CA: [00:05:09] I would like for it to be known that the, the notebook in question is a spiral bound Carebears notebook. That's correct with
AE: [00:05:17] says, okay. The pictures of naked, not naked, but like women in their underwear. Huh?
CA: [00:05:22] What'd you explain that? Isn't telling know what is,
AE: [00:05:25] and it says, keep out, um, I have a picture of Beyonce and say, have a rainbow.
I does have a rainbow. I have a picture of Beyonce that says this is Beyonce Knowles. She's cool. I guess.
CA: [00:05:39] Oh yeah. You knew what was up.
AE: [00:05:42] Wow. Well, I didn't seem too enthused about it, which is a very unpopular opinion.
CA: [00:05:46] Which actually is going to feed right into my topic for today. Ooh. We're not quite there yet, but stay
AE: [00:05:52] tuned.
How do you feel about your topic? I feel good
CA: [00:05:55] about it. It is not something that I'd heard of prior to trying to come up with something to talk about for this week, but in the midst of, you know, we're recording a little sooner than usual and just wanting to keep it kind of interesting and fun. This came out excited about,
AE: [00:06:14] I just found the poem.
I just found the poem. I reserve the right to cut this out, by the way feel this is, this might've been the one I threw up into my arm. This is called the best poem in the world.
Rubber band is plastic. My sheets are made of silk. Erasers are elastic and cats like to drink milk. My fingernails are chipped and bare. My eyes are big green blob. When you're sick, you need care. My sister is a slob. This is the last, the last stanza. Is this smelly cat? Um, Oh, sorry. So we have my sister's a slob.
The smelly cat is smelly. If you're gay and you're a girl, you have a wife. There is lint in my belly.
Okay.the bottom, it says this poem is the story of my life. Well, cold, hard facts. You've heard it here, folks.
CA: [00:07:16] Yes. Um, that's I know I gave you the right to edit that out, but we might have to keep it in,
AE: [00:07:23] I mean, it's too good. I mean, it's brilliant. I don't know
CA: [00:07:26] whatever happened to like, do you still write poetry?
AE: [00:07:30] No, I do not.
I've given it up shame. You need to kind of start when you're on top start what? You know, stop while you're ahead. Yeah. I don't know that I'd be able to top that material, unfortunately.
CA: [00:07:44] I mean, at this point in your life, you'd have to get back to practicing and paying attention to politics and yeah.
If
AE: [00:07:49] I'm any Teamsters that are listening, have really, really funny, uh, excerpts from their diary, please take pictures on Instagram and tag us because it is so priceless. Even like birthday cards, Christmas cards. Yep. All of that stuff is so funny. I think we need to keep everything. Oh, absolutely. Cause then you can have a podcast and read it on your podcast.
CA: [00:08:13] No, it's so interesting. I was at my dad's house and I was going through like all my old boxes of stuff and I keep everything. Um, but my old boxes of stuff from like middle and high school, and I have all of these notes that are folded in all these really intricate ways, because that's what we did.
And, um, I found this one note. To somebody. Um, but I was like having this bad day, I was like, I got an, a minus on this test. Like I can read it, like in my grumpy voice
AE: [00:08:49] minus
CA: [00:08:49] yeah. The teacher doesn't. Um, and I was like trying to make it a bigger deal than it really was, even though at the time, like I still knew it wasn't a big deal.
I just really,
AE: [00:08:58] you just needed something to feel, uh, upset about. I have a story in here where my sister, my mom tells my sister, she can't take a drink upstairs. So while they're arguing, I say, don't worry, Hannah, this is telepathically. Right. Don't worry. I got you. So then I try to sneak the drink up there while they're fighting and then I spill it all over the state.
And so that didn't go
CA: [00:09:23] well, no, no, I don't think that not going well for you.
AE: [00:09:27] But I think, you know, we're all better for it. So keep that in mind, you know, you're a big journaler. Uh, I am, if you're, if you're doing it for like mental health purposes, never read that shit again. No burn it at the end. Don't do that to yourself.
Do not go back and read it well, but I would say high school and under as a,
CA: [00:09:49] Oh, absolutely. Now my recent journals, like I have this one really large journal that I was gifted in like 2012 or 13 and it's leather-bound and it's beautiful. And it's like seeing me through all these relationships and I only ever pick it up and write in it, like when things are really good and things are bad, then I have all these other like teeny, tiny little journals that I write in and then promptly lose because I don't want to keep up with that.
But, um, this big leather journal has been around for almost 10 years now. And I really just want to fill it up and like, get it over. Never go back and read that
AE: [00:10:28] show. Never go back and read it. It was so bad for my mental health, so bad, like skipped around,
CA: [00:10:34] but still
AE: [00:10:35] no horrible. I love our good friend, uh, names rhymes with Boston.
He keeps our good friend, Boston, his, um, he keeps the tiniest notebook in his pocket, always just to write shit down.
CA: [00:10:52] My dad also does that. So it must be a real cute guy thing. Yeah.
AE: [00:10:56] I love my friends. Um, anyway, let's get into some shit what you got for
CA: [00:11:05] me. So I really cannot express to you, how much?
I wish that I had rewritten the, yeah. Okay. Because it falls right line, but there's gotta be a better way to deliver this instead. We're going to read exactly what I wrote.
Please do
AE: [00:11:23] my body's ready.
CA: [00:11:26] Okay. So, um, I have a personal pet peeve to share.
AE: [00:11:30] Is it something I just did
CA: [00:11:34] not being angsty and like, okay.
Yeah. So, and that is that I absolutely hate like the dare to be different mantra. Like the, I am so cool and no one gets me. I'm just different. There it's
AE: [00:11:49] an age appropriate thing. You're allowed to be angsty until college and then you need to get the fuck over it.
CA: [00:11:55] You're so not wrong. Um, but like, do you remember the t-shirts that were like swim the other way?
And it was a whole school of fish swimming one way and it. Inevitably another fish was like swimming the opposite direction. They were bright colored.
AE: [00:12:08] And if they didn't sell it a hot topic, I don't know about it.
CA: [00:12:12] Uh, they probably, you actually still have the shirt.
AE: [00:12:16] Yeah. It's in my, I'm wearing it right now.
CA: [00:12:19] Um, but like they resonated with us so deeply at one point and now they feel so cliche. Uh, we're all different. And that's like the whole fucking point I feel so seen. Exactly. Um, but we are also pack animals and we desire connection and belongingness. So really what these like dare to be different shirts and bags and hoodies and like, whatever else we had that made us stand out was to attract people who were also different that does that find you're in the mainstream, right?
Yeah. So, um, today I want to talk about the power of conformity. Very specifically, we're going to talk about a research study that was done in the 1950s. That's called the Asch conformity experiments. Um, but more broadly, like how this lens helps us see ourselves within social groups in society. So Solomon Asch wanted to know to what degree a person's own opinions are influenced by those of groups.
Okay. Well, we already know that individuals have a tendency to follow unspoken rules and behaviors of a social group that you belong to. Right? Like I am a cis-gendered queer woman. So how am I expected to behave? Like, what are the, uh, social rules of being queer woman? Well,
AE: [00:13:41] you wear flannel constantly, obviously.
I mean, that's a uniform.
CA: [00:13:46] Exactly. I'm wearing a plaid blazer right now. Like. It just, it is what it
AE: [00:13:52] is gay. You got to follow these well, and it's also about finding your people. Oh, absolutely. We have the, um, and in college we started saying Yahtzee, like when you, when you find, you know, when you spot somebody else who you believe to be queer, it makes you feel safe.
Yeah. It makes you feel not alone. And also you're like, can we date, right?
CA: [00:14:12] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yup. Um, no, it's so funny in episode one where we're talking about, um, the wandering womb and you were like in the bingo card of the wandering womb, Yahtzee. Yeah. Which made complete sense to me. Like I totally got that. So I'm glad that we're like now explaining that.
Oh yeah. I did say that you did, which is hilarious. And I'm like, it works so well. Yeah. And I think everyone got it obviously, but why do we say Yahtzee? And it's because. All kinds of God just named, but there are specific roles and behaviors in queer spaces that just don't exist in straight spaces. Like going to a queer bar as a queer person.
You don't want to see straight like bachelorette parties. Yeah. That's, it's a queer space like honor.
AE: [00:15:01] And especially before marriage equality was a thing. Well, that was su... I mean, even still very disrespectful.
CA: [00:15:10] Well, and I'm thinking like after the pulse shootings, when everyone was already so afraid to go back into queer spaces yeah.
Like this was historically a safe space for us to be seen and to be a community. And suddenly you don't feel safe and then you really don't feel safe when unknown, straight. People come in with straight people, not just, you know, straight people. Um, so if I'm around other queer people versus being the only queer person in a com... in a group, I'm going to behave differently.
Like I'm going to be a little bit more guarded. Um, if I didn't know, I might still have all my flannel obviously, but, um, like the way that I communicate might be a little bit different. Yeah. Like that. Um, because there's also like queer coding you see in movies and TV shows that kind of signify that someone's queer without them having to really say it.
So the same is true for any real community, like being around deaf people or neurodivergent people, you follow those social rules so that you fit in with the community, with the group and with the community and you pick up on them. Right? Yeah. So what Asch wanted to know was how does pressure from a group lead people to conform, even if they know the rest of the group is wrong.
Uh, huh? So to
AE: [00:16:29] preface, like if so-and-so jumped off a bridge, would you jumped you bridge to the answer? Yeah,
CA: [00:16:36] really?
AE: [00:16:38] Am I attached to anything? That would be my first question. What are my options? That's
CA: [00:16:44] fair. That would be a great question. Uh, how deep is the water below would be my, if
AE: [00:16:50] it's yeah, go. You are not
CA: [00:16:55] Okay. So, um, to preface, I don't really love this study and we will talk about all of the reasons why, but it does bring up a really interesting topic. Okay. So Asch structured his experiment using the easiest task that he could think of. And he asked people to compare a line line X with lines, a B, and C to see which line was the closest in length to X.
So soup simple. Okay. Um, oops, dupes to establish a baseline. He asked a group of participants to individually, like in separate rooms, identify 18 times, which X line was most similar to AB and C. Does that make sense? Yes. Okay. So when he did this experiment with just people individually, he had a 99% accuracy rate.
Which I guess it sucks to be that one guy who guessed, the, or who second, get out, you screwed our whole data then did, is he started his trial, which included 123 men over 50 part.... I know you're already making a face. Yeah. So included 123 men, 50 of them were participants or like the study research participants.
And then there were like, so 73 actors, which he called Confederates. I, I figured out why anyways. So he broke the participants in actors, into groups and tell them that they were partaking in a visual perception test. Okay. So with these lines, like he wanted to see, I guess, Their eyes, their eyeballs, the groups were each of course, given 18 tasks and the actors were given or told to give the correct answer six times.
So the groups were like three to five people. Um, and one person in the group was being researched and the other three to five were, um, like these paid
AE: [00:18:56] participants. So less than half the time they're choosing the right answer. So this like random guy, who's like, no, you're wrong in his mind. So they're all giving these answers out loud,
CA: [00:19:07] right?
So they're all giving these answers out loud. They're sitting in a row and they go down the row and, um, say the answer. You look at X and you look at a, B and C and you're like, Oh, it's obviously B these two lines are the same length. Yeah. And then person number one says the answer is a person number two.
So it's the answer is a person. Number three says the answer is a, it's your turn. Are you going to say the answer is a, or are you going to say the answer is B right?
AE: [00:19:34] That's a mind games situation. Don't I, ah, that suck. I don't know. I don't know what I would do.
CA: [00:19:41] I mean, I was thinking about it and I think that I really enjoy being right.
So I probably would still give the correct answer just because I don't like, I hate being wrong.
AE: [00:19:53] Yeah. I mean, I guess it depends because I, I. Really wander about these tests subject and like all these case studies situations, like what are they promising these people? Are they like, you're going to get a $15 subway sandwich gift card, I might guess.
Hey. Yeah, but if it's a little bit more, um, credible, then I might fight more. Yeah,
CA: [00:20:14] absolutely. The other 12 times. Oh, so they were given 18 tasks. The actors gave the correct answer six times in total, but the other 12 times they gave the wrong answer to see if the participant would also give the wrong answer or if he would give the right answer.
So these 12 times are called the critical trials. Asch found that participants would get the wrong answer by agreeing with the actors and eight out of the 12 trials.
AE: [00:20:43] Okay. So a couple of times I'm a stand my ground, right? Like if it's
CA: [00:20:47] super obvious, you know, the answer is a and everyone else is picking C and C a super short.
Sure, sure. 75% of people conformed at least once. So only 25% of people were very resolute and like, nah, I'm not going to be hashtag different and give the I'm just going to get the right answer every time. Sure. 5% of people conformed every time. 5%. Yeah. So 5% were like, Every single time, I'm going to agree with
AE: [00:21:17] the rest of the group.
Okay. I've seen this study in a waiting room situation where people stand up when they hear a bell. And so imagine if you go into the doctor's office and they're like, okay, have a seat. And you're like, thanks. And then you go sit down and then a bell rings and everybody else in the waiting room stands up.
And then you're like, what the fuck is happening? And then the second time you're like, well, I guess this is what we have to do.
CA: [00:21:42] Yeah. And I mean, That's so weird because it's absolutely like on the same vein it's conditioning. Yeah. Yeah. It's social conditioning. Yeah. Um, it almost reminds me of, I think it's Pavlov who?
Nope, that's dog, but yeah, it's social conditioning. I wonder, you know, if then all the actors were to be removed and only leave people who are participants, but have been socially conditioned. Oh, you stand at the bell.
AE: [00:22:11] We'll do this experiment at our live show.
CA: [00:22:13] See what happens now if answered different, but like still gave the incorrect answers.
So if you've got five people and one of them says a, another one says, C. The correct answer is B you're more likely to get the correct answer because people are already disagreeing. Sure. Or if you have two participants instead of just one. So if there are two people who are being experimented on,
AE: [00:22:38] Oh yeah.
Then they're like in a band together. I feel that confidence. Yes. Power in numbers. Yes.
CA: [00:22:45] Even if they don't know what the other person's about to say though. So you have to have established some kind of trust secret. Coding or trust with
AE: [00:22:53] thing
CA: [00:22:53] happened exactly. At that point. Um, the probability of the participant answering wrong went down tremendously.
Like only 5% of the subjects missed the trials when two participants were included in the study. So they found that it had to be a group think issue. And the participant had to be the only one to disagree. Um, something to note is that when lines a, B and C were more similar in length and therefore harder to judge conformity increased.
So which could be interpreted to mean that if you're not entirely certain, you're going to look to others for confirmation. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. Okay. So several people have repeated this experiment, including Alan and Levine in 1968 and their version of the experiment. They introduced one, uh, actor who gave the correct answer when the others gave an incorrect answer and the participants were about 30% more likely to give the correct answer.
I'm sorry.
AE: [00:23:47] Did you say Adam and Levine? Alan and little, um, like, like Adam,
CA: [00:23:53] I may have accidentally said Adam. I meant to say Alan
AE: [00:23:56] and Levine. No, I think you did. I think my brain was just like,
CA: [00:24:00] Hey, he's a handsome. So are you, um, what's funny about this to me is that one of their actors was always wearing.
Thick rimmed glasses and their experiment. So they would have, um, this one actor who appeared maybe mildly, visually impaired, who gave the correct answer. Oh yeah. And the other actors would still get the incorrect answer. Um, so more people agreed when given the space to give the right answer, but there were still people unconvinced, even though he gave the right answer and they were still likely to go with the majority,
AE: [00:24:40] the majority, well that's insecurity and they should go to therapy.
Well, it's
CA: [00:24:44] also fascinating because I think it goes back to disability and ableism, you think so well, because if you see someone who's visually impaired, but giving the same answer as you, do you want to align yourself with, well,
AE: [00:24:56] I think the opposite, I think that maybe the other people can't see as well as the guy who has the glasses.
CA: [00:25:01] Oh, but why would you choose them then? No, I
AE: [00:25:04] would choose the guy of the glasses. I mean, I would
CA: [00:25:06] choose, so he's
AE: [00:25:07] right. He's also he's cause he's the one that's choosing the
CA: [00:25:10] right answer. Right, right. But not everybody did, even if it was the right answer. Right.
AE: [00:25:16] I'm only speaking
CA: [00:25:17] for me. Oh, okay. Yeah. You would have gone with the guy with the glasses.
Yes, I would have for sure. Me too, regardless the presence of an ally decreases conformity and the absence of group unanimity
AE: [00:25:29] unanimity. Yup. And then
CA: [00:25:32] lowers overall conformity as participants feel less need for social approval or what they call like the normative conformity say normative. The normal.
AE: [00:25:43] No.
CA: [00:25:45] Yeah. So also hog and Vaughn repeated this experiment in 1955.
AE: [00:25:52] I mean, I'm working on, it's cooking in my brain hog vine. That's all I'll say for now. Okay.
CA: [00:25:58] And found that conformity reaches its fullest extent at three to five person, majority.
AE: [00:26:05] Full ext extent with three to five majority. Yeah. Power
CA: [00:26:09] and numbers, adding more people has a little effect.
So whether you're like a part of it, one person in a group of five or a person in a group of 100, your chances of conforming are about the same, which I think is really interesting.
AE: [00:26:23] That is interesting. Yeah. You know, this is probably, this is, well, there's a lot of reasons why, but this is, this reminds me of why we don't vote and open like town hall communities anymore.
That's why it's so private because
CA: [00:26:38] exactly
AE: [00:26:38] right. That's exactly conformity, hashtag problematic
CA: [00:26:44] where. Getting into so much more of that, but you're exactly right. Um, in fact, I had even written almost that exact thing and then took it out, but it's also why agencies will do, um, anonymous surveys. It's because if you think that people are going to see your results and see what you said, then you're less likely to give, you know, the answer.
So the big takeaway here is that this say suggests that we will purposefully do things we know are wrong, or say things that we know are wrong to conform within a group. We are less likely to conform when we know that there is someone else in the group who shares our opinions. Okay. So a lot of this is not actually useful.
AE: [00:27:25] Good. Good.
CA: [00:27:27] I know. I just, all of this out and put like a really pretty bow on it, but there some major issues with this first, it's just a theory and the test was done really poorly. Okay. Uh, right. Like it's all, it's all men. Right. And they were all in the same age group and basically the so same socioeconomic status.
Um, so they basically duplicated 123 Kevins and were like, give us to Kevin. Here we go. Yeah. Um, it has been reproduced and found to have somewhat similar results, but none were quite as drastic as the first group for the 1950s. Some people pointed out that this might actually have more to do with the 1950s.
I was about to say,
AE: [00:28:06] God, it's that time was all about fitting in. That's like the meet the cleavers era. Yeah. It
CA: [00:28:13] was like the anticommunist witch hunt? Red scare Marxism. Yeah. Yeah, no, not Marxism. Um, McCarthyism. I mean, it's all
AE: [00:28:24] about fitting in like laying low. Exactly.
CA: [00:28:27] No one wanted to be pointed out is like not upholding American values.
Yeah. So there was already a fear of not fitting in or being accused of thinking differently the most recent time. Um, I was able to find that someone recreated this experiment was the early 1990s. And that's when they found that conformity has its upper limit of like five. Um, and anything beyond that is fine, but it doesn't really change.
Yeah. You know, so, um, so clearly some of the findings have stood the test of time and that's what we're going to talk about. Um, but it just, isn't the most reliable research study to have ever been done. It's just the first like it, um, which I think is cool. So other interesting things to note here in terms of gender, the first group with Asch was all males.
Um, so how does this change when you factor in females? Now, several articles. I read referenced a similar study done with females, with
AE: [00:29:28] what, like all cis, um,
CA: [00:29:31] Yeah, women. Yeah. Okay. Um, but I was not able to find the actual research article to confirm this, um, which I think might also speak to how difficult it is to find research articles without being in a higher education Institute.
Sure. Anyways, um, but I think what's interesting about that is according to the article I read that referenced this other study, um, Men are more likely to agree with men. Women are more likely to agree with women, but male show about half the same effect as females. So males are half as likely to conform as females are.
Oh, I
AE: [00:30:10] hate, I hate I don't like I, yeah,
CA: [00:30:13] it's not great.
AE: [00:30:15] That's disappointing to me.
CA: [00:30:17] Well, I think yeah, about how men are socialized, like men are socialized to be leaders and
AE: [00:30:24] yeah, like Amy Schumer's has a best she's like men are not, um, men are not taught to hate
CA: [00:30:28] themselves. Right. That's exactly right. Is men are not taught to question and doubt themselves the way that women are like women are taught to be small and men are not, they're encouraged to take up all the space and all the room.
So if I find that other article, I might come back and reference it. Okay. But how does, how else does this research impacts the way we think about conformity? Really quickly. One last thing about why this wasn't great is the line test is like super low stakes. If you get it wrong, you think you're there for a visual perception test.
You might get frustrated or doubt yourself, but
AE: [00:31:04] ultimately yeah, worst case scenario, you don't get your subway gift
CA: [00:31:08] card. Right. Um, and once you learn that it's a social experiment, you're fine. Or subway or, yeah.
AE: [00:31:16] Talk about low stakes. Right.
CA: [00:31:21] But what if the stakes are greater? Um, Oh, like what if it's a Panera, a gift card? I was about to say
AE: [00:31:28] that we got to go, hi, got like a shoot for the Panera. Some
CA: [00:31:32] of this. It's hard to do a true experiment because you can't control enough variables to get solid data to do. And instead you'd have to do a qualitative study.
Um, but it would be a really great dissertation topic to look at like this group thinking conformity. And I'm sure a lot of that research is already being done. Um, that was not the point of today's podcast episode. We will have to come back to more of that. I wanted to start us at the very beginning here.
Sure. There's also an interesting question to be asked about why people would conform, um, if it was such a low stakes thing. Like if it doesn't matter in the greater scheme of things, why would you conform. It's just another question I have. So there's obviously an element of peer pressure here that might help explain why adolescents and adults can conform to peer pressure and do things that they know to be wrong.
Now I'm very wildly speculating because this wasn't mentioned in the research specifically. Uh, but what we know from other research is that connection can be traced back to safety. So like there's safety in numbers. We know that humans are wired for connection and connection often means learning to fit in.
Even the dare to lead crowd is looking for other people to be different with because you want to be together and you want to agree with people. Yeah. So you start looking for people that you agree with. Um, there's also an interesting thought to be had about bullying and mob mentalities. When we think about, um, wanting to connect with people or even conforming to those that you're consistently around, it might be interesting to do more research about like how these people come together and conform, and then use that to try and get other people to join them.
Mm. I don't
AE: [00:33:16] know. Join me. Yeah. Well, I do think about the, I mean, back to your original plan at the beginning, even talking about spotting your people, right, right. It is about safety and it is about feeling like you've got somebody to go through this whole thing together. I remember, um, Ray and I were in, Oh my God.
We were in Myrtle beach. We were in Myrtle beach. So Ray's my fiance. And he's a black man. And we were in a dueling piano bar. How'd I
CA: [00:33:48] miss going to doula, piano,
AE: [00:33:51] but I mean, it's just like a sea of white people. And like this guy. This black man came up to rain was like, Hey man, like what's up? And Ray was like, Hey, like, do I know you?
And he was like, no, but like, you know, like I'm here. Like I got you. Yeah. So they ha he like, literally intentionally approached Ray to be like, just so you know, I'm here if you
CA: [00:34:12] need me. Oh, interesting. Yeah.
AE: [00:34:15] I wish I had never, I mean, and I'm assuming I've never had a specific conversation with Ray, but you're always kind of looking for,
CA: [00:34:23] well, I think people like women do that too in crowds of men.
If you see another woman. Yeah. Especially if she seems uncomfortable, you might like, uh, the other day I was in my living room and there was a woman outside who was fighting with, uh, I assume a partner or a boyfriend or something. Yeah. And I went outside to check on her because that's what you do when you're looking out for people.
Absolutely. Um, so
AE: [00:34:49] really understand the idea of. Of relating to people who are like you, although sometimes that can be taken in a completely, the other direction, which is not where we want to go. But
CA: [00:35:04] what's interesting here. And maybe part of what ties some of this end together, because we're talking about conformity and connection, but what happens when you are connecting with a group of people who then like you have things in common with, right?
And then they all start saying something that you feel deeply as wrong. Do you still go along with them? Which I
AE: [00:35:28] think it's, I'm not saying like you do, but no, I mean, it goes back to like last week we talked about, um, the, the kid that cat called us from the back of the truck. Right. You know, um, do you act in that moment?
Sometimes it takes a minute to process, like, right. You know, just kind of going over in your head, how to react to certain situations,
CA: [00:35:49] you go into this experiment and you expect that everyone's going to be telling the truth and you expect that people are going to be saying the same thing that you're seeing in regards to these lines.
And then all of a sudden they answer, they get the wrong answer. Your brain doesn't really have the time to process and say, wait, what's going on right now, as much as it is, you now have to give an answer.
AE: [00:36:10] So you've already given that person credibility based off of certain things that you might believe them to be like, or yeah.
You know?
CA: [00:36:17] Yeah. So, I mean, they were all males, they, you know, were about the same age. They, um, I think the study was then later duplicated, uh, with college students. So you expect them to know the answer. And so when you prepare yourself to respond in a certain way, and then other people don't meet that expectation, I can understand why that would be.
Like, what do you do in that moment other than conform? Yep. Lastly, and maybe even on a lighter note, I want to look at this whole experiment as kind of a metaphor. Um, because as I was reading through it, I was thinking about neurodivergent people. So people whose brains just don't process things the way that neuro-typical brains do.
So neurodivergent people might be, uh, people who are autistic or ADHD, dyslexic others, just generally speaking people whose brains process information in the world in a way that is atypical. I was thinking about how someone whose brain does not process information the same way that other neuro-typical brains do, how they would respond in this.
Setting. Sure. Um, and then I realized that this would actually be a great metaphor for neuro divergence, like first, um, many neurodivergent people have this struggle with understanding why and how neuro-typical people say and do things. Sure. Navigating
AE: [00:37:44] kind of the world of societal.
CA: [00:37:48] Yeah. You said this thing, that doesn't mean this thing.
What does it mean? Yeah. Right. So thinking about this line test you, I know that this is the thing that you meant to say, like, this is the correct answer, but you said this other thing and then having to process quickly what that means and then apply it. Um, there's also this phenomenon of masking, which is associated with being neurodivergent and requires neuro-diverse neurodivergent people to try and fit in with neuro-typical people without necessarily understanding.
The purpose of what they're doing or why, for example, like mimicking facial expressions or body language, because they've studied other people doing it. So you could share this example of presumably neuro-typical people being put in a position where they're having to mask in order to conform. Sure. Um, it isn't true.
Masking just, um, maybe a useful tool or metaphor if you're a neurodivergent P person, who's trying to explain how it feels to be neurodivergent. Yeah. Um, but yeah, so that is connection and conformity. Very cool topic. Thank you. Very,
AE: [00:38:58] very cool. I liked that. Thank you so much. I am really scared about intersectionality this week.
I'm weird. In what way? Well, because I'm going to be talking about child marriage. Oh,
CA: [00:39:11] I don't like that.
AE: [00:39:12] I don't love it. I am going to go ahead and do a trigger warning. Of course. Um, we'll talk about ages, ages of consent versus ages of, of marriage. Um, there's a lot of legality involved, but just doing kind of a general, uh, warning at the beginning.
Um, this might be hard for some people to hear about. Yeah, I know
CA: [00:39:35] that you're going to specify in just a second, but are we talking about
AE: [00:39:38] Global child, marriage? Yeah. I don't love focusing on only certain parts of the world with this, because I don't think that that's necessarily fair. Right? My focus is on kind of throughout history, but specifically the examples I'm going to be giving are from the U S okay.
Which I think is important for people to hear, because we need to realize that this shit happens on our own soil. I'm also going to get another white claw. Perfect. According to the United nations sexual and reproductive health agency, or UNIFPA quote factors that promote and reinforce child marriage include poverty and economic survival strategies, gender inequality, sealing land, or property deals, or settling disputes control over sexuality and protecting family honor, tradition and culture and insecurity, particularly during war famine or epidemics.
Other factors include family ties in which marriage is a means of consolidating powerful relationships between families unquote.
CA: [00:40:46] So that's a lot, whole lot. Yeah. Are we going to unpack that
AE: [00:40:49] we are, Oh, you know, it's, we were not gonna be able to get to everything. And like I said, a lot of these are going to be a little bit more modern situations.
'cause I, I wanted to shine that light on it that like, listen, this isn't something that happened X number of years in the past, it's still happening.
CA: [00:41:06] You know, I think it's interesting that we really love assuming that nothing bad happens in the U S um, and if anything bad has ever happened, it was a very long time ago.
And therefore we don't need to worry about it. Sure. So I'm, I'm really interested to
AE: [00:41:21] see this is super interesting. And it had me thinking about a lot of topics and conversations that I normally wouldn't of course have come across on my daily, basic daily life. Thanks. Yeah, mayor, uh, child marriage is defined as quote, marriage or similar union formal or informal between a child and an adult or another child under a certain age, typically age 18 end quote.
So when I started researching, one of the things I was most interested in was what was the legal age of marriage. And what I found was in many countries, the age of marriage vary by gender, which was . Ooh. Yeah. So for example, in Moldova, which is an Eastern Europe, and you might know from 90 day fiance, um, has a legal marriage, uh, age of 16 for women and eight teen for men, uh, that really grosses me out.
Yeah. Yeah. The majority of countries, however, had the legal age of 18 for marriage, however many countries have it exceptions with parental consent.
CA: [00:42:34] It's so interesting. I had a friend in high school who got married at 17 and her parents. Oh, why of the
AE: [00:42:41] papers? Yeah. Are they still together? They are still together.
There. Was he also underage or was, he was
CA: [00:42:46] 1880. They had some really extenuating circumstances. Um, but you know,
AE: [00:42:51] seem to be quote accommodations for the rule. Right. These are exceptions for the role, right. So a lot of times it's due to pregnancy. Okay. Due to the, the both partners being within a certain number of years of each other, um, or with parental consent, a lot of times, many of those are still problematic.
Yeah. Which we will cross that bridge. Yeah. So for example, in Australia, the age of marriage is lowered to 16. For individuals who have parental consent South Africa's legal age is 21. However, you can marry 15 for women and 18 for men with parental consent, some places have the accommodation for pregnancy.
It just.
CA: [00:43:38] I mean, so the people I know who got married really young, we're all consenting. And you know, it wasn't too skeevy in any way, but just imagine like consenting and wanting to get married at 18 or 19 or even 20 and 21 versus who you are now and where you are now in your life. Yeah. Like I am such a different person,
AE: [00:44:01] so grateful.
I didn't make any stupid decisions. My parents didn't get married. Like my mom was in, I think she was 35 when she had me. She didn't get married until she was 31. I think. So in my mind it was never, I was never
CA: [00:44:15] in a hurry. No, my parents got married. My dad was 40 when they got married. So yeah, they were older.
And, um, I think that, I mean, we'll talk about marriage at some point, but, um, I just think it's really interesting the way that we perceive it. Based on our own lived experiences, too. Sure.
AE: [00:44:35] There are a lot of variations here when it comes to accommodations, many, many options in the United States, things vary by state to state.
Like I just said. And how does child marriage affect those who participate? That was also something that I was interested in learning about often the stress, anxiety and trauma of a persuaded or forced child marriage can cause mental health issues with long-term effects.
CA: [00:45:01] I mean, you don't say right, like you're being forced into this marriage with an older
AE: [00:45:05] person.
Well, and we also have to remember that, uh, our brains are still developing and oftentimes, um, children under, or people in general are often being groomed. Right. Right. So, yeah. There's a lot of difference of opinion, maybe perhaps in that moment as well, it's going to happen both ways. There's a ton of variance for, for situations like this.
Oh, absolutely. Child marriage can prevent opportunities and education specifically for girls. Girls are more at risk for this anyway, and, and now in this situation, it would be amplified. Pregnancy has also an effect. So childbirth for children is dangerous and they can be also like considered high risk.
Yeah. I found it interesting because there are, there's basically two camps specifically in the U S for, uh, people who are opposed to marriage under the age of 18 and people who are pro marriage under the age of 18.
CA: [00:46:06] I am so interested to hear what that perspective is, because I assume that it's the pro-life crowd
AE: [00:46:13] well, and a lot of times it is, it's kind of coming from the far, right?
The majority of the time, however, there is in California and somewhere, and I'm doing this off memory. This isn't in my notes. So I'm paraphrasing here, but in California as well in the North, I think like Maryland, there are, are advocacy groups that belong, I believe to the, either the independent or the democratic party who argue that, um, The age of marriage should go along with the age of consent.
So in certain cases, those are 16 and 17. So they believe that those, um, people or children should be able to, to get married, to get access to, um, marital benefits, um, health care. I think it's
CA: [00:46:59] so interesting because, and I don't think we've talked about sex ed at this point in the podcast, um, in any of our episodes, but let's, but let's get, let's get into it because I was raised in abstinence only education.
Yeah. Um, because Carolina, um, yeah. Um, so I could see now I don't see any leftists being like, Oh, well let's make marriage this age because virginity is real and we care about it. But I just think it's interesting that if you are teaching your kids, That they need to be virgins when they get married. Um, that also plays along with it.
The idea of virginity is a social construct. It's fucked
AE: [00:47:44] up to say what it is, right. But the idea that you're taking something from somebody
CA: [00:47:50] or giving something to somebody. Yeah, no, ah, we need to be at a sex positive environment that has nothing to like marriage and sex are two very different things.
Let's keep them as very different things. Yeah.
AE: [00:48:04] Separation of church and state people let's go yet. Wikipedia has an interesting quote related to child, marriage and young boys that I'm going to read to you. Okay. Quote, there is little research on boys and child, marriage, but effects on boys include being ill-prepared for certain responsibilities, such as providing for the family early fatherhood and a lack of access to education and career opportunities.
So let that digest for a moment that the young girls who are at risk are facing essentially life and death, health risks, right? And the, and the young boys, their effects are also terrible, of course. Sure. But theirs are like, they're not going to be prepared to have a household that was troubling for me.
That's so troubling. And I think
CA: [00:49:00] the thing that my brain immediately jumped to was their mom or parent had taken care of them, their entire lives. And now they're jumping into a marriage presume, like we haven't talked about queer identities and all of this but so what my mind immediately jumped to was like, Young boys, living with their moms and their moms do everything for them.
Yeah. And of course, we're not talking about gay marriage and child marriage, because that's not part of this conversation now. I'm sure that there is a space for that
AE: [00:49:35] conversation. Yes. That, and thank you for making that differentiation because yes, we're very much talking about CIS straight relationships
CA: [00:49:44] and marriage, marriage.
Yeah. Straight up. Right. Um, but it's like, the boys are moving from mom doing their dirty underwear, laundry, expecting their new wife to do it. And I hate that. Yeah. Yes, of course. They're not prepared to be the head of house because Hey, what the fuck is that? And B yeah. They're babies.
AE: [00:50:08] Yep. Problematic at best.
My friend. The gender dynamic portion, got me thinking about the age of consent, as opposed to the age of marriage. The age of consent in Germany is 14. Okay. They're illegal marriage age without parent parental consent is 18. Okay. With parental consent is 16. Okay. So there's some discrepancies there. Sure.
Um, in the Philippines, the age of consent is 12. However, people under the age of 18 cannot access reproductive health, resources, and contraception, even HIV and AIDS, AIDS testing. Oh, that's highly problematic without parental consent. Why are there so many discrepancies and how many young people are actually getting married well
CA: [00:50:55] or wanting to engage in sexual relations with people and not having access to the things that they need in order to stay safe.
Well,
AE: [00:51:06] and I do think it goes back to religion probably because. Germany is a very, um, progressive. Yeah, I mean, and, and a lot of times in Europe, too, it's not as religious focused as somewhere like the U S where marriage and
CA: [00:51:23] consent. Like we live in the Bible
AE: [00:51:25] belt, we live in the Bible belt and virginity, like you said, is very important in being quote intact, you know, for your spouse, your spouse.
Yeah. Well, that could be why, but it's 14 to me is, is still. It's
CA: [00:51:42] still super young. Um, especially when you think about brain development, like your frontal lobe doesn't fully develop until your twenties. Yeah. But I think that you're exactly right. And the difference is religion. Um, and how we perceive religion and the U S and the Bible belt
AE: [00:51:59] quote, the incidence of child, marriage have been falling in most parts of the world.
Oh, that's good news. 2018 data from the UNICEF shows that about 21% of young women worldwide ages, 20 to 24, or married as children. This is a 25%. Was that 21% of young women ages 20 to 24 were married as children. Wow. This is a 25% decrease from 10 years previously, the countries with the highest observed rates of child marriage below the ages of 18 were Niger.
Chad, Mali, Bangladesh. Guinea the Central African Republic, Mozambique and Nepal with rates about 50%. Wow. Niger, Chad Bangladesh, Molly and Ethiopia, where the countries with the child marriage rates greater than 20% below the age of 15, according to 2003 to 2009 surveys globally and estimated 12 million girls annually are being married under the age of 18 globally.
What percent?
CA: [00:53:09] 12 million girls. Oh, 12 million. Okay.
AE: [00:53:12] So that's a lot to unpack. So let's just talk about the
CA: [00:53:15] history. Well, right now I'm stuck on the 20% or 21%. That's one in five. Yeah. Wow. It's too many. Yeah, I know everything else after that was just kind of a blur. I was
AE: [00:53:27] just wanting a lot of information.
So let's talk about the history. Okay. In the pre-industrial revolution times in many parts of the world, including India, China and Eastern Europe, women tended to marry right after reaching puberty often in their mid teenage years, where the majority of this was happening was in small rural communities.
Um, this was the case, well, into the 19th century, I've often heard it accredited to the age, um, expectations at the time people weren't living as long. Let's go ahead and have some babies, mostly around reproductive, um, bloodlines. Yeah. At this time, men usually married later because they were expected to have land an education and a household of their own.
Girls were quote promised or often used as bargaining chips in relation to status. In medieval times, it was common to marry. Even before puberty, we keep coming back to Greece. So let's go to Greece. Let's go to Greece in ancient, Greece, early marriage and motherhood for girls existed. Even boys were expected to marry into their teens, early marriage and teenage motherhood would typical.
This portion is from Wikipedia, by the way, it's quote and ancient Rome. Females can marry above the age of 12 and males could marry above the age of 14. That's so, so young I have that. Yeah. Is Hippocrates involved in all this he's doesn't he's not invited to this party. Okay.
CA: [00:55:00] Thank goodness. I would hate to hear what he
AE: [00:55:01] meant.
He worried about all this totally there. Oh, for sure. He was so Rome. I mean, we talk about Rome every day. I feel like Rome has its own laws. A lot of times the men are getting married later and later, but they were often having like sexual relationships with the young boys. Yeah. So there's a lot of, a lot of things happening.
CA: [00:55:23] And I was reading at some point that, um, like our ideas of marriage are still relatively new. Historically marriage, I think you said at the beginning was about status or, you know, using girls as a bargaining chip to get. Whatever. Whereas now we think about marriage as being based in love and at least in us white American society.
Yeah.
AE: [00:55:47] I would think generally, well, I don't
CA: [00:55:49] know. Um, but I just think it's interesting the way that marriage has shifted, especially since ancient Greece, but certainly even much more recently. Um, and Eurocentric perceptions of marriage. Yeah.
AE: [00:56:02] England was the first in Western Europe to create statutory rape laws and marital age laws and 1275 sexual relations with girls under either 12 or 14, depending on interpretation of the sources were criticized.
A second law was made with more severe punishments for under the age of 10 and 1579. And in the late 18th and early 19th century, the British colonial administration introduced marriage age restrictions for Hindu and Muslim girls in the India. Sub-continent but what I want to talk about what I want to focus on.
Are the stories in the U S because I think it's really important. Yeah. I want to talk about a bad-ass bitch named Sherry Johnson. Oh, Sherry . Okay. She is incredible. I've literally spent the past, like two days just listening to her speak. She has a Ted talk. Yeah. She's I mean, her energy is just phenomenal and the fact that she's so positive after everything that's happened to her.
CA: [00:57:03] Yeah. We need to feature her for our woman crush Wednesday on our Instagram or one without
AE: [00:57:11] well,
CA: [00:57:13] w women, women, Wednesday, women, Wednesday, whatever we called it. Yeah. The one time we've done it. I don't think we haven't done it yet. Nope. So we're going to do women Wednesday. We
AE: [00:57:23] are let's feature Sherry for women Wednesdays.
I think that's a great idea. Good job. Sherry is a survivor and an advocate of sexual abuse and child marriage. At the age of eight, Sherry was raped by the Bishop of her church. Oh no. And later the deacon of the church, she was pregnant by nine gave birth at 10, was married at 11 on March 29th, 1971 in Tampa, Florida.
Her mother made her wedding dress. Her mother made her veil. Her mother basically came together with the members of the church and said, what are we to do? Marriage is the answer. Um, there was an interview where Sherry had told her mom and her mom. Beat her essentially, for telling lies about, you know, the deacon of the church.
So stories like the it's very tragic.
CA: [00:58:16] Who did she get married to at the age of 10? Was it she got
AE: [00:58:19] married to the deacon? Yes. Who was not, I mean, he was older. He was, I believe he was between 18 and 20. Okay. Um, also she's 11 ouch. What's interesting. Is that on the child's birth certificate when she was 10, they created the birth certificate with Sherry's married name, but she wasn't going to be married for another year.
Also in order to be, get something like that on a birth certificate, there has to be a judge involved. So all of this was pre-planned. All of this was known, essentially known and they would've had to have some inside connections in order to make this happen. So they got married in the church and she was forced to marry her rapist.
She was pregnant again at the age of 18 and she had to quit school, six children by the age of 17. Wait,
CA: [00:59:17] we jumped from one to six
AE: [00:59:18] really quickly. And finally at 17, she divorced him and remarried the same year and she says a quote and I'm paraphrasing here. But, um, she says something like, who does an abused person marry another abuser?
Right? So by the time she was 27, she had nine children. And all of this happened in the state of Florida. She finally was able to, to kind of divorce her second abusive husband. Correct. And, um, has made it her mission to change laws. To be at the forefront of this movement for child marriage or against child marriage, I should say.
Right. And she, her story is so inspirational.
CA: [01:00:02] Well, it's so hard too, because she should never have had to be the one to lead that charge. And I think that that's one of the things that I hate most about this is that the survivors are the ones who have to advocate for change. Um, it's not the people who put them in this position who are reflecting and realizing that something is wrong here.
It's, you know, the people who have suffered the most are the ones who then have to roll up their sleeves and make something change.
AE: [01:00:31] And, and her mother was an active participant, unfortunately. And this next story we're going to talk about as well. You know, it's people assuming that parental consent is going to be a buffer and that these parents have the, their best, their children's best interest at heart.
Well, it's not true. It's simply not true. A hundred percent of the time. It's just
CA: [01:00:51] not agreed. And as much as I want to believe that parents always want the best for their kids, parents can be misguided, like even a parent thinking that they're doing what's right for their kid may just not objectively be what's right for their kid.
And that could come down to lack of education or lack of access to information, or even, you know, Conforming to whatever other people around them are encouraging
AE: [01:01:16] them to do. Yeah. I'm sensing some intersectionality. Oh girl, I'm going. Um, so this next story I'm going to be discussing is from unchainedatlast.com, which is a website devoted to telling the stories of people who suffered at the hands of child marriage.
So these are firsthand accounts of, of stories. However, names have been changed. Places have been changed. So I don't have a ton of detail, actual detail about these people, right? So this is from the perspective of quote Terri. I was raised in a family where abuse and neglect were normal. As a result, I was severely depressed.
And at the age of 12, I attempted suicide. I called the local crisis hotline and spoke to a man who was a third year missionary training student. He convinced me and my parents that he could provide counseling to me. And I didn't need the antidepressants and the doctor that the doctors had prescribed. I saw him twice a week for counseling from then on later that summer, his apartment building caught fire and he convinced my parents to let him move into their basement.
We then go into some sexual trauma.
CA: [01:02:21] She was 12 years old when she first reached
AE: [01:02:23] out to him, she became pregnant right before she turned 14. My parents said I could only keep my child if I married him. And that I had brought shame to my family. So in may of 1980, 1980, we went on a road trip so I could marry, so I could be married off.
We first stopped in Kentucky where the judge refused to do the ceremony. Due to my age, we drove to Alabama there. A judge had no problem with the situation. And in a six minute ceremony, I was married to a 28 year old pedophile that abused me. She then goes into discussing some domestic violence. Uh, and essentially her parents are turning her back to him using the ceremony, using her marital status, as you are no longer our problem, you need to take care of your shit at home, essentially.
CA: [01:03:15] Yeah. Which I think is a, I, you said at the beginning that she grew up being abused. Correct. So I think that there's also the sense of if you don't know different than how can you advocate for something that's also when you're 14 years old and married off, I mean with no support system. And how do you even begin to wonder what it's like to leave that situation?
AE: [01:03:40] Yeah, eventually I began counseling again to quote, cure my depression and make me a better wife. My therapist asked me immediately how often my husband beat me. And when I said every day, he promised to help. He had a social worker waiting the next week when I walked into the office and I was taken to a shelter for battered children.
Eventually they removed my child from the home as well. So this is the portion that I wanted to talk about. Most
CA: [01:04:06] I, you just. Breezed on past, and maybe this is what you're about to talk about, but the fact that they removed her and not her kid, like an abused woman, having to leave her kid behind to go to a, uh, battered child shelter for an abused woman's shelter.
AE: [01:04:23] Well, so I think what it's saying is that she was, she was, they scooped her at the therapy session. So they went back for her child.
CA: [01:04:31] Okay. That there was some time between those two, but there were not okay. Okay. Well
AE: [01:04:36] she's eventually, right. So we don't know how long it took by. So yeah. So technically
CA: [01:04:40] yes, as a parent being separated from your kid and leaving your kid with an abuser for any length of time, it has to be really traumatic.
AE: [01:04:48] This is what blows my fucking mind. So she says, even though most child marriages like mine ultimately result in divorce, Thank God, those divorces cannot be initiated by the children themselves.
CA: [01:05:05] What do you mean?
AE: [01:05:06] Meaning children don't have the ability to fire my parent and you signed me over to be married to this other person.
Who's of age. My rights are not the same as a 13 year old person. You can 14 or 15 year old person. I cannot necessarily file for my own divorce until you're 18 until you're of whatever age in that state that, Oh, is that not so problematic? Oh, I'm like, my hands are in the air. I'm like, it's fucked
CA: [01:05:37] up. Oh my gosh.
I can't wrap my mind around that. So many... I've never thought about it?
AE: [01:05:44] No. Why? Yeah, exactly. I
CA: [01:05:47] mean, we weren't educated about this. This does not happen in the U S what are you talking
AE: [01:05:51] about? Nope. Nope. But Terry goes on to kind of, you know, eventually she did get out of the relationship. She did do have a divorce, um, but you know, essentially the rest of your life is affected and you or your childhood is stolen from you.
And, um, there are a huge amount of people that are to blame and a lot of layers. How, how many people did this get past?
CA: [01:06:21] Well, and not going to happen, thinking about complex PTSD or CPTSD, um, which is so PTSD has historically been linked to like an event or, you know, a coupling of events in a period of time, but complex PTSD functions differently because it was over an extended period of time.
And. I mean, there's there therapies that you can do to help heal your PTSD and CPTSD. Yeah. But it is a long process and even decades later, you can still be very easily triggered. Yeah. Like the trauma that these kids have to be experiencing, and then we'll continue to experience potentially for the rest of
AE: [01:07:04] their lives.
Absolutely. I mean, Sherry had nine children by the, you know, three years younger than I am today.
CA: [01:07:12] And now even if she is divorced or she is divorced, she still has to like care for these nine kids and meet their needs. Yeah. And regardless of what their relationship with her is like, I mean, she knows there.
Their story and she has to carry that trauma on top of raising nine. Well,
AE: [01:07:31] and, and, and that's an, a really good point too, about she, she really loves her kids. You can tell her. Yeah. But that's not always the case that it can, children can often be a really huge reminder of, of unhealthy relationships and,
CA: [01:07:45] yeah.
Yeah. And I mean, we know all the reasons that people might not want to parent children, like either putting their kids up for adoption or, um, having an abortion or whatever else. And one of the big arguments is, you know, you wouldn't want a woman to have to carry her rapist's kid. So I can't even imagine all the reminders, so lots and lots of therapy, lots and lots of really,
AE: [01:08:13] really great therapist.
Please do. I will end my segment tonight by stating this fact. My home state of Delaware, New Jersey, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania are the only us States, which ban marriage under the age of 18, completely
CA: [01:08:33] Bravo to those four States. How the fuck do we get the rest of the country on board?
AE: [01:08:39] Yep. They're working on it.
Wow. Yeah,
CA: [01:08:42] that was a really heavy
AE: [01:08:45] it worry, jarring another poem.
CA: [01:08:47] Um, let's like, let's sit with that for just a second before you read another poem, because I feel like I need a minute to process. Okay. Um, so why don't we talk intersectionality and then do another poem, like right at the very end
AE: [01:09:00] girl you were driving, I'm just a passenger.
So the conformity thing is the first thing I think of right off the bat, right. Is like,
CA: [01:09:10] if people are telling you that this is an okay thing, I'm also
AE: [01:09:14] thinking about teachers. Oh, social workers, people in the community that see Sherry being married to this 18 year old when she's 11 and all of the things that they have to work through in their own mind about it being okay, because they are married.
Right. So to me that that's, that's one of the first things I thought of, of as far as
CA: [01:09:36] well, it reminds me of like some of those social experiments where they're like, if you see something happening, how likely are you to stand up and point it out and say that that's wrong? If no one else is. Yeah. Um, I forget what TV show or like little segment used to do that, but it was like, if you see a boyfriend yelling at the girlfriend, are you going to say the camera show?
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Um, so that's what comes to mind for me, because if no one else is saying anything, it's really easy not to say anything. Sure. Um, however, when you realize what the consequences of not saying anything are, do you feel more compelled?
AE: [01:10:12] And I use it, the teacher and social worker example, because those are people who are kind of contractually obligated to, uh,
CA: [01:10:20] mandated reporters.
Yeah,
AE: [01:10:21] exactly. Um, but even family members and members of the church would have had to have known, and people were like, literally, still going to this church. Like what? Yeah.
CA: [01:10:33] And I think that it probably goes back to, you know, we're a part of this church. We have a community here and we can overlook this thing because.
You know, it's still our community
AE: [01:10:47] and there's so much trust put into not only just religious leaders, but leaders in every community. There's an automatic credibility that is given, it's like a get out of jail free card, right? Oh, absolutely.
CA: [01:11:01] Absolutely. I think that it's so troubling in just the frequency with which it occurs around the world, especially, and it doesn't sound like anywhere is really exempt from it at this point.
Like this is gonna, this happens everywhere. Um, but I think what's problematic about it is that you're the first person that I've heard. Talk about, uh, child marriage in the U S in this way. Now that's not to be confused with Q Anon who. Well, let me back up. So that's not to be confused with, um, talking about like child sex trafficking.
Sure. Child sex trafficking is a, a whole other bear, like, Oh yeah. Which I assume we'll get to at some point probably a long time from now, because I'm going to need a minute to recover from this one. I know. But, um, so, but there's an issue with, uh, sex trafficking in our country and then lots of places in the world.
Yeah. And then that has been used by, uh, Q Anon to like bring people in and then persuade them to believe other things, which is a really interesting like group think mentality. Yeah. And we can get into that. Later too, but that's such a big topic. Yeah. So just thinking about all the different ramifications of this,
AE: [01:12:28] it's pretty, w it's more widespread than you might originally have thought.
So I'm also trying to bring it back in. So history talks about it being like really popular in small rural communities, but also we did all kinds of shit back in the day we used to like wash our clothes in urine and shit that doesn't make any fucking sense. Yeah. Um, so I don't really give much credibility to how we used to do things because obviously we know better now, except for apparently not.
Well,
CA: [01:13:02] and I think some of the big difference here is sure. Maybe this started a long time ago when people weren't living as long, like. I've heard that argument before, like you said, um, but now people are living longer and we have neuroscience that tells us like when brains develop. And I think that, you know, teenagers are hormonal and the age of consent is less of an issue.
If proper sex ed is provided and inclusive sex ed like trans queer issues, um, safe sex practices among all those different identities. Um, but with abstinence only education followed by being raised in the Bible belt. Like you're just asking for
AE: [01:13:49] a lot of Midwest States. I mean, you have to think about the, a lot of the majority of the country is in rural or suburban.
You know, cities are essentially the minority, even though they hold the majority of the, of course population. It's like, God, we're all going to school in probably really similar. Yeah. In some, in some ways. Yeah.
CA: [01:14:12] Yeah. No, absolutely. I think that what this tells me is that we need to improve holistically.
Like not just changing legislation, but also looking at, um, how do we change our education system and how do we better, you know, advocate for young people who don't know better who are being misguided
AE: [01:14:34] and how do we raise our sons? Yeah.
CA: [01:14:37] Differently. Right? How do we educate our sons? Yeah. I don't know.
Excellent point. Oh no. Like I've had a moment to breathe. Will you please share another poem with us
AE: [01:14:49] in Lu? I'm going to save my poetry for. I think another episode, because I think that we'll just face it out a lot. I don't wanna, you know, I wanna, I wanna save some treaties for later,
CA: [01:15:02] please. Maybe one day I'll be inspired and go back and get my, that shit out.
Journal.
AE: [01:15:07] Break it out. Oh my God. Great job today. The intersectionality portion. Oh, agreed.
CA: [01:15:14] I mean, it got heavy. Got real heavy there for a minute.Little weighted blanket. We, uh,
AE: [01:15:18] we're bringing it back up, bringing it back up. Thank you guys so much for listening. I am so proud of this podcast. Honestly, the community community, God, I just, I love everybody.
Definitely follow us on Instagram to see our, um, updates. We post information about, you know, pictures from all of our episodes, email us. I want to hear from you messaged us, slide into those DMS slide, into Carey Ann's DM's all of the things. So thank you guys so much for listening. If you support us blink twice,
CA: [01:15:52] and if you're out there, keep listening.
Okay,
AE: [01:15:55] thank you for listening to podcast without an audience. Find us on social media at podwithoutanaud, you can find us on Instagram or Facebook or find us on the web at podcastwithoutanaudience.com. Shoot us an email at podwithoutanaud@gmail.com. Our cover art is created by an actual angel Ashlie Acevedo
our music is by Zach Smith and Ted Oliver editing by Jacob Beeson.
We
CA: [01:16:20] hope you enjoyed today's episode and all of our nerdy content. leave us a five star review on Apple podcast or wherever you listen to us today. Oh, and check it out Patrion for exclusive content and our pasta recipe again. Thank and keep listening.
Other: [01:16:54] Welcome to pineapple pizza podcast, where we serve up delicious slices of mythology, cryptozoology, and urban legends. Ashley is the MythBuster Tyree cEUs is finally just like, yeah, it was you. Okay. Waterboard him with this magical jam. That is not a testicle. Emily is a cryptid Hunter. He knows this guy that's bending over and partying into the face of absolutely horrified cap with a capitalism. In some stories, this long narrow sheet of cotton is also your roll of toilet paper. But it's evil toilet paper and Lindsey is the storyteller. Put your trades in the upright position. We're flying back over to Northern Italy for a fun little legend. And I will have you rethinking watersports. Yay. Snack. What's a snack pineapple pizza podcast. Stop on by for a slice, a story and a laugh coming January, 2021.