405 Comments

Dear coffeebits: May I suggest you switch to DECAF? :)

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Bari, thank you for this wonderful experience!

Both sides are actually standing on the shoulders of the sexual revolution and all have choices as a result. Everyone on each side of this debate actually admitted as much. As such, the sexual revolution has far from failed! So, I can agree with both sides in so much as it is clear that we, as women and society, simply need to improve things, not go backwards!

Many areas in need of improvement were touched upon in the debate. I loved each debater. Women are nuanced and I love that!

It was briefly mentioned, but from my point of view, the advent of remote work has revolutionized the potential for choice, and balance of home / work for both genders and therefore the family, much like birth control did! The new revolution is the pursuit of balance. For men too. For partners too.

I think Covid introduced a tipping point in free societies. The idea of flexibility for the sake of family. I am excited for the possibilities this opens for my daughter, who is about to get married. This idea of choice and flexibility goes for so many things. Pertaining to work, while not all women and men have the kind of work that can allow flexibility, the idea has been permanently introduced into our society for both genders, and needs to be expanded upon to fit all kinds of jobs and all kinds of families.

There’s always an imbalance and may always be for the higher paid in terms of resources for greater choice. We can do better, okay… All panelists said so. But you don’t throw out the baby with the bath water.

Honestly, kudos for the work we’ve accomplished! Let’s keep going. Kudos to my Grandmother who went back to college before her time and was actually lab partners with my father who just turned 90. Kudos to my mother who was valedictorian of her rural school and worked and sewed all her clothes to be the first in her family to go to college and graduate. But then got pregnant, married my dad and had 3 children by the time she was 24. Kudos that she went to night school and was the physics teacher in my HS where I grew up. I made a hybrid and choice a self-employed profession I could keep and adjust while raising our family.

It all started with the sexual revolution! But it cannot stop there. I am absolutely pro-choice. For procreation too, but that’s not what I only mean. It is a metaphor that can be generalized. Choice is freedom.

The impact of the sexual revolution is improving stop / start, but we are still learning. It’s all about choice. That’s feminism. But males could use a masculism too. We are progressing relative to history, some places in the world more than others. In a free society, each generation has the luxury of learning where to focus: There is personal responsibility. There are societal norms.

Don’t tear down what so many women, me included in my 6th decade, have worked so hard to achieve. It’s the foundation upon which today’s women stand. Don’t take it for granted. We need to continue to evolve, hopefully actively so. That’s what I wish for both my daughter and my son, each of whom have yet to start a family.

Build the next level.

Build the next level.

Thanks for listening :)))

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Procedural note -- in a debate you should poll the audience BEFORE the debate and then poll them afterwards. That's the only way to measure the strength of each side's argument.

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The real reason they flaunt their deviance is that they have no care for anything but pleasures of the flesh and money and power. They will not win.

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Grimes knocked it out of the park

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founding

This was a really, really weird debate, if you can call it that. There was no agreement on what is meant by "the sexual revolution." They veered off topic constantly, likely due to my first complaint. Nobody pointed out that Grimes is part of a modern-day harem, which at least one of them was arguing is the end result of said revolution. FP should redo the discussion in a longer, less formal format, geared more toward defining the current 'battle of the sexes' and what is to be done about it.

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What kind of man goes “whoo!” every time Grimes tops her previous inanity?

“Like in five years we may not even have women..”

“Whoo!”

Sounds like some 40 + pervert stalker who missed out on tickets to her last show. It’s the same guy who wears a pussy hat to get laid.

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Bari’s questions were more intriguing than the answers. The premise is valid for a debate. The debaters were not for compelling programming. Bari should be ashamed for scheduling someone as incoherent as Grimes. Her side didn’t stand a chance. Just listening to a minute of her music should clue you in that her opinions maybe just as flaccid.

But at least she made the others shine, somewhat. Still any truly revelatory insights were AWOL from all sides. A third position repp’d by the likes of Camille Paglia would be worth the price of admission. Just someone anyone who has a command of rhetoric to go along with well thought out positions would be welcome.

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Missing in this debate panel are the other half impacted by the sexual revolution - men. It sends the message their opinions mean little. Which after hearing the incoherent “like” ramblings of a “like” popstar “like” grimes did no favors to the pro revolution position. Your average incel could’ve presented a stronger argument for the revolution.

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I can’t listen to this now although I am most interested- because what happened in Israel on Oct 7 th has changed my perspective on what’s important- and I feel my life and those of my kin threatened , violently threatened by the amount of antisemitism in the world . It’s an overwhelming and overriding sense of lack of safety and anxiety. And puts feminism in a corner ! The right to exist as a Jew and Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish nation is more important than the impact of feminism!

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Next time you have a live event I would love for you to share stats on how many people changed their vote before and after the debate. Being open to new ideas, having your views challenged, and actually changing an opinion as a result of new information seems a strong FP value, and I’d love for us all to be motivated to live it by being measured.

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Girls gotta compete with the most awesome creatures ever born online when single, often go to college and get in debt, get a job to pay off debt and get married to have kids in time before their clock runs out. They gotta commute and not see their kids all day, pay crazy amounts for day care and then keep the house clean too and make dinner because she knows that other men in the office get a home cooked dinner and does not want to lose him to the flirty new hires.

Basically: The girls got all they asked for and it sucks for most of them...

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I thought the premise of the debate was faulty and one of the participants called it out in the beginning. The premise was akin to using this example, the founding of the US was a success. At times the participants could not stay on subject. Looking at the premise as a question it was unbareably vague. I think most people think the sexual revolution was a net positive up until a certain point in time and that includes everyone in the debate. I would have been much more interested in a debate about it going forward. That’s where the real debate lies.

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I was thinking while watching this debate that there had to be women/men who wanted the sexual revolution much more than others.

So many points made by all these women I appreciated hearing. I would love to hear more debates on other topics. Keep the communication going.

What I found in my life that worked, was when I loved and respected myself my choices about sex were better. And yes, I know sex doesn’t equal love. In fact, ALL choices in my life were better from a place of self-love and respect.

Do not recall who made the remark - perhaps Grimes - much more than the topic of sexual revolution came into play in this debate. But it always does now. Difficult to separate the overlap.

Still believe that so much about what is presented or challenged in life is always made more political (policies and laws) and group ethics (polls and protesting) rather than what I believe it is really about …one’s own choices and morals/values/beliefs.

Still believe that my “free” choices that I make are between me and my God and aren’t up for poll or opinions.

Do I believe the sexual revolution was successful. My answer is very simple. Like so many others things in life, yes, for some it was and for some it wasn’t.

For me, I followed my morals; my values + my beliefs no matter what was happening.✌🏽

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1. When people bring up the past and how women were raped and beaten by their husbands, I always wonder how often that really happened. I'm not saying it didn't happen, I'm sure it did. But they were people, how many average men can be brutal to a woman and just go on with life like everything is normal. In a traditional type society, those women had fathers and brothers in their community. I have trouble believing that they could walk around with signs of abuse and those male family members would just say 'yup, that bitch deserves whatever happened to her'. Or would those men take the husband aside and teach him a lesson, or at least give him a stern talk.

2. Though they didn't really touch on it directly. In the past yes, women were pressured or forced into marriage, but the men were too. I have trouble believing in that past, that a typical 18/19 year old male, being told, 'hey, this is who you are going to marry.' would respond with 'Awesome!, I can't wait to have the responsibility of family put on my shoulders and spend the rest of my life working in a factory/field.'

The common thread is that the past in relation to feminism is always filled with an implication that all women were miserable slave like creatures and the men were having a great old time. Maybe the more common theme is that in the past, both sexes were less selfish and felt the responsibility of societal pressure in their own way. I always feel like that's the trade off, the more traditional society had less freedom, but you had a stronger sense of family and your role in that society. The more modern world you have freedom, but there is a greater sense of emptiness and aloneness. Maybe that's just me, I have a real lack of sense of community.

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I thoroughly enjoyed the debate and would love to see more like this in the future. With that said, I do think Marry Eberstadt, the "Adam and Eve After the Pill" author would have added more intellectual depth and maturity to conversation than say, Grimes. Her presence as a boomer and as a woman who watched the sexual revolution play out in real time would have made the entire conversation richer. Please consider a multi-generational panel for future discussions on the feminine experience- we all have so much to learn from each other and can be so much more effective in solutioning for the future if we better understand each others perspectives. And finally thank you so much Barry and the Free Press team for your brilliance and hard work - these essential public conversations upgrade all of our thinking.

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