The Equality Myth - Looks Like Work, Season 3, Ep 14
Let’s start here: feminism is not a phase.
It’s not a side hustle or a “women’s issue.”
It’s a vigilance practice. And for Dr. Orit Kamir, it’s been a life’s work.
In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Kamir—feminist scholar, human rights researcher, and the woman behind Israel’s sexual harassment prevention law—to unpack the stories we’re told about equality… and the ones we tell ourselves to stay comfortable.
Orit grew up believing in the “equality myth”—the idea that things were already fine, that gender oppression was a thing of the past, or at least of other cultures. Spoiler: it wasn’t. And once she saw it clearly, there was no going back.
Together we talk about how patriarchy survives not through brute force, but through story. Through sanitized nostalgia, weaponized innocence, and the seductive lie that “we’ve already solved that.”
Inside this conversation:
Why equality isn’t a destination—it’s a muscle you have to keep working
The long shadow of denial and the relief of finally naming things
The “tradwife” pipeline: from Donna Reed to TikTok and back again
How patriarchal systems adapt to co-opt even feminist language
Why “going through the motions” can still shift culture
COVID, war, and the moments that crack open our illusions
30 years of feminist advocacy—and what Orit still believes we can change
Orit asks the kind of question that lingers long after the episode ends:
👉 “If something is meaningful when I do it for others, is it not just as meaningful when I do it for myself?”
This is an episode for the vigilant. For the hopeful. For the ones who feel exhausted but not extinguished.
For anyone ready to reclaim the stories we’ve been handed—and write something braver.
"We live through narratives... What we see and what we remember, what we recall and what we understand are stories."
Resources & Mentions:
The Israeli sexual harassment prevention law of 1998
Professor Catharine MacKinnon
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