[Encore] Pushing Back On Patriarchal Narratives with Elise Loehnen

Episode 89

In this special encore episode, we revisit a doozy of a conversation between Jen and Elise Loehnen, author of On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good. In this episode, Elise discusses how deeply ingrained patriarchal narratives create a policing effect on women’s behavior, historically using concepts like the seven deadly sins to restrict women and enforce an idealized “goodness.” She unpacks the insidious ways women are conditioned from a young age to suppress normal human drives like anger, ambition, and sexuality.

This conversation, which absolutely blew our minds, explores how patriarchy not only shapes our systems but also gets inside us, training women for “goodness” while men are trained for power. We talk about everything from motherhood to anger to unlearning patterns that have kept us small, and imagining a freer, truer way of being for ourselves and future generations.

Whether you caught it the first time or you’re hearing it fresh, this is one of the most insightful and hopeful conversations we’ve had on the show.