Libsyn Directory

Hey White Women w/ Knitting Cult Lady & White Woman Whisperer | 56 | Enablism

Release Date: 11/06/2025

Hey White Women w/ Knitting Cult Lady & White Woman Whisperer | 58 | Puritan Whiteness

Hey White Women

This episode is a wide-ranging conversation between Daniella and Rebecca about the everyday and systemic ways whiteness shapes culture, identity, and behavior. They discuss how beauty standards, camera technology, tanning culture, and even small tech features like autocapitalization reflect racial bias. A major theme is how white women often derail or center themselves in conversations about race, sometimes unintentionally, through whitesplaining or over-explaining. They explore beauty labor, the politics of hair and appearance, and how the same practices (such as time-consuming beauty...

Hey White Women w/ Knitting Cult Lady & White Woman Whisperer | 57 | Who's Speaking Matters

Hey White Women

This episode features a deep, nuanced conversation between Daniella Mestyanek Young and Rebecca about whiteness, power, community, cultural disconnection, and the complicated dynamics of speaking about social issues publicly. They explore how race, gender, and perceived authority shape who is “allowed” to say what, and how society reacts differently depending on the identity of the speaker. Their discussion spans topics such as the weaponization of “niceness,” internal policing within white communities, the loss of joy in white American culture, the effects of cult-like systems,...

Hey White Women w/ Knitting Cult Lady & White Woman Whisperer | 56 | Enablism

Hey White Women

Hey White Women w/ Knitting Cult Lady & White Woman Whisperer | 55 | Weaponizing Whiteness

Hey White Women

In this episode, Daniella Mestyanek Young (Knitting Cult Lady) and Rebecca (White Woman Whisperer) unpack the process of recording the audiobook version of Daniella’s upcoming book and explore how their collaboration reflects deeper dynamics of race, privilege, and creative responsibility. They discuss rejecting the “easy” or most cost-effective route in favor of ethical decisions that honor Black voices and resist capitalist shortcuts. The conversation then broadens into weaponizing whiteness for good—how white women can leverage social privilege to confront injustice—and the...

Hey White Women w/ Knitting Cult Lady & White Woman Whisperer | 54 | White Rapture Day

Hey White Women

Rebecca (White Woman Whisperer) and Daniella (“Knitting Cult Lady”) explore how white American culture is shaped by control, conformity, and suppression of individuality—from the witch trials to modern social norms. They connect white supremacy’s emphasis on stoicism and sameness to military culture, patriarchal family structures, beauty standards, and cult dynamics. Their conversation also unpacks the social coding of “whiteness” as denial of self, contrasting it with cultures where expression, emotion, and difference are normalized. The episode concludes with reflections on...

Hey White Women w/ Knitting Cult Lady & White Woman Whisperer | 53 | It Can Be That Easy

Hey White Women

In this episode, Daniella (“Knitting Cult Lady”) and Rebecca (“White Woman Whisperer”) have a deep, layered conversation about deconstructing whiteness, celebrity culture, and over-identification through the lens of Taylor Swift. Daniella shares her personal process of deconstructing her identity as a lifelong Swiftie and connecting it to her broader work dismantling white womanhood and American cultic structures. Rebecca brings in a critical Black feminist lens, exploring the difference between individualism and community, white women’s relationship to innocence and denial, and how...

Hey White Women w/ Knitting Cult Lady & White Woman Whisperer | ep52 | Consumer Privilege

Hey White Women

In this episode, Rebecca and Daniella explore the intersections of race, consumer privilege, tone policing, and digital labor—particularly how these dynamics play out for women of color online. Rebecca revisits her viral “caption gate” controversy, unpacking how white women often use moralized accessibility language (“just add captions”) as a covert way to assert dominance and demand labor. The two also dissect the cultural discomfort around Black women expressing anger, the dehumanizing expectations placed on female creators, and the myth that public educators or creators owe...

Hey White Women w/ Knitting Cult Lady and White Woman Whisperer | ep51 | White Woman Tears

Hey White Women

This episode features Daniella (“Knitting Cult Lady”) and Rebecca (the “White Woman Whisperer”) unpacking themes of violence, privilege, whiteness, cult dynamics, and the demands placed on public figures to perform morality online. They reflect on recent events, including reactions to political violence and how white Americans process (or avoid processing) martyrdom, policing, and systemic violence. The conversation critiques the idea that “violence is never the answer” as a privileged stance, explores how audiences police creators’ responses to current events, and discusses the...

White Women w/ Knitting Cult Lady & White Woman Whisperer | ep50 | Paradox of Proving Yourself

Hey White Women

In this conversation, Daniella Mestyanek Young (“Knitting Cult Lady”) and Rebecca (aka “White Woman Whisperer”) explore how cult dynamics show up in the U.S. military, publishing, and everyday systems of power. Daniella shares insights from her forthcoming book Culting of America, reflecting on the accessibility of ideas across mediums (books, documentaries, TikTok), and the challenges of being taken seriously while calling the military a cult. The discussion ranges from personal deconstruction journeys, the paradox of proving oneself, and the caste-like structures of whiteness, to...

Hey White Women w/ Knitting Cult Lady and White Woman Whisperer | ep49 | Un-Gaslighting Whiteness

Hey White Women

This episode brings Daniella Mestyanek Young and Rebecca into a candid conversation about cult dynamics, purity culture, whiteness, and the process of building communities rooted in truth rather than secrecy or shame. They unpack how cult logic—like the weaponization of secrets, unquestioned authority, and worship of the written word—maps onto broader systems like white supremacy and American culture. Daniella reflects on her work writing Uncultured and her upcoming projects, highlighting how her extreme experiences serve as an entry point for others to recognize parallels in their own...

More Episodes

In this wide-ranging and incisive conversation, Daniella Mestyanek Young and Rebecca (White Woman Whisperer) examine how white womanhood functions within patriarchal and white supremacist systems. They discuss cultural habits like performative complaining, body-shaming as small talk, and the defense of harmful relationships as coping mechanisms inherited from historical gender norms. The two connect these behaviors to broader enablism within oppressive systems, drawing parallels between interpersonal and systemic patterns of abuse. They explore the emotional labor of deconstruction—how growth can strain relationships, how whiteness breeds fragility and avoidance of discomfort, and how dismantling oppressive systems demands both personal transformation and systemic critique. The discussion also touches on Daniella’s experiences with xenophobia, the absurdity of racial hierarchy among white people, and the exhaustion of trying to teach anti-racism to those who want shortcuts or moral validation. Both women emphasize humor, vulnerability, and “tactical frivolity” as subversive tools in serious work.

Connect with Rebecca at:

Website

Patreon

TikTok

Connect with Daniella at:

KnittingCultLady Store

Preorder for Culting of America: The Culting of America PRE-SALE (SHIPS BY JANUARY 20, 2026) – Knitting Cult Lady

Uncultured by Daniella Mestyanek Young

Key Takeaways

White women often express dissatisfaction (with husbands, bodies, etc.) as a social ritual rather than a desire for change.
These behaviors reflect cultural conditioning to commiserate without demanding accountability or transformation.
Daniella and Rebecca liken white womanhood’s role in patriarchy to the “safe parent” in an abusive household—complicit but self-perceived as powerless.
Enablism—passive complicity in maintaining harmful systems—is central to both personal and structural oppression.
The discomfort of being challenged is frequently mistaken for harm, creating resistance to genuine deconstruction.
Deconstructing whiteness and gender roles requires sustained, self-directed effort—there is no shortcut or “quick fix.”
Daniella connects this to her personal history with cult dynamics, where sameness and vulnerability were conflated, skewing community instincts.
Rebecca critiques how whiteness seeks “relief” from self-imposed suffering rather than confronting the systems that cause it.
Both note that systemic change begins with self-awareness and ends with structural accountability—not moral self-improvement alone.
“Tactical frivolity”—using humor, creativity, and joy to subvert power—can be a radical form of activism.
Building cross-racial trust demands deep listening and relinquishing control, not speaking for marginalized people.
Deconstruction changes relationships; not everyone will evolve at the same pace, and that tension is part of the work.
White supremacy harms everyone, including white people, by creating emotional, social, and moral impoverishment.
Daniella’s experiences of xenophobia from white Americans expose anti-Blackness embedded even within whiteness itself.
Both women critique liberal white feminism for avoiding self-implication while demanding praise for minimal awareness.
Authentic allyship requires giving up comfort, control, and the illusion of moral purity.
Systemic analysis—of race, gender, and culture—must be paired with emotional intelligence and introspection.
Teaching about whiteness should balance empathy and accountability without centering white fragility.
Humor, self-awareness, and relational honesty are essential tools in sustaining anti-racist and feminist work.

Chapters

00:00 Understanding White Women's Online Behavior
05:37 The Dynamics of Relationships and Complaining
10:50 The Burden of Whiteness and Self-Perception
13:51 The Complexity of Identity and Relationships
16:29 The Challenge of Change in Relationships
19:15 The Illusion of Control and Future Perspectives
22:19 Racism and the Burden of Proof
25:01 The Impact of White Supremacy on Society
28:00 Understanding Racism and White Privilege
30:21 The Role of Gender in Storytelling
32:22 Privilege and Community Dynamics
34:14 The Impact of Sororities and Greek Life
35:57 Language and Anti-Blackness
37:49 Navigating Identity and Cultural Backgrounds
41:32 Deconstructing Whiteness and Systemic Racism
46:16 The Challenge of Anti-Racism Work
50:48 Tactical Frivolity in Activism
56:32 Navigating Book Clubs and Conversations
57:41 Understanding Language and Communication in Anti-Racism
59:33 Setting Standards for Inclusivity
01:01:56 The Patterns of Content Creation and Community
01:03:57 The Illusion of Corporate Goodness
01:05:50 The Emotional Weight of Deconstruction
01:07:36 The Journey of Healing and Growth
01:09:40 The Timing of Writing and Sharing Experiences
01:11:19 The Importance of Reflection in Storytelling
01:13:42 The Balance of Sharing and Processing Experiences
01:16:17 The Role of Accountability in Learning
01:20:01 The Path to Doing Better

Produced by Haley Phillips

TOPICS