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Hey White Women w/ Knitting Cult Lady & White Woman Whisperer | 61 | Moral Superiority Binaries

Hey White Women

Release Date: 12/19/2025

Hey White Women w/ Knitting Cult Lady & White Woman Whisperer | 61 | Moral Superiority Binaries

Hey White Women

Hey White Women with Knitting Cult Lady and White Woman Whisperer | 60 | De-radicalization

Hey White Women

In this episode, Rebecca and Daniella dive into how cult dynamics show up way beyond just “cults.” Daniella shares pieces of her childhood in the Children of God and how those patterns of coercion, shame, and identity erasure followed her into adulthood—including her time in the military. They compare notes on how institutions, extremist movements, and even online communities use the same tactics to control people, and why so many folks get pulled into these systems in the first place. The conversation stays honest, nuanced, and very human as they talk about deradicalization, belonging,...

Hey White Women w/ Knitting Cult Lady & White Woman Whisperer | 59 | In-Person Special Episode

Hey White Women

In this in-person episode, Daniella and Rebecca dive deep into racial dynamics, whiteness, group behavior, cult patterns, and the ways white women, white culture, and American norms create invisible and often unexamined hierarchies. They explore how racism shows up in everyday interactions — such as being asked to “prove” a lived experience, being demanded to provide citations, or being treated as less credible unless a white source confirms it. They move through topics including camera/lens racism, anti-Blackness in beauty and hair culture, the Puritan roots of American “purity,”...

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

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...

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...

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In this episode, Daniella and Rebecca unpack the backlash following Jasmine Crockett’s announcement that she’s running for Senate, focusing on how quickly public support—especially from white women—turned into purity testing. They examine why Black women in power are routinely held to impossible moral standards, particularly around U.S. support for Israel, while white politicians are rarely scrutinized the same way. The conversation expands into how whiteness flattens complexity into good/bad binaries, how “moral superiority” becomes a performance, and how this dynamic ultimately protects harmful systems rather than challenging them. Drawing parallels to cult logic, respectability politics, DEI myths, and American exceptionalism, the episode argues that real change requires interrogating who we criticize, why, and when—instead of using critique as a way to feel righteous while doing nothing.

Connect with Rebecca at:

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Connect with Daniella at:

KnittingCultLady Store

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Uncultured by Daniella Mestyanek Young

Key Takeaways

Jasmine Crockett’s Senate run triggered rapid purity testing that exposed racialized double standards in political critique.
Black women in power are expected to embody moral perfection in ways white politicians are not.
Voting within a broken system is not the same as personally endorsing every outcome of that system.
Whiteness often collapses nuance into binary thinking: good vs. bad, pure vs. corrupt.
Moral outrage can function as a performance that replaces meaningful action.
Critiquing individuals instead of systems often reinforces the very power structures being opposed.
“Purity politics” mirrors cult logic by demanding ideological perfection and punishing deviation.
DEI backlash obscures the reality that white people—especially white men—have long been its primary beneficiaries.
American exceptionalism discourages people from imagining political collapse, change, or accountability.
Progress depends on asking better questions: who is being critiqued, for what purpose, and to what end?

Chapters

00:00 The Political Landscape and Representation
02:31 Critiquing Political Figures and Systems
05:06 The Role of Race in Political Discourse
07:53 Purity Politics and Accountability
10:46 Understanding Zionism and Its Implications
13:28 The Complexity of Military and Political Critique
15:57 Navigating Identity and Political Engagement
18:43 The Impact of DEI on Political Dynamics
25:01 Policing Perceptions and Motherhood
28:06 Political Strategies and Accountability
30:25 Imagining America: Leadership and Change
34:52 Gift Giving Culture and Expectations
47:06 Conversations on Change and Accountability
55:36 Unpacking Ideologies and Personal Beliefs
59:28 The Waiting Room: Transitioning from Cults to Community
01:02:19 Addressing MAGA and Accountability
01:04:51 Understanding Individual Experiences and Trauma
01:10:33 Navigating Conversations Around Race and Feminism
01:16:53 The Importance of Specificity in Discussions

Produced by Haley Phillips

Key Takeaways

TOPICS