Blind Plea - Bonus: Liz Wrote a Book!

Episode Date: February 22, 2024

Today we’re flipping the table and interviewing our host Liz Flock. Gloria Rivieria (host of The Defenders) gets an update about Deven and chats with Liz about her new book “The Furies: Women, Vengeance and Justice,” which centers around three women across the world who decided to fight back.    Purchase your copy of  “The Furies” https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-furies-elizabeth-flock?variant=41038092337186 If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, use a safe computer and contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at www.thehotline.org or call 1-800-799-7233. You can also search for a local domestic violence shelter at www.domesticshelters.org/. If you have experienced sexual assault and need support, visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) at www.rainn.org or call 1-800-656-HOPE Have questions about consent? Take a look at this guide from RAINN at www.rainn.org/articles/what-is-consent  Learn more about criminalized survival at https://survivedandpunished.org/  This series is created with Evoke Media, a woman-founded company devoted to harnessing the power of storytelling to drive social change. This series is presented by Marguerite Casey Foundation. MCF supports leaders who work to shift the balance of power in their communities toward working people and families, and who have the vision and capacity for building a truly representative economy. Learn more at caseygrants.org or visit on social media @caseygrants. Follow host Liz Flock on Twitter @lizflock Interested in bonus content and behind the scenes material? Subscribe to Lemonada Premium right now in the Apple Podcasts app by clicking on our podcast logo and the "subscribe” button. Click this link for a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this and all other Lemonada series: lemonadamedia.com/sponsors.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hi there, Blind Plea listeners. I'm Gloria Riviera, host of The Defenders, and known as Coming to Save Us. Most importantly in this context, I am a huge fan of Blind Plea. I love this podcast so much and I was the listener, I think among many who was like bereft when an episode was over and I could not wait until the next week's episode. Today we're doing something a little different. I am taking the host seat. I'm so glad to be here for this episode to bring you a very special conversation with Liz Flock so we can hear all about her new book,

The Furies, Women, Vengeance, and Justice. Outside of hosting Blind Play, Liz is an Emmy Award-winning journalist. She is just a rock star. She focuses on gender and justice. Her newest book profiles three women around the world at a very extended, painful inflection point. They all decided to fight back against their abusers and the systemic oppression against women in their communities. Each woman chose to use lethal force to gain power, safety, and freedom when the institutions meant to protect

them did not. We're going to take a closer look at how this book came together and what these stories meant for Liz. Hi Liz, I'm so excited to be talking to you. Hi Gloria, thank you. I really appreciate it. I want an update on Blind Plea. How is Devin doing? Yeah, so as listeners know Devin was released from prison and went back home to Baltimore. She is home in Baltimore at her dad's house with her daughter. She's working at McDonald's and she doesn't love it, but she's like glad to have a job. She's working towards McDonald's and she doesn't love it, but she's like glad to have a job.

She's working towards getting her driver's license. We talked last week, I was actually in DC for a book event, so I was trying to see her in Baltimore, but it was just too hard to coordinate with her work schedule. But she, yeah, I mean, I think it's one thing we think about prison and release is like, oh, it's so exciting when you're released from prison, like now you get to have your

life and it's actually like a really rocky transition for most women that get out of prison and almost everyone that I've interviewed has a really hard time when they get out. And so Devin's life isn't like solved or perfect, but she's working really hard to get it on track. So, yeah, and grateful really hard to get it on track. So yeah, and grateful to be spending time with her daughter. Yeah. Well, that's good to hear. Why did you decide on the name The Furies? Yeah, the original title was Conversations with Athena, because I felt like I was having conversations with these modern day versions of Athena. But The Furies was something that

Athena. But the Furies was something that kind of gestured at the mythology that is in this book. Like these stories exist now and they have always existed and they live in us. And the Furies is also an emotion that I think women often aren't supposed to feel and a lot of the women in this book do feel. So I thought that was pretty cool. I have to tell you, as I read the Furys, I constantly took notes. I just showed them to you. And I repeatedly wrote down a lot. And one thing I wrote down was redefining, the word redefining, because I felt that as a writer, you were using several words we all know, but casting them in an entirely new context. And these are words like violence and revenge and more. My question coming out of that is, how is The Fury's a book that was written

because of what we all, to varying degrees, face as women? I wrote this book and I write in the author's note that it kind of, it came to me because I was obsessed with stories of female vigilantes and women who fight back in our pop culture, in our music, in movies, you know, whether it's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo or Kill Bill, I was like, why am I so obsessed with these stories? And then I realized it was because I wished that I could be them, and I think a lot of us wish we could be them.

I think all of us are obsessed with heroes and anti-heroes, but for women who have experienced whether it's, for me, sexual violence in your life, some of us have experienced domestic abuse as Devin did in Blind Plee. Some of us have just experienced a lifetime of smaller violations that still feel really big, like sexual harassment, you know, or whatever it is. We do live in a patriarchal society and women have dealt with so many things

and I think it breeds a kind of feeling of just wishing you could fight back so many things. And I think it breeds a kind of feeling of just wishing you could fight back against these things. And I realized, if I want to be these women, so many others do too. And what does it look like when women do fight back? And I wanted to basically find those real life women around the world, whoever they were,

and understand what it looked like when women took matters into their own hands. Because for me, when I was roofied and sexually assaulted, I didn't do anything. I froze, as many of us do. We think that fight or flight are the most common reactions to an assault, but actually freeze is the most common. And so, for someone who responded to something passively, and I was really upset with myself for a long time,

and I'm more gentle with myself with that now but I really wanted to study these women who did have an active response and see what that looked like. And I found a female vigilante gang that was fighting back against domestic abusers and abusive men and beating them up with bamboo canes and it's because women were really fed up

of this kind of treatment. Well, let's zoom out for a moment because I want to talk about why you chose these particular women and where they were, right? India, Syria, and the US. Why was it important to you to weave together, well, did you set out to possibly find things to weave together in similarities but in such radically different environments? Yeah, so I definitely wanted to do a U.S. case because I felt like people aren't going to care if it's elsewhere. And also, I'm American and so domestic and sexual violence exists in our country, so

we should be looking in our own backyard. I didn't set out to have the case be in Alabama. I actually almost followed a case in Chicago where I live, um, but it wasn't unfolding in real time. And Brittany's case happened to be unfolding as I was reporting it. I saw, you know, a tweet about a story about a woman who killed her rapist and was put into a mental institution. And that set off all kinds of alarm bells for me. So I immediately reached out to the reporter

who connected me to Brittany's mom. And Brittany's mom, Ramona said, hey, come on down. Let's go see Brittany in Bryce Mental Hospital. And you can see for yourself what's going on. So that's how that came about. And that was like five years ago now. I also thought I might do a story in India. I started my career reporting in Mumbai

and part of this book started because I was obsessed with a woman known as the Bandit Queen in India who was a low-caste woman who avenged crimes against women and the poor. She led this group of bandits in this remarkable fashion. She actually once killed an entire town of men. And so I wondered, is there any modern day version of the band of Queen? And that's how I found Angori Daharia and the Green Gang

because they were emulating the band of Queen. And then, you know, Siri was always in the back of my mind too because I knew about the YPJ, which is an all-female militia that fought and actually was largely responsible for defeating the Islamic State. And these women were really exoticized and sexualized and glamorized in the press. They're these, you know, young women, sometimes girls, wielding Kalashnikovs against terrorists.

I mean, how much more of a crazy story can you get? And I wanted to go behind the gloss and really understand like who are these women? So when it came to stories of women who fought back, I sort of knew I wanted to include them as well. There were so many other stories I could have included and I've woven them in a little bit here and there in the book from Mexico, Palestine, all over the world, there's women doing this.

But these three stories really jumped out at me as the stories that I could cover in real time that were the most compelling. This episode of Blind Play is brought to you by Huggy's Little Movers. Huggy's knows that babies come in all shapes and sizes. And that's why they designed a diaper that actually moves and all shapes and sizes, and that's why they designed a diaper

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We really relied on them to keep my baby covered as she's gotten more active. Huggies' little movers are curved, so my baby feels comfy no matter how much she's moving around. And she's moving around a lot. Crawling, cruising, learning to walk. Huggies has her covered for all of it. They also offer up to 12 hour protection against leaks, which is a game changer. Their diapers are just so much softer

and more absorbent than the other ones. And my daughter has really made it clear that she has a preference. Get your baby's butt into Huggy's best fitting diaper. Huggy's little movers. We got you, baby. Think about a moment in your life that changed you, where one day you were yourself

and then the next day, poof, you weren't. I'm Stephanie Whittle's Wax, host of the show Last Day, and each week I sit down with a new guest to explore happy, sad stories of transformation. Some last days are hopeful, some are tragic, but on the other side of every last day is a fresh start. Come laugh cry with us. Listen to Last Day wherever you get your podcasts. How do we redefine violence? How do we think about revenge?

How do we think about shame? Yeah, yeah. And it's interesting because the Green Gang, which is the second section of this book, because this book follows three sections in the section in India, they actually use shame as a tool themselves. So there's a scene in the book where an electricity official, he's stealing, you know, the money and the electricity from all the local village people, and it's so hot and no one can turn on any electricity and people are just fed up. And basically he's a corrupt official. And so the women of the Green Gang dress him up in a sari with bangles and shame him in front of the entire village. So they're kind of flipping it on their head and shaming men and they're saying if you

don't want to work, you could be like a woman and sit at home. So it's very interesting. I mean, like, of course, the big question that I wrestled with in this book is if people are perpetrating violence against you, is it okay for you to be violent and fight back? If people are shaming a woman, is it okay for us to shame men in response? I think that's a question that I wanted readers to wrestle with, like how far is too far and how much is okay and what is justified? What I find myself becoming obsessed with is what kind of emotions are these women chasing? Right?

How much has their own sense of identity and their own solid footing on the ground been compromised by what they've been through extraordinarily so, right? Yes, it has been. But then what are they pushing for? And Gori in particular fascinates me because you write that you observed and Gori

grappling with the degree to which she had to compromise her own beliefs to expand the power that the Green Gang was starting to build. I mean, I think on Gori's story is one of the most interesting because she is a woman who, you know, she's formed this gang of women who are fighting back with bamboo canes against abusers and it's growing in number but at the same time she doesn't have all that much money and she has to maintain a certain level of power in order to get the police to respond to the complaints that they're bringing and you know intimidation only goes so far like she also has to convince the police that she's relevant and that they should pay attention to her.

So you see in the book her like remarkable transformation from, you know, a housewife who by her own admission was pretty demure and meek to getting kicked out of her house and wanting to take revenge and deciding to form this gang, to then forming this gang, but feeling like, oh my god, how do I stay relevant? How do I stay powerful enough that I can help all of these women? How do I get the police and politicians to listen to me? And she realizes it's only through entering politics itself that I might continue my relevancy, but politics comes with corruption. So when I actually was there in India interviewing her, she was trying to hide the fact that she was getting into politics.

There was a day where I said, hey, young Gori, can I come over as usual at 9 a.m. or whatever. She was like, oh, I'm busy that day. I was busy doing what? She was like, oh, nothing. Then we drove through town and there was a giant billboard with her face on it for an event that she was hosting. You're like, I'm on to you. I'm on to you. Yeah. I was like, how do you think we're not going to know about this? So anyways, ultimately she let us come to the event and everything but she was worried because she knows it's associated with corruption and it was and and it is. And that's okay in her mind because she feels like

that's the only way to continue to accomplish the work that she's trying to do. I see all of these women as very, very powerful, compromised at times for various reasons, but powerful. And yet they're not perfect victims. Can you talk about how we see victims and what we want in our victims and the way our culture casts victims that we can get behind and then those we can't? Yeah. I think

this was something as a journalist that freaked me out because we often look, and I'm sure you have thought about this in your work, like for clean subjects who can helpfully tell a story and show how messed up something is, and then the reader identifies with them and is outraged. And actually, Devin, with blind plea, was closer to a perfect victim than Brittany was in the sense that, you know, Devin had never had anything on her record before. She was like a model inmate when she got to prison. But with Brittany, that wasn't the case. Like Brittany had prior addiction issues.

She had been arrested for those. She has been arrested since for addiction issues. And that worried me as a journalist because I felt like, okay, am I dealing with an unreliable narrator? And more importantly, however, for the purposes of the book, like what if readers say like, I don't believe Brittany because she's a meth addict, which is how the judges and attorneys, prosecutors in Jackson County and her county kind of felt about her. But the longer I spent with Brittany, you know, I used documents and lots of interviews to

back up anything that I was writing in addition to Brittany's accounts. And I also realized like, of course, just because you have addiction issues doesn't mean you can't defend yourself. And so I think it's this sort of horrible thing that happens in our criminal defense system where we want this like perfect victim and there's whole research that's been done about this, that the ideal victim will be white, middle-class, upper middle-class with absolutely no criminal record who is seen as sort of meek and so sorry for everything that happened. And if we could just, you know, feel compassion for her, then everything would be okay. But that was not who Brittany was.

Brittany is white, but she's poor. She couldn't even afford legal representation. She had addiction issues. She had dealt with abuse before, which is very common for someone who's dealing with abuse to have had experience of lifetime of it. And she was really defiant. And so in all of those ways, she kind of went against the grain of what a court would like to see in an ideal victim.

I felt as I read about Brittany, I kept feeling like the weight on my shoulders of another, like her, we start and she doesn't ever kids. And then it's like blow by blow. You know. At one point I think you write that she says to you if you lived here you'd probably do meth too. Yeah. Wasn't there a moment like that where she says something like it's just I just felt her exhaustion. where she says something like, it's just, I've just felt her exhaustion in that moment. And then I was nervous because I've known and loved addicts in my life that she would relapse. And so I felt myself

very invested in those pages, like was she gonna relapse, was she wasn't. But I believe fiercely that it is high time our country and our culture had a discussion about, I mean, this is not the right words. I think we need new words for this, but the quote unquote, imperfect victim. It's all about lacking complexity and nuance. And so much this happens with our cases, like even with Devin's case or Brittany's case,

it's like the whole history of abuse is not presented. And so then we're just dealing with this little snapshot of this moment, like the absolute horrible moment of pain and grief where someone dies instead of everything that happened before it. And actually that's all really important context. So how do we make space for histories of abuse when we're dealing with cases like this

so that everyone in the room, in the courtroom, or who's reading about it in the newspaper can understand, like, there's so much more going on here, and that led up to this moment. of your favorite Lemonada Media podcasts, by subscribing to Lemonada Premium today, you'll gain access to fun and inspiring bonus content from all of our podcasts across the Lemonada Media network. As a subscriber, you can listen to never-before-heard interview excerpts, behind-the-scenes segments, and continue to uncover new ways to make life suck less through all of our exclusive subscriber audio.

Check out a free trial of Lemonada Premium today in the Apple Podcast app by clicking on our podcast logo and then the subscribe button. Hey, Blind Plea listeners, we wanna hear from you. By just answering a few questions on our listener survey, you can share feedback about show content you'd like to see in the future and help us think about what brands would serve you best. And even better, once you've completed the survey,

you can enter for a chance to win a $100 Visa gift card. The survey is short and sweet and will help us play ads you don't want to skip and keep bringing you content you love. Just go to lemonautomedia.com slash survey. So one thing I want to ask you about is your character in Syria, which is so fascinating. She chick has moved home. She's left her war life, her fighting life, but she's still grappling with loss and grief. Yeah. So she lost her commander who was someone that she loved, maybe was even in love with, and she lost a lot of her comrades during war. I mean, it's war.

Like, people die, and I'm shocked that Chi-Chi didn't die. I mean, she was wounded four times. Her stomach was split open in the shape of a T. Her arms, her legs are all messed up. So it's kind of remarkable that she survived after being shot by Isis and killing lots of Isis fighters herself. But her commander, who she loved so much, did die. One thing I want to ask you about is on page 285, how would you describe Sosin? Yeah, so this is from the end after Cheechuk has left the YPJ, her militia, and she has

lost it a little bit. She had a lot of bravado while she was talking to me, but she eventually kind of lost that bravado in the end. So she moved home to her family's residence in Chahabah where she spent most of her days, holed up in her room, talking to Commander Sosen's photo. I don't talk to my mom or sisters, only Sosen's picture, she said.

She was part of me. I lost the best part of myself. I don't talk to my mom or sisters, only so since picture," she said. She was part of me. I lost the best part of myself, so some days I feel I can't go on. Chi-Chi said she considered throwing herself from the roof, but that she didn't think she had the right to take her own life. The stress and trauma of war had finally caught up to her, replacing her bravado with a kind of madness, the madness of having fought and fought and fought and lost so much in the end.

Such a beautiful paragraph. I mean, it just got to me. And especially that she's only talking to this photo. And it brings me back to this question. You set out to write this book to try to answer in part whether or not the actions these women took, did they help them or did they hurt them in the end? And as an addendum to that, did anything systemically shift as a result of who they were and what they contributed and the decisions they made?

Yeah. I mean, I do think, and I talk about this a little bit at the end of the book, but I do think that they impacted their communities and that they personally paid the price. So I found in Anguari's County that the police are recording more domestic assaults that they previously ignored.

I found in, and sexual assaults, and I found in Angora's community that men were thinking twice before being violent with women because they were afraid of the green gang. And in Cheechek's community, I mean, she inspired so many of her comrades. She ultimately rose up to the level of basically a commander herself and so many women were

inspired by her. And so to continue to fight the Turkish state, which has actually been documented even by the State Department to be kidnapping and raping Syrian and Kurdish women through their proxy militias. So all of them had this sort of profound impact on their community. And if you remember when everything was happening in Iran with the headscarves, the woman being arrested for not wearing her headscarf and women were cutting off their hair, that was everyone was using a Kurdish slogan that Cheechek used during that. And so you, you see that there's all these ripple effects of these women fighting back, and

it's one woman, but I don't know. I continue to see the ripple effects of everything that they did. And it's really sad to know that all of them personally paid the price in the end. I mean, Brittany's still sitting in prison still, unfortunately. Cheechek's still struggling with PTSD. And Angori is still struggling to find the power to be able to do what she needs to do in her community and probably making some pretty bad choices in order to do so in joining politics.

It's not horrible endings for all three. bad choices in order to do so in joining politics. It's not horrible endings for all three. I think all of them wish or all of them are glad that they acted the way they did, but it's the true for any revolutionary, any person who fights back that, you know, they pay the price and then later we put them on a postage stamp and say that they were so wonderful, you know, so. And with the passage of time, what does each woman mean to you now? I don't do day of journalism anymore, so I stay with my subjects for years on end.

I care very much about my subjects, you know, and we're not quote-unquote friends, but I feel like I care so much about what happens to them. I mean, I talk to Brittany almost every day. She's not in prison at the end of the book, but she went back in for a petty parole violation over drinking and the judge is asking her to stay there until like 2041 or something ridiculous. So she's appealing that, but she actually hasn't been able to read the book

because she can't get books in prison. So I've just been sending her reviews and things like that. She check the YPJ fighter is dealing with PTSD and I talked to her on WhatsApp all the time as she tries to find her footing as a non soldier. And on Gori, the Green Gang leader, she is going deep into politics. And so she keeps sending me videos of herself kind of on the ascent as a political leader. So it's really interesting to see where people continue to go after you leave them. Because of course, the book has an artificial stopping point and then their lives continue. You just mentioned, you know, I'm not friends with them, these characters,

but they are quite inherently woven into your life over the course of several years. Yeah, I mean, I think the reason I say we're not friends and that doesn't mean we don't have a serious level of closeness. I probably know more about Brittany than I do most of my friends, but I don't go to Brittany to talk to her

about my problems, you know what I mean? And so I would say that's the difference. But I do talk to Brittany and to Devin about my kid who's now six months old, who I was really pregnant when I was recording Blind Plea. And I think listeners remember me telling Devin about having a baby and all of that. And we could relate on that.

I think it's really hard with narrative nonfiction to maintain journalistic distance. The number one rule that I follow is to follow their lead. So if subjects want to talk to me every day for the rest of their life, I actually probably will. And if they want to talk to me once a year for the rest of their life, I actually probably will. And if they want to talk to me once a year for the rest of their life, I will do that too. So I think it's a really ethically murky territory. I think we should be talking about it more, but I try to be as transparent as possible to say like, Hey, I'm a journalist, but I also care

really deeply about you and what happens to you. Um, I do think journalistic distance is also important for me because when I first got back from Alabama, when I was reporting a Brittany story, I had a four day breakdown. I saw it for four days because the amount of domestic violence that I saw in her community was like nothing I'd ever seen. And I realized that I had to make boundaries for myself

as Brittany has said that she has to make boundaries for myself as, you know, Brittany has said that she has to for herself too. And I actually think having a kid helped with that because there's a whole part of me now that isn't a journalist. That's also a mom. That's a really lovely thing to hear that, yeah, that becoming a mom was helpful in fortifying those boundaries, right? I think the kind of people who do this work

are so empathetic. And so if you bring that into your work, it can help, but it can also cause issues when you leave your work behind, right? It's not, you're not on Wall Street. No. Stock market is not closing. No, definitely.

Today. Yeah, definitely. Today. Yeah. I mean, I talk in the authors' note how I had this crazy stomach pain and chronic fatigue while I was writing this book. I mean, I got so many diagnoses. And in the end, as soon as I was finished writing this book, my body healed. And I really feel like it was me grappling with all of the demons that are in this book,

in myself. And this book was really a way to take back agency. And you know, it's a dark book, but it's not, it's also very active and it's about women fighting back. So it's not about like, just victimhood. You know, we use the word survivor instead of victim now for a reason. And I think I really wanted that to come across on the page. I didn't want people to feel like, oh, God, I can't read this. It's so

dark. And I didn't want that for myself either. And so I think my body even realized that in a strange way. Thank you so much for writing this. I know it wasn't easy. I know that it's so hard to let go when you're so deep, when you choose this work. It's an incredible gift to all of us who are the beneficiaries of your journalism and your writing. So thank you so much, Liz Flock.

I'm so delighted to have had this conversation with you. Thank you so much, Gloria, for a really thoughtful interview. I really appreciate it. Okay, everyone, that is it for this bonus episode. We love the work Liz is doing, so make sure to read her book, The Furies, Women, Vengeance, and Justice. If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, use a safe computer and contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at thehotline.org or call 1-800-799-7233.

Thank you for listening. There's more blind plea with Lemonada Premium. Subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content like deleted scenes and interviews that never made it into the series. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts. Blind plea is a production of Lemonada Media. This episode was produced by Isara Aceves and Claire Jones, mixed in sound design by Bobby Woody with additional engineering support from Ivan Kureyev.

Music composed by Andrea Kristensdottir. Jackie Danziger is our vice president of narrative content. Executive producers are Stephanie Whittles-Wax, Jessica Cordova-Cramer, Evoke Media, Sabrina Mirage-Naim, and Liz Flock. The series is presented by Marguerite Casey Foundation. Help others find our show by leaving us a rating and writing a review. Follow Liz at Liz Flock for more stories

of women in self-defense. Find Lemonada at Lemonada Media across all social platforms. reading, and writing a review. Follow Liz at Liz Flock for more stories of women in self-defense. Find Lemonada at Lemonada Media across all social platforms. And follow Blind Plee wherever you get your podcasts or listen ad-free on Amazon Music with your Prime membership. This episode of Blind Play is brought to you by Huggy's Little Movers. Huggy's knows that babies come in all shapes and sizes, and that's why they designed a diaper that actually moves and stretches with your baby, making sure there's no leaks or slipping off. Huggy's best-fitting diaper is their little movers, with its curved and stretchy fit.

Parents know there's nothing worse than an ill-fitting diaper, especially for the more active babies. That's why I love huggies. We really relied on them to keep my baby covered as she's gotten more active. Huggies' little movers are curved, so my baby feels comfy no matter how much she's moving around. And she's moving around a lot. Crawling, cruising, learning to walk. Huggies has her covered for all of it. They also offer up to 12 hour protection against leaks, which is a game changer. Their diapers are just so much softer and more absorbent than the other ones. And my daughter has really made it clear that she has a preference. Get your baby's butt into Huggy's best fitting diaper. Huggy's Little Movers. We got you, baby.

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