A mom enters our booth in the exhibitor hall in Missouri. “OK, my daughter loves Harriet Tubman. Tell me what you got!” she says.

I explain our product, how we use historical women to teach girls about their worth and potential. The mother says: “But is it woke? I mean, I don’t want to teach my daughter about woke.”

Wat

“What do you mean, ‘woke’?” I ask.

She opens her mouth. Half-words and phrases stumble and tumble around. A few talking points from news sources fall out. Finally, she sighs. “I don’t know. Just tell me again what you write.”

Riiiiight.

It’s all feelings. Pavlovian training. “Woke” evokes feelings of fear and outrage. There’s no cognition behind it just simple instinct.

PS: when having to decompress and remind themselves why they go to these right wing home schooling conventions “B” says:

“Your thing is changing the conversation,” he says. “Changing the conversation on beauty culture. Changing the conversation on how we raise empowered girls. How about we change the conversation about feminism at these events?”

That’s a hell of a good reason. Ok sure they make money too but doesn’t sound like that’s the only motivation and maybe not even the primary one.

They say they’re throwing up before the convention (presumably due to the dread of dealing with these infuriating nutjobs).

If they’re that stressed by it all and still Go through with it, exposing small minded people to more egalitarian ideas, then kudos to them. I’m not sure if I could deal with this kind of thing on a regular basis.