Maya has jet lag. Lauren has bronchitis. Josh has an escape plan. We are not on our A game, but we’re doing it LIVE!!!

A quick recap....

Maya saw her first data center, and no thank you to that monstrosity. She did, however, say yes to a Ford F-150 Lightning. It's electric!

Lauren voted for George W. Bush. TWICE. Maya almost fell out of her chair and wanted to have a sidebar.

Elon Musk gave $276 million to Republicans and debuted a flying car the same week. Billionaires aren’t plotting against you. It’s worse. They don’t think about you at all!

Lauren reminds us that voting is public transportation, not a car service. Pick the one that gets you closest and be ready to walk! Unless you have a flying car, of course.

Then producer Josh explains the Victoria’s Secret fashion show and why half his family left the country. Not related. And yet.

Two weeks, y’all. Vote early.

Thank you to everyone who watched live! If you missed it, you missed my rendition of Nelson’s “After the Rain,” and our wide-ranging solutions, including, but not limited to, an app that blocks video games until a consent course is taken, and continuing-education-style courses that teach men what consent is, then teach them again. It started as a joke, but amid all the stress-relieving laughs, we think we’re onto something. What we know for sure is that essays are not the solution; apparently, the only program ever proven to reduce rape is 12 hours long and it’s taught to women, and you need to know who your District Attorney is…so you can put pressure on them, more on that below.

But first. Content Warning: Sexual Assault

RAINN hotline: 800-656-4673, free and confidential, 24/7

Rage. More Rage. Last week we were full of rage, but rage without direction is exhausting. This episode focuses on how to direct that rage so we can see real policy changes, even if the culture lags far behind.

Ok, who’s your DA(ddy)? No, seriously. Look up your DA on Ballotpedia. I had no idea and had to look up mine. As timing would have it, this week in Texas is the NDAA 2026 Sexual Assault Conference. It’s sold out, and Day 2 of the conference is: “Litigation Strategy & Trial Execution. Focus on admissibility, expert testimony, alcohol-facilitated sexual assault cases, jury selection, and courtroom strategy.” Your District Attorney decides which crimes get prosecuted, how survivors are supported, and what justice looks like in your community. Do you know who holds the office? It matters because…

* Pressure on the DA works: Tompkins County DA Matthew Van Houten reopened the Cornell case because people called and emailed. Most of us don’t know who our DA is, but it’s an elected position, and they decide whether to try a case. Putting pressure on the DA works, but it also matters who you elect.

* Rape Kit Backlog: There are at least 225,000 untested rape kits in this country. Check your state’s backlog: endthebacklog.org. Mariska Hargitay remains a badass. Her Joyful Heart Foundation wrote the Six Pillars of Rape Kit Reform to help states get it together. The sixth pillar demands that necessary reforms are actually funded.

* Budgets are Moral Documents: Show us the money. If law enforcement has money for shock gloves, surely they can get it together to clear the rape kit backlog. The money is there, but right now they’re spending it on settling brutality cases, and body cams that they conveniently will forget to turn on.

* Local Elections Matter: You can check state legislation on sex education in schools on the National Conference of State Legislatures’ website. But if you want to get hyperlocal, school board and city council meetings are a good place to start. Local officials are embedded in the community, and you can put pressure on them to back up “protecting women and girls” with real action.

* Pete Davidson ain’t shit: Watch the episode for our take on Pete’s BS take on influencers, and why it’s a stunning illustration of America's sharp disdain for women with a voice. Men want us to shut up. We won’t. In fact, we’re just gonna get louder.

THE MIDTERMS ARE ON NOVEMBER 3! AND WE MEAN THE LAST DAY TO VOTE BECAUSE OF COURSE YOU’RE GOING TO VOTE EARLY. See, we’re screaming in ALL CAPS. You like that, Pete??? Ok Make sure to check your voter registration. We know you know this, but tell at least one person who might not.

See you next week!

Maya & Lauren

Thank you to everyone who joined us live. We appreciate you. For those who missed it, it is a heavy episode done in the only way Lauren Lehman Carter and I know how to do it: by confronting it head-on and mostly unfiltered.

Content warning: this episode is about sexual assault. Please proceed with care and caution.

We are moms, we are survivors, and we see that WHAT WE ARE DOING AS A SOCIETY IS NOT WORKING.

So this episode is about working through what real solutions look like when men aren't afraid of consequences, when solutions are products like nail polish that tests a drink to see if it contains GHB, when the President got elected (two times!!) even after saying he could grab women by the pussy, and the Vice President follows Andrew Tate on X. It should not be on women to make this world safer, and we certainly shouldn’t be expected to do it with a smile, and yet here we are.

Why are we talking about this now?

A civil lawsuit filed this month alleges a 20-year-old Cornell student was drugged and gang raped at the Chi Phi house in October 2024. This morning, Tompkins County DA Matthew Van Houten announced he’s reopening the case, but only after weeks of calls and emails to his office.

He also acknowledged that neither his office nor police ever interviewed the men.

This is how little regard our institutions have for women’s safety.

Doe’s attorney says two of the seven were expelled and the rest got suspensions, workshops or written assignments. Cornell disputes that, saying no one was offered an essay as a sole consequence.

They should have all been expelled. Period. An Ivy-League education is a privilege and a pipeline to leadership positions that affect millions of lives. It should not be granted to those who violated someone’s safety or who willfully ignored it.

We didn’t want to talk about anything else this week, so we didn’t.

We are grateful to all of you who join us, whether it’s every week or whenever you have time. We hope you are as angry as we are, and that together we'll direct our rage toward making our world safer.

Watch the full episode, and if you need a place to pivot to after you’ve processed your rage, here are some links:

* A Call to Men — acalltomen.org. Free Live Respect curriculum for middle and high school boys.

* End Rape on Campus — endrapeoncampus.org

* RAINN hotline — 800-656-4673, free and confidential, 24/7

We’ll see you next week.

Maya & Lauren