- On the H3 Podcast this week, Pearl Davis doubled down on many of her most controversial views.
- She said she thinks divorce should be illegal and women shouldn't have the right to vote.
Anti-feminist creator Pearl Davis doubled down on many of her most controversial views on the H3 podcast this week.
She told the host, YouTuber Ethan Klein, that she thinks divorce should be illegal and women shouldn't have the right to vote.
As Insider has reported, Pearl has become a high-profile voice over the past year, and represents a large and significant group who believe women have too many rights and men must be more assertive.
During her introduction, Davis said she believed women are happier as stay-at-home mothers, and that she thought feminism "overall is a bad thing."
"I think we should have policies that push family," she said. "I think women are happier when we have family and kids over a career in the long run." Davis, who is 26, doesn't have children of her own.
@h3_podcast Banning divorce is the most insane take ever...
♬ original sound - H3 Podcast
Davis, better known as just "Pearl," has 1.5 million subscribers on her YouTube channel. She experienced a surge in popularity when misogynist Andrew Tate was locked up in Romanian jail, filling the gap with her own brand of anti-feminist content, though that growth has slowed recently.
Davis sat down for a debate with Klein for two hours on Thursday. Klein is a veteran YouTuber with moderate views who often invites controversial guests to discuss their opinions with him.
In the episode, Davis said she stood for more traditional roles for men and women in the household, and believed modern feminism was damaging.
She claimed children from single-mother households were at a disadvantage, and suggested that making divorce illegal would help.
"I think we should ban divorce, I think that should be banned, yes," Davis said. "I just think that if you want to leave, you just shouldn't get married. That's just my opinion."
Klein, in response, told her that some marriages end because of physical abuse.
Davis said she accepted there were exceptions, such as relationships that were "one-sided physically abusive."
"I just think that the goal should be to keep families together, and the goal should be to work through it," she said.
Klein asked how physical abuse could be proven to allow this exception, and Davis said the abuser should be prosecuted in criminal court.
"So only if your significant other is tried criminally are you allowed to leave the relationship? Tried and found guilty criminally?" Klein asked, to which Davis responded, "Yes."
"I just say, stay out of marriage," she said. "Marriage is supposed to be for better for worse, in sickness and in health, and for richer or for poorer. It's not supposed to be, you know, when I feel like leaving."
She added "the majority" of divorce occurs when "the girl just feels like leaving." According to Forbes, 75% of divorcing couples in the US in 2023 cited lack of commitment as the reason, 60% cited unfaithfulness, and domestic abuse was given as a reason in 25% of cases.
Later in the interview, Davis also said she didn't think women should have the right to vote, because men can be conscripted to fight in the US military and women cannot.
"If feminists want the right to vote, right, then it should come with the draft. Where are the feminists fighting for equality in this situation?"
(Davis is right that US law allows men to be drafted to fight, though it hasn't happened since the Vietnam War ended in the 1970s.)
Klein told Davis feminists generally want the draft abolished, and for there to be no conscription for anybody.
"That is also equality isn't it?" Klein said.
"I've never heard them talk about that, but OK," Davis responded.
Davis previously told Insider she didn't consider herself a misogynist, saying, "I don't hate women." Rather, she said, she advocated for men.
Davis started gaining traction around May 2022, surging from a modest 25,000 subscribers to over half a million in six months. The boom was driven by increasingly edgy content, and a lean towards right-wing beliefs since teaming up with her manager Coby DeVito, a former colleague of Ben Shapiro at The Daily Wire.
Experts and critics of Davis told Insider she was reaping the rewards of perpetuating harmful gender dynamics, much like other prominent figures in the space like Tate and the makers of the podcast "Fresh & Fit."
Experts have suggested that Davis may not be sincere in her belief, noting that extreme views tend to attract more attention. Many audience comments on Davis' content also doubt whether she believes what she says.
Davis told Insider that she doesn't exaggerate for attention.
"I will say a lot of clips can be taken out of context in a 3-hour podcast, so many don't get the context of the discussion," she said. "But all in all, no, I stand on what I say."