Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to the Math twenty podcast with
Speaker 1: Me Joshua Fox, and today's little episode Guys is based
Speaker 1: off something Re said yesterday on Koreina's podcast This is Chaos,
Speaker 1: and she touched on something that is actually a big
Speaker 1: topic and it's randomly something I've been thinking about a
Speaker 1: lot lately. And and before I play the grabs and
Speaker 1: get into it, let me just set this up a
Speaker 1: little bit. So since married at first I ended, everybody
Speaker 1: obviously wants to know like what's next for the cast,
Speaker 1: and as RhE and Jeff are the only lasting match,
Speaker 1: the natural next announcement from them as a happy couple
Speaker 1: now living together would either be a real engagement or
Speaker 1: a pregnancy. Now. Firstly, on the idea of Re and
Speaker 1: Jeff getting married for real, I wouldn't really hold out
Speaker 1: for that, as Re said this on Karina's podcast, because.
Speaker 2: You guys did get married on a reality show. Yeah,
Speaker 2: what's your take on proper marriage? Like are you interested
Speaker 2: in getting married or just.
Speaker 3: You know what's really funny? I always said prior to
Speaker 3: the show, marriage for me has never been something like
Speaker 3: when women talk about I've always imagined my wedding to
Speaker 3: be like this my dress to be like this, I
Speaker 3: want to have this big wedding for me. I was
Speaker 3: just like, I just want to find my person that
Speaker 3: I have not a doubt in my mind about, and
Speaker 3: that was my biggest concern. I think marriage for me,
Speaker 3: it's really not a necessity. If my partner said, like,
Speaker 3: I really want to get married one hundred percent, but
Speaker 3: if I didn't get married, it wouldn't affect me, if
Speaker 3: that makes sense, as much as a relationship is something
Speaker 3: to be celebrated for, and people can celebrate that however
Speaker 3: they like. But you know, if Jeff did turn around
Speaker 3: and ask me to marry.
Speaker 1: Him, I wouldn't say no.
Speaker 2: So exciting. Look again, it's completely did you hear that? Jeff, Jeff?
Speaker 2: Jeff Jeff.
Speaker 1: And then, on the topic of any potential pregnancy or
Speaker 1: future little Muff's baby, reactually then said something that I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people should take notes of. In
Speaker 1: recent weeks, a lot of people have randomly started speculating
Speaker 1: and commenting now and again like, oh, is she pregnant?
Speaker 1: I think she's pregnant, because you know, they might see
Speaker 1: a picture where a certain angle or lighting may look like, oh,
Speaker 1: is that a tiny bump? And then people get excited,
Speaker 1: people ask people message her, and then alongside that, in
Speaker 1: any press interview that Re or Jeff, now do they're
Speaker 1: obviously asked about this, you know, their first ask, well,
Speaker 1: are you pregnant? Really? We've seen comments and speculation, and
Speaker 1: then when she says no, she's then asked, well do
Speaker 1: you want children? Are you already trying? Have you picked
Speaker 1: out names? How many do you want? You know, journalists
Speaker 1: just want a headline. And if we answered a question going, oh,
Speaker 1: we'd love twins and we've already chose the names. I
Speaker 1: know that how the media works, you know, on the
Speaker 1: front cover of that magazine, the next week would be
Speaker 1: Rie and Jeff's announcement we're having twins. And obviously they're
Speaker 1: not having twins. They've said maybe day, you know, that
Speaker 1: would be the dream. Anyway, Sorry, I'm getting a little
Speaker 1: sidetrack there. So yeah, here is retouching on this whole topic.
Speaker 3: To Karina, yes, I'm not pregnant, although every article says
Speaker 3: I am. And I think the weight game contributed to
Speaker 3: the pregnancy comments. And then I saw a few comments
Speaker 3: about me putting on weight, which is like, you know,
Speaker 3: it just sucks that women have to explain their body
Speaker 3: changes all the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like men don't.
Speaker 3: I swear men don't have to do that as much
Speaker 3: as we do.
Speaker 2: No shit, it's like, sorry, our hormones are always up here.
Speaker 1: Like get our periods.
Speaker 2: You try being a man and getting a period.
Speaker 3: For when you have your period, you do look three
Speaker 3: months pregnant for a couple of days there, but I
Speaker 3: think you look. I was really honest with That's why
Speaker 3: I was honest with putting on weight and why I
Speaker 3: was starting a challenge, and because of the comments that
Speaker 3: I was getting. But Jeff and I definitely want to
Speaker 3: have kids at some stage. I think right now, it's
Speaker 3: just we do want to just focus on, you know,
Speaker 3: creating our home, like we've recently moved in together and
Speaker 3: enjoying each other's company outside the experiment and we're both
Speaker 3: doing our own thing. And as much as you know,
Speaker 3: I am thirty five, I've got into metriosis. I was
Speaker 3: told at twenty five I'll probably have trouble having children.
Speaker 3: And they actually told me when I had surgery when
Speaker 3: I was twenty five, I should have kids that year,
Speaker 3: and I was like, I'm single.
Speaker 2: Oh god, I just got goose bumps.
Speaker 3: I know, so it'll be it'll be an interesting journey
Speaker 3: I think when we do try and start having kids,
Speaker 3: and it's definitely on the cards, but just not right
Speaker 3: at this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and no pressure and don't let society pressure you
Speaker 2: in those ways.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think it's just keep doing what you guys are
Speaker 2: doing now.
Speaker 1: To me, res response that is important for two main reasons.
Speaker 1: And the first one is why do we actually think
Speaker 1: it is okay to comment on somebody's body and speculate,
Speaker 1: you know, even if they're famous. You know, I think
Speaker 1: often it's like, well, during the public eye, it's okay,
Speaker 1: But actually is it okay? Would you want someone speculating
Speaker 1: and your body if maybe you were a bit bloated
Speaker 1: or you put a little bit away, and would you
Speaker 1: want someone to go are you pregnant? Probably wouldn't. And
Speaker 1: also in that response, rementioned how she suffers with endo.
Speaker 1: She had surgery when she was twenty five and she
Speaker 1: was told then, which that was I think ten years
Speaker 1: ago now that she should probably have a baby that
Speaker 1: year or she may have difficulty when she's ready to
Speaker 1: eventually try. And you know, now knowing this, people speculating
Speaker 1: and asking Rie about you know, are you pregnant, Are
Speaker 1: you having a baby? It feels kind of like insensitive
Speaker 1: and inappropriate, and obviously no one knew the background context there.
Speaker 1: But I suppose the point I'm getting to here is
Speaker 1: do we even need to know the background? Do we
Speaker 1: need to know the backstory? Like or should we as
Speaker 1: a society? And you know, fans of the show and
Speaker 1: these people just make baby plans and pregnancy and all
Speaker 1: of that just a no go topic unless the person
Speaker 1: themselves brings it up. And don't get me wrong, I
Speaker 1: know that there is really bad intent from people, and
Speaker 1: people are just excited and with Rie and Jeff, the
Speaker 1: idea of them starting a family one day is exciting
Speaker 1: as we were all kind of on that journey watching
Speaker 1: them fall in love. But I don't know. This is
Speaker 1: just something I was thinking about this morning. And it's
Speaker 1: funny actually, because for my actual day job, I work
Speaker 1: on other podcasts and produce things and like various projects. Anyway,
Speaker 1: one thing I work on is a podcast called Her
Speaker 1: Best Life, which is with Jackie Out who I worked
Speaker 1: with for the last couple of years on the radio
Speaker 1: show as part of the team there. And then it's
Speaker 1: Jackie and her best friend Gemma and a question they
Speaker 1: answered in a recent episode was does Jackie ever feel
Speaker 1: guilt or regret for only ever having one child? And
Speaker 1: as Jackie answered that, they both then kind of discussed
Speaker 1: how often in life, women who don't even want children
Speaker 1: sometimes feel pressured into it because of these constant questions
Speaker 1: and assumptions and yeah, I don't know. Take a listen.
Speaker 4: Do I ever regret or feel guilty about only having
Speaker 4: one child?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: You obviously have to and would like more. Yeah, And
Speaker 4: for me the answer is no, I actually don't. Like
Speaker 4: if I had have had another one, it would have
Speaker 4: been out of obligational guilt.
Speaker 5: I think some women don't want children at all, and
Speaker 5: that's fine as well. Like I feel like whatever works
Speaker 5: for you as a woman, don't let society or pressure
Speaker 5: or your partner or anything it dictates you should.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think you will know in your heart
Speaker 4: of hearts, You'll know, your gut feeling will tell you.
Speaker 4: Yone always said I was going to be fine with one.
Speaker 1: Hearing Jackie and Jemma have that conversation recently and then
Speaker 1: listening to re on that podcast yesterday and even how
Speaker 1: I think it was last week Jamie had to do
Speaker 1: our post saying no, she's not pregnant, you know, because
Speaker 1: of one single picture made it look like she had
Speaker 1: the slightest bump. And then I just started thinking on
Speaker 1: the drive to work this morning, like how much is
Speaker 1: the media to blame for maybe normalizing this type of
Speaker 1: questioning and comments, specifically, you know when it comes to celebrities,
Speaker 1: people of shows, you know, the Rees, the Jamies, the Jackie's,
Speaker 1: and you know, people we think we know, actually we don't.
Speaker 1: And then I fought back to me age twenty one,
Speaker 1: when I left my hometown, I was offered my first
Speaker 1: ever job in the media as an intern for a
Speaker 1: weekly celebrity magazine in London, and one of the first
Speaker 1: things I was taught there is going into any interview.
Speaker 1: I then started doing weekly with many celebrities, you know,
Speaker 1: going into any one of those with a female celebrity,
Speaker 1: I had to always ask the free bees, which is boys,
Speaker 1: body and babies. And that is because, you know, the
Speaker 1: editors of those magazines who were teaching me, because I
Speaker 1: never studied journalism, like I learned on the job, so
Speaker 1: I just listened and did as I was told. But
Speaker 1: like those editors drilled into us how those free topics
Speaker 1: would essentially sell on the cover. So you know, with boys,
Speaker 1: are they dating? If not, why are you not dating?
Speaker 1: If you are dating, you know, tell me every And
Speaker 1: then with body you'd have to be like, oh, are
Speaker 1: you happy with how you look at them? Innute? You know,
Speaker 1: are you on a diet? Are you following any plans?
Speaker 1: You have any goals to lose weight? Or like, are
Speaker 1: you planning any cosmetic procedures? Boatoxx boo jobs like anything.
Speaker 1: We just had to ask everything about bodies, and like
Speaker 1: I look back on now and I touched on this
Speaker 1: in my book, and I know that was mostly because
Speaker 1: the editors would hope they would maybe mention some brief
Speaker 1: insecurity or something that we could essentially then highlight as
Speaker 1: a magazine and pretending it was, you know, to normalize them.
Speaker 1: It wasn't. It was essentially just to kind of exploit
Speaker 1: that insecurity and make people judge them for it, which
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, I do talk about that in
Speaker 1: my book, and I don't feel great looking back at it.
Speaker 1: But then yeah, the last beat babies. When I'd go
Speaker 1: into those interviews, you know, I'd have to ask, you know,
Speaker 1: if they're dating someone, oh, are you planning babies, to
Speaker 1: want babies together, and if they weren't with someone at
Speaker 1: that time, I'd to ask, you know, would you like
Speaker 1: to be a single parent, would you go down that
Speaker 1: route of IVF or like are they at a certain
Speaker 1: age and have to be like, oh, if you thought
Speaker 1: about freezing your eggs? And you know, if they already
Speaker 1: had a baby, you want another one? And actually it's
Speaker 1: funny thinking back, because I was twenty one, I didn't
Speaker 1: even know half these things meant. I'd get told like,
Speaker 1: ask if they thought about freezing their eggs. I didn't
Speaker 1: even know what that meant at the time. Sorry, again
Speaker 1: getting sidetracked. And as I said, I touched on this
Speaker 1: in my book while reflecting on my career, but I
Speaker 1: didn't realize back then how every question I was being
Speaker 1: told to ask was essentially reducing every woman in the
Speaker 1: world to free topics because a bunch of other women
Speaker 1: in a boardroom said, Hey, this is apparently the only
Speaker 1: thing that all women want to read about and will
Speaker 1: buy a magazine if it's mentioned on the cover. And
Speaker 1: I suppose for a while now the last few years,
Speaker 1: I thought like, thank god, we have all moved on
Speaker 1: from that, and that mentality, but just this baby stuff lately,
Speaker 1: I thought, well, actually, maybe we haven't, And then also
Speaker 1: thinking like, you know those magazines, which is not as
Speaker 1: many around it anymore, but for years, like every week
Speaker 1: on the shelves, you know, in the supermarket by the tills,
Speaker 1: week after week, every headline being centered around babies and pregnancies.
Speaker 1: I suppose like essentially that normalized this type of questioning
Speaker 1: in a stuff in a way that I suppose is
Speaker 1: now continuing, just not via magazine covers, but via the
Speaker 1: consumers of those on social media when they do go,
Speaker 1: oh my god, are you pregnant because there might be
Speaker 1: a slight bumb or whatever in a picture, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Just a few thoughts this morning from me,
Speaker 1: a man who can never fully relate to this topic. Actually,
Speaker 1: is this what man'splaining is? If I just said something
Speaker 1: that never needed explaining. If so, please don't cancel me,
Speaker 1: because I promise my intentions are good here. It's just
Speaker 1: genuinely something I've been thinking about after hearing Jackie speak
Speaker 1: about it, and then re and just seeing how you know,
Speaker 1: every year when they're is a celebrity someone in maths,
Speaker 1: where do you go are you pregnant, Are you pregnant?
Speaker 1: Are you pregnant? Constantly? Are when you're having babies? And
Speaker 1: maybe we all need to collectively move away from that
Speaker 1: for now though. That is all I've got for you.
Speaker 1: Have a lovely day.