Speaker 1: You're listening to Amma mea podcast. Mamma Mere acknowledges the
Speaker 1: traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is
Speaker 1: recorded on Hello and welcome to Mamma Me. Are out loud?
Speaker 1: What women are actually talking about? On Wednesday, the twenty
Speaker 1: third of October, I am Holly Wainwright.
Speaker 2: I am Jesse Stevens, and I'm and Vernon filling in
Speaker 2: for me today. You might have heard me on our
Speaker 2: daily entertainment podcast The Spill.
Speaker 1: On the show today Britney Spears's latest wedding and the
Speaker 1: rise of sologamy. Don't know what that is? That's fine,
Speaker 1: we'll explain. Also, has the US exported its abortion politics
Speaker 1: all the way to Australia this week? It seems yes?
Speaker 1: And why women clean? The answer apparently is much more
Speaker 1: complicated than well, someone has to. But first, Jesse Stevens.
Speaker 3: In case you missed it, you have to change your passwords. Holly,
Speaker 3: I'm mostly probably talking to you.
Speaker 1: You are very much talking to me.
Speaker 3: You just see you got to change your password. A
Speaker 3: cybersecurity expert who investigates criminal hacking methods named Joe Cockroft
Speaker 3: says he knows your password is probably password or one two, three, four, five, six,
Speaker 3: and you're gonna get hacked. Even worse, you probably have
Speaker 3: the same password across multiple platforms, meaning a hacker could
Speaker 3: access your bank account, your eCloud, and all your social
Speaker 3: media platforms.
Speaker 4: Oh, that's none of my business.
Speaker 5: You do, you hacker.
Speaker 3: Apparently hackers have a list of thousands of words that
Speaker 3: they think are probably your password, and they can glean
Speaker 3: it from social media, like your pet's name, your phone number,
Speaker 3: or the sporting team you support.
Speaker 1: So so scared you're going to say one of my
Speaker 1: actual pastor because this is tricky this segment, because we
Speaker 1: obviously need to react towards Jesse's saying without actually giving
Speaker 1: away our password.
Speaker 5: Shop you have to go what people have password one
Speaker 5: two three.
Speaker 1: People use their pets name.
Speaker 5: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3: So this was UK based and what they had was
Speaker 3: password quirty, which is just the first line of your
Speaker 3: keyboard ABC one two three. Very popular and football team
Speaker 3: so Liverpool or Arsenal. What was interesting here is they've
Speaker 3: not even tried to do an exclamation mark. It's just
Speaker 3: a Liverpool. But in Australia, some of the most common
Speaker 3: passwords include Michael or Charlie.
Speaker 5: If you want to.
Speaker 4: Know Michaels and Charlie's everywhere few.
Speaker 5: The big dumb dumbs.
Speaker 3: If you know, Michael, just go mate, get it a
Speaker 3: little more more creative.
Speaker 5: Or Star Wars twenty nine.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that would be Brent. No, you just
Speaker 1: give me inspiration of how to hack into alve Brett's
Speaker 1: private accounts.
Speaker 3: So we surveyed the out louders about how often they
Speaker 3: change their password, and you're fine, It's interesting the people
Speaker 3: who just are changing their password because they know that
Speaker 3: it's an important security thing. One percent, sixty nine percent
Speaker 3: of people are changing their password, but only because they
Speaker 3: forgot the password that they did before.
Speaker 5: With all the exclamations, you know.
Speaker 4: How that one percent would have been who Luke Levine?
Speaker 3: That is Luca going, oh yes, I said a weekly
Speaker 3: reminder that I should change all my passwords because apparently
Speaker 3: what you're meant to do is either have a password
Speaker 3: manager which saves them all, which I'm like, can't that
Speaker 3: be hacked?
Speaker 5: But I don't know enough.
Speaker 3: The IT guy right now is screaming at me being like,
Speaker 3: Noah can't. And the other thing is do the verification
Speaker 3: where you get your pass code sent to your phone.
Speaker 3: That's the other thing you're meant to do. The longer
Speaker 3: the better, apparently, and symbols and numbers and all that
Speaker 3: kind of stuff, But don't we.
Speaker 5: Just do that?
Speaker 3: And then we go to my GUV the next time
Speaker 3: and my GUV says, what's your password?
Speaker 5: And you're like, no, one, no, fucking I don't understand.
Speaker 1: It's like, sure if you use a password manager, but
Speaker 1: I find that confusing because you have to remember the
Speaker 1: password to your password manager.
Speaker 4: But also how are the people who.
Speaker 1: Are changing their passwords every week remembering?
Speaker 3: Because then I try and change my password, but then
Speaker 3: I write it in my notes, SAP, and I feel
Speaker 3: like that's not good security.
Speaker 1: No no, And then you sometimes try and get really
Speaker 1: smart and try and disguise what it is. Instead of
Speaker 1: bank you might say, like Shank, what.
Speaker 2: I hate is when you forget your password and you
Speaker 2: tell the computer whatever you're trying to log into thing
Speaker 2: forgot my passwords, and I like, reset the past. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 2: reset the password, and they're like, you can't use an
Speaker 2: old password?
Speaker 4: What do you mean you told me I forgot?
Speaker 1: This part is I know this is all very important,
Speaker 1: you know, security, but do you remember when Amelia Lester
Speaker 1: told you the other week that there was just a
Speaker 1: slow was it called the shitification of sperification?
Speaker 5: I keep I from saying it everywhere.
Speaker 1: Like internet security is part of that because like constantly
Speaker 1: having to be I had to do this yesterday there
Speaker 1: was a specific streaming service I wanted to watch a
Speaker 1: show on, couldn't remember my passwords, wasn't letting me in.
Speaker 1: Called Brent. He was at home, He couldn't remember what.
Speaker 1: I just started a whole new account from like and
Speaker 1: then I'm like, at some point I'll sort out the
Speaker 1: pavements for that, but like, I'm just starting again. Scorched it,
Speaker 1: Let's go. It's the stification of everything because I spent
Speaker 1: half my life going forgot password.
Speaker 5: There's already an account link to this email.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know where that is. Let's start a
Speaker 1: new email for your cat. That'll take me ten minutes.
Speaker 2: Britney Spears has posted a video of herself to Instagram.
Speaker 2: She's wearing a wedding dress with a whole veil in everything,
Speaker 2: and she's doing some cutesy poses for the camera. The
Speaker 2: caption of this post reads the Day I married myself.
Speaker 2: Bringing it back because it might seem embarrassing or stupid,
Speaker 2: but I think it's the most brilliant thing I've ever done.
Speaker 1: Oh Britney.
Speaker 2: So it's unclear whether or not she's actually married herself,
Speaker 2: but it is a thing. Marrying yourself is a thing.
Speaker 2: It's called sologamy, and it's the idea that you marry
Speaker 2: yourself to live a fulfilling life as a sologamist. So
Speaker 2: there are actual people who've done this. A PR consultant
Speaker 2: named Sophie Tanner has done this, and she said that
Speaker 2: it's a way of her showing that she loves herself
Speaker 2: and celebrating herself the same way that married people can
Speaker 2: celebrate themselves. So it's like the ceremony around it. It's
Speaker 2: not technically legal, which means you can have fun with
Speaker 2: it and do whatever you want. But it's a way
Speaker 2: of your family and friends recognizing yourself and the love
Speaker 2: that you have for yourself as a single person. This
Speaker 2: is the worst time of year to find out about slogamy.
Speaker 2: Why do you remember? I think it was a few
Speaker 2: weeks ago. The two of you and me are talked
Speaker 2: about cuffing season, yes, and how everyone's kind of coupling
Speaker 2: up now during their like no one is more aware
Speaker 2: of cuffing season than the single person. I see it everywhere,
Speaker 2: and it's always October. October is the time of year
Speaker 2: where everyone who's single ends up in a situationship because
Speaker 2: everyone's thinking about it's the end of year. I'm gonna
Speaker 2: have to see family, I'm gonna go have to visit people.
Speaker 2: My family's gonna ask me, are you seeing anyone? You
Speaker 2: have to say yes so they get off your back.
Speaker 2: So you end up being in a situationship. Then you
Speaker 2: have those like in between days where you're like, I'm
Speaker 2: not really sure what I'm doing between Christmas and New Years,
Speaker 2: And then you have New Years and you're like, actually,
Speaker 2: I don't want this relationship, so I feel like it's
Speaker 2: a new year, and you me, I need to start fresh.
Speaker 5: You've spent too much time in there.
Speaker 2: And then you haven't seen them in a month because
Speaker 2: you're with family, and then it's nearly like the end
Speaker 2: of jam. But you can't move into February because it's
Speaker 2: Valentine's Day. You can't break up with someone before Valentine's Day,
Speaker 2: complex so you break up on the thirty first of
Speaker 2: January after getting together in October.
Speaker 3: You do so I mean, this feels quite nihilistic, which
Speaker 3: makes me wonder, are you thinking of just going full slogamists.
Speaker 1: And turning up to family events? I come, I married myself?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, because like, how else will I get a
Speaker 2: wedding gift? Like, how are you getting wedding gifts?
Speaker 4: Holly?
Speaker 1: Look, I'm not And this is one of the things
Speaker 1: I want to write an angry letter to somebody there.
Speaker 1: So I went deep on the slogamists and the marrying
Speaker 1: yourself thing because I think it's easy to kind of
Speaker 1: mock it a little bit and laugh at it, because
Speaker 1: there are actually loads of people who've done this. There
Speaker 1: are loads of people who've done it. The first person
Speaker 1: who did it that we know about is a woman
Speaker 1: called Linda Baker in America. It in nineteen ninety three, right,
Speaker 1: and since then it's become a bit of a thing
Speaker 1: and women, it's always women apparently are doing it as
Speaker 1: an act of self love. But also and I love
Speaker 1: the refreshing honesty in this. There was a woman who
Speaker 1: was India's first sologamist bride, saying she always wanted to
Speaker 1: be a bride, but not a wife or Holly English
Speaker 1: the Australian woman who did it a few years ago,
Speaker 1: who said she'd always wanted a wedding. She said, I've
Speaker 1: now accepted I might never find a partner, and I'm happy,
Speaker 1: but I always wanted a wedding, right, And why should
Speaker 1: weddings and the party, in the gifts and the dress
Speaker 1: and that all everyone comes together only be for the
Speaker 1: coupled up. So there's that reason to do it right.
Speaker 1: That can feel a little bit passag like that famous
Speaker 1: Sex and the City episode where she's like, where are
Speaker 1: my baby shower gifts? Where are my engagement presents? Somebody
Speaker 1: should buy me a pair of shoes. So that feels
Speaker 1: a bit passag But I also think on a more
Speaker 1: sort of positive note, it speaks to the fact that
Speaker 1: as women have got more choice than ever about how
Speaker 1: they live, we still have very few ways to celebrate
Speaker 1: women who aren't following the normal script, which is like
Speaker 1: get engaged, get married, then have a baby, then da
Speaker 1: da da da, and have all these like milestones that
Speaker 1: we accept are things to celebrate. We haven't yet figured
Speaker 1: out how we celebrate women who aren't following that path,
Speaker 1: And so I reckon that this is a great thing.
Speaker 3: I totally respect that reading, and I can see how
Speaker 3: even for Britney Spears, it could be healing. She's clearly
Speaker 3: had some experiences in the past with marriages that haven't worked,
Speaker 3: and it could be seen as sort of a radical
Speaker 3: feminist act. And I see that with a few of
Speaker 3: the examples. But another part of me worries that this
Speaker 3: is belonging to a bit of a shift where we're
Speaker 3: kidding ourselves into thinking we don't need anyone like and
Speaker 3: I don't mean romantically, I just mean broadly.
Speaker 5: So with the.
Speaker 3: Rise of introversion and toxicity and boundaries and therapy speek
Speaker 3: and a lot of people are living alone, I worry
Speaker 3: that we're deluding ourselves into thinking we can live as
Speaker 3: islands when that isn't good for us.
Speaker 1: But this is just a wedding, and a wedding is
Speaker 1: actually an act of connection, right, Like you invite people,
Speaker 1: then they're all there. That's one of things everyone loves
Speaker 1: about weddings, right is they're like, all my people are here,
Speaker 1: all my friends, my family, and I'm connecting and celebrating. Right, Yes,
Speaker 1: So that argument that you're putting forward is about singled
Speaker 1: and broadly.
Speaker 3: Right, it's not even about singleedom because I think that
Speaker 3: you can be highly connected and single, yeah, and I
Speaker 3: think you can be very lonely and coupled yeap. But
Speaker 3: there's this kind of go girl feminism thing or it's
Speaker 3: disguised as feminism that I see online, which is sort
Speaker 3: of like, you don't need anyone self love, isn't it.
Speaker 1: More, you don't need a partner, you don't need a
Speaker 1: romantic partner because to be honest with that one in
Speaker 1: sound like Debbie Downer and this like marriage hasn't always
Speaker 1: been great for lots of women, nor hasn't. So the
Speaker 1: freedom to be able to opt out of that and say,
Speaker 1: maybe I'm not going to marry, maybe I'm never gonna
Speaker 1: be partnered, maybe I'm going to live my life on
Speaker 1: my terms. It doesn't mean that that person is going
Speaker 1: to be lonely disconnected. That's not what it means.
Speaker 3: Something about and look, the whole marriage industry, wedding industry
Speaker 3: is something that you know, we've criticized a lot on
Speaker 3: this show, and I completely agree with all of it.
Speaker 3: But there's something about the connection of two people and
Speaker 3: the connection of two families that I feel like weddings
Speaker 3: or marriages are about and I think I bristle whenever
Speaker 3: the self love thing comes up. There's something because I
Speaker 3: feel like there's something narcissistic about it. I feel as
Speaker 3: though you can love oneself too much. But don't you think, Jesse,
Speaker 3: that we worship oneself too much?
Speaker 1: But don't you think, Jesse, that we're always telling people
Speaker 1: that self love is the most important thing for their
Speaker 1: mental health and their stability. And yet at the same time,
Speaker 1: we tell people, women in particular, that they are incomplete
Speaker 1: unless they have a partner. Right, That's the cultural narrative
Speaker 1: that we're all swimming in, is like, Yeah, you've got
Speaker 1: to love yourself otherwise no one else will love you.
Speaker 1: That's basically the point. It's like, love yourself with the
Speaker 1: aim of someone else loving you.
Speaker 5: But that roma's always been the wrong word.
Speaker 1: But that intense focus on romantic love being the only
Speaker 1: true way to happiness is just disproven all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what about you? Are you going to do it? How
Speaker 1: do you feel about it when you see these women?
Speaker 1: Do you feel go girly? Like? What's your vibe about it?
Speaker 2: For me, it reminds me of whenever I want to
Speaker 2: plan a birthday party for myself, because I always feel
Speaker 2: like such a dick. It's about getting people together who
Speaker 2: are like, these people love me, surely they want to
Speaker 2: celebrate me. Come to my dinner, but also pay for
Speaker 2: your dinner and get me a present, and like, just
Speaker 2: celebrate the love that you have for me.
Speaker 4: And it's like asking people to.
Speaker 2: Do something that seems so weird, whereas like if it's
Speaker 2: a wedding and it's celebrating partnership, or if you have
Speaker 2: a partner and they host the birthday party for you,
Speaker 2: it's different.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.
Speaker 3: I hosted a birthday party for someone else at my
Speaker 3: house this weekend, and I really enjoyed it. And then
Speaker 3: I kind of went, oh, my birthday's coming up, like
Speaker 3: I should do something, And I thought I felt really
Speaker 3: icked out by the idea of having people over to
Speaker 3: my house for my own birthday. But then a part
Speaker 3: of me is like, if you want to celebrate yourself
Speaker 3: or you want to get together with a bunch of people,
Speaker 3: then there are lots of ways to do that. There's
Speaker 3: something about the marriage to myself that makes me feel.
Speaker 3: When you first said in your introduction, m about it
Speaker 3: being like a pr consultant, I was like, yeah, of course,
Speaker 3: pr Consultant's just a stunt, Like it's a stunt that's
Speaker 3: meant to make us all go were like, and there
Speaker 3: is this moral panic about single women.
Speaker 1: Enoughness, Like imagine that that woman feels like she's enough
Speaker 1: on her own, Like how terrifying would that be?
Speaker 5: Yeah, true, true.
Speaker 3: I just find the the worship of the self, and
Speaker 3: I worry about that. I imagine one person at the
Speaker 3: altar and they're like, I love you because blah blah
Speaker 3: blah blah blah, and then they run around the other
Speaker 3: side and they're like, I love you because blah blah
Speaker 3: blah blah blah, and then they kiss themselves.
Speaker 5: And then I just feel like that's apocalyptic.
Speaker 1: Would be interesting to know what the wedding vows are,
Speaker 1: Like I'll let you guys know.
Speaker 2: Mothery hell out.
Speaker 1: Politicians being pushed to answer whether they are secretly planning
Speaker 1: to make terminating a pregnancy illegal, a heated staush about
Speaker 1: exactly how many weeks is the acceptable number of weeks
Speaker 1: to have an abortion, a university walk out over a
Speaker 1: pro life graduation speech, and one of the most prominent
Speaker 1: politicians in the country calling termination after the first trimester infanticide.
Speaker 1: If you think I'm talking about the United States right
Speaker 1: now and American politics in particular, you'd be wrong. These
Speaker 1: are all things that happened in Australia this week and
Speaker 1: this is all adding up to a political push to
Speaker 1: get a woman's right to choose into our voting booths.
Speaker 1: But why and how Here's a very top line overview,
Speaker 1: because this is quite complicated. So for context, there's a
Speaker 1: big state election happening in Queensland this weekend. High Queenslanders,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you're very very aware of it. It's largely
Speaker 1: expected that the Labor government is going to be overturned
Speaker 1: by the Coalition in a bit of a landslide after
Speaker 1: nine years in power. The reason that abortion has popped
Speaker 1: up as an issue in that election is that Robbie Catter,
Speaker 1: who is the leader of the Cara Australia Party and
Speaker 1: Bob Katter's Sun and that party does have some sway
Speaker 1: in Queensland it has three seats i think, which represent
Speaker 1: a geographically big part of the state, says that he
Speaker 1: would immediately introduce a private member's bill to wind back
Speaker 1: abortion access in the state, something that if a conscience
Speaker 1: vote was allowed on the matter could actually happen. The
Speaker 1: Liberal leader, though, the guy who's going to be the
Speaker 1: premiere if everything goes the way that people think it's
Speaker 1: going to go, is a guy called David Chris A. Fooley,
Speaker 1: and he has had to spend the whole week being
Speaker 1: asked about this and denying it and saying it's not
Speaker 1: going to be the case. But it hasn't stopped the speculation,
Speaker 1: not helped by the fact that one of his candidates,
Speaker 1: Freya Ostapovich, has been recorded telling voters I am on
Speaker 1: the record, I am pro life. I can't say anything
Speaker 1: yet because we've got to get elected before we do anything. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: in South Australia, a bill was narrowly voted down that
Speaker 1: would have banned a procedure involved in a very late
Speaker 1: term abortion. Now it's a very complicated and emotional discussion,
Speaker 1: this one, because it involves a tiny number of pregnancies
Speaker 1: that end in a very specific medical way under really
Speaker 1: egregious circumstances. Those kind of circumstances were spelled out this
Speaker 1: week on Mamma Mia by a woman called Natasha Williams.
Speaker 1: She explained how her baby Toby was diagnosed with very
Speaker 1: severe life limiting conditions at the beginning of her third trimester,
Speaker 1: and making the decision to undergo the procedure that this
Speaker 1: band would have outlawed was, Natasha says, the single most
Speaker 1: difficult thing I have ever done, as it would be
Speaker 1: for all mothers who are faced with this heartbreaking decision.
Speaker 1: But I did it because I loved him with every
Speaker 1: inch of my broken heart. Now, with these very emotive
Speaker 1: issues bubbling away, we're now at the point where yesterday
Speaker 1: in Sydney at a Conservative conference, Coalition Senator Jacinto Naberjerra
Speaker 1: Price said she wanted abortion back on the national agenda
Speaker 1: and that pregnancies ended after the first trimester are immoral.
Speaker 1: She used the word infanticide, Jesse, A lot of us
Speaker 1: are confused about how this is suddenly in all of
Speaker 1: our headlines here, and it feels like there are some
Speaker 1: who are keen to make this issue political in Australia
Speaker 1: in the way that traditionally it just isn't right. Do
Speaker 1: you think that they'll succeed.
Speaker 3: It feels like a political debate that will never be
Speaker 3: fully settled or fully decided, and I wonder if that's
Speaker 3: because of how highly emotional it is for all people involved.
Speaker 3: So it speaks to the definition of human life, who
Speaker 3: we see a base is belonging to. It's also about faith,
Speaker 3: people's religious beliefs, and it's about women who have made,
Speaker 3: in consultation with their doctor the most heartbreaking decision they've
Speaker 3: ever had to make in their life, and then being
Speaker 3: told by a politician that it's infanticide. I cannot imagine
Speaker 3: what that would do to someone. It feels as though
Speaker 3: it's definitely being used as a political football film.
Speaker 5: We've seen this in the past.
Speaker 3: It comes up and I think everyone looks at each
Speaker 3: other and goes, aren't we talking about one person here? Like, really,
Speaker 3: in terms of all the issues that affect Australians, this
Speaker 3: is such a tiny minority. I was looking at the
Speaker 3: South Australia example, and I think they were saying that
Speaker 3: in the last eighteen months it almost didn't impact anyone,
Speaker 3: Like there was no one where this was actually an issue,
Speaker 3: and the women who I think Natasha's story was so
Speaker 3: important because when we're talking about terminating a pregnancy at
Speaker 3: thirty five weeks, To be completely honest, I think that
Speaker 3: a lot of people do look at each other and go,
Speaker 3: wait what, one hundred percent that's very emotional, like the
Speaker 3: image that that conjures up in your head. If you
Speaker 3: have ever been pregnant and you know what it is
Speaker 3: to look at that ultrasound, you're just kind of going, oh,
Speaker 3: people can snap their fingers, and that's just not what's happening.
Speaker 3: It's a deliberate misrepresentation. But I've just found the whole
Speaker 3: thing quite distressing to see it play out, especially because
Speaker 3: we know that when Roverse Wade has been round back
Speaker 3: in the US, it's not an exaggeration to say that
Speaker 3: women have died. There are examples of women who have
Speaker 3: died because you're privileging that baby's life, and you're going,
Speaker 3: are you know there are times in which late stage
Speaker 3: there might be a fetal abnormalady or whatever, but you
Speaker 3: get to the point where the woman is almost dead,
Speaker 3: as Harris said recently, before you intervene, and in that way,
Speaker 3: it's a very sort of big discussion.
Speaker 5: What have you made of it?
Speaker 3: Him?
Speaker 2: I'm quite concerned because I just see it all over
Speaker 2: my TikTok. That's where I've skett all my news. Now
Speaker 2: what do you see there? What's there this week?
Speaker 1: All this stuff?
Speaker 2: It's the speech at ACU Australian Catholic University of everyone
Speaker 2: walking out. I don't actually I didn't actually see what
Speaker 2: the speech was, but I just saw like videos. I
Speaker 2: think it was students who are filming on their phones
Speaker 2: of I think like a professor talking about like abortion,
Speaker 2: and like they were just filming the crowd basically of
Speaker 2: like an empty seats of everyone walking out. But it
Speaker 2: was a comment on those videos of people in my generation,
Speaker 2: especially like younger men, commenting going looks like I'm moving
Speaker 2: to Queensland, looks like I'm moving to South Australia.
Speaker 4: Like it's quite scary.
Speaker 2: Because I always thought it was a generational thing and
Speaker 2: I've thought once that passes will be fine.
Speaker 1: Jesse, can you explain about the ACU story.
Speaker 3: Joe de brun is a former union boss and they
Speaker 3: were giving him an honorary degree and in so doing,
Speaker 3: he was then delivering the graduation speech at ACU. There's
Speaker 3: some in New South walest too, but this one was
Speaker 3: in Melbourne and in this speech, so if you were graduating,
Speaker 3: you were there. You might be with your parents or
Speaker 3: a partner or whoever.
Speaker 4: And you pay like at least like fifty to one
Speaker 4: hundred dollars per ticket.
Speaker 3: You pay to be there, right, And so this speech
Speaker 3: started talking about abortion. It said abortion is a single
Speaker 3: biggest killer of human beings in the world and referred
Speaker 3: to it as a tragedy that must be ended. He
Speaker 3: also spoke critically about IVF and same sex marriage, and
Speaker 3: what you saw em was like ninety five percent of
Speaker 3: the auditorium actually got up and left. And I've read
Speaker 3: reports that said the people most of the people that
Speaker 3: stayed with their filming, and then apparently there was a
Speaker 3: tiny portion who gave him a standing ovation.
Speaker 1: That's interesting to me, right, because I wasn't surprised, and
Speaker 1: I admit that I don't know very much about this,
Speaker 1: which is why I'm throwing to you, my Catholic friend,
Speaker 1: I am not surprised that a speaker at a Catholic
Speaker 1: university made those comments.
Speaker 5: So it's not a Catholic university, Oh I thought it was.
Speaker 3: So it's called Australian Catholic University and it was set
Speaker 3: up that way, right, It's actually a public university and
Speaker 3: most of the people that go there are not Catholic. Right,
Speaker 3: So he didn't understand who his audience was. Part of
Speaker 3: me is like, did you not understand the brief Basically,
Speaker 3: you can study kind of religious subjects there.
Speaker 5: Both my parents went to.
Speaker 4: I have a lot of friends.
Speaker 2: Who went to ASU, and I think a lot of
Speaker 2: them went there because it's one of the universities that
Speaker 2: office things that other universities don't. I have two friends
Speaker 2: who studied nursing there, Yes, and they couldn't believe the
Speaker 2: speech exactly.
Speaker 3: So it says on the website like, you don't need
Speaker 3: to be Catholic to study with us. Across our university
Speaker 3: staff and students of all faiths of none, work within
Speaker 3: the framework of respect for our mission and tradition, commit
Speaker 3: to the pursuit of knowledge.
Speaker 5: Blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: So I totally understand what you're saying, Holly, is that
Speaker 3: you look at that and did he assume that he
Speaker 3: was going to have a room full of people.
Speaker 1: Who were religious and agreed on religious grounds.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's interesting timing.
Speaker 1: The thing that's bothering me about this because the thing
Speaker 1: is in Australia, it's complicated to get stats on abortion
Speaker 1: because every state has different policies and some of the
Speaker 1: procedures involved in medical abortion are also procedures used for
Speaker 1: other things. Right, So it's actually quite hard to get
Speaker 1: the stats on how many Australian women get abortions, but
Speaker 1: broadly speaking, all the best data suggests that it has
Speaker 1: been slowly falling for a while, mostly because contraception is
Speaker 1: more widely available and more acceptable and all the rest
Speaker 1: of the things. So it seems that in general abortions
Speaker 1: are falling. But also since twenty fifteen, you've been able
Speaker 1: to get what they call medication abortion, which is the
Speaker 1: abortion pill. In broad terms, you know that you can
Speaker 1: get from a GP. So abortion is lots of things, right,
Speaker 1: And what is troubling me about these conversations that are
Speaker 1: breaking through to the mainstream that are profiling the you
Speaker 1: know in South Australia and in Queensland people saying late
Speaker 1: term abortion, late term abortion, infanticide is they're very much
Speaker 1: echoing the Donald Trump playbook, which is try and frame
Speaker 1: abortion as murdering babies at the last minute because you
Speaker 1: want to right. That is literally what they are doing.
Speaker 1: And they take this issue that is very complex and
Speaker 1: very broad and can mean anything in its definition from
Speaker 1: taking a tablet you know, a couple of weeks in
Speaker 1: that your doctor's prescribed to you to an absolutely devastating
Speaker 1: procedure like Natasha underwent, and then throwing this blanket of
Speaker 1: moral question over it. And the truth of it is
Speaker 1: that in Australia you can get a termination of varying
Speaker 1: kinds in most states early in a pregnancy relatively easy,
Speaker 1: safely and cheaply. Right later in the pregnancy you need
Speaker 1: more medical supervision, more medical sign off, more complication. Those
Speaker 1: numbers are tiny. So I just want everyone to know
Speaker 1: that when they're reading these stories about the politicians who
Speaker 1: are grabbing onto these sort of shocking stats that they
Speaker 1: want you to listen to, or these shocking stories that
Speaker 1: they want you to listen to, and throwing around these
Speaker 1: broad terms about women who are just randomly deciding they
Speaker 1: don't want to be pregnant anymore, very fear into their pregnancies.
Speaker 1: It's just not true. It's hijacked something that isn't an issue,
Speaker 1: like it isn't an issue here. No.
Speaker 3: And in the case of Natasha, and she said that
Speaker 3: her son Toby was never going to see, he was
Speaker 3: never going to walk, he was never going to talk
Speaker 3: thinking about his quality of life. I mean, that was
Speaker 3: what was heartbreaking for her, That decision about what happens
Speaker 3: with Toby. I don't get to have an opinion on that.
Speaker 3: That is between medical doctors and Natasha. I don't wish
Speaker 3: to have an opinion on that. That's not something for
Speaker 3: me to like philosophically debate as a politician. It is
Speaker 3: one of the most heartbreaking things. That's what happened.
Speaker 1: I absolutely can't bear it when we were watching the
Speaker 1: vice presidential debate and it got to the abortion segment,
Speaker 1: because there has to be an abortion segment, you know,
Speaker 1: and you've got these two guys up there picking case
Speaker 1: studies out of the air discussing this, and it's just
Speaker 1: absolutely infuriating that it is being used, as you said, Jesse,
Speaker 1: as a political football by people who are like, oh,
Speaker 1: culture issues work for wedge politics. They've worked in America.
Speaker 1: They get people inflamed about perceived threats to the way
Speaker 1: that we see things. We've got a very diverse population
Speaker 1: in Australia, many of whom would have different views on
Speaker 1: abortion for religious reasons and otherwise, and none of that
Speaker 1: is threatened.
Speaker 3: Because the pro life people I know don't want to
Speaker 3: project that onto the rest of Australia. There are deeply
Speaker 3: religious people that I know that they're just like I
Speaker 3: don't believe in abortion, fine, absolutely fine, but they don't
Speaker 3: want that enshrined in politics.
Speaker 1: Just dip behind the headlines. I would suggest on this issue.
Speaker 5: What unlimited out Loud access.
Speaker 3: We drop episodes every Tuesday and Thursday exclusively for Mum
Speaker 3: and MEA subscribers. Follow the link in the show notes
Speaker 3: to get us in your ears five days a week,
Speaker 3: and a huge thank you to all our current subscribers.
Speaker 5: For week.
Speaker 3: Yes, we have been busting to talk about a substack
Speaker 3: article by Anne Helen Peterson all about women and the
Speaker 3: complexities of what she terms clean culture. She writes, cleanliness
Speaker 3: is morally superior, and women should aspire to be morally
Speaker 3: irreproachable so as to negate the original sin of being
Speaker 3: a woman. An unclean woman is a bad woman. An
Speaker 3: untidy house reflective of an undisciplined mind. You can understand
Speaker 3: this thinking as bullshit and still be subject to it.
Speaker 3: What inspired this article was data she came across about
Speaker 3: how women do twice as much housework as men. But
Speaker 3: the real kicker for her was that this isn't just mothers,
Speaker 3: and in fact, it's not just in heterosexual households. In fact,
Speaker 3: the research showed that eighteen year old women, single women
Speaker 3: are also doing more housework. So the question is why
Speaker 3: are women just hardwired this way or is it socialized?
Speaker 5: I loved this.
Speaker 3: Quote from a woman Peterson spoke to. She said, our
Speaker 3: mums were taught this stuff, and so we grew up
Speaker 3: only knowing a peaceful house when it was pristine, because
Speaker 3: otherwise she was cleaning. Now, we can't feel at peace
Speaker 3: until it's clean, even though there isn't anyone telling us
Speaker 3: it has to be this way, Holly. The position of
Speaker 3: evolutionary psychology would probably be that we're hardwired this way.
Speaker 3: The men hunted, women tended to their space, they clean,
Speaker 3: they looked after kids. My question is what went wrong
Speaker 3: with your wiring? And are you ashamed about it?
Speaker 1: I think I've just been outed as a dirty one,
Speaker 1: a messy girl. I hate cleaning, hate cleaning all type
Speaker 1: of clean I hate all housework.
Speaker 5: There's not one little bit that you don't mind.
Speaker 1: I do it. Don't get me wrong, Like I don't
Speaker 1: live in a pigsty and we don't have a cleaner,
Speaker 1: and Brent does some and I do some, and so
Speaker 1: obviously I do it. But there isn't even a bit
Speaker 1: of me that enjoys it. I hate it, and so
Speaker 1: I resent every part of it. So I probably don't
Speaker 1: do it very well. So but I have definitely internalized
Speaker 1: the fact that that's the flaw in me, right, because
Speaker 1: when I sit in the bathroom and I look at
Speaker 1: the skirting boards and I see that they're dusty, and
Speaker 1: I see that, you know, the grout between the tiles,
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh fuck, you know, like all that
Speaker 1: level of clean I'm just like, I'm disgusting. I'm lazy.
Speaker 1: It's one of the reason why I don't like having
Speaker 1: people to my house, not because it's dirty, but I
Speaker 1: know that people who are clean, like properly clean things, yeah,
Speaker 1: they'll notice those things. And in fact, this was all
Speaker 1: validated recently when we went away to Lord how Alan
Speaker 1: for a week. The other week I had friends come
Speaker 1: and stay in my house. Lovely, wonderful friends come and
Speaker 1: look after tuna. I came back, my house was so clean,
Speaker 1: Like the level of cleanliness, every counter, every edge of
Speaker 1: you know where the tiles meet the wall. What if
Speaker 1: you call that bit that's sticky and it always gets
Speaker 1: a bit grubby. Yeah, yeah, every shelf wiped down, every
Speaker 1: plant pot, had been lifted up and wiped underneath it.
Speaker 1: Because my friend Penny's probably listening to this baby it's fine,
Speaker 1: but she is clean and she loves cleaning, and I
Speaker 1: know she thinks some shit at it, and I know
Speaker 1: she comes to my house and goes and.
Speaker 5: So she no, she might have just tried to clearrapeutic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it was lovely for me to walk back
Speaker 1: into a spotless house. Like I'm not going to say
Speaker 1: it wasn't. There's a bit of me that thinks, why
Speaker 1: am I like this wig? Because I think it's like
Speaker 1: it is hardwired into me somewhere, that there's something wrong
Speaker 1: with me because I don't like cleaning?
Speaker 3: And am you alone? So this is kind of talking.
Speaker 3: This whole article is sort of about why women who
Speaker 3: even live alone are doing more housework.
Speaker 4: There's no point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was wondering why it said women who are
Speaker 2: single also do more. I'm like more than what's like
Speaker 2: more than no one more.
Speaker 1: And also more than in the past. It's one of
Speaker 1: the other things she says is that this isn't shifted
Speaker 1: with women working more.
Speaker 2: So I think I'm the opposite of you whole. Whereas
Speaker 2: I don't like cleaning, I like tidying, Like I like
Speaker 2: things to look tidy. But if I want to clean,
Speaker 2: I have to invite someone over, because that's the only
Speaker 2: reason why I would clean.
Speaker 3: And do you resent the cleaning or do you actually
Speaker 3: quite enjoy the cleaning?
Speaker 2: I enjoy it looking clean, like I enjoy pretending to
Speaker 2: be clean, but not actually cleaning. Like I don't think
Speaker 2: I've cleaned my shower in like two months, because like
Speaker 2: you don't really see it.
Speaker 4: I just closed the door.
Speaker 5: That's so true.
Speaker 2: So I don't like the look of things being dirty,
Speaker 2: so I just don't look at it.
Speaker 3: And how about like just during the week, Like if
Speaker 3: someone came to your house on a Wednesday night, is
Speaker 3: your washing done? Is your bed made or your flaws vacuumed?
Speaker 4: Bed's made?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Washing and floors no, So anything they can see will
Speaker 2: be looking clean. I'll trick them looking clean. And I
Speaker 2: think I need to trick myself into thinking it's clean
Speaker 2: as well. Doing the actual act of like deep cleaning
Speaker 2: is not for me.
Speaker 1: What about you, Jesse?
Speaker 3: See, I wondered because I thought I enjoyed cleaning, And
Speaker 3: in very specific context, I have days now where I'm
Speaker 3: I'm at home with Luna, and let's say she goes
Speaker 3: down for a nap. Having an hour to clean almost
Speaker 3: feels like a privilege. It feels like a little luxury
Speaker 3: that I quite enjoy right, And I enjoy it because
Speaker 3: in that hour I don't have anything else to do.
Speaker 4: I can put on a podcast, but you can scroll
Speaker 4: on TikTok.
Speaker 3: I feel weird during the day, like it would make
Speaker 3: me feel lazy.
Speaker 5: I feel weird about it, right.
Speaker 1: What I like that's under the cover of darkness, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3: But then I was like, do I like cleaning or
Speaker 3: do I like the experience of the house being clean,
Speaker 3: which is a different thing. And then I thought about
Speaker 3: the drudgery of the everyday stuff right, Like the job
Speaker 3: I hate the most is wiping down our high chair.
Speaker 3: That kills me. I've looked at that and been like,
Speaker 3: but I don't want to and I have to do it.
Speaker 1: And your daughter is at a very messy age, yeah,
Speaker 1: because she's up and about and into everything, and she's
Speaker 1: eating messily and all the rest of it. So there's
Speaker 1: a lot of goo and slop and mess and things
Speaker 1: not in their place.
Speaker 4: That's not satisfying, you know.
Speaker 3: What's satisfying is, like I don't mind a vacuum, a mop,
Speaker 3: put on a candle. Oh, Like, I just feel like
Speaker 3: I've got my life together, But there's nothing satisfying about
Speaker 3: wiping down a high chair. I don't like having people
Speaker 3: in my house either, Holly, and I think it's for
Speaker 3: that reason. There's like a privacy thing. And then I
Speaker 3: thought about how women have internalized. I think it's to
Speaker 3: do with periods and all that kind of stuff discussed,
Speaker 3: Like we have this real visceral sense of disgust and
Speaker 3: being messy feels like people would think I am disgusting
Speaker 3: like that, they would think I am dirty that they
Speaker 3: would walk into my house and they'd go, this is messy.
Speaker 5: She is dirty.
Speaker 1: And then like evesorganized and lazy. Yeah, that's what I think.
Speaker 3: Or like let's say the fridge isn't clean, so something
Speaker 3: smells in the fridge, and then the bad smell is
Speaker 3: like you being disgusting. And then even a bathroom, like
Speaker 3: men don't have as much shame about their bodily functions
Speaker 3: as women. They just don't, So a bathroom being pristine
Speaker 3: doesn't have the same like moral value for a woman.
Speaker 3: It's like even having the chunk of toothpaste or having
Speaker 3: the like you.
Speaker 5: Know, it's very different.
Speaker 1: This is the thing, is that the problem with cleaning
Speaker 1: as self care, which is kind of being sold to
Speaker 1: us a bit. I think this idea, and I know
Speaker 1: that I know and love people who do love cleaning,
Speaker 1: and it's there, you know, how you have that period
Speaker 1: on then when you're clean, right, same in our house
Speaker 1: that the house gets cleaned on a Saturday. Broadly speaking,
Speaker 1: kids have a job, we're doing something. Whatever the thing
Speaker 1: is about, it is the minute I've done the bathroom
Speaker 1: and you've wiped down the sink from all the toothpaste spills,
Speaker 1: and you've scrubbed the toilet and you've done all that.
Speaker 1: Half an hour later, one of the children has been
Speaker 1: in there or one of them been in there, and
Speaker 1: it's dirty again. It's never finished, like the perfection of
Speaker 1: a clean home, unless you do have you know, full
Speaker 1: time staff or literally you spend your day doing it
Speaker 1: is never over, so it's never sort of done. And
Speaker 1: I know that there are a lot of people who
Speaker 1: do find that meditative and satisfying, taking something grubby and
Speaker 1: making it fresh. But it's one of those things that
Speaker 1: society's agreed we should all like. And I think that's convenient,
Speaker 1: isn't it that we've decided that all women should like
Speaker 1: that because it's something that someone has to do or
Speaker 1: we're literally all going to get sick and die, Like
Speaker 1: if you never clean your bathroom, someone's getting gastro But
Speaker 1: apparently I have to enjoy that. But it's something I
Speaker 1: want to do with the podcast and a candle. It's like,
Speaker 1: I fucking don't I like gardening, as you know, and
Speaker 1: I like cooking, so I like cooking a meal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I missed the domestic chip that was like, oh,
Speaker 1: folding washing house satisfying.
Speaker 4: You know what?
Speaker 1: Folding washing is my least favorite thing in the world.
Speaker 1: And very often on Sunday there will be a mountain
Speaker 1: of clean washing in our house as big as the house.
Speaker 1: And recently I went round to a friend's house who
Speaker 1: has this beautiful house and a beautiful renovation on the
Speaker 1: house and everything, and I was like, she so got
Speaker 1: it together right, but she's got a laundry, a big,
Speaker 1: fancy laundry. She hadn't closed the laundry door and I
Speaker 1: got a peek inside. It was up to the ceiling
Speaker 1: with messy, clean clothes, and I was like, this is
Speaker 1: what I want to see. I want to see this
Speaker 1: on Instagram. I want to see this everywhere, Like I
Speaker 1: didn't have time to fold my washing, and you know what,
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean I'm having a mental breakdown.
Speaker 5: I reckon too.
Speaker 3: There was something in this article that mentioned a class element,
Speaker 3: and I think this is very true. So I my
Speaker 3: was so tidy, like those beds where I remember she
Speaker 3: would like tuck me in at night and I couldn't breathe,
Speaker 3: like you know those She just knew how to properly
Speaker 3: make a bed.
Speaker 5: And she was always.
Speaker 4: Hospital corner, hospital corners.
Speaker 3: She would never sit down when we're all there because
Speaker 3: she'd be tidying around you like she was just really
Speaker 3: into it. And I think there was a class element
Speaker 3: to that because maybe you can't afford a really beautiful
Speaker 3: house or a lot of space. Firstly, if you don't
Speaker 3: have a lot of space, you gotta clean more.
Speaker 5: You just do.
Speaker 3: But you have a mot and you have a cloth,
Speaker 3: and there's pride in keeping your space looking a certain way.
Speaker 1: And also there's a respectability push there because that mind.
Speaker 1: Nana was exactly the same and came from a very
Speaker 1: working class family where you don't have much, but it's
Speaker 1: like people think we're dirty, like people think that we
Speaker 1: don't look after it. It's a very intense pride thing
Speaker 1: that like my house will be spotless. And I'm old
Speaker 1: enough to remember when washing powder adverts and cleaning product
Speaker 1: adverts were literally woman comes round to other woman's house,
Speaker 1: goes in the kitchen and wipes her finger over account
Speaker 1: and goes like that level of sort of judgment and
Speaker 1: that cleanliness means so much more somehow than whether or
Speaker 1: not you wipe down a counter spare, whether you've got
Speaker 1: it together. We've been in that for a very long time.
Speaker 2: I don't think I have the same pressure as the
Speaker 2: two of you do with cleaning though, because and I'm
Speaker 2: gonna flex my single privilege here, go for it, because
Speaker 2: like there are so many people still who'll come to
Speaker 2: my house because I live alone, and see this as
Speaker 2: still a phase of my life. Like see this as
Speaker 2: like M's like single living by herself right now. It's
Speaker 2: so cute, so quirky.
Speaker 4: Look season she.
Speaker 2: Only has like one egg and one bottle of Vodkna fridge,
Speaker 2: Like how funny, Like she's messy, She's like, but then
Speaker 2: if I feel like I move to like the next stage.
Speaker 2: If I do and live with someone, then I'll get
Speaker 2: the tagline as homemaker and that I won't be able
Speaker 2: to be untidy. So I feel like, right now I
Speaker 2: can get away with being untidy.
Speaker 1: This is why back to sulogamy, which we talked about
Speaker 1: in the first segment on the show about marrying yourself,
Speaker 1: You're like, people think my singleness is a season. I'm
Speaker 1: passing through, like a moment in time that I'm passing through.
Speaker 1: The people who were going, hold on a minute, I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that I'm in a waiting room. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying I'm in a lack. This is where I am.
Speaker 1: This is my life. I'm making it official. But I
Speaker 1: think you're right because I remember one of the most
Speaker 1: unexpected effects of becoming a parent more than a couple
Speaker 1: for me, actually, was that all these domestic things that
Speaker 1: i'd sort of managed to sidestep because it's not really
Speaker 1: my jam, suddenly become important. Can you bake cupcakes to
Speaker 1: take to mother's group? Having friends who say things like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's not raining, wonderful, I can do my washing, and
Speaker 1: I would be like, that is the last thing I
Speaker 1: was thinking about. You know what I mean? I was thinking, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not raining, I want to go for a walk
Speaker 1: or I want to do something else, but you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. And I suddenly was exposed to a
Speaker 1: level of domesticity that I think I'd thought I'd got
Speaker 1: away with. But it was lurking.
Speaker 3: And you see it, like even someone would walk into
Speaker 3: my house and it was really really messy, then that
Speaker 3: judgment would be associated with me and not Luca. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's the same when Luna's dressed really badly, which Luca
Speaker 3: always does, like dress are in these awful outfits and
Speaker 3: someone will look at me and go, what have you
Speaker 3: put her in?
Speaker 5: And I'm like, I didn't know that.
Speaker 4: You know, You're so right.
Speaker 1: Next time a friend comes over and I see the
Speaker 1: judgment in their eyes, I'm just going to say, sorry,
Speaker 1: Brent didn't have time to clean.
Speaker 4: Yes, I love that.
Speaker 3: Before you go, Holly, you'll be very jealous that we
Speaker 3: did this while you were away. But Maya m and
Speaker 3: I unpacked our new favorite show that I'm sure the
Speaker 3: Outlouders have now had a chance to watch. Nobody wants this,
Speaker 3: and not only did we do, because I spilled it
Speaker 3: a brilliant episode kind of analyzing it we looked at
Speaker 3: because a lot of people have messaged me or and
Speaker 3: I and said this is.
Speaker 1: Yes, I know that's what I was most keeping here about.
Speaker 3: We talked about the parallels. In fact, my mum had
Speaker 3: something to say that she decided to throw in, so
Speaker 3: you can listen to that via the link in our
Speaker 3: show notes.
Speaker 1: Oh I love that show so much. A massive thank
Speaker 1: you to you our out Louder friends for listening to
Speaker 1: today's show and every show you listened to check the
Speaker 1: show notes for any links and we talked about today.
Speaker 1: If you're wondering what we were on about, go and
Speaker 1: have a nosey there, including of course that subtep that
Speaker 1: I didn't get to espouse my beliefs on. Also find
Speaker 1: us on Instagram and TikTok, carry on the chat in
Speaker 1: the out Louders Facebook group, and we're going to be
Speaker 1: back in your ears tomorrow.
Speaker 5: Bye.
Speaker 1: Shout out to any Mamma Mia subscribers listening. If you
Speaker 1: love the show and you want to support us, subscribing
Speaker 1: to Mamma Mia is the very best way to do it.
Speaker 1: There's a link in the episode description