Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on Hello and welcome to
Speaker 2: Mamma Mia out Loud. It's a brand new week. This
Speaker 2: is what women are actually talking about on Monday, the
Speaker 2: thirteenth of October. My name is Holly.
Speaker 3: Wayne right, I am Amelia Luster and I am Jesse Stevens.
Speaker 3: I have a fun fact before we start the show today.
Speaker 3: Did you know so I've been seeing a pelvic floor
Speaker 3: physio again to try and sort out.
Speaker 2: The This is earlier in the piece than earlier in time.
Speaker 2: She's pregnant. If anyone's wondering, if any out Loud is
Speaker 2: you're like, why, so interact with whether or not Jesse's
Speaker 2: seeing someone about her pelvic floor.
Speaker 3: We've discussed with twins, right, and so I'm going, I
Speaker 3: don't want to head hanging out at twenty weeks. Let's
Speaker 3: sort this out. So I went and she was telling
Speaker 3: me that when you sneeze as a woman, you're meant
Speaker 3: to pull up. Did you know that from your pelvic floor?
Speaker 3: So when you know you're going to sneeze, you're meant
Speaker 3: to almost like a straw, get your floor and suck
Speaker 3: it up through a straw so that you don't let
Speaker 3: a little bit of way out. So now it's very
Speaker 3: poliny in the like in Sydney. At the moment, everyone's sneezing,
Speaker 3: So I keep sneezing, and I keep trying to do.
Speaker 2: That as I'm interesting that every sneeze is a little
Speaker 2: opportunity for self optimization exactly.
Speaker 4: That reminds me, though, that I had a Floti Sitchu
Speaker 4: once who said every woman is always clenching her buttocks,
Speaker 4: So just think of that every time you think of
Speaker 4: it unclenched.
Speaker 3: It's very true. And your buttocks is not your public floor.
Speaker 3: This is what my public floor phy say. She'd say,
Speaker 3: let go of your.
Speaker 4: Bum and of your bar matladers, hold on to your barm.
Speaker 1: Two things.
Speaker 2: Is making me all funny, you won't, sir. Anyway, None
Speaker 2: of that actually made our agenda for today. What made
Speaker 2: our agenda for today immediate Elesta.
Speaker 4: Victoria Beckham has a new docu series on Netflix, and
Speaker 4: she's made some big revelations in there about her complicated
Speaker 4: relationship with food.
Speaker 3: Plus Julia Morris says planes should have a women's only
Speaker 3: section and hundreds of women have come forward sharing their
Speaker 3: own horror stories. Does she have a point?
Speaker 2: And Princess Kate has written an essay guaranteed to make
Speaker 2: you squirm in guilty recognition.
Speaker 4: But first, Amelia, but first, all eyes are on the
Speaker 4: Middle East. Today it's Monday here in Australia and her
Speaker 4: Mass has until eight o'clock Australian Eastern time tonight to
Speaker 4: release all twenty remaining living hostages that are being held
Speaker 4: in Gaza back to Israel. Israel has said this could
Speaker 4: happen anytime today, starting it around midday Australian Eastern time,
Speaker 4: and then after that process is done, Israel is going
Speaker 4: to release about two thousand Palestinian detainees that it has.
Speaker 4: Donald Trump is on his way there. Before he got
Speaker 4: on the plane, he declared war is over. But of
Speaker 4: course there is still a lot to be worked out,
Speaker 4: and there is some last minute negotiating happening as we
Speaker 4: entered this record between Hamas and Israel about which Palestinian
Speaker 4: detainees are going to be released. But Trump is going
Speaker 4: to go to eat next after this, assuming everything goes well,
Speaker 4: and it's there that there's going to be a peace
Speaker 4: plan for Gars assigned after some seven hundred and thirty
Speaker 4: six days of war. So look, obviously things are unfolding
Speaker 4: as we are recording here now, and they will continue
Speaker 4: to do so over the coming couple of days. But
Speaker 4: the Quickie is here to keep us updated this afternoon,
Speaker 4: this evening, and then going forward on how everything unfolds.
Speaker 2: Please don't tell anyone that I've been looking at paparazzi images,
Speaker 2: because mom and mea, we do not support paparazzi economy.
Speaker 3: But Holly, sometimes we see headlines without our own permission.
Speaker 3: They just pop up out of nowhere, and you can't
Speaker 3: see a headline.
Speaker 4: Can we agree that every time we look at a
Speaker 4: paparazzi image unwishingly or not necessarily by choice, that we
Speaker 4: work on lifting our pelvic floor? Maybe?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 3: So true? A ten second hands?
Speaker 2: Yeah, ten seconds holds? So I did at least a
Speaker 2: thirty minute hold because I promise I didn't click through.
Speaker 2: But anyway, I don't want you to know that I've
Speaker 2: been looking at paparazi images, but I have, and I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: but I have schoreless gossip from these images that Katie
Speaker 2: Perry is definitely on with that just intrude.
Speaker 1: Oh I love this story. I actually love there.
Speaker 2: We talked about this schroreless gossip a while ago on
Speaker 2: out Loud, and then it was kind of denied by
Speaker 2: their camps.
Speaker 4: I went on a date, yes, oh yeah, and he
Speaker 4: was like, listen, we're just seeing each other as friends. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm not romantically interested. Mate.
Speaker 2: If you have glimpsed these images, there is nothing platonic
Speaker 2: about them. They are I'll tell you so you don't
Speaker 2: have to look out louder, so you can keep your
Speaker 2: integrity intact. They are on Katie's yacht off the coast
Speaker 2: of Santa Barbara. Apparently she's in a swimsuit and he's
Speaker 2: in jeans, which I have a lot of questions about that,
Speaker 2: but they are embracing and although you could argue, well,
Speaker 2: friends hug each other when they see each other, his
Speaker 2: hands are in places that friends do not go. Friends
Speaker 2: do not put their hands there. So I just want
Speaker 2: to tell you this is very exciting. I don't think
Speaker 2: this is just about justin trying to get Canada on
Speaker 2: Katie's next space mission. I don't think it's that. I
Speaker 2: think they're on I'm excited scoreless gossip. I'm here for it.
Speaker 3: Things are looking out for Katie. I think Katie's had
Speaker 3: her rough twelve months. She copped a bit and I
Speaker 3: think that she's due for a bit of good luck.
Speaker 3: And I'm just all for it.
Speaker 2: Is here, good dude, Amelia. You know things about politics
Speaker 2: out side of the world, and he used to be
Speaker 2: the prime minister Rink Canada.
Speaker 3: He's a good issue.
Speaker 4: It seems to hate him now for some reason.
Speaker 3: I think that's just what happens when you used to
Speaker 3: be the pan Wasn't his.
Speaker 4: Dad like a notorious sort of celebrity hanger out.
Speaker 2: Holy They are definitely a celebrity family, right those guys. Yeah, Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 4: What I'm wondering about off the coast of Santa Barbara.
Speaker 4: You know where that is, right, Montesito, anyone. I'm wondering
Speaker 4: because Megan need I unpack this all for you. Megan
Speaker 4: is good friends with Justin's ex wife. Yes, that's right,
Speaker 4: and they have spent summer days together Paul side at
Speaker 4: Megan and Harry's. I'm wondering, was there an awkward run
Speaker 4: in at the Montecito shops.
Speaker 3: Maybe they were looking out over the water and they
Speaker 3: had their monoculars.
Speaker 4: Well, because Katie and Orlando lived next door to Megan
Speaker 4: and Harry, so it's all very messy.
Speaker 2: Harry once said that Orlander would tip him off about
Speaker 2: paps in the neighborhood. See I've seen the pap down
Speaker 2: at IgA.
Speaker 1: You better watch out.
Speaker 2: And then you're right, because Megan has often talked about
Speaker 2: having the Canadian first family round. That's when they were together.
Speaker 2: So hot scandal it down.
Speaker 4: The good that Oprah also lives there has sorted out
Speaker 4: for them. So there's a new documentary series out, a
Speaker 4: three part documentary on Netflix telling the life story of
Speaker 4: Victoria Beckham. So you remember last year was the David
Speaker 4: Beckham Netflix documentary. This year it's Victoria's turn. And Holly,
Speaker 4: you asked me last week if I was enjoying watching
Speaker 4: it because I just started watching it.
Speaker 2: You watched the first app before I had seen it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was like it good like And I said,
Speaker 4: you know, Holly, I'm finding it really hard to watch.
Speaker 4: And I recounted a scene in the first episode that
Speaker 4: has really stayed with me. David and Victoria are swanning
Speaker 4: around their really marvelously charming looking country house kitchen and
Speaker 4: they're about to.
Speaker 1: Go out to an event.
Speaker 4: And one detail I love in this is that they
Speaker 4: both really like expensive wine, and David had poured them
Speaker 4: both big you know, those big rich person goblets of
Speaker 4: wine to drink before they went to an event, and
Speaker 4: I guess they didn't have time to drink them, so
Speaker 4: David pours them into flasks, essentially to drink in the
Speaker 4: back of their limousine sippy cups. But then he also
Speaker 4: says to her, do you want a whisper? There's a
Speaker 4: little draw full of chocolate in their kitchen and it's
Speaker 4: one of those fun size I guess is whisper a
Speaker 4: British chocolate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's gorgeous. It's kind of like a flake covered
Speaker 2: in chocolate, but more air. Aw we it's They're delicious.
Speaker 2: Whispers are delish.
Speaker 4: So he says to her, do you want a whisper?
Speaker 4: And then she makes a joke something along the lines
Speaker 4: of not having touched chocolate since the nineties, I'm not
Speaker 4: going to start eating it now. And I just thought,
Speaker 4: this person clearly has a disordered relationship with food. And
Speaker 4: that's what I said to you, And then that became
Speaker 4: a theme of the whole show, didn't it?
Speaker 2: It did? I was going to say, because that on
Speaker 2: its own was kind of like, oh, yeah, we know,
Speaker 2: we know. And also there was a lot of footage
Speaker 2: in that first episode of them at the gym. Do
Speaker 2: you notice that lots of less Victoria doing weights, lots
Speaker 2: of midlife weightlifting, you know how that's what the ladies
Speaker 2: are into. And I don't know what the protein count
Speaker 2: and a whisper is so like she wouldn't be Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't think. I don't think she'd be guzzling those anyway.
Speaker 2: But in the second episode we will have a few
Speaker 2: spoilers in this but for people who really want to
Speaker 2: dive into what we thought of the whole show, we're
Speaker 2: going to do a special subject about it for tomorrow
Speaker 2: for Tuesday. But in episode two they talk about the
Speaker 2: food and the diet culture and eating disorders in a
Speaker 2: more head on fashion right, And I actually found it
Speaker 2: really moving and insightful. And I know there's a lot
Speaker 2: of criticism about how surface level this show is, and
Speaker 2: it is I think certainly compared to the David Beckham documentary.
Speaker 2: It doesn't feel anywhere near as deep. But Victoria Beckham
Speaker 2: POSH or Lady Beckham, as the BBC always calls her,
Speaker 2: which I just love. Go and read some reporting on
Speaker 2: the BBC website about this show, and even when talking
Speaker 2: about the most mundane thing like wine sippy cups, they
Speaker 2: referred to as Lady Beckham.
Speaker 3: She'd love that, she would love that.
Speaker 2: Lady Beckham is one of those celebrities who she has
Speaker 2: been famous for thirty years. She is an absolute icon
Speaker 2: of gen X culture in all her different guys is
Speaker 2: and her skinniness. And I'm just going to say it
Speaker 2: because I know, and this is part of what we're
Speaker 2: going to discuss. I know the world we live in now,
Speaker 2: you're not really meant to talk about that. So we're
Speaker 2: not meant to say that we don't eat chocolate, and
Speaker 2: we're not meant to talk about weight or bodies or
Speaker 2: comment on the fact that Victoria Beckham has been unbelievably
Speaker 2: thin for thirty years, but she has right Watching her
Speaker 2: talk about that, even in that, you could see how
Speaker 2: much it aimed her to discuss it. I found really
Speaker 2: insightful because it just spoke to me of a very
Speaker 2: specific moment in culture and what that does to you
Speaker 2: over decades. Obviously an example of that and that level
Speaker 2: of attention, we're about to play you a grab of
Speaker 2: Posh as she was universally known in those days, appearing
Speaker 2: on a very high profile television show hosted by a
Speaker 2: very high profile host called Chris Evans in nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 2: not long after she has had her baby, Brooklyn. Who
Speaker 2: will get to in the subject, I'm sure, And she
Speaker 2: goes on the show and he asks her about her
Speaker 2: body and her baby weight.
Speaker 5: A lot of girls want to know, because you look
Speaker 5: fantastic again, how did you get back to your shape
Speaker 5: after your birth? I haven't done it.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm really lazy.
Speaker 1: Let's go down.
Speaker 2: May be one of the Sickney women who didn't have.
Speaker 4: To do anything.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't.
Speaker 5: Actually a lot of people say, does David help, you know,
Speaker 5: so work out?
Speaker 4: What way is that?
Speaker 3: I don't?
Speaker 5: No idea spot for USh?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 2: Yeah, circuit training is your way back to normal?
Speaker 4: Yeah it is?
Speaker 3: Can I check?
Speaker 5: Oh no, you didn't, Jerry, didn't you?
Speaker 2: But Jerry was that really small? It's horrible.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I cannot believe that happens.
Speaker 2: And he weighs her in on TV, which is something
Speaker 2: that people used to do, and you know what, not
Speaker 2: that long ago, I heard people weighing each other on
Speaker 2: the radio, like this is celebrity culture that is in
Speaker 2: the past that we can touch. And then she talks
Speaker 2: about the impact of the spotlight from being a young
Speaker 2: dancer all the way through to now on her body
Speaker 2: and body image, and it's probably the most honest she's
Speaker 2: ever been about it.
Speaker 5: This is what she says, when you have an eating disorder,
Speaker 5: you become very good at lying. And I was never
Speaker 5: honest about it with my parents. I never talked about
Speaker 5: it publicly. It really affects you when you're being told
Speaker 5: constantly you're not good enough.
Speaker 4: So it's a bit ambiguous about whether or not she
Speaker 4: is still struggling with that, but she certainly refers to
Speaker 4: this feeling of inadequacy that has fueled her her whole life.
Speaker 3: And yet when she says I was controlling it in
Speaker 3: an incredibly unhealthy way, it sounds like it's past tense.
Speaker 3: And I understand why she puts it into past tense.
Speaker 3: I think it's a much more palatable way to talk
Speaker 3: about any sort of mental illness, to have it as
Speaker 3: an arc which you have overcome.
Speaker 2: I actually she did do that.
Speaker 3: I felt as though it was implicit that the only
Speaker 3: reason she felt at all comfortable with it because this
Speaker 3: documentary was about triumph. It was about all the assumptions
Speaker 3: that had been made about her and her reinventions and basically,
Speaker 3: look at where I am now. And so it wouldn't
Speaker 3: have really fit for her to sit there and say,
Speaker 3: and I still have an aiding, Didace?
Speaker 4: You know what?
Speaker 2: I think that's so interesting because I saw it so differently,
Speaker 2: because the narrative we would all be really comfortable with
Speaker 2: would be an explicit one of and this is we've
Speaker 2: seen it a million times. I was struggling. I'm not
Speaker 2: struggling now. I now have learned to have a healthy
Speaker 2: relationship with my body, my image, my food. She didn't
Speaker 2: say any of that, and in fact, it is incredibly
Speaker 2: clear from how much she talked about control, how much
Speaker 2: she talked about hating literally hating what she looks like.
Speaker 2: And this is a woman who's had to look at
Speaker 2: pictures of herself for thirty years, bestorked by the paparazzi,
Speaker 2: all those things. It's incredibly clear, really when you watch
Speaker 2: this that she is still incredibly self conscious. Anytime a
Speaker 2: camera has pointed at her, she is intensely buttoned up
Speaker 2: and controlled, even when it's doing a TikTok dance with
Speaker 2: her daughter. You know, there's a scene where she and
Speaker 2: Harper do a TikTok dance in there what looks like
Speaker 2: skyscraper in londartment. Yeah, and she's like, oh yeah, the
Speaker 2: angle's flattering, Like she is so steeped in that controlling
Speaker 2: diet culture of the time. I don't think she's pretending
Speaker 2: she's free.
Speaker 4: Flattering is in fact her highest compliment. She says that's
Speaker 4: why she started a clothing line is because she wanted
Speaker 4: to make flattering clothing. But I think why this felt
Speaker 4: like such a big deal is because, as you say, Holly,
Speaker 4: we've known Victoria Beckham for thirty years and there should
Speaker 4: be actually nothing surprising necessarily about her admitting this. Shocking
Speaker 4: as it is, it shouldn't be surprising. And yet Hadley Freeman,
Speaker 4: who's a writer in the UK Times, who herself has
Speaker 4: written about extensively her own struggles with an eating disorder
Speaker 4: as a teenager, she points out that we've been looking
Speaker 4: at Victoria looking this way for years, for decades, and
Speaker 4: yet somehow we didn't want to see what was obvious.
Speaker 4: We didn't even want to acknowledge it until she herself
Speaker 4: said it on this show.
Speaker 1: And we've got to ask why that is, because we
Speaker 1: do this all.
Speaker 4: The time, when celebrities become half the size that they
Speaker 4: once were. Ariana Grande, we saw this recently. It was
Speaker 4: almost like we weren't allowed to talk about it.
Speaker 3: It seems like there is something so different about our
Speaker 3: treatment of any sort of eating disorders, no matter how
Speaker 3: it manifests in how your body looks. But it seems
Speaker 3: to be the only mental illness to which we afford
Speaker 3: barely any empathy. It's a mental illness that we approach
Speaker 3: with contempt and often anger. Just like, why does she
Speaker 3: look like that impossible beauty standard?
Speaker 4: Is that?
Speaker 1: Blah blah blah?
Speaker 4: Is that why you're saying that we don't talk about
Speaker 4: it because we just don't.
Speaker 1: Regard it as real.
Speaker 4: Maybe, yeah, we don't regard it as an illness, and.
Speaker 3: I think also as something that is like endemic to Hollywood,
Speaker 3: to celebrity.
Speaker 1: Cost costs to join business. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So in that essay, Freeman said as well, why would
Speaker 3: any celebrity recover from anorexia given how high the rewards
Speaker 3: now are for extreme thinness? Like that's it's the game
Speaker 3: and she's playing it, which sounds like a really callous
Speaker 3: way to describe it. But it is an illness. But
Speaker 3: because it's an illness that almost conforms to a standard
Speaker 3: that society rewards, we just don't want to treat it
Speaker 3: with any empathy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because for exactly that reason, because it is a
Speaker 2: standard that society rewards. But this is the thing, is
Speaker 2: that my complex feelings about watching Posh talk about that.
Speaker 2: And I may have been over empathizing because I feel
Speaker 2: like I know Victoria Beckham when obviously I don't. But
Speaker 2: she has been so front and center in pop culture
Speaker 2: for so long, but it's very complicated to think of
Speaker 2: the fact that someone who is part of the problem.
Speaker 2: So she was in those naughty size zero years, the
Speaker 2: pictures of her in tiny little hotpants when she had
Speaker 2: the big fake boobs, which she also talks about in
Speaker 2: the show and says I buried those in Baden Baden,
Speaker 2: which was a European championships where all the wags looked
Speaker 2: like that, and she was the queen right, tiny, like
Speaker 2: really tiny, tinier than a seven year old child. Tiny,
Speaker 2: but with the big boobs, tiny hotpants, all those things
Speaker 2: that was held up and put everywhere as almost like
Speaker 2: a warning but also something you want right, So it's
Speaker 2: like ooh, yum, yum, ooh, that's the vibe. And the
Speaker 2: thing is is that the complicated relationship you have with
Speaker 2: Posh is that she was part of that problem because
Speaker 2: she was the pinup, one of the primary pinups. She
Speaker 2: still is in a way, and that this is what
Speaker 2: I mean about. I don't think she was trying to
Speaker 2: suggest that all her issues with food and body are
Speaker 2: in the past. She has not changed even an iota,
Speaker 2: as in still clearly something she works very hard at
Speaker 2: and considers the height of beauty. So she is part
Speaker 2: of the problem, but she's also a victim of the problem.
Speaker 2: And I think that's really confusing to try and hold
Speaker 2: in your head, because for me, there was a really
Speaker 2: telling bit because she has literally been followed by paparazzi,
Speaker 2: as I say, for three decades through lots of phases
Speaker 2: of her life. And there's a telling bit where her
Speaker 2: and Eva Longot because she becomes friends with the Hollywoods
Speaker 2: when she goes to live in la when David goes
Speaker 2: to place for Galaxy, and she and Eva Longoria a
Speaker 2: being papped when they're out on Mulholland drive or whatever,
Speaker 2: and she said I couldn't believe her relaxed in front
Speaker 2: of the cameras Eva Longoria was. And this is a
Speaker 2: time too when she was very thin and the Desperate
Speaker 2: Housewives size zero era, but she was like, she didn't
Speaker 2: seem to care whether she smiled in a way that
Speaker 2: gave her a double chin or whether she like looked,
Speaker 2: whereas Posh was clearly has been. So I'm going to
Speaker 2: use the word that might make some people roll their eyes,
Speaker 2: but like traumatized by that glare and that criticism and
Speaker 2: that relentless comparison from a very formative young that she
Speaker 2: can't just be in the world, so she's in awe
Speaker 2: of people who can. And she clearly is still that
Speaker 2: way because one of the things about this doco, it's
Speaker 2: quite a shallow doco. As we said, I enjoyed it
Speaker 2: for lots of reasons we'll get into in the subset,
Speaker 2: but it was meant to be, as you say, a
Speaker 2: victorious thing but also a plucky Vicky you know, go
Speaker 2: buy an eyeliner because she's been through some tough times
Speaker 2: kind of vibe. She is clearly still unbelievably self conscious
Speaker 2: about her appearance, every angle, every shot, every and I
Speaker 2: don't know, I felt a lot of empathy for it
Speaker 2: because I think it's complicated.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and there were some specifics, like she referred to
Speaker 3: an article that was written eleven days after she gave
Speaker 3: birth that was basically saying she was still carrying the
Speaker 3: baby weight. And it also made me think of a
Speaker 3: few years ago when David Beckham flippantly said in an
Speaker 3: interview that Victoria had only eaten grilled fish and steamed
Speaker 3: vegetables since he met her, and it started this big
Speaker 3: discussion about whether or not that was healthy and whether
Speaker 3: that was a sign of disordered eating. And we as
Speaker 3: a society enabling this by like what allowing Victoria to exist? Like,
Speaker 3: I don't know what I understand why we police our
Speaker 3: own language in public, because I think that the way
Speaker 3: that we talk about women's bodies publicly should be different
Speaker 3: to how we might talk about them privately, because there's
Speaker 3: more of a responsibility and you don't know who's listening,
Speaker 3: and you don't know what they're going through, and everyone's
Speaker 3: relationship is really complicated with it. But the idea that
Speaker 3: that Victoria Beckham is being enabled by being allowed to
Speaker 3: be on television have a job. When she's that thin,
Speaker 3: we are enabling her.
Speaker 4: I just look, I think we can all agree that
Speaker 4: anyone who is struggling with the mental illness deserves empathy. Yeah,
Speaker 4: of course includes people with eating disorders, which are among
Speaker 4: the deadliest mental illnesses.
Speaker 1: But stepping back a.
Speaker 4: Little bit, like when David said that flippantly, or when
Speaker 4: Victoria flippantly said I haven't eaten chocolate sinster nineties, that's
Speaker 4: regarded as charming, Like whenever she talks about food, it's
Speaker 4: in that same way as she does in the documentary,
Speaker 4: Or when David said that about her eating the steamfish
Speaker 4: and vegetables, and it kicked off a discourse about whether
Speaker 4: we should enable that.
Speaker 1: But it's not normal. It's not healthy to only eat
Speaker 1: steam fish and vegetables for your whole life.
Speaker 2: So my question is do we expect all the all
Speaker 2: the famous people in the world to only present a
Speaker 2: very well adjusted front to us at all times? Because
Speaker 2: I agree with you, Amelia, like I agree with you
Speaker 2: one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: Like it's it made me feel bad, it's X.
Speaker 2: This is the way that gen X women have always
Speaker 2: talked about food, right, It's never just food, and it's
Speaker 2: unfortunate and it's terrible, and I think we're prosecuting that.
Speaker 2: But my question is is it better to edit all
Speaker 2: that stuff out of it and pretend that Victoria Beckham
Speaker 2: is healthier than she is when it comes to this stuff.
Speaker 2: That's my genuine question.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I think my problem is not so much with how
Speaker 4: Victoria Beckham talks about it as so much as what
Speaker 4: message are we sending when we do reward these women
Speaker 4: who are clearly have been starving themselves for decades and
Speaker 4: say that's the height of fashion. That's literally fashion means
Speaker 4: howeveryone wants to look and what is regarded as she
Speaker 4: can trendy. We reward them with our money and with
Speaker 4: our attention, and then we expect our children to not
Speaker 4: listen to us.
Speaker 2: But we reward them, and we also relentlessly criticize them.
Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: We reward the culture while at the same time punishing
Speaker 3: the individual. Yes, which is so cruel.
Speaker 2: That's what I was kind of wrestling with when I'm saying,
Speaker 2: she's like part of the problem with the whole I
Speaker 2: haven't eaten chocolate since the nineties and also a victim
Speaker 2: of it in that like, of course she's like that,
Speaker 2: And I just wonder because I agree with you, but
Speaker 2: I feel like there's freedom to me, or there's some
Speaker 2: honesty to me. I think when women who are that
Speaker 2: impossibly sin which is always held up as desirable, when actually,
Speaker 2: if we're all being honest, I don't know that it
Speaker 2: is that desirable to have such an you know, it's
Speaker 2: hard to say the words without sounding critical, but such
Speaker 2: a very very tiny body shape that clearly you have
Speaker 2: to restrict yourself so heavily to have. But I guess
Speaker 2: my point is, is it better if she pretends that
Speaker 2: she eats burgers?
Speaker 3: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: No, I completely see that question. I guess it just
Speaker 4: comes back to look, Obviously, she's entitled to eat whatever
Speaker 4: she wants, and if that's steamfish and vegetables are never
Speaker 4: any chocolate, that's fine. But it makes me a bit sad.
Speaker 4: And I also think it's a bit disingenuous to say
Speaker 4: that she has only been a victim in this. She
Speaker 4: has been rewarded with immense fame and fortune as a
Speaker 4: result of starving herself. Now that's not her problem, that's
Speaker 4: our problem.
Speaker 2: I think she's both I think that's what's complicated about it.
Speaker 2: I think she's both. I think personally I felt sad,
Speaker 2: Like after episode term particular, I felt really sad, and
Speaker 2: I was glad about that. I don't want to just
Speaker 2: watch something that just makes me go perfect, happy, shiny life,
Speaker 2: no problems there, Like I liked it.
Speaker 3: Before we move on, can I please have everyone's topline thoughts,
Speaker 3: because there are gonna be people who did their homework.
Speaker 3: We told them this weekend, your homework is to watch
Speaker 3: Victoria Beckham. I'll be the first put my hand out
Speaker 3: and go. I didn't complete the homework. I didn't. I
Speaker 3: didn't get through episode three yet I will complain it.
Speaker 4: Well, you'll never find out what happens with the fashion show.
Speaker 4: I just love how the stakes of fashion and sports
Speaker 4: documentaries they're both the same. It's like I get so
Speaker 4: invested in things that actually don't matter very much, and
Speaker 4: that's wonderful.
Speaker 3: See I disagree that they're the same. A sports docko
Speaker 3: I will get right into because I feel like the
Speaker 3: stakes are simple as winning or losing. I felt like
Speaker 3: I was watching an episode of Project Runway where it
Speaker 3: was kind of like about Tim guhnn yes or like
Speaker 3: will it rain, won't it rain? And I was like,
Speaker 3: I'm not invested in that like that much in the rain.
Speaker 3: And it was, as we predicted, such an explicit, prolonged
Speaker 3: Victoria Beckham ad that at the end, I went, am
Speaker 3: I more likely to go to Victoriabeckham dot com and
Speaker 3: look at a nice frock? Perhaps?
Speaker 4: I'm sure I wouldn't never aye you with a question
Speaker 4: like do you think that it's going to drive people
Speaker 4: to buy things with your name on them?
Speaker 3: Because when you have created a brand, you want to
Speaker 3: get your brand story out there. It's really cool to
Speaker 3: kind of being front and center of people's purchasing decisions.
Speaker 3: And this was just a brand story.
Speaker 2: Except a brand's story was kind of and nobody bought
Speaker 2: my clothes and I nearly went bust.
Speaker 3: Oh, I think it was people bought them, but I
Speaker 3: just spilled the money mentally the money on my plants.
Speaker 3: I found it profoundly disappointing and it was full of
Speaker 3: platitudes and cliches. And there was a point at which
Speaker 3: she said this sentence that was like, I'm a control freak,
Speaker 3: so when things aren't in my control, it's hard. And
Speaker 3: I was like, I'm out I'm out, this is just
Speaker 3: so boring.
Speaker 2: I know that I'm the lone Vicky b defender in
Speaker 2: this in this room. Because you're right, it wasn't great.
Speaker 2: Particularly wasn't great in comparison to the Mecan documentary, which
Speaker 2: was great in every way. It wasn't as deep. It
Speaker 2: didn't interview that like he had every teammate he's ever had,
Speaker 2: and we didn't even get the Spice girls like it.
Speaker 2: It was very shallow in lots of ways. But in
Speaker 2: a way, I think that's almost like appropriate for the
Speaker 2: different ways we treat male and female celebrities, because this
Speaker 2: was so buttoned up and so like, what will people say,
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I've got it, Like, I know, I've
Speaker 2: got to be authentic, but I don't want to be authentic.
Speaker 2: I don't want to say anything that might be controversial,
Speaker 2: so I'll just drop them like a tiny thing. Whereas
Speaker 2: David was kind of like, well, you know, let it
Speaker 2: all hang out. I think it's very gendered.
Speaker 4: If this discussion has brought up any issues for you,
Speaker 4: we will have some resources in the show notes.
Speaker 3: In a moment, would you choose a female only section
Speaker 3: on a flight if you could, we discuss Julia Morris,
Speaker 3: who's a comedian and a TV host, best known for
Speaker 3: hosting I'm a Celebrity, Get Me out of Here National Treasure. Yes,
Speaker 3: she has a proposal. Over the weekend she posted this idea,
Speaker 3: which is she thinks planes should have a women's only
Speaker 3: section with women's only bathrooms. So here is exactly what
Speaker 3: she posted. She wrote, calling all airlines please consider a
Speaker 3: women only section on your planes. We don't feel safe
Speaker 3: with men telling us to crawl over them on flight
Speaker 3: while they ignore women's personal space. And I won't even
Speaker 3: mention the state of the toilets. Not all men, but
Speaker 3: why so many give us the back section or at
Speaker 3: least a few rows of female only seats stand up
Speaker 3: to creeps on flights. Women are over it and the
Speaker 3: post attracted lots of likes, but more than sixteen hundred comments.
Speaker 2: You think this was like a serious request to the airlights.
Speaker 1: I actually do.
Speaker 3: And it appears that maybe she had recently been on
Speaker 3: a flight and had a particularly bad experience. But all
Speaker 3: of these comments came floating in. I was really interested
Speaker 3: to see what the consensus was, and generally it was
Speaker 3: women sharing stories of being assaulted on flights, particularly by
Speaker 3: men who were inebriated, men making women crawl over them
Speaker 3: and then kind of making them feel like they didn't
Speaker 3: have their own personal space. And also women being in
Speaker 3: a position where they had to breastfeed and they were
Speaker 3: sandwiched between two men and they felt uncomfortable. I remember
Speaker 3: last year talked about an Indian low cost carrier named
Speaker 3: Indigo who had just offered a service where female passengers
Speaker 3: could select a seat where they could sit next to
Speaker 3: another female passenger, so you could see it when you
Speaker 3: checked in and you chose your seat, you could go,
Speaker 3: I want to sit next to a woman, And that
Speaker 3: was about comfort and safety of women on flights. I
Speaker 3: am so interested to hear what you think. I've gone
Speaker 3: back and forth on it, Amelia, what do you reckon?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think it's a really interesting proposal.
Speaker 4: And I think that women's only spaces kind of go
Speaker 4: in and out of fashion, depending on maybe the political
Speaker 4: climate at the times. Because back in the nineties, when
Speaker 4: I was about to go to university, my mom told
Speaker 4: me that when she was at Sydney University in the sixties,
Speaker 4: they had a women's only room and she would spend
Speaker 4: a lot of time there. And my reaction in the nineties,
Speaker 4: growing up amidst lad culture, amidst Victoria Beckham being weighed
Speaker 4: on national television. Was immediately like, that's uncle, Why would
Speaker 4: I strike out on my own and go where only
Speaker 4: the women are? Because back then it was seen as
Speaker 4: you had to be able to hang with men, and
Speaker 4: you had to be able to be comfortable in the
Speaker 4: company of men and not talk too loudly about being
Speaker 4: a feminist or wanting to be with other women. And
Speaker 4: also the nineties, I remember that I watched a travel
Speaker 4: show about Tokyo. It was a Clive James travel show,
Speaker 4: and he talked about how on the Tokyo subway there
Speaker 4: are women only cars on the subway. And this blew
Speaker 4: my nineties mind because back then again there just wasn't
Speaker 4: this acceptance of the need for women only spaces for
Speaker 4: all these sort of big cultural reasons.
Speaker 2: Are are there still women's only cars on the subway?
Speaker 2: And there are? Yes.
Speaker 4: Another harbinger of the times was you know the Kuldjie
Speaker 4: Ladies bards there in Sydney, and they're very beautiful and
Speaker 4: they've been a sanctuary for women for over a century.
Speaker 4: In nineteen ninety five, a man launched proceedings of the
Speaker 4: New South Wales Anti Discrimination Board, saying that he wanted
Speaker 4: to be able to go to the ladies' bards. Now
Speaker 4: he lost the case, but it's a sign of how
Speaker 4: there really was this backlash then against this same fear
Speaker 4: of women being able to have their own space.
Speaker 1: And now I think.
Speaker 4: We've come one to eighty and now I think we're
Speaker 4: really wanting to create spaces for women. Women are two
Speaker 4: thirds of global travelers. There's been a rise in women's
Speaker 4: only trips and holidays and things like that, and I
Speaker 4: think we're more aware now of like the psychological safety
Speaker 4: that can be brought about by being around other women.
Speaker 2: Yes, cosign all that, but is there also a point
Speaker 2: here at which and I want to preface this that
Speaker 2: obviously the story's there about being groped or you know,
Speaker 2: made to feel unsafe in a physical way because some
Speaker 2: creepy guy basically is sitting next to you. Is there
Speaker 2: also a place here where we've just become completely intolerant
Speaker 2: of being around the people who may behave in ways
Speaker 2: that we don't like. Like, you know, we've often talked
Speaker 2: about when we're traveling lots for Mom and mere out
Speaker 2: loud and we're flying all the time. We often complain
Speaker 2: or laugh about like that guy who felt entitled enough
Speaker 2: to snore or spread his legs too wide or talk
Speaker 2: to loudly or whatever. And there is a point at
Speaker 2: which we do just have to all rub along, right.
Speaker 1: We do. But it's funny.
Speaker 4: You should imagine the tour because one of the people
Speaker 4: who works with us on the tour mentioned that she
Speaker 4: was on a plane going to one of the shows
Speaker 4: and a man was looking at hardcore pornography next to her.
Speaker 1: See, that is not exactly okay.
Speaker 2: But you know, I'm not normally the hashtag not all men.
Speaker 2: But I just think I'm generally in favor of a
Speaker 2: co ed world. I think we're all better if we
Speaker 2: learn to figure out how to hang around with each other.
Speaker 2: So I don't really like the idea of gender segregating
Speaker 2: all public spaces. I think that any kind of criminal
Speaker 2: or creepy behavior should be punished. But like if I
Speaker 2: could sit in a woman's only section on a plane,
Speaker 2: I would not. There's no way I would, because you'll
Speaker 2: tell you why. It's where the babies would be. If
Speaker 2: they put a women's only section on a plane, that
Speaker 2: is where all the children would go. And although I
Speaker 2: am very because that's just the way the world works
Speaker 2: and it shouldn't be, but it is. And I am
Speaker 2: very tolerant of babies and toddlers on planes because I've been,
Speaker 2: but I'm not there anymore and I do not want
Speaker 2: to see and so the men would be loving it.
Speaker 2: And also the way that Julia suggested it is that
Speaker 2: the women are at the back. I'm like, no, thanks,
Speaker 2: I want to be at the front as close to
Speaker 2: the front as humanly possible.
Speaker 1: No, but that's for all the businessmen.
Speaker 2: I don't think so, so I you know, I have
Speaker 2: a lot of sympathy for any woman who's experienced that
Speaker 2: creepy behavior. And I did once to do fourteen hours
Speaker 2: on a long haul to England with the first leg
Speaker 2: sitting next to two enormous bodybuilders like they were so
Speaker 2: enormously's bodybuilder guys with these really big muscly thighs, and
Speaker 2: they sat with their leg light and it was not comfy.
Speaker 2: But I don't think I would choose a women's only section.
Speaker 3: Growing up in the nineties. I wonder if that is
Speaker 3: part of why I bristle a little bit at gender segregation,
Speaker 3: and maybe I feel as though it's also why do
Speaker 3: we need a women's space to allow for men's criminal behavior?
Speaker 3: Behavior Like if I have sat on a long haul
Speaker 3: flight next to a man who did very intimate things
Speaker 3: to himself on that fly, and I was stuck by
Speaker 3: the window, so my only option was to have crawled
Speaker 3: over him to what And it's the same with our
Speaker 3: member of our team who saw what was on his phone.
Speaker 3: You often sit there and you go.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know if this is a crime.
Speaker 3: I just don't like it. Maybe it was I was
Speaker 3: a young girl at the time. What am I going
Speaker 3: to do? I'm quite literally trapped.
Speaker 2: And also you were also thinking if a man is
Speaker 2: prepared to either watch hardcore porn in a public space
Speaker 2: or be with him, yeah, in a public space, then
Speaker 2: this is not necessarily a man I'm going to confront, yes, and.
Speaker 3: A lot of I found a Reddit thread discussing this,
Speaker 3: and it was someone asking cabin crew, and a lot
Speaker 3: of the cabin crew said, for the amount of flights
Speaker 3: we do, we do not get a lot of reports.
Speaker 3: And I thought that means very little because I didn't
Speaker 3: say anything, our team member didn't say anything. Of course,
Speaker 3: they didn't like what you just often don't you just
Speaker 3: put up with it. And there's stories in this of
Speaker 3: women falling asleep and they've woken up and the person
Speaker 3: next to them is being creepy and it's awful. With
Speaker 3: all of that said, I think that if that occurs,
Speaker 3: I would prefer to live in a world where those
Speaker 3: men are punished and banned from airlines than a world
Speaker 3: in which we exist in different parts of the plane
Speaker 3: because we do not trust men to sit beside a
Speaker 3: woman for a long period of time.
Speaker 2: You know where my hypocrisy comes here. Actually, you know
Speaker 2: I'm saying, Oh, I wouldn't. If I was booking a
Speaker 2: flight for my fifteen year old daughter and I had
Speaker 2: that option, I probably would take the option of having
Speaker 2: her sit next to a woman. So there is hypocrisy
Speaker 2: in what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: I don't think it's about crime, because Jesse, I take
Speaker 4: your point like, if someone is doing a criminal activity,
Speaker 4: they should be arrested for it. I think it's about comfort,
Speaker 4: and I think it's okay to want a more comforting
Speaker 4: experience in the very dehumanizing experience which is modern airline travel.
Speaker 4: Let me give you an example from my own life,
Speaker 4: which is one time I was on the New York Subway,
Speaker 4: which most definitely does not have women only cars, and
Speaker 4: I was very comfortable on the subway and it was
Speaker 4: sort of my happy place. Actually, I love public transport
Speaker 4: because I feel like it's very anonymous and you can
Speaker 4: zone out and think about your life, and people an
Speaker 4: opportunity to read. People watch, well, people watch, interesting choice
Speaker 4: of phrase. So I was sitting there, probably reading my
Speaker 4: phone or a magazine because it's a few years ago.
Speaker 1: And just as I got up to get off the.
Speaker 4: Train, a man came up to me and he said,
Speaker 4: you should know that that man over there has been
Speaker 4: drawing your legs. Oh no, but it wasn't in a
Speaker 4: good way.
Speaker 2: No, No, I didn't mean they are in a good
Speaker 2: ways an artists like like more like.
Speaker 4: I was flaunching my pins, I was wearying like my
Speaker 4: office attire. It wasn't anything risky and see the drawing.
Speaker 4: I didn't see the drawing, but I was really unsettled. Now,
Speaker 4: it is definitely not illegal to draw someone's legs. But
Speaker 4: would I have preferred that that was not happening while
Speaker 4: I was in my happy place? Yes, yes they would have.
Speaker 3: And that's the thing is that it might be one
Speaker 3: incident in a thousand, but it changes the way you travel.
Speaker 3: It changes the way and the.
Speaker 4: Next time I got on the subway and I was
Speaker 4: wearing a dress, I was just a little bit conscious
Speaker 4: of picking a seat that was maybe slightly less visible
Speaker 4: to the rest of the train car.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I suppose it's a good point, right, because
Speaker 3: there's criminal activity, But then there is just the general
Speaker 3: degradation of airline travel. So for example, the crawling over
Speaker 3: someone and having them not move. I was trying to
Speaker 3: be really honest with myself and I went, I've had
Speaker 3: as many women not get up from their seat and
Speaker 3: have me crawl over them to get to the aisle
Speaker 3: as I have men. Do I think men leave dirtier bathrooms. No,
Speaker 3: I think that women leave real dirty bathrooms as well.
Speaker 2: It is a bit of a stereotype that if the
Speaker 2: plane was full of women, it would be so neat
Speaker 2: and tidy.
Speaker 3: I think it's one thing, and I always think that
Speaker 3: we should extend a particular like a sensitivity to anyone
Speaker 3: who's had seriously traumatizing experience. It's where you go. I
Speaker 3: don't like the idea that then you sit next to
Speaker 3: two men and you feel threatened or unsafe for fourteen hours.
Speaker 3: I don't like that, but generally speaking, I just go oh.
Speaker 3: I was looking around a cafe today and I was like, well,
Speaker 3: I like the mixed I like the co ed of
Speaker 3: it all, and I think that having a standard for
Speaker 3: how we all behave like human beings should just be
Speaker 3: widely accepted.
Speaker 2: I want to hear from out louders. I don't necessarily
Speaker 2: want to hear all the plane horror stories because it
Speaker 2: might definitely maybe change my mind, but I want to
Speaker 2: know what you think. Do you think we should have
Speaker 2: women's only areas on aeroplanes? I have excellent news for
Speaker 2: type bees and lazy girls. Oh hello, that's me. No,
Speaker 2: you do not have to make your bed first thing
Speaker 2: in the morning to have a clear, productive day. In fact,
Speaker 2: you shouldn't, Jesse, isn't this one of the Jordan Peterson's
Speaker 2: twelve for all belove you men to get out of
Speaker 2: bed and immediately make it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so read any self help. I'm pretty sure it's
Speaker 3: also Atomic habits. James Clear, it's any person who's told
Speaker 3: you how to live your life. Chapter one is make
Speaker 3: your bed?
Speaker 2: Holy?
Speaker 1: Do you have a Google news for this? Topic, do
Speaker 1: not make bed.
Speaker 2: Because I read so excited about you know why? Well,
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what the truth what I'm talking about,
Speaker 2: and then I'll tell you why make you excited?
Speaker 5: Right is?
Speaker 2: I read a piece in the UK Telegraph this week
Speaker 2: that was kind of like it was one of those
Speaker 2: twelve domestic myths that we must dispel right and London
Speaker 2: based GP dr amos Ockencoa says that you shouldn't because
Speaker 2: when you sleep, you build up moisture and sweat. And
Speaker 2: this is even in London, right stop form there. This warm,
Speaker 2: humid environment is the perfect breeding ground for microscopic dust mite.
Speaker 2: I've always said this, yea. And so Lindsey Crombie, who's
Speaker 2: a home expert and author of the Fifteen Minute Clean, says,
Speaker 2: your best bet is to leave the bed unmade for
Speaker 2: an hour or two or ten or ten so that
Speaker 2: it can air out naturally. You can obviously open a
Speaker 2: window or whatever fresh air. But the point that what
Speaker 2: I seized onto with delight was the idea of leaving
Speaker 2: your bed all mussied up and open like an open bed.
Speaker 3: The germs need to fly away.
Speaker 1: Everyone knows that need to.
Speaker 2: Fly away as they clean. Air needs to come in
Speaker 2: and do. It's wishy washy, wishy washy.
Speaker 4: Clear, They're not flying away, they're dehydrating and dying.
Speaker 1: WoT someone think about the dust.
Speaker 2: And I don't have to fight.
Speaker 3: You don't even have to clean your sheets, is what
Speaker 3: I hear.
Speaker 4: Let's just be clear that by not making your bed,
Speaker 4: you are leaving these dust whites to die.
Speaker 2: I can live with that. I can't extend empathy to dust.
Speaker 2: I mean, what even faces the dust mites have do
Speaker 2: they make little sad flash leave them to shrivel in it? Anyway,
Speaker 2: Although I do make my bed because I kind of
Speaker 2: have to, because I've read all these things, I never
Speaker 2: ever did. Obviously wasn't brought up to right, I've just
Speaker 2: been brought up with with a douna as we call
Speaker 2: them in Australia, a douvet as we call them in England.
Speaker 2: I just used to get out of bed and whatever
Speaker 2: state it was in, I just walk away from it.
Speaker 2: And then I had a boyfriend, right. I had a
Speaker 2: boyfriend in my late twenties who was what we may
Speaker 2: call a clean freak, but maybe he was just ornmic
Speaker 2: and he was obsessed with it. He was also obsessed
Speaker 2: with when he took off his clothes when he got home,
Speaker 2: no matter what state of excitement you were in, he
Speaker 2: had to fold them up and put them. But he
Speaker 2: was a lovely guy, but he was obsessed with making
Speaker 2: the bed. And he said to me, you know, your
Speaker 2: mind is messy if your bed is messy. All that
Speaker 2: stuff that you read, and I took it in so
Speaker 2: I do make my bed. But when I read this,
Speaker 2: little twenty eight.
Speaker 3: Year old me was like, yeah, that do you think
Speaker 3: making the bed is the patriarchy? Because I also never
Speaker 3: made my bed. It's an instinct. It's in my DNA.
Speaker 3: I just don't.
Speaker 4: And is that out of concern for reducing the humidity
Speaker 4: in the room and leaving the dust work?
Speaker 3: Yes, letting them fly away. It's always been critical to
Speaker 3: my understanding of my own I don't have we do.
Speaker 2: We need to dispel this myth, very concerned about the
Speaker 2: fact basically.
Speaker 4: You were thinking of my little butterflies leaving your bed.
Speaker 1: That's not what's happening.
Speaker 3: I like that imagery. And then I met an absolute
Speaker 3: make your bed guy. And the oppression of making your
Speaker 3: bed is that the last person out of bed must
Speaker 3: make it. And I happen to be about every single day,
Speaker 3: so the bed has to get made. I have to
Speaker 3: do it. I resent it, and when he's away or something,
Speaker 3: I don't make the bed, and guess what, my life's
Speaker 3: exactly the same copaganda, but it actually doesn't make my
Speaker 3: life better. Don't make the bed. Do you enjoy making
Speaker 3: your bed, Amelia?
Speaker 1: I do. I love making my bed.
Speaker 2: Are you a many cushions person?
Speaker 4: Yes, but you know, if you're in a heterosexual relationship
Speaker 4: with a man, sometimes the pillows you have to minimize them.
Speaker 1: I find the anger men not all they do.
Speaker 3: Yes, women, but it's also like you have to explain
Speaker 3: the pillows, and it just gets to the point where
Speaker 3: it's like.
Speaker 2: The women's area of the play.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, that's actually a big problem.
Speaker 2: After the break, Princess Kate has just told us all
Speaker 2: off about using our phones around the kids, and we're
Speaker 2: unpacking where the mobile phones are soon going.
Speaker 3: To be the new smoking one unlimited out loud access.
Speaker 3: We drop episodes every Tuesday and Thursday exclusively for Mum
Speaker 3: and Maya 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.
Speaker 2: Subscribers, Friends, I was seduced by a headline today on
Speaker 2: the Internet. Earlier on I was seduced by some bad preparatives.
Speaker 2: Then I was seduced by a headline Kate Middleton explains
Speaker 2: a house rule, no phones for the kids. Now, you
Speaker 2: know me, any excuse to peer through the palace windows?
Speaker 2: I am in, I am there binoculars on.
Speaker 3: Can I also just flag her eldest child is twelve?
Speaker 3: And I just think every parent with a child older
Speaker 3: than twelve is going, yeah, yeah, yeah, you got to twelve.
Speaker 3: You wait, just you wait, Kate.
Speaker 2: What happen when you click on that headline as you
Speaker 2: go to an essay like a whole essay right called
Speaker 2: the Power of Human Connection in a Distracted World, which
Speaker 2: sounds very high for Luton. It is written by Her
Speaker 2: Royal Highness, the Princess of Wells, in collaboration with Professor
Speaker 2: Robert Waldinger. And it's all about, and this is not
Speaker 2: news to anyone who lives in the world, the fact
Speaker 2: that phones are screwing our attention and that when it
Speaker 2: comes to parents and kids and building a connection between
Speaker 2: little kids and their caregivers, phones are breaking that connection
Speaker 2: and making sick unhappy, anxious children. We have been being
Speaker 2: told this everywhere we look for a while. Now, she
Speaker 2: writes in this article, our undivided attention is the most
Speaker 2: precious gift we can give another person, Yet increasingly it's
Speaker 2: the most difficult gift to offer when we check our
Speaker 2: phones during conversations, scroll through social media during family dinners.
Speaker 2: I was like, I don't do that, and I got
Speaker 2: to feel really smug for two minutes. But then or
Speaker 2: respond to emails while playing with our children. Damn it.
Speaker 2: We're not just being distracted. We are withdrawing ding the
Speaker 2: basic form of love that human connection requires. Now that
Speaker 2: bit with drawing the basic form of love that human
Speaker 2: connection requires really hit me in the guts. Do you
Speaker 2: want me to explain why Kate's writing this or or
Speaker 2: do we just want to go straight into how we
Speaker 2: feel about this?
Speaker 3: I think our feelings are more important.
Speaker 2: Okay, feelings first, okay, and I'll explain what the strategy
Speaker 2: is here.
Speaker 3: Fundamentally, is she absolutely correct in every assumption? She is
Speaker 3: one hundred She's totally correct, and she's got the Happiness
Speaker 3: guy explaining why she's correct, and she has all the research,
Speaker 3: and la la la, like we know la la la, facts, facts,
Speaker 3: But how does it feel? Well, I had to examine
Speaker 3: my response because I've got my back up about this,
Speaker 3: and this is something that I care about a lot
Speaker 3: in parenting, Like I think that attention is really I've
Speaker 3: heard Hugh van Kylenberg talk about this anecdote about being
Speaker 3: at the park and his mother turning to him and saying,
Speaker 3: you're missing it, and he realized that he hadn't looked
Speaker 3: up right. And like, what I struggle with a bit
Speaker 3: with these conversations is that it is easier to place
Speaker 3: boundaries around your own screen time and your children's screen
Speaker 3: time when you have nanny's money and energy and things
Speaker 3: that are finite resources that certain privileges allow you. And
Speaker 3: I don't want to go the whole privilege, the whole blot.
Speaker 3: I just don't want this to turn into a thing
Speaker 3: where rich parents finger wag at working parents or at
Speaker 3: parents with less time.
Speaker 2: I just I agree with you one hundred percent. But
Speaker 2: in terms of the whole well, of course it's easy
Speaker 2: for you. Kate is as we've already said, she's not
Speaker 2: exactly Robinson Crusoe in saying this right exactly like she thought.
Speaker 2: So I know what you mean, but this is a
Speaker 2: message we're getting from all directions.
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 3: And I'm also a little bit worried about the standard
Speaker 3: of intense engagement and connection and attention that we're expected
Speaker 3: to have with that children twenty four to seven right,
Speaker 3: the parenting verb. I've heard Ezra Klein say the reason
Speaker 3: so many people have two kids is because we cannot
Speaker 3: parent the way that we are being taught to parent.
Speaker 3: With more than two kids, it would be impossible. Like
Speaker 3: there's an intensity which we expect of ourselves that no
Speaker 3: other generation has done. The idea that you would be
Speaker 3: somewhat distracted while looking after your children is something that
Speaker 3: has always happened. I do think that there's something about
Speaker 3: looking at a phone that really zapps connection and all
Speaker 3: of that. However, if I have a day at home
Speaker 3: with Luna and that can be twelve hours of Jesse Luna,
Speaker 3: the idea that I would be staring into her eyes
Speaker 3: and intensely playing with her actually isn't.
Speaker 2: Good for either of us. Like her, I'm not possible.
Speaker 3: No, it's not possible. It's like the independent play. The
Speaker 3: idea that she would toddle off and go and do something,
Speaker 3: and I might pay a bill, or I might check
Speaker 3: if the library is open, or I might text Lucer
Speaker 3: and say, hey, can you pick up some milk? Like Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: that is just the way that the world is, and
Speaker 3: I don't need the narrative in my head. You are
Speaker 3: part of an epidemic of disconnection every time I.
Speaker 2: Do that, Amelia, do you think that if you're worrying
Speaker 2: about this, like as Jesse is and many parents are
Speaker 2: reading Jonathan Haight and listening to Princess Kate, that you're
Speaker 2: probably not doing a shit job. Do you know what
Speaker 2: I mean?
Speaker 1: I do know what you mean.
Speaker 4: And in fact, there have been studies on how much
Speaker 4: time millennial parents are spending with their kids versus parents
Speaker 4: of other generations, not ex don't worry. It's more millennials
Speaker 4: versus boomers, and they've found that millennials are spending way
Speaker 4: more time with their kids per week than boomers ever did.
Speaker 4: So there is evidence that the style of parenting that
Speaker 4: we are being told to embrace is much more intensive
Speaker 4: than what previous generations.
Speaker 1: Have had to do. They were probably off for a
Speaker 1: smoke some of the time the generation.
Speaker 2: And also, you know, just the tropes you think about
Speaker 2: mothers at home with kids forever, so way before phones
Speaker 2: is that she's on the phone to her mom, she's
Speaker 2: talking to the neighbor over the back fence's doing a
Speaker 2: million things like I don't think that it used to be. Oh,
Speaker 2: before phones, parents just paid full attention to their children
Speaker 2: at all times if they were around them, and that
Speaker 2: distracted parents are a new thing. I mean, of course,
Speaker 2: this all goes to say, as you've already pointed out, Jesse,
Speaker 2: we all know the truth and the facts of what
Speaker 2: phones have done to our attention. But I think it's
Speaker 2: like a binary notion that once parents used to pay
Speaker 2: attention and now they don't.
Speaker 1: Yes, do you think, Oh? In fact, I think it's
Speaker 1: a fallacy.
Speaker 4: I think like there were all sorts of ways that
Speaker 4: parents were distracted in previous generations that had nothing to
Speaker 4: do with phones. Look, here's an example from my own
Speaker 4: life that takes us out of parenting into what phones
Speaker 4: are doing to our brains in general. I recently subscribed
Speaker 4: to a print newspaper and I'm getting it every day
Speaker 4: of the week, and on my way into work here
Speaker 4: this morning, I read the print newspaper as opposed to
Speaker 4: droom scrolling on my phone, and I can tell you
Speaker 4: that the experience that you have, I'm not telling you
Speaker 4: anything you don't know, but the experiences you've finished reading
Speaker 4: the newspaper, you fold it up, you put it in
Speaker 4: the recycling, you feel like, A you know what the
Speaker 4: news is today, and B you feel considerably calmer. Then
Speaker 4: if you've been jumping around the internet trying to read
Speaker 4: the entire Internet in a forty minute commute.
Speaker 2: And also you've kind of served a broader plate of things,
Speaker 2: aren't you in a way, because on a homepage you'll
Speaker 2: click the most salacious headlines and so on, whereas in
Speaker 2: a newspaper it's kind of everything is there and you've
Speaker 2: only got that. But back to Kate for a second.
Speaker 2: So a lot of people obviously have come with the
Speaker 2: criticism of like, what do you know when your princess
Speaker 2: in your palace? Which fair, but also this is very
Speaker 2: much Kate's wheelhouse. So as we all know, royals have
Speaker 2: to pick some causes and it's tricky. It's kind of
Speaker 2: like a first lady. Kate's role is very similar to this, right,
Speaker 2: An American first lady would have to be like, I
Speaker 2: need some causes so that I look busy. But they
Speaker 2: can't be controversial. Yeah, so they can't be anything that
Speaker 2: upsets anyone too much. It needs to look like I'm
Speaker 2: trying to do good in the world. And when I
Speaker 2: say that, I don't mean it entirely snick. I'm sure,
Speaker 2: of course they want to. I'm sure Kate of course
Speaker 2: wants to, and early childhood is her thing. This article
Speaker 2: was published on the Royal Foundation Center for Early Childhood site,
Speaker 2: which is Kate's thing, right, So the Royal Foundation at
Speaker 2: her and Wills and they picked their stuff. What you
Speaker 2: will notice if you've been looking at the Royal headlines
Speaker 2: lately is that Kate and Williams seemed to be on
Speaker 2: a humanization mission. And again I don't mean that cynically,
Speaker 2: but the narrative put across by Prince Harry in particular
Speaker 2: lately has kind of painted Kate and Wills as like
Speaker 2: those stuffy, emotionless like old guard royals. And you know,
Speaker 2: over here me and Meg's are like the real people
Speaker 2: who are like, we're just letting it all hang out.
Speaker 2: And you'll notice that William lately has made a couple
Speaker 2: of really strategic decisions. One was to be interviewed by
Speaker 2: Eugene Levy on a quite random travel show in which
Speaker 2: he came across very human, very relaxed. And then he
Speaker 2: also did an interview this weekend because one of his
Speaker 2: passion projects, of course is mental health, as is Harry's,
Speaker 2: and he did a interview this weekend with a woman
Speaker 2: who had lost her husband to suicide. And it's a
Speaker 2: very touching, affecting, genuine piece of content when you see it.
Speaker 2: And I think that both he and Kate are kind
Speaker 2: of coming up in that as we know, you know,
Speaker 2: it's not going to be that long. Probably no one
Speaker 2: wants to say that out loud, but it's not going
Speaker 2: to be that long before he's king, and he's setting
Speaker 2: the table for this is who I really am. And
Speaker 2: I think he's pushing back on the narrative that they're cold,
Speaker 2: and the best way for Kate to do that because
Speaker 2: her public persona, not unlike Posh, is perfection control thinness,
Speaker 2: no question, but like you know, always be perfect. But
Speaker 2: she is clearly a very warm and engaged mother, and
Speaker 2: she clearly cares a lot about kids, So this is
Speaker 2: her cause and she's really into it. I think it's
Speaker 2: tricky though, because anything you say about parenting is inevitably
Speaker 2: controversial because it pushes all our judgment buttons.
Speaker 3: It's just so loaded, no matter how much research goes
Speaker 3: into it. And I think that that's because parents have
Speaker 3: never taken the job more seriously, and there's never been
Speaker 3: more advice and bombardment of like you must do this,
Speaker 3: you mustn't do that. I think parents are completely overwhelmed.
Speaker 3: We do, of course know this to be true, but
Speaker 3: any sense that we're having a finger wagged at us,
Speaker 3: I think generates this emotional response. Whereas I compared that
Speaker 3: to Kate Winslet, who's actually been banging on with the
Speaker 3: same message for a really long time and has been
Speaker 3: part of campaigns, and something about her messaging felt like
Speaker 3: it was more empowering to parents than it was shamey.
Speaker 3: And she basically says, you don't have to give your
Speaker 3: kid a phone, like you can hold off. And she's
Speaker 3: got kids who are now in the early twenties, but
Speaker 3: she's like, I never gave them a phone, they never
Speaker 3: got on social media. I just very kind of no
Speaker 3: bullshit about it. And for some reason I had more
Speaker 3: tolerance for that approach than this one.
Speaker 4: Maybe so since we're talking about the messaging, I want
Speaker 4: to ask you both about the difference between Kate and
Speaker 4: William's approach to this subject and Harry and Maggan's, because
Speaker 4: both of them are talking a lot about the impact
Speaker 4: of the digital world on young minds.
Speaker 1: But there's a key difference.
Speaker 4: Kate is talking here about phones in general and digital
Speaker 4: devices in general, whereas Megan and Harry have been very
Speaker 4: explicitly focused on the dangers of social media. Do you
Speaker 4: get annoyed about the social media message as well, or
Speaker 4: is it more just the blanket phone message.
Speaker 3: I wonder if it's the more specific the message the better.
Speaker 3: I found this really vague. Yes, And I also thought,
Speaker 3: and this is where I guess the privileged discussion goes up,
Speaker 3: like it's easier if you have a kid who's getting
Speaker 3: picked up from school. Right there are people with twelve
Speaker 3: year olds who their kid has to get two buses
Speaker 3: in a train to and from school, and whether or
Speaker 3: not they need a phone is sort of dependent on that.
Speaker 2: So I'm sorry, but I mean, my kids are teenagers
Speaker 2: and they have phones. I'm looking forward to the social
Speaker 2: media ban. I've been on the record of saying that
Speaker 2: I think it's a great idea, and it's definitely allowed
Speaker 2: me to make a decision about my son, who's the
Speaker 2: younger one that I feel like I've got ammunition ammunition
Speaker 2: from the government on that stoked about it, but it
Speaker 2: is very unrealistic. It's great, like, and I know there
Speaker 2: will be lots of parents will hear this and then
Speaker 2: message and go, I never gave my kids a phone
Speaker 2: or a screen, but like, what are they doing these
Speaker 2: kids who don't have that? Because it's the equivalent now
Speaker 2: of when I came home from school, I'd watch TV
Speaker 2: for a bit, you know, I'd watch TV. And I
Speaker 2: know that phones are different from TV because the short
Speaker 2: form videos are boiling their minds and everything. But mindless
Speaker 2: pleasures that involve screens are not new. This is new,
Speaker 2: and I think it's really great that we're pushing back
Speaker 2: on the tech bros and all of those things. But
Speaker 2: it really does, as you point out, Jesse, become a
Speaker 2: division of like who is supervising their kids at all
Speaker 2: times and giving them really wholesome, active, improving tasks and
Speaker 2: activities and classes. Because we're also told don't overschedule them,
Speaker 2: don't be a tiger parent. Da da da dah. Let
Speaker 2: them get bored. Yeah, let them get bored, let them
Speaker 2: like who is super? And that does come back to
Speaker 2: the privilege. I think it's interesting because I think that
Speaker 2: as we're knowing more and more and more about this impact,
Speaker 2: in five years, we will look at phones around kids
Speaker 2: a bit like we look at smoking around kids. I
Speaker 2: do think that. I also think, though, that there will
Speaker 2: be a massive class gap in that situation, because I
Speaker 2: hear middle class parents around me say, oh, I'm not
Speaker 2: going to be strict about lots of things, but sugar
Speaker 2: and screens, no, you know, And that is a very
Speaker 2: sort of classist division that suggests I've got time and
Speaker 2: resources to do all these things with my children that
Speaker 2: you lazy people who have other things to do and
Speaker 2: want to just hand your kid a phone or a
Speaker 2: screen don't have. It's interesting because I think it's one
Speaker 2: of those times when where we started with this is
Speaker 2: we know it's right, but it's going to take a
Speaker 2: while for us to really figure out what parenting looks
Speaker 2: like without screens. That is all we've got time for.
Speaker 2: On this Monday out Loud is a massive thank you
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Speaker 2: start off the week and hopefully stick with us as
Speaker 2: we go through it, and to our fabulous team for
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Speaker 2: where was Brooklyn? Was that skirt too short?
Speaker 3: How is that woman's name?
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