Speaker 1: You're listening to Amma 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. What women are actually talking about
Speaker 2: on Wednesday, the third of July. I'm Holly Wayne, right,
Speaker 2: I'm me and Friedman.
Speaker 3: And I'm Jesse Stevens.
Speaker 4: And we're still arguing about what happened on Monday and
Speaker 4: Jill Biden and May is still wrong.
Speaker 2: And I think you know, we're the only people who
Speaker 2: care about this as much as we do. Like we're
Speaker 2: all still rowing about Jill Biden.
Speaker 1: On the cover of Vogue. But she carries the weight
Speaker 1: of not just America above the world.
Speaker 2: Let's blame her on her shoulders.
Speaker 1: Not blaming, just saying she marries a great responsibility and
Speaker 1: she needs to tell him to stay.
Speaker 2: Can't bear it as if Mea knows what's going on
Speaker 2: in their kitchen anyway, she needs to hide the show
Speaker 2: today Pomp Pom's the Pink Economy and high kicks from
Speaker 2: help why everyone's arguing about Cheerley this this week? Also,
Speaker 2: here's a world leader allowed to have Friday night off?
Speaker 2: What about any leader? This is the latest spat in
Speaker 2: the UK election and a little known underdog called Taylor Swift.
Speaker 2: It's under attack from a finger wagon columnist and Mia
Speaker 2: kind of agrees with him. But first, Jesse Stephens.
Speaker 4: In case you missed it, there is a fiery debate
Speaker 4: unfolding about about Jill Biden. No, yes, you can find
Speaker 4: a way to make this Jill, Butden's fault. But Abby Chatfield,
Speaker 4: who's a podcast our television host, posted on Instagram this
Speaker 4: week and she posed an am I the ass whole question?
Speaker 4: My favorite type of question, which was essentially, am I
Speaker 4: wrong in thinking people shouldn't beep you when you get
Speaker 4: in your car and you're not ready to go yet?
Speaker 4: I actually think it's so rude. Here's a context. Abby
Speaker 4: had just finished her yoga class, and after her yoga class,
Speaker 4: she was feeling a bit dizzy, bit light headed, and
Speaker 4: she thought, shouldn't drive when I'm feeling dizzy. What I'll
Speaker 4: do is I'll have something to eat, so I'm a
Speaker 4: safe driver. So she sat in her driver's seat, she
Speaker 4: was having something to eat, and someone behind her is
Speaker 4: going babe, babe, and she was going, I've paid for parking.
Speaker 4: I've paid for one hour and thirty seven minutes, still
Speaker 4: got four minutes left. Go keep going. And she said,
Speaker 4: it's very rude of you to beep. I want to
Speaker 4: put this out. Maya is Abby the asshole is the
Speaker 4: beep of the asshole.
Speaker 1: I think Abby could have misinterpreted the beep. I've been
Speaker 1: in this position a lot, because what I've noticed is
Speaker 1: that people will get into their cars now and they'll
Speaker 1: check their phone. So they'll sit there, they'll check their
Speaker 1: phone for a while, might send a few messages to
Speaker 1: a bit of scrolling, and when you're looking for a
Speaker 1: car spot, that's really frustrating and also misleading and a
Speaker 1: bit confusing. So what I will sometimes do to get
Speaker 1: the attention of the driver who is absorbed in their
Speaker 1: phone or in their noodles, I will lightly go bebep.
Speaker 1: I'll tap my horn to get their attention, and then
Speaker 1: I'll say are you going or are you eating or scrolling? No,
Speaker 1: I'm not going, and I don't give them the middle finger.
Speaker 1: I then drive away. Am I a bit irritated? Yes?
Speaker 1: But it wasn't an aggressive beep. It was just like, hey,
Speaker 1: I need you to answer a question.
Speaker 2: If there are any beeps that aren't aggressive except a kidding,
Speaker 2: except for the beeps that are like watch out, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean.
Speaker 3: No, I don't use my horn ever, I don't even.
Speaker 2: Know where it is. You never don't know where my
Speaker 2: horn half your horn.
Speaker 1: I think it's like if you're lights or something and
Speaker 1: you want to get someone's attention and maybe they are scrolling,
Speaker 1: which is illegal. Well maybe they're distracted them a little
Speaker 1: daydream and they didn't see that the lights are changed.
Speaker 1: What you can do at night, I'll flash my high
Speaker 1: beans because that's.
Speaker 2: Better than beeping.
Speaker 1: But you can just give the horn a little tap.
Speaker 1: It's not aggressive.
Speaker 3: I don't mean like a beep.
Speaker 4: I just mean what I will say, is it getting
Speaker 4: into your car use your horn after like you've been
Speaker 4: shopping or you've been out, and you get back into
Speaker 4: your car, giving people the benefit of the doubt. Often
Speaker 4: you've got to get your maps up, you might have
Speaker 4: a quick work thing, you might have a message all
Speaker 4: of that to say that people are scrolling. And they
Speaker 4: might be, but I would rather them get their stuff
Speaker 4: sorted before they start driving than sort their maps out
Speaker 4: as they're going through the car.
Speaker 2: That parking spot is your parking spot until you vacate it.
Speaker 2: That's just the truth. That's the rule. This happened to
Speaker 2: me the other week. It wasn't in a car park.
Speaker 2: It was on the street and I was about to
Speaker 2: drive back from Sydney. This is whole thing. You never
Speaker 2: know someone's life to you. I was about to drive
Speaker 2: back from Sydney. That's a two hour drive. I got
Speaker 2: into my car. I needed to answer a couple of
Speaker 2: urgent messages before I set off, and then I needed
Speaker 2: to set, you know, a thing to play while I
Speaker 2: was going, And I needed to just sort myself out
Speaker 2: for a minute. Right, woman drives up next to me,
Speaker 2: bee bee and then going I'm doing their motion that
Speaker 2: meeah does, And I was like put my hand up,
Speaker 2: like give me a minute, and she's like woo, like
Speaker 2: gesturing wildly, really mad with me. Now, no doubt, I
Speaker 2: don't know her life. She's in a hurry, she's trying
Speaker 2: to find a park, maybe she's got a medical appointment,
Speaker 2: maybe she's got whatever. Right, but guys, we share the street.
Speaker 2: Just because I'm sitting in my car, it doesn't mean
Speaker 2: I have any lesser right to be there than you.
Speaker 4: I agree that there's an etiquette thing, which is if
Speaker 4: you see them waiting and I will do this a
Speaker 4: little gesture which is just like I'm actually going to
Speaker 4: be five or I'm gonna whatever.
Speaker 3: That's courteous. Don't hate that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, But I also think that we're taking out the
Speaker 4: lack of parking in cities on each other.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I just think it is a bit.
Speaker 2: Power about when you're in a shopping center the car
Speaker 2: park and you've got a pram and you get back
Speaker 2: to the car and someone's waiting for your spot and
Speaker 2: they're like, are you going, and you're like, yeah, I'm going,
Speaker 2: but it's going to take you a minute. I get
Speaker 2: the baby in, strap the baby in, fold down the thing,
Speaker 2: get all the stuff and the pressure they're waiting, and
Speaker 2: then people are backing up behind them and they're waiting
Speaker 2: and it's like, drive on, guys, find another car spot.
Speaker 3: Like go around the blociety.
Speaker 4: Yes, And then you start making mistakes being watched. So
Speaker 4: I'm gonna drop the baby and I'm gonna put the
Speaker 4: pram in the car.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to give the beeper the benefit of
Speaker 1: the doubt and saying that maybe they were just beeping
Speaker 1: to get her attention to ask her a question. You
Speaker 1: need to look like a supermodel, but perform like an athlete.
Speaker 2: Once that uniform comes on, all of the flaws and
Speaker 2: the problem go out the door.
Speaker 1: Everyone's talking about the biggest show worldwide on Netflix this week,
Speaker 1: America's Sweethearts Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, and there is a ton
Speaker 1: to unpack about the show. It's a documentary in case
Speaker 1: you haven't seen it in many parts that covers the
Speaker 1: choosing of the twenty twenty three squad for the Dallas
Speaker 1: Cowboy cheerleaders, who are the most famous cheerleaders for probably
Speaker 1: the most famous team in the NFL, which is American Football.
Speaker 1: There's a ton to unpack about this show, which we
Speaker 1: have done on a separate episode for subscribers, everything from
Speaker 1: the incredibly strict rules that the cheerleaders have to follow.
Speaker 1: These rules cover everything from morality to the shape of
Speaker 1: their eyebrows and of course their weight. But today we
Speaker 1: want to talk about the topic of the pink economy
Speaker 1: and where the cheerleaders are having a bit of a
Speaker 1: resurgence worldwide after being a little bit on the nose
Speaker 1: over the last ten years or so. The Dallas Cowboys
Speaker 1: are one of the wealthiest and profitable NFL teams, they're
Speaker 1: worth around nine billion US dollars. Even though the cheerleaders
Speaker 1: as a business division within the company make millions of
Speaker 1: dollars through the sales of calendars and sponsorships, they personally
Speaker 1: only make for their season between about fifteen thousand twenty
Speaker 1: two thousand dollars, and that breaks down as about twelve
Speaker 1: dollars per hour they're paid, and about four hundred dollars
Speaker 1: on game days, which can last around eighteen hours. Obviously,
Speaker 1: their work is incredibly grueling. They have to do a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff like faetan and hair and makeup and
Speaker 1: all of that stuff that they have to do themselves.
Speaker 1: In comparison, a Dallas Cowboys mascot earns around sixty five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. An NFL water boy, the guy who runs
Speaker 1: on the field with water fifty three thousand dollars he
Speaker 1: earns for the season. Now, they've been lawsuits in America.
Speaker 1: There was one from Buffalo Bill's cheerleader who claimed that
Speaker 1: she got just one hundred and five dollars for an
Speaker 1: entire season after she had all of her costs taken
Speaker 1: into account, including having to pay more than six hundred
Speaker 1: dollars for her own uniform. By twenty twenty, ten of
Speaker 1: the NFL's thirty two teams had been sued for wage
Speaker 1: theft and harassment and unsafe working conditions and discrimination, all
Speaker 1: different things. It got us wondering about what the situation
Speaker 1: with cheerleaders was here in Australia. Our daily news podcast
Speaker 1: The Quickie did a deep dive on cheerleaders in the
Speaker 1: NRL in Australia. Here's a little bit of that episode.
Speaker 3: When you finally were getting paid, Were you getting paid enough?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 1: No, upon reflection, it was like fifty dollars a game
Speaker 1: that would get paid.
Speaker 5: So you're not doing it for the money, You're doing
Speaker 5: it for the love and you're obviously working another job
Speaker 5: on the side. I had a full time role and
Speaker 5: I would you know, at the end of the day,
Speaker 5: get into the bathroom, jazz up, drive off to the
Speaker 5: cheerleading gig and get that done as well. So, yeah,
Speaker 5: you're juggling the life.
Speaker 4: Did you feel pressure, even if it wasn't implicitly implied.
Speaker 4: Did you feel pressured to maintain a certain weight whilst
Speaker 4: you were performing as a cheerleader?
Speaker 6: Yeah? Absolutely, I mean that is very standard in the
Speaker 6: dance industry generally, it's something we're always dealing with. I've
Speaker 6: had other contracts where we've been weighed weekly. We weren't
Speaker 6: specifically with the cheer squad weight or anything like that,
Speaker 6: but it is very much an unspoken rule that yet
Speaker 6: you have to maintain the same weight as you were
Speaker 6: hired Jesse, do you.
Speaker 1: Think we should implement way ins here? Nonma me are
Speaker 1: out that well.
Speaker 4: I think what you really should be asking is, if
Speaker 4: you guys love this job so much, then why are
Speaker 4: we paying you?
Speaker 1: Because a lot of people would like to host this show.
Speaker 4: Exactly, And I thought you did it for the love.
Speaker 4: And if you did it for the love, everyone knows
Speaker 4: you can't also be paid.
Speaker 1: Makes it out loud as happy? Isn't that what you do?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Exactly right, and we know if you're not doing it,
Speaker 4: I've got five hundred other girls, yeah, with false eyelashes
Speaker 4: and big hair that are very happy to take your spot.
Speaker 4: We were talking in the subscriber episode and when he
Speaker 4: sat down it was meant to be a short episode
Speaker 4: and I had forty minutes.
Speaker 3: We thought we'd probably overdone.
Speaker 2: It and was like, I'm turning the microphone.
Speaker 1: And it still wasn't enough. So we're like let's talk
Speaker 1: about it on the main show.
Speaker 4: When we talked about it there, we were saying, I
Speaker 4: can't imagine a male comparison, Like the football players also
Speaker 4: love it and also love the camaraderie, but they also
Speaker 4: are decently paid. And one thing that I've learned from
Speaker 4: this show as well as cheer is the incredible athleticism
Speaker 4: of these dancers, of these cheerleaders. And I was thinking
Speaker 4: about how culturally, probably from Bring It On, remember the
Speaker 4: movie Bring It On. Yeah, it's like we have been
Speaker 4: trying to relaunch or rebrand or rehabilitate the cheerleading image
Speaker 4: because certainly in the nineties, after a few waves of feminism,
Speaker 4: it was seen as a bit on the nose and
Speaker 4: potentially objectifying. I was a kid who went to a
Speaker 4: lot of NRL games and you would see the cheerleaders
Speaker 4: and you would hear the way that the men talked
Speaker 4: about them, and I didn't feel that it was aspirational
Speaker 4: at that time, because I thought I would never want
Speaker 4: men to talk about me.
Speaker 1: Bed cheerleader when I was a kid, really desperately. I
Speaker 1: remember in two thousand and seven, You're right, that's kind
Speaker 1: of when it started to be a little bit on
Speaker 1: the nose and Russell Crowe, who owns the South Sydney
Speaker 1: Rabbito's club, he got rid of cheerleaders for them because
Speaker 1: he said it made male fans feel uncomfortable, which I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's true. And he said our focus,
Speaker 1: I know exactly what he's saying, re established rugby league
Speaker 1: and women. So he was saying that the cheerleaders would
Speaker 1: sexualize the atmosphere and they were trying to make it
Speaker 1: more of a family game. So he briefly replaced them
Speaker 1: with a group of drummers male and female, so there
Speaker 1: was like halftime entertainment that only lasted a couple of years.
Speaker 1: They went very popular and now they just have music
Speaker 1: and videos on the big screen.
Speaker 2: As to quite a lot of teams in the NRL.
Speaker 2: So the reason in Australia we'd be talking about the
Speaker 2: NRL is the AFL do not have cheerleaders. They did
Speaker 2: once upon a time there was something called the Swantt's
Speaker 2: and Sydney Swans in fact, but they haven't done for
Speaker 2: ages and ages, whereas these days some NRL teams do
Speaker 2: and some NRL teams don't. More than half do. Still though,
Speaker 2: it's interesting because the two dancers who were interviewed on
Speaker 2: the Quickie were both NURL cheerleaders, and they were talking
Speaker 2: as they said about how the reasons why they did it,
Speaker 2: because as they spelled it out, it wasn't money, that's
Speaker 2: for sure, because they're saying that what your job entails
Speaker 2: is at least two rehearsals a week, meeting greets before
Speaker 2: and after the game, staying on the field to watch
Speaker 2: the entire game always, obviously, and all that breaks down
Speaker 2: to an HOURI rate of about five dollars an hour.
Speaker 2: So you're not doing it for the money. So they
Speaker 2: said why do they do it? They said they loved dancing,
Speaker 2: love performing, love rugby league, wanted to be part of
Speaker 2: the club and participate. Now, the thing that I find
Speaker 2: really hard to unpick in all this because watching the
Speaker 2: Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders show, and we said this on the
Speaker 2: show yesterday, there is no doubt I got to the
Speaker 2: end of that series and had nothing but admiration for
Speaker 2: these dancers. I really did. They were all amazing women,
Speaker 2: They all had other jobs, are doing amazing things. Their
Speaker 2: work ethic was unquestionable. They behaved towards each other in
Speaker 2: a really beautiful sisterly way. There was no I didn't
Speaker 2: have any criticism of them. I find it interesting that
Speaker 2: when I was consuming this documentary in an obsessive fashion
Speaker 2: over the past week or so, whenever my teenage daughter
Speaker 2: would walk in the room, I would turn it off
Speaker 2: because I didn't really want her to see it. Why,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, Like if I question myself,
Speaker 2: and one of the things is is that my daughter,
Speaker 2: who's fourteen, loves sport, and she's a mad AFL player,
Speaker 2: and so every Sunday and actually four times a week
Speaker 2: at the moment, she is out on a field running
Speaker 2: around in short shorts and a tight top, but running
Speaker 2: around getting muddy, getting dirty, getting sweaty, playing the actual game.
Speaker 2: I respect dancers enormously, and I respect the entertainment factor,
Speaker 2: but I think it's very hard to unpick in a
Speaker 2: code like NRL in particular, that has a lot of issues.
Speaker 2: Let's be honest with attitudes towards women that they've been
Speaker 2: trying to undo with various levels of commitment and success
Speaker 2: for decades, that the involvement of women they want is
Speaker 2: that kind a decorative, ornamental role that is their scifically
Speaker 2: to applaud when the men on the field do something
Speaker 2: good rather than doing the thing themselves. And what's interesting
Speaker 2: is the world is shifting that way. Last week it
Speaker 2: was the NRL Women's State of Origin Final. It was
Speaker 2: sold out in a massive stadium. They had two million
Speaker 2: people watching it on television. That is unprecedented. That is changed.
Speaker 2: That is happening at an amazing rate. It was a
Speaker 2: great game. My daughter watched that and oh my god,
Speaker 2: was she in All of those women who were smashing
Speaker 2: into each other on the field, thrown them on the floor,
Speaker 2: highly competitive competing for a cup.
Speaker 4: I'm in awe of the athleticism of the dancers too.
Speaker 4: And I know it is saying holly because even in
Speaker 4: the documentary, you watch it and you see that. So
Speaker 4: Dallas cowboys at this incredibly powerful, wealthy institution. If you
Speaker 4: want to be part of it, your options are cheerleader
Speaker 4: or biologically related to men who runs.
Speaker 2: It, maybe working behind the scenes. I'm sure they've got
Speaker 2: a lot of women in the offices.
Speaker 4: Most of the women that we saw were kind of
Speaker 4: the your leader. And it is a powerful institution, right,
Speaker 4: So it's very.
Speaker 1: Much the ultimate patriarchal structure. Whereas the men are doing
Speaker 1: the things, and the women are literally supporting them and
Speaker 1: cheering them.
Speaker 3: Who are we blaming here?
Speaker 4: And I think about my self and my own naivety
Speaker 4: and being probably quite judgmental years and years ago, where
Speaker 4: I would look at the cheerleaders and what they were
Speaker 4: wearing or whatever and would probably denigrate a little bit them.
Speaker 4: That's internalized misogyny, and that's almost victim blaming because it's like,
Speaker 4: if you are a dancer, and dancers are some of
Speaker 4: the most athletic, hard working, impressive athletes, I know, poorly.
Speaker 3: Paid as well, Yes, what are your options?
Speaker 4: And if you love dancing, if you love dancing and
Speaker 4: you're really really good at.
Speaker 1: To dance at home, yeah, I guess like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I totally understand why that would be what you do,
Speaker 4: and we all routinely undermine it, just like we do anything.
Speaker 1: I think so because part of what you need to
Speaker 1: do in that context is the sexy aspect. So you
Speaker 1: can't pretend that that's not part of it. They're not
Speaker 1: out there in comfortable clothes and shoes. It's sexualized. And
Speaker 1: the dancers themselves say, oh, because we've got to move
Speaker 1: this certain way, which is like hips. First, we're all
Speaker 1: throwing our backs out, we've got you know, broken hips,
Speaker 1: we're damaging our bodies because it's quite sexualized. That is
Speaker 1: very different to just say ballet. And I'm not saying
Speaker 1: there's anything wrong with it, but when you say, oh,
Speaker 1: why does it make us feel a bit as women?
Speaker 1: I think it's that part.
Speaker 4: I reckon that this could be a cultural reckoning where
Speaker 4: we're pivoting and going hang on. I was even thinking
Speaker 4: with cheer, and even with this, I was.
Speaker 3: Like, there should be an Olympics. I would watch this.
Speaker 1: Like cheer should definitely be in the Olympics. But if
Speaker 1: you haven't watched it, and maybe you've watched cheer, cheer
Speaker 1: is different. So that is literally about gymnastics. It's about
Speaker 1: doing links and pyramids and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: In cheer, they're not cheering, they're anyone on the sideline
Speaker 1: of a game. They're the main event. And it's also
Speaker 1: you know, men and women. But for this it's literally
Speaker 1: on the side of the event. As Holly said, it's
Speaker 1: either halftime entertainment or when the men do something on
Speaker 1: the field, the women do little dancers on the side.
Speaker 1: And it's also being ambassadors because they also go out
Speaker 1: into the community, and they make calendars and they sign
Speaker 1: and they go visit people in nursing homes and kindergartens
Speaker 1: and they bring some of that glamour. So they're part
Speaker 1: of the branding, but it's like the sex cells.
Speaker 2: Part of the back. I think the reason I feel
Speaker 2: uncomfortable because I've said before, when the NRL was having
Speaker 2: this big reckoning and trying to figure out how to
Speaker 2: get more women at games and make them feel more comfortable,
Speaker 2: that's when a lot of teams started letting their cheerleaders go.
Speaker 2: And I remember writing some stories around that and getting
Speaker 2: pushback from women who worked in that field and being like,
Speaker 2: you make it sound like I am a stripper, and
Speaker 2: they say, no disrespect to dancers who are working in
Speaker 2: adult clubs, but that is not what I do, and
Speaker 2: you're making it sound like I am. And this is
Speaker 2: a highly skilled thing and all that stuff. I totally
Speaker 2: take all that on board, and as I said, watching
Speaker 2: these women have nothing but admiration, I think the problem
Speaker 2: is it feels like a throwback to a time when
Speaker 2: that was the only way women could get status in
Speaker 2: that world, right, and in the world full style, yes,
Speaker 2: but specifically in male dominated environments. Like that is that
Speaker 2: you think about the cheerleader, Think about every high school
Speaker 2: movie you've ever seen, any story you've ever read about
Speaker 2: that world, particularly in America, and it is an imported
Speaker 2: American thing here in Australia. The cheerleaders are the popular,
Speaker 2: the girls, the beautiful girls, the girls who date the quarterback,
Speaker 2: the girls everybody's like either wants to be or is
Speaker 2: frightened off right. And so when I look at these
Speaker 2: women and you think, oh, you get to play in
Speaker 2: that world, but only in that role, it sort of
Speaker 2: throws me back to that idea. Whereas actually, now, as
Speaker 2: I was just saying about the Women's NRL, there are
Speaker 2: lots of different ways that women can be involved in
Speaker 2: sport now and they are literally breaking down doors. So
Speaker 2: I can appreciate what the cheerleaders do. But I think
Speaker 2: probably the reason why I close my computer when my
Speaker 2: door to watch in the room is I'm like, I
Speaker 2: don't want her to think that that is the only
Speaker 2: way for a woman to be involved in something she loves,
Speaker 2: which is that sporting football world.
Speaker 4: Well, for those women though, the football world wasn't what
Speaker 4: they loved. The dancing was what they loved.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but a lot of these women would say that
Speaker 2: that's why they chose cheerleading. Is they loved dancing and
Speaker 2: they wanted to be part of the team.
Speaker 3: Yes, but I wonder to use that.
Speaker 1: They can't have any contact with the football players. Why
Speaker 1: do you think that is? It's never explained. And I
Speaker 1: thought the voices of the Dallas Cowboys was really missing
Speaker 1: from this documentary to have not one of them. I
Speaker 1: want to know what the footballers think of them.
Speaker 4: I was reading about how they're not allowed to fratnize
Speaker 4: and even in some cases they're not allowed to follow
Speaker 4: any of them on Instagram, Like there's not allowed to
Speaker 4: be any interest in the.
Speaker 3: Two travel together.
Speaker 2: I think I don't know why.
Speaker 4: Well, if something does happen, the cheerleader, unsurprisingly is let go. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and the football player keepsy starts.
Speaker 1: To protect the women.
Speaker 2: That's the man's reputation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the men's reputation, it's been psarciastic.
Speaker 1: It's not to protect the women's well.
Speaker 4: And the idea is too that those women are held
Speaker 4: up as a male fantasy, and in order to be
Speaker 4: a male fantasy, they have to take off their wedding rings.
Speaker 4: They are not allowed to touch their boyfriends. Anywhere around
Speaker 4: the stadium. They are to be looked at but not touched.
Speaker 4: That the idea is that they are It's like the
Speaker 4: Madonna hare complex that we were talking about, where it's
Speaker 4: these women are just elevated and it almost would like
Speaker 4: plummet their status if they were touched by someone like
Speaker 4: it's incredibly regretful.
Speaker 1: They'd make them dirty slots if they had had sex
Speaker 1: or were in any way, even though they portray themselves sexually.
Speaker 1: And that's the point. They're both Madonna and whare in
Speaker 1: this analogy. Wow.
Speaker 2: But I also think that no fraternization policies are relatively new,
Speaker 2: and I think that's because of that whole cheerleader quarterback
Speaker 2: stereotype I was talking about before, and that part of
Speaker 2: the denigration of cheerleaders is there are only to snare
Speaker 2: themselves a footballer who are the ultimate high status alpha males. Right,
Speaker 2: So they're trying to unpick some of all the mess
Speaker 2: that can then follow that situation. And if you imagine
Speaker 2: that the cheerleaders and the footballers are out drinking together
Speaker 2: after games and all, like, you can only imagine so
Speaker 2: is pr management as.
Speaker 1: Well sexual purity? Yes, And also they've got these morality codes,
Speaker 1: don't they Yes?
Speaker 4: And also I guess there's a power and balance. There's
Speaker 4: a workplace power and balance, which is that from payment
Speaker 4: to where you stand in the hierarchy, Like, yeah, women
Speaker 4: can be exploited.
Speaker 1: But don't matter.
Speaker 3: There are a lot of rules.
Speaker 4: That I was going through, so I found this one interesting.
Speaker 4: You're not allowed to wear glitter eyeshadow. It must be
Speaker 4: matt so they don't like glitter. No visible tattoos.
Speaker 2: You did notice that none of them had tattoos, which
Speaker 2: is unusual for a group of women that age.
Speaker 4: No going out in jeans or sweatpants, so they have
Speaker 4: to be seen glammed up, even if you're going to
Speaker 4: the local shops in Texas, like you've got to be
Speaker 4: you are a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader always. I find full
Speaker 4: hair and makeup to train every day completely unnecessary.
Speaker 2: And there was a scene in this There was a
Speaker 2: scene in the show where one of the women doesn't
Speaker 2: wear makeup to training and she gets a big telling
Speaker 2: off and it was like, you haven't made an effort.
Speaker 2: It's like you don't care if you just rolled out
Speaker 2: of bed, like what would And they know use the
Speaker 2: name of some iconic too. Well would they think of
Speaker 2: this today? And she was like, oh, I'm just told.
Speaker 3: You can't be anywhere where alcohol is served.
Speaker 2: But isn't that a football game?
Speaker 4: Well, you're I'm allowed to be near the bar, you know,
Speaker 4: allowed to go to parties on the weekend because of
Speaker 4: the your proximity to alcohol. And you're allowed to eat
Speaker 4: after six pm. That's sorry, You're allowed to eat after
Speaker 4: six pm, says it in the rule book.
Speaker 1: Well, I was on my way to try out for
Speaker 1: next year the tattoo rule. That's going to just qualify
Speaker 1: and they like to eat.
Speaker 2: My dinner at seven.
Speaker 4: I just hope that the Netflix success. If there is
Speaker 4: one message that viewers ascending the world, it is that cheer.
Speaker 4: Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders are the main event, like they are
Speaker 4: what everyone wants to watch. I don't give a shit
Speaker 4: about American football. I could watch those cheerleaders cheer all
Speaker 4: day long.
Speaker 1: The footballer should be on the sidelines cheering.
Speaker 4: Fungerstruck out louders on behalf of Mummy are out loud.
Speaker 3: I want to apologize. I want to apologize.
Speaker 4: Because if you heard any strange jingle in that segment,
Speaker 4: this is funny because we're recording it in post and
Speaker 4: it just makes me giggle. That's because me is wearing
Speaker 4: shoe jewelry, which, if you're wondering, isn't a thing. It's
Speaker 4: not a thing around my shoe.
Speaker 1: But I didn't realize that it was going to be an.
Speaker 4: Audio, So if you hear some jingle jangle, that would
Speaker 4: be MEA's shoe jewelry in the background.
Speaker 3: Sorry about that distraction.
Speaker 1: Sorry.
Speaker 2: This month, Mumma Mia turned seventeen. We know birthdays aren't
Speaker 2: all that exciting when they're not well your birthday presents,
Speaker 2: so we want to take this as a chance to
Speaker 2: give you a treat and say thank you for being
Speaker 2: on the ride with us.
Speaker 1: Right now, you can get twenty dollars off a yearly
Speaker 1: Muma MEA subscription with the code out Loud Birthday.
Speaker 2: The offer is valid for limited time only, and you'll
Speaker 2: find all the details of how to do that in
Speaker 2: the show notes. Enjoy My Friends.
Speaker 4: A man named kir Starmer, a labor politician who wants
Speaker 4: to invest in the NHS, improved state schools, clamp down
Speaker 4: on companies at harm the environment, and increase the minimum wage,
Speaker 4: will likely by the end of this week be the
Speaker 4: new Prime Minister of Britain. He is sixty one years old.
Speaker 4: He's got two kids, a sixteen and a thirteen year old,
Speaker 4: and this will become relevant. His wife is Jewish. I
Speaker 4: mentioned that she's Jewish because on Friday nights the family
Speaker 4: observe traditional Shabbat dinners. Maya Chabbat means shabbat. I can't
Speaker 4: say it.
Speaker 1: You've been going to them for a while.
Speaker 3: I know, I'm waiting to the bat of it all. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but it's shabba.
Speaker 4: But but shabat cha butt schabat and it means rest.
Speaker 3: I don't like, not literally, It's like.
Speaker 1: You know how the Christians have the day of rest
Speaker 1: is Sunday. The Jews go from sunset on Friday to
Speaker 1: sunset on Saturday. That's when you meant to rest. The
Speaker 1: Jews rest on Saturday, right, Okay, So and Friday night
Speaker 1: usually it's like a time when you have a family meal.
Speaker 1: So the family just comes together and you have a
Speaker 1: meal as a tradition. You have certain bread, you have wine,
Speaker 1: you do a couple of blessings. Some people, you know,
Speaker 1: depending on how religious they are, do more. But generally
Speaker 1: it's like an informal way for the family to get
Speaker 1: together every Friday.
Speaker 3: It's family time and it's switch off.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Stama told Virgin Radio that they have a strategy in place,
Speaker 4: which is to carve out protected time for the kids.
Speaker 4: So after six o'clock on a Friday night, he will
Speaker 4: not do work related things.
Speaker 3: He said.
Speaker 4: There are, of course a few exceptions, but broadly that's
Speaker 4: what they do. His political opponents, as well as many
Speaker 4: opinion columnists, got very angry. One conservative politician tweeted, what
Speaker 4: if putin attacks at six oh one pm, while others
Speaker 4: mocked that there would be global conflict unfolding and Starmer
Speaker 4: would be busy trying to finish his book. Grant Feller
Speaker 4: wrote for The Independent that he doesn't believe family should
Speaker 4: always come first and that he envies Starma's childlike naivete
Speaker 4: in his endearing devotion to family. He writes, it's unrealistic
Speaker 4: to think that you can suddenly shift between being a
Speaker 4: good employer and a good parent at six pm. What
Speaker 4: a ridiculous metaphor switching off is. If you've got a
Speaker 4: stressful job and you love it, there is no switch.
Speaker 4: There is no off.
Speaker 3: Holly.
Speaker 4: You'd think Starmer had declared that he was adopting the
Speaker 4: four hour work week, everyone responded, rather than saying that
Speaker 4: one day out of every seven he will look in
Speaker 4: the direction of his children when the sun goes down.
Speaker 3: Exactly what is this all?
Speaker 2: I think it's really interesting because there is a definite
Speaker 2: little undercurrent there possibly not so little that could be
Speaker 2: decided of anti Semitism. There definitely is. But even if
Speaker 2: you take that out and set it aside, there is
Speaker 2: a massive overreach here from the Tories who are going
Speaker 2: to lose this election in spectacular fashion. And maybe I
Speaker 2: will be eating my words on Friday night, but I
Speaker 2: doubt it to find anything they can throw at Kirstarmer.
Speaker 2: And to be clear, Kir Starmer is not actually desperately
Speaker 2: popular like everybody's like yay Kiir Starmer, we love him.
Speaker 2: They're just like, get those people out of office. They
Speaker 2: have made a right mess over the fourteen years they've
Speaker 2: been in charge, so they are showing their desperation. I
Speaker 2: think in this so as you've said, Jesse, people are like,
Speaker 2: what if putin attacks at six oh one people are
Speaker 2: tweeting back who work for Keir Starmer, then he will
Speaker 2: pick up his phone.
Speaker 3: Jump on line, jump on line.
Speaker 2: I think put his book down exactly. No one is
Speaker 2: saying and not what is not being said here. And
Speaker 2: this is the thing that's really interesting is I think
Speaker 2: it shows a clash of culture. And I don't mean
Speaker 2: about the religious aspect. I mean about the work at
Speaker 2: all costs culture and any attempt at having balance, which
Speaker 2: in the hustle culture is a dirty word that is
Speaker 2: vastly out of touch, because most people these days understand
Speaker 2: that probably to be a good leader, a good boss,
Speaker 2: do a good job, maybe you need to have a
Speaker 2: little bit of something else in your life, and that
Speaker 2: asking for a few hours when you don't need to
Speaker 2: be on on is not an unreasonable thing or is
Speaker 2: it mere Friedman?
Speaker 1: No, I think that's true. I think that ironically, when
Speaker 1: Kevin Rudd was Prime Minister, one of the criticisms of
Speaker 1: him by people who worked for him was that he
Speaker 1: only slept for like four hours a night and the
Speaker 1: rest of the time he was working. And to some
Speaker 1: people that played and to him, because he let that
Speaker 1: be known, that played as dedication, work ethic, high performance behavior,
Speaker 1: whereas to others, those who are criticizing it, it was
Speaker 1: portrayed as you don't have any perspective, like when you
Speaker 1: don't look around. People often say this of artists, and
Speaker 1: we'll get to tell us swift shortly. But when you're
Speaker 1: an artist, you have to live in the world to
Speaker 1: be able to make art. Or if you're an actor,
Speaker 1: if you're just a famous person, then it's very hard
Speaker 1: to play different characters because you're not exposed to them anymore.
Speaker 2: So I think that for being a political leader, presumably
Speaker 2: you need to understand what actual, real people who don't
Speaker 2: live in your bubble think about things. So that's also
Speaker 2: a reason why they need to live in the world.
Speaker 1: A little more, right, Oh, one hundred percent. And I'm
Speaker 1: saying that this is an argument for living in the world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and for switching off. It's true, no one really switches
Speaker 1: off like we're always at the end of a phone,
Speaker 1: aren't we. I don't think this means. I mean, in
Speaker 1: some strict orthodox households, it's literally phones off. They don't
Speaker 1: use technology for twenty four hours. No one suggesting that
Speaker 1: that's what happens in his household, or that he's going
Speaker 1: to do that, that he's going to be uncontactable after
Speaker 1: six o'clock on a Friday. But I think that idea
Speaker 1: of as you said so beautifully, Jesse, I'm going to
Speaker 1: face my attention towards my family or if you don't
Speaker 1: have a family, towards my dog, towards my parents, towards
Speaker 1: my friends, towards my health. Yeah, whatever it happens to be,
Speaker 1: I'm going to look away from my work and that
Speaker 1: will actually make me better at my work when I
Speaker 1: come back.
Speaker 4: The book thing's funny because I don't know if the
Speaker 4: person who said, you know, will I look up from
Speaker 4: his book to solve a global conflict has ever spent
Speaker 4: time with a family at six pm on a Friday.
Speaker 4: But you would be more likely to be reading a
Speaker 4: book skydiving than you would sitting around having family time.
Speaker 4: There's a real sense that it's lazy, and not that
Speaker 4: it's a different type of work or that it's an
Speaker 4: investment that, as you say, makes you better at your job.
Speaker 4: In this article I read in The Guardian, it was
Speaker 4: saying that from Tony Blair to Gordon Brown, the toll
Speaker 4: that their leadership took on them, from mood to health
Speaker 4: to how they look was enormous. And then when you
Speaker 4: look at the best leaders, they all had something and
Speaker 4: mostly like they prioritized family. Winston Churchhill famously painted like
Speaker 4: they had to have something because otherwise you become so
Speaker 4: burnt out and tired that you're not able to function
Speaker 4: at your job.
Speaker 2: Isn't it interesting though, and I did this too, that
Speaker 2: all of us have defended the switch off time as
Speaker 2: something that will make you better at your job time,
Speaker 2: Like no one is saying and just it might make
Speaker 2: you happier and you might be a better person. We
Speaker 2: are all so deeply marinated in productivity culture that it's like, well,
Speaker 2: we have to find a justification for why having a
Speaker 2: few hours where I don't check emails might make me
Speaker 2: better at work. Well.
Speaker 4: Benji Marshall, who is the West Tigers NRL coach at
Speaker 4: the moment, he's a former player. He has spoken about
Speaker 4: this in recent months and got so much shit from
Speaker 4: the NRL community.
Speaker 1: He's quite a new coach, isn't he.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, he's just started this year and in the
Speaker 4: lead up to his debut he said, I'm not going
Speaker 4: to be a twenty four to seven coach and I
Speaker 4: put my family before my job, which is something that
Speaker 4: players coaches you never ever say that.
Speaker 3: Here's a little bit of what he said I'll.
Speaker 7: Come into work early before the players, work as hard
Speaker 7: as we can until we get what we need done.
Speaker 7: Then we go home because I prioritize my family between
Speaker 7: five and eight pm every night to find a work
Speaker 7: life balance. That doesn't mean I don't care about my
Speaker 7: job or care about working hard.
Speaker 1: I think that's an outstanding way to model what it
Speaker 1: means to be man, what it means to be person.
Speaker 4: So there was all this crap and coaches. There's you know,
Speaker 4: this ideal of a coach who tries to go to
Speaker 4: the movies but he's actually just plotting what they're going
Speaker 4: to do on the field.
Speaker 3: And blah blah blah.
Speaker 4: And remember it was only less than two years ago
Speaker 4: Paul Green, who was a Queensland coach, a NRL coach,
Speaker 4: took his own life. I think he was about forty nine,
Speaker 4: and there was this big discussion about mental health and
Speaker 4: how to look after each other. And we have Benji
Speaker 4: Marshall coming out who has two little kids as well,
Speaker 4: so he's at a very specific moment in his life
Speaker 4: and he's saying, between five and eight, I'm going to
Speaker 4: be with my kids. That to buy one week. So
Speaker 4: they had a game off and he went to Fiji
Speaker 4: with his family. That was just laughed at, like, oh,
Speaker 4: you're going on a holiday now, and he's saying nah,
Speaker 4: Like I actually believe in work life balance. It's something
Speaker 4: that I want to model. And I have a team
Speaker 4: around me of people that I trust, so when I'm
Speaker 4: not there, the work can get done.
Speaker 2: See that's saw so key to this, right if you're
Speaker 2: looking at it from a leadership level. When he says that,
Speaker 2: he says, I've got really experienced guys on my staff.
Speaker 2: I've got all these people I trust, and I'm going
Speaker 2: to empower them to do their job. I don't need
Speaker 2: to be there and across absolutely everything all the time.
Speaker 2: That is really generous to the other people you work with.
Speaker 2: But it's interesting because he also said that he knew
Speaker 2: that the culture was and this certainly is not only
Speaker 2: in sport. It had always been a good leader as
Speaker 2: someone who says, you can't outwork me, I will work
Speaker 2: harder than everyone here. I will be the first one
Speaker 2: in and the last one out. I'll turn the lights
Speaker 2: on and I'll turn the lights off. And that was
Speaker 2: the model. And I think it's really interesting that we're
Speaker 2: now seeing different models of success that don't look like that.
Speaker 2: And the idea that saying that for three hours a
Speaker 2: day between five and eight you don't want to be
Speaker 2: working is outrageous. It just seems crazy.
Speaker 1: I think it can be tricky as a boss or
Speaker 1: a manager or a leader, because I've felt the pressure
Speaker 1: in both ways. I've felt the pressure to work more
Speaker 1: and I've felt the pressure to work less. So I
Speaker 1: do feel that I have to role model that I'm
Speaker 1: the co founder and co owner of this business.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I will.
Speaker 1: Work down hard, and I will work harder than anyone
Speaker 1: else because I expect everybody to work hard, so that
Speaker 1: includes myself.
Speaker 2: But what's working hard mean is being offline between five
Speaker 2: and eight? Not working hard? I'm in the specifics of
Speaker 2: like what if the queen dies? I don't mean that,
Speaker 2: I mean in general.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. So there have been times when I've
Speaker 1: thought I was really conscious of what time I would
Speaker 1: get into the office and what time I would leave.
Speaker 1: But then you read about how bosses need to model boundaries,
Speaker 1: and so there was all this talk a few years
Speaker 1: ago about how bosses had to leave noisily because some people,
Speaker 1: and I know when I've worked in jobs before, you
Speaker 1: don't want to leave before the boss right. Certainly when
Speaker 1: I had little kids, it felt like the walk of shame,
Speaker 1: like you don't want to sort of sneak out, and
Speaker 1: everyone's going, oh, she's not very committed. And in fact,
Speaker 1: when I did work in a male dominated industry and
Speaker 1: commercial television, I did had to have to leave to
Speaker 1: go home and breastfeed my baby, and I would of
Speaker 1: course jump online straight away, but after I left, it was,
Speaker 1: you know, leaked to the media. Oh she wasn't very committed.
Speaker 1: She wouldn't put in the hours. So it's really hard
Speaker 1: and I feel pressure both ways. I feel pressure not
Speaker 1: to work on weekends now a lot, because I don't
Speaker 1: expect other people to, but for me sometimes that's the
Speaker 1: only time I've got to do my work.
Speaker 2: It's tricky, I reckon. I also was definitely always get there,
Speaker 2: really leave late person, no question. For many, many, many
Speaker 2: years it was important because those either ends of the
Speaker 2: day were sometimes times you could get things done because
Speaker 2: everybody else wasn't there wanting your attention, asking you questions, meetings,
Speaker 2: meetings I need to talk to you about blah. These
Speaker 2: hours were precious. The thing is is all that stuff
Speaker 2: has really been thrown in the air with the fact
Speaker 2: that we can work anywhere now, which is a really
Speaker 2: good thing, right, Like it's life changing that you could
Speaker 2: leave and be home to have dinner with your kids,
Speaker 2: but then do your emails after a eight Like that
Speaker 2: is actually life changing. And I remember work and mia
Speaker 2: would two when that was not possible, Like when you
Speaker 2: went home, you work couldn't work anymore, so you would
Speaker 2: stay in the office until I had plenty of years
Speaker 2: of work when I would be in the office at
Speaker 2: eight nine o'clock regularly.
Speaker 1: I used to sleep on the couch often.
Speaker 2: Office was the only place to work. And so now
Speaker 2: obviously you can work everywhere. That's a really good thing.
Speaker 2: But then the flip side of it is it's a
Speaker 2: bad thing because now if you say, well, I just
Speaker 2: went between five and eight to not be responsive, And
Speaker 2: the problem is is everybody's got different schedules. So if
Speaker 2: you want between five and eight, but your boss actually
Speaker 2: wants to message you at that time, then you're in
Speaker 2: a real push Paul. So I don't know, I find
Speaker 2: it hard, but I love all these different models coming
Speaker 2: up with different ways of caring about your job.
Speaker 4: And I love that it's men as well women. Have
Speaker 4: been talking about this for a long time, and men
Speaker 4: talking about it is very refreshing.
Speaker 1: Do you want daily outloud access? Why wouldn't you? We
Speaker 1: drop episodes every Tuesday and Thursday exclusively for Mum and
Speaker 1: MEA subscribers follow the link in the show notes to
Speaker 1: get us in your ears five days a week, and
Speaker 1: a huge thank you if you're already a subscriber.
Speaker 3: In Taylor Swift News, Taylor Swift.
Speaker 1: Taylor, Taylor Taylor.
Speaker 3: I've been watching the Taylor Swift cutaways.
Speaker 2: I was very excited to hear what me had thought
Speaker 2: about Taylor Swift.
Speaker 1: Taylor bloody Swift.
Speaker 2: I disclaim her. On Monday, I told me she wasn't
Speaker 2: allowed to bring this story, wasn't allowed to talk about
Speaker 2: it because out numbered.
Speaker 1: How tried?
Speaker 2: You did?
Speaker 1: You did?
Speaker 2: It's about a column published in Newsweek, which is a
Speaker 2: credible American news publication. Stupid cont such stupid coln. The
Speaker 2: column was written by a writer called John mccillan. It
Speaker 2: won't surprise anybody to know that he's a conservative commentator,
Speaker 2: and in it he claimed that Taylor Swift, the trademark
Speaker 2: queen of the World, is a bad role model for
Speaker 2: young women because she is unmarried and does not have children.
Speaker 2: Not to mention, mcgillan writes that she has had at
Speaker 2: least a dozen a dozen relationships with men. He wrote,
Speaker 2: this revolving door of relationships may reflect the normal dating
Speaker 2: experiences of many young women in today's world, but it
Speaker 2: also raises questions about stability, commitment, and even love itself.
Speaker 2: Should we encourage young girls to see the Swift standard
Speaker 2: as the norm and something to aspire to, or should
Speaker 2: we be promoting something a little more, shall we say, wholesome?
Speaker 2: Would any loving parent reading this want their daughter to
Speaker 2: date twelve different men in the span of a few years.
Speaker 2: This is not an attack on Swift. It's a valid
Speaker 2: question that is worth asking.
Speaker 3: It is, though, an.
Speaker 2: Attack ont Mia said. Mia said, we have to take
Speaker 2: this dude down. I said, calm down, Maya. Taylor's doing great,
Speaker 2: she doesn't need us. Let's argue about Jill Biden instead.
Speaker 2: And then well, it just kept escalating, and out loud
Speaker 2: has started asking us why Maya is leaving the gates
Speaker 2: of Taylor's virtue undefended. And we had to relent. And
Speaker 2: then something surprising happened, because when we were talking about
Speaker 2: it today Mia discovered she does have one thing in
Speaker 2: common with McGill, and she really really wants Taylor to
Speaker 2: get married and have a baby.
Speaker 1: Mia, explain yourself, Well, this was my favorite hate read
Speaker 1: of the week. It's the gift that keeps on giving
Speaker 1: because his main criticism of her as a role model,
Speaker 1: and in the first few paragraphs he details all her
Speaker 1: achievements and basically says, she's an extraordinary businesswoman. She's the
Speaker 1: most famous woman in the world. She'sn't powerhouse, except she's
Speaker 1: not married with kids, therefore not a good role model
Speaker 1: for our sisters and our daughters. And I thought, look,
Speaker 1: I do want Taylor Swift to have a baby. Because
Speaker 1: I hate myself for thinking this. I just want her
Speaker 1: to experience what it's like, and I think she'd be
Speaker 1: a great mother.
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, most I think not having a bad.
Speaker 1: I don't give a shit that she's married or not.
Speaker 1: Do I think being married and having a baby has
Speaker 1: anything to do with her being a role model. No,
Speaker 1: this is about my love for Taylor and my desire
Speaker 1: for her to experience the full spectrum a little bit
Speaker 1: like we spoke about before.
Speaker 3: Of life.
Speaker 4: She'll write some no one experience is the full spectrum
Speaker 4: of life. I want to read because you miss out
Speaker 4: on things kids, you miss out on certain experiences, and
Speaker 4: everyone has a different set of incredible mind.
Speaker 1: People listening I know who are going to say, you're
Speaker 1: suggesting that because I don't have kids, I haven't experienced
Speaker 1: the full spectrum. I would say that I haven't experienced
Speaker 1: the full spectrum. I've never been with a woman, I've
Speaker 1: never lived in a different country for a long period
Speaker 1: of time. There's lots of the full spectrum. I also
Speaker 1: have an experience.
Speaker 2: I've played a stadium with that many people.
Speaker 1: I haven't played stadium.
Speaker 3: I can't speak another ones exactly, I can't tap dance.
Speaker 1: There's many aspects. I haven't run onto a field to
Speaker 1: the streams of thunderstruck. There's so many. Yet, there's so
Speaker 1: many things that I haven't experienced. But I just think
Speaker 1: Taylor is a seeker of experience, and I love the
Speaker 1: things she writes about those experiences, and I genuinely I
Speaker 1: want to hear. What Taylor's done for me and many
Speaker 1: other people is She's helped me make sense of experiences
Speaker 1: in my life through her music and through her lyrics.
Speaker 3: That's why I.
Speaker 1: Would like to hear her views.
Speaker 4: If only you could hear someone else's views about motherhood,
Speaker 4: of which there are many books, many songs, many poems,
Speaker 4: many instagram that he could go to to dive deeper
Speaker 4: into the experience of the motherhood. I think we've lost
Speaker 4: sight of what a role model means, and I think
Speaker 4: we know what it means anymore when someone is a
Speaker 4: role model.
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm not arguing that she's not a role model.
Speaker 3: My god, this is yeah.
Speaker 4: It's like, since when does someone who you look up
Speaker 4: to you use them as sort of a Barbie doll
Speaker 4: to enact the exact life choices you would make.
Speaker 2: I was thinking about, Yes, that's why Mea wants her
Speaker 2: to have a baby.
Speaker 1: It was very threatening. This guy's clearly very threatened because
Speaker 1: all the things he lists, all the criticisms of Taylor,
Speaker 1: when he keeps saying, but they're not criticisms, but they
Speaker 1: are because you're calling her a dirty slight, a baron whore.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like here, and then.
Speaker 1: He's like, no criticism of Taylor, Huh, they're all about
Speaker 1: his greatest fears as the upholder of the patriarchy. Like
Speaker 1: it's wild. Because he writes this, it was hard to
Speaker 1: find my favorite parts. But he says that her numerous
Speaker 1: high profile relationships while private matters are constantly in the
Speaker 1: public eye. New romances become media feeding frenzies, while breakups
Speaker 1: fuel the gossip columns. Her fault.
Speaker 3: That's because of you, Sweetish, And then he says that she.
Speaker 1: Makes breakups look easy in reality, though painful affairs poets department.
Speaker 1: Have you listened to all two women?
Speaker 4: Then he suggests that breakups are only hurtful to women,
Speaker 4: which is.
Speaker 1: Very you know about Jake Gillen home holding a lot
Speaker 1: of questions about, like I have a lot of questions
Speaker 1: about all One of them is about how this article
Speaker 1: got published because it's not even very good and it
Speaker 1: feels like it has done its job, and that it will.
Speaker 2: Have absolutely trafficked through the roof because everybody's gone on
Speaker 2: to hate read it. And he probably was someone who said,
Speaker 2: you know what, I'll take one for circulation this week,
Speaker 2: and I can take the haters, because anyone who writes
Speaker 2: this kind of shit about Taylor is right now literally
Speaker 2: under a mountain of crap. Personally, Taylor's serial monogamy is
Speaker 2: one of my favorite things about her, and I will
Speaker 2: genuinely be disappointed if she gets married and has a baby.
Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, no, Taylor, give us a different role model.
Speaker 2: Like that's one of the I love about her. Some
Speaker 2: stereotypes and archetypes. She very much uphold being a beautiful, skinny,
Speaker 2: tall white lady and all the rest of it. But
Speaker 2: she has overturned so many archetypes about what female artists
Speaker 2: are capable of, can do, and all that stuff. How
Speaker 2: And I also love the fact that she is very
Speaker 2: I mean, and she is not public, let's be honest.
Speaker 2: Apart from this latest relationship, She's not actually public about
Speaker 2: her relationships, but we are all obsessed with them. And
Speaker 2: the fact that she has dated quite a few dudes,
Speaker 2: different kinds of dudes, experience lots of different relationships. I
Speaker 2: love that about her because that's the experience of lots
Speaker 2: and lots of women.
Speaker 1: My favorite point that he makes is this The SuperStar's
Speaker 1: vocal criticisms of the patriarchy add another layer of complexity.
Speaker 1: Swift's recent rally and cry against patriarchal structures. She does
Speaker 1: say fuck the patriarch in one of her songs, quite
Speaker 1: famously stands in stark contrast to her personal dating choices.
Speaker 1: The singer often dates strong influential men, celebrities who embody
Speaker 1: significant social and economic power. This can appear hypocritical. Swift
Speaker 1: either doesn't realize this or doesn't care. Neither of the
Speaker 1: two is a good look. I don't think he understands
Speaker 1: about powers than any of these.
Speaker 4: He thinks that patriarchy looks and is Travis Kelcey and
Speaker 4: that's not right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And my least favorite thing about the whole Travis
Speaker 2: Kelcey narrative is the whole She's finally found her prince.
Speaker 2: I can't wait for the ring on the finger and
Speaker 2: the baby and the belly. I'm like, I don't want
Speaker 2: that to keep being awesome.
Speaker 3: There was a day why the.
Speaker 1: Two mutually exclusive.
Speaker 3: They're not.
Speaker 2: That's just one of them is very predictable, and it's
Speaker 2: very full narrative because once she does get married and
Speaker 2: have a baby, all of the idea will be like
Speaker 2: she'd achieved all these great things, but motherhood's her greatest
Speaker 2: role yet.
Speaker 1: And I could just do you mean, like how we
Speaker 1: all felt at the end of Sex and the City,
Speaker 1: the TV show when they all were paired up, remember that,
Speaker 1: and everybody was a bit like Oh, well, that's not
Speaker 1: really what we wanted, that idea of everyone being happily
Speaker 1: ever after with a partner.
Speaker 4: I remember about maybe six years ago, I came into
Speaker 4: work and I thought, I want to go viral today,
Speaker 4: and I wrote an opinion I didn't believe and it
Speaker 4: didn't even do what I wanted it to. But it
Speaker 4: was like I knew what the features of a viral
Speaker 4: opinion would be. That's what this man has done. He
Speaker 4: doesn't believe this.
Speaker 1: It is very no I think he does.
Speaker 3: I'm doing year eight debating.
Speaker 2: It wasn't very convincing.
Speaker 3: It was a year eight debating.
Speaker 4: Argument and a card that said, argue that Taylor Swift
Speaker 4: bad role model? And he was like she bad role model?
Speaker 1: Because you know, I think he like he can't be honest.
Speaker 1: He wouldn't have the self reflection or self awareness to
Speaker 1: say I think she's a bad role model. Because what's
Speaker 1: going to happen if all of the women decide they
Speaker 1: don't need men.
Speaker 3: And the irony, Oh no, where does that leave me?
Speaker 4: Liam Hemsworth, Dev Patel thirty four year old men who
Speaker 4: don't have kids. You wont talk about Leonardo DiCaprio. He's
Speaker 4: never been married and he's never had kids and he's
Speaker 4: nearly fifty And what about that?
Speaker 2: Travis kelcey, Oh.
Speaker 4: Travis Kelsey, and also how about Elon Musk to talk
Speaker 4: about a bad role model twelve kids, sleeps on another
Speaker 4: one of X headquarters and doesn't appear to have a
Speaker 4: whole lot to do with any of them. But when
Speaker 4: it comes to men, we're able to pick and choose
Speaker 4: bits of their lives that we admire, and then the
Speaker 4: family thing we can just kind of feels a bit irrelevant.
Speaker 4: But for women, it's like their personal choices are part
Speaker 4: of whether they're a role model.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't want to be these guys, what do we do?
Speaker 2: That is it for today? Thank you so much to
Speaker 2: our wonderful team for making this episode happen, and thank
Speaker 2: you out louders for listening to us today arguing about
Speaker 2: things as we have been doing all week.
Speaker 1: If you want to listen to the episode everyone's talking
Speaker 1: about where we really go toe to toe, bare knuckle
Speaker 1: binfire about Jill Biden. We will put a link in
Speaker 1: the show notes in case you missed that one. I
Speaker 1: think that's now going in our cannon as one of
Speaker 1: our greatest hits.
Speaker 2: It was really fun argument.
Speaker 4: Can you let us know in the out Louders Facebook group.
Speaker 4: We want to know where you sit on Jill Biden
Speaker 4: because Colly and I just think me as well.
Speaker 2: Bye bye. Shout out to any Mamma Mia subscribers listening.
Speaker 2: If you love the show and you want to support us,
Speaker 2: subscribing to Mamma Mia is the very best way to
Speaker 2: do it. There's a link in the episode description