Another Female Founder Cancellation: Unpacking the Matilda Djerf Drama

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1:26Okay, let's get into today's show. Hey, Business Besties. Welcome back to Female Founder World. This is the place to learn from other business owners and grow the brand of your dreams. I'm Jasmine Gadsworthy. I'm the host of the show. I'm the creator of the Female Founder World universe and we have a business bestie session today. It's a segment of the show where I cover the stuff that female founders are chatting about in our group chat right now and today that is an influencer, a toxic workplace and another female founder cancellation. I'm talking about Matilda Jurf and she's the founder of a fashion brand called Jurf Avenue.

2:03And if you're listening to me and you're like, who the hell is Matilda Jurf Jasmine and why do I care? Just, just stay with me. I think a lot of you folks will know her because she's massive. She's a 27 year old Swedish influencer and she's a female founder who has more than 3 million Instagram followers, more than one and a half million TikTok followers. So she's not a small creator and her business Jeff Avenue brought in around 35 million in revenue according to BBC so it's not a small business not a small business at all but Matilda is absolutely copying it right now I have some really complicated thoughts and I want to talk it through with you and if you want to keep talking about it let's chat about it in the female founder world app in the group chat I'm happy to continue this conversation but it's just something that I've been thinking about a lot, honestly, since 2020, when we had so many female founder cancellations and then seeing some more come through this year, it just brings up a lot of thoughts.

3:04And so just a little bit of backstory, if you're not across this because you're busy, I know you've got stuff going on, you're building a business, you don't have time to be, you know, reading all the headlines about random influences in Sweden. But there was a big expose that came out about a week ago where this Swedish publication interviewed multiple current and former Jurf Avenue staff members and these staff members allege that they experienced bullying, favoritism, body shaming all while working under Matilda and the accusations like they range from Matilda yelling at her team calling them names and then there are some kind of like more bizarre accusations like that Matilda had her own personal toilet in the office and that when someone accidentally used it another employee had to like scrub it clean before she could use it so it's like I don't know some weird stuff one one person called the workplace psychological terror and there are claims of fat phobia towards the team and the models in the days since the article was published it has just it has appeared everywhere like it originally appeared in Swedish but like very quickly it was picked up in English because She is a huge influencer in the States and Australia and the UK and she's very much global and Matilda has very predictably been completely dragged online.

4:25This story is following a cancellation cycle that I think that we're all pretty familiar with right now like literally down to the notes app apology screenshot that was posted to Instagram today maybe yesterday actually and in that apology Matilda says what you'd expect like the big priority is like she's been quiet on social media since this happened to listen to her team and get their feedback and she apologized to anyone she's hurt she says when she started Jeff Avenue she wasn't ready to lead a company she didn't have the skills blah blah blah and that she's bringing in a more experienced management team more HR like all of the stuff that you'd expect in a response like this and I want to unpack this but first of all I need you all to take a deep breath and there are some big feelings on the internet about the story right now and I want you not to come for me when I say this because I know these accusations are super messed up and I have worked for some really awful bosses I've been that 20 something year old employee who's crying in the bathroom and losing sleep over toxic work workplaces like I worked in fashion publications in digital media I have been I have been there.

5:37But, and I want you to hear me when I say this, but we absolutely need to call out the double standard here. You can take issue with Matilda's behavior individually, but before you jump on this wave of cancellation and outrage, please just pause and take a look around at the headlines you're reading because we do not see the same media headlines and this like pure outrage towards male founders unless they have broken the law or they've been accused of breaking the law which to be clear Matilda is not accused of doing and I just I think that's a really clear distinction because I think we can see we definitely see cancellations of male founders and men in business, but usually it's because they have done something like grossly illegal, not because of toxic workplace culture or the way that they lead, even though let's be very clear that this isn't because male led startups don't have toxic workplace cultures.

6:52They absolutely do. We just seem to have like a very different set of rules for men in business to women in business and that is just a fact and you are a woman in business I know that you know that this is true and I'd also argue another thing I'd say it's because men aren't showing up as the faces of their companies in the same way that we are as women particularly in the consumer brand space and you know like you might you might know who the male founder is of a startup but you probably don't see his face every day on TikTok or watch him getting ready for work in the morning. You don't feel like you know him or maybe tie him as closely to the brand as we do with so many female founded brands.

7:40I think that as business owners, when we're creating a product and a business that solves a problem that we are experiencing ourselves and we literally are the customers, plus we're not getting huge amounts of funding that's allowing us to hire creators or influencers or grow through paid ads. We have this one tool at our disposal, and that is to monetize our faces, our personalities, our values as the human face behind a product and to be our own brand ambassadors. And this is a tactic that has honestly just works so well for so many brands. I'm thinking of the soda brand Poppy and Alison Ellsworth and the period care company August with Nadia Okamoto and so many others.

8:31But it just also means that the line gets blurred between the woman and the brand. and when the human messes up like the human woman in the position of CEO leader whatever when she messes up it's seen as this like one in the same as the brand and the company messing up and so people boycott and becomes a bigger story that's not just about something that this individual did it's kind of something that this 35 million dollar business did not just Matilda herself if that makes sense. And I think it's because we feel like we know this female founder. We have this parasocial relationship with her. We're inside her home, her car.

9:16We've seen her struggle and build her business from day one. She's shared what her values are. And in the case of Matilda, she's been really vocal about inclusivity in terms of body size. And so when she does something or We hear that she does something that we don't agree with or that like doesn't match up with a version of herself that we think we know. That we think we know from the content that she's created online and the business that she's built. It feels personal. Like we feel betrayed. We feel angry. And I just, it's personal to so many people. And that just comes through in the pure fury and contempt and like actual genuine hurt.

10:02that I'm seeing in some of these comments on Matilda Jurf social media right now. And that I think I saw come through with all the stuff that happened with the founders of Away or the Wing with the founder of, I'm trying to think other ones. Like we've see this cycle over and over again. Collectively, we build up these female founders. And then when we find out that they've done something wrong, we are really quick to cut them down. And I'm not excusing the individual behavior or any of these individual examples. I just think it's something that's interesting to look at and compare with the way that we treat male founders.

10:45And I have to say, if you're thinking about commenting on Matilda's Instagram or TikTok or whatever, like honestly, just stop. I guarantee she's getting death threats right now. You don't have to shop from them again or follow or engage. But personally, I feel like she has got the message. You know, she knows how the world feels about her actions and nothing good is going to come from continuing the pylon. And when it comes to FEMA founder cancellations in general, I think we need to also think about what is a proportionate response when it comes to the online court of public opinion unlike actual crimes where a sentence is served and then the person is like free to move on with their life no one gets to be the individual judge who gets to decide how long or to what degree the perpetrator get has to be punished in these examples should Matilda never post on Instagram again should she lose her business what do we actually what do we actually want to happen to her because of her actions in the workplace?

11:50And this is a genuine question that I want people to think about as you're seeing mass cancellations of women in business online. And again, let's discuss this in the group chat. I'm genuinely really curious. I don't have the answer to this. I'm really curious about your response, but I just think about, I just think about male founders, male celebrities who are accused of doing illegal things like gross illegal things and who disappear for six months and then go on their like forgiveness tour and then just back in the public spotlight like nothing ever happened we don't offer that grace to women and this is the last thing I want to say on this because I've I've lost count that the number of women's businesses who have just died because of actions like this.

12:39And again, I am not excusing these individual actions. I want to zoom out and look at this as like a meta issue because, you know, if these accusations are true and Matilda doesn't seem to be denying them, then they're obviously not okay. You can't be doing this. But personally, I also want to see female founders get the opportunity to mess up, make amends, grow and continue to build. And the reason why I want that is because that's what male founders get to do. Because I also know that someone somewhere is watching this unfold and you're deciding not to take the risk and launch your business or to post the video or to like come out as front-facing for your business and you're missing an opportunity there.

13:20You're staying small. You're avoiding being seen and it's out of fear because this is just playing in the back of your mind as a worst-case scenario. and I've spoken to so many women in business as I've been building Female Founder World, literally thousands, tens of thousands of women. And I know that there is this real fear of this like public cancellation. And so I just want to, I just want to remind you that this story isn't about you. This has nothing to do with you. And I don't want you to use it as a self-validation where you're like, oh, see, I was right to not be forward-facing or I was right to not step out of the limelight or to take the big swing because you're afraid of being seen in this way.

14:06This story has nothing to do with you and it's nothing to do with your ideas, your business, your content. Yeah. The last thing I want to say is just show up anyway, be a good human while you do it, but show up anyway, take the big swing, do the big thing, post the video on the internet with your face on it, whatever that is, don't let this story, another public female founder cancellation stop you from doing that.