How to stick two fingers up to beauty standards

0:00Hello and welcome to Happy Place with me Fern Cotton. Today how to stick two fingers up to made up beauty standards and body ideals. No matter how much positive self-talk someone's going to do, unfortunately, the world we live in does not care. It cares about having the same size boobs that are going not in different directions. If you are critiquing beauty culture in any way, alongside with that is a complete rejection of it. And that's very much not, I'm trying to do like the antithesis of that. The minute you lose that neurosis of, what do they think? What do I look like? Do I look good? Is my bum big in this?

0:39Is my bum too small in this? Whatever. Once you get past that, oh my God. We're well into summer now. And I know that you're likely have been fed some sort of messaging about your summer body or summer skin or some bullshit like that by now. So I wanted to pop into your feed today to share some happy place conversations that I really hope will leave you feeling a little bit more empowered, a little less alone. And with a little bit more self-worth than the rest of the world might want you to have. particularly when it comes to what you look like. So we're going to start with a conversation you won't have heard on the podcast.

1:16It's from our YouTube series, What Is How To? And it's Dr Rob Wilson, who's a cognitive behaviour therapist and chair of the Body Dysmorphic Disorder Foundation. Then it's broadcaster Amanda Decadney and activist Emma De Beery on the reality of the culture we live in, one that overvalues appearance and has somehow managed to equate our bodies with our value. Yep, more bullshit. There's some great stuff about how we can start critiquing beauty standards, but without feeling guilty if we do fancy looking good sometimes too. There are also some deeply personal stories of how things like age, race, disability and weight all intersect with self-worth.

1:58I chatted to Beverly Knight, Jono Lancaster, Adele Roberts and Emily Ratajkowski about the moments they personally saw through the cultural crap and embraced their bodies for themselves.

2:28contracts. Just the right expert, right when you need them. Work smarter and faster with Upwork. Go to Upwork.com now and find your freelance expert. That's U-P-W-O-R-K.com. Post a job for free and get started today. Hi, this is Knox from the Popcast with Knox and Jamie. And maybe like us at the Popcast, you also know people who have been smokers or vapors. And Zen is the one product it seems like everyone is talking about because there are many good reasons to make a change to Zen nicotine pouches. Reasons like Zen nicotine pouches are still America's number one choice for smoke-free, hands-free nicotine satisfaction.

3:02And you can choose between 10 varieties, each variety available in either three or six milligrams. Check out zen.com slash find to find Zen at a store near you. Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. Hey, I'm Dr. Z and I'm a neurosurgeon. So that means long hours, early rounds, late nights and everything in between. And through it all, I wear figs. They're comfortable when it counts and functional when I need them the most. So where do you wear your figs? On shift, on call, on the couch in the break room listening to this podcast, wherever it is, they fit right in.

3:36And now listeners of this podcast can get 15 % off their first order. Just head to wearfigs.com and use code FIGSRX at checkout. That's wearfigs.com, code FIGSRX. all right here we go this is the show

4:13The problem when it's bad can occupy almost all of your waking day and that's very destructive and very unhelpful. We're very keen to try and help people to try and understand with BDD what's going on, kind of how maybe certain processes of checking the mirror, feeling and scrutinizing their body in certain ways, even tuning into maybe how does a certain body part feel and trying to help them to understand how helpful is that to be so body conscious and what's the effect of repeatedly checking on Instagram or on the internet or researching cosmetic procedures. So first of all, we kind of want people to understand how the solution might be the problem.

4:55Because you're trying to fix yourself and improve yourself, but maybe that's increasing your preoccupation and increasing how much time you've been worrying about it, and therefore how much distress you feel about your appearance. So first step is to try and look at those avoidance behaviours, any avoiding social situations or public situations. Look at those rituals of checking and camouflaging, concealing and things. trying to reduce those kind of problematic behaviours. But then we want people to start to engage back into their life, incorporating balance, so that your mind only has 24 hours in the day to spend thinking.

5:29Hopefully some of those will be sleeping. But then what else are you going to be thinking about? If it's not going to be about your appearance, hopefully you can start to focus your attention on hobbies, interests, the causes that you stand for, the kind of member of society you want to be, the kind of person you want to be in your family, furthering your career, connecting with friends, so that you can bring the focus of attention that's been so strongly focused on your appearance and going through a career like yours, you can see how that would really increase that focus on appearance and try to bring that boy to balance.

6:05Without a doubt. I mean, is there an element of exposure therapy that is helpful here? Because if you are avoidant of social situations, which is obviously something quite common in this area, that it is good to push out of your comfort zone and try to do those things that feel almost impossible. Exactly, yes. And that's very much the core of the psychological treatment for problems like body dysmorphic disorder. It's exposure and response prevention. It's facing your fears, but maybe cutting back on how much make-up you apply, how much time you might spend checking the mirror, restyling your hair, changing clothing and those kinds of things.

6:41So cutting those strategies back and at the same time focusing on re-engaging with social situations. And when you're in those social situations also, not just facing your fears, but trying to really engage your mind in the world around you. So rather than feeling so self-conscious, one of the keys is to, we call it interrogating the environment. So you're really trying to get your inner spotlight off you and more into the world around you. I love that. So just looking at basically, oh, there's a tree there, there's a bird flying and just trying to distract yourself from that because it's obsessional when it's bad and I guess this subject interests me massively because I've so been there and felt it and I think your sense of reality starts to really get conflated with this obsession that you've got and mine was certainly around what parts body parts looked like and I felt that certain body parts were just wrong and it didn't help that I was during that you know period of the media where Heat magazine would do a circle and say circle of shame and you were kind of called out for having something wrong with you and yeah I mean it was pretty destructive and I you know I didn't really realize back then how destructive that sort of media was but it certainly had an impact on my mental health and how I felt about myself and it's um it's a tricky one to unpick because you actually totally believe that your thoughts are valid and real that's a tricky thing to unpick Yeah, that's very much, that's a really, really great point.

8:11Because one of the things we have to say to people sometimes is, look, we know that every fibre in your body feels like this is an appearance problem. There's just something wrong with the way you're made, something wrong with how much fat you're carrying, something wrong with the way your face is put together. But you are also, if you look at it, you're spending all this time worrying and checking and maybe researching cosmetic or dermatological procedures, and it isn't really working. So how about, can you just give us a chance, maybe let's see what happens if for like maybe two, three months we treat it as if it's at least largely a psychological problem.

8:51If it doesn't seem to be helping, you can come back to doing your old stuff. But why don't we just test out to work on some of these processes of overthinking and self-focused attention and avoidance and checking and things like that and let's see whether that brings a difference to the situation. Considering you were so out and out bullied back in the day, en masse and publicly, very specifically about your body, have you made peace with your own body? What is your relationship like with your body? Complicated. Yeah. Most of the time I am at peace. And I feel, and I've worked really hard for that.

9:30But the fact remains that culturally women who fit a certain physical curriculum are treated differently. And that is just the facts. When my body is looking a certain way, it is considered more optimal. No matter how much I tell myself, you're optimal at any weight as long as you're healthy. no matter how much I positively reinforce myself and I use all my tools and I do what I need to do to take care of myself and my own perspective on my body, the minute I step out the door, I am treated differently based on how I physically look. And that's just the way it is. That's just the way it is. So no matter how much positive self-talk someone's going to do, unfortunately the world we live in does not adhere to that it does not care it cares about uh you know having the same size boobs that are going not in different directions which mine do it cares about not having a giant fooper which i have because i've had three children including twins and i don't want to live in the gym i want to i don't have time i want to do a bunch of other stuff with my life.

10:51It cares about Botox and filler and the size of your lips and the size of your ass. And it cares about what weight you are. And it cares about what size you can, what size outfit you can fit into. And I can tell you that even when I post things on social media, when I, when I'm less scrappy and I've bothered to put some mascara on or something, people respond to that picture way more they just do they just do fuck I could be posting about women's rights but if I've got lipstick on it's just gonna get more attention yeah I know what the hell and so it is I mean look we just had the met ball that coincided with the absolutely devastating news that the supreme court is apparently allegedly looking to overthrow Roe v.

11:42Wade, which means that women in America in 50 states will at some point, most likely not be able to seek safe abortions. Now, these two events coincided with each other. And it was so interesting because I was thinking, wow, I wonder who's going to continue now. Fine. Post about the outfits at the Met. But I wonder where the focus is going to lie because these two events happen simultaneously. And people started posting news about the Supreme Court over an image of Kim Kardashian, who had let people know that she lost 16 pounds in three weeks to fit into Marilyn Monroe's dress. And so people started using the image of her and she looked great.

12:30But a lot of people are up in arms over the fact that she said she lost 16 pounds in three weeks to fit into a dress. And we know what it takes to lose 16 pounds in three weeks yeah people were posting an image of her with the supreme court news over the top of it which i thought well that's great that exactly genius talk that that highlights this dichotomy that of the world we're living in where yes enough people care about women's rights but we're also dealing with just as much media coverage over this fucking dress so one of the things that i'm really trying to do is first of all identify and then challenge this very binary way we have of seeing the world.

13:11And that binary lends itself to the way we've organized. We see everything kind of through this, through this binary lens. And that's how we've organized reality. And that, you know, is in every, can be seen in everything from man, woman, black, white, perfect, flawed, gay, straight, beautiful, ugly. Everything is kind of seen through this through this binary lens and I think that also lends itself to this kind of extreme idea of it being one or the other when it comes to makeup and that if you are critiquing beauty culture in any way alongside with that is a complete rejection of it and that's very much not I'm trying to do like the antithesis of that so I am you know putting beauty culture under the microscope but I'm doing it from the perspective of somebody that like loves makeup up and loves dressing up and like loves adornment and kind of loves all of those things.

14:06So I think really what I'm trying to do is to tap into all of the ways that those processes of beautification can be joyful and can be liberatory, but at the same time identifying the ways in which beauty culture is also like, you know, oppressive and tyrannical, trying to critique that, but trying to maintain all of the trying to make it more about pleasure than about pain. The interesting thing is whatever way you go with this conversation, say you've really succumbed to the pressures of the beauty standards that exist and you're doing it maybe not for yourself or maybe you're doing it for yourself but you're slapping on the makeup or you've had Botox or whatever it might be or the other extreme end of the spectrum where you've just ditched everything and you're not looking at wearing makeup or doing anything with your hair etc either end are judged it's not like we're just judging people who have ditched this system we're judging people who have succumbed to the pressures of it because I'm I guess the visual of a human is our first experience of them whether that's in real life or on Instagram but certainly in real life before they've spoken before we've got a feel of what they're like energetically or we've understood who they are as a person.

15:24We all do it. We judge people. We go, oh, I've got their number. And it's none of it's right. We need to get beneath all of it. But we're just judging that. It seems to make up such a large sum of who we are still, certainly on that first experience of meeting someone. Yeah, absolutely. And it's often so inaccurate and so misleading, you know, the assumptions that we make about people based on these really kind of like superficial things are often just very misleading. And we're also taught that that tendency is just, you know, it's just kind of human nature and it's just a universal norm that we do judge things and we do judge people on site.

16:13And we make these kind of like immediate assessments of them based on their on their presentation or on their possession or lack of possession of beauty. But in my research, I talk about it in disobedient bodies, but it's something that I had kind of come across years ago. I think when I was teaching African studies at SOAS, that that is actually something that can be attributed to, it has a name and it's ocular centricism. And it comes from a tendency in Western culture to, obviously we have like many different senses. But in Western culture, historically, there has been a tendency to privilege the sense of sight over all of the other senses.

16:58But that is actually something quite specific to Western culture. And it's not necessarily a universal norm. So there are many other cultures that have privileged other senses. and as a result of that would have less tendency to or actually wouldn't assume that they can make a value judgment or have some sort of insight or intimate knowledge of a thing simply or a person simply based on how they look so it is something that's actually quite culturally specific rather than just a kind of human universal norm wow i mean it's so ingrained it's so ingrained We can't even see that. We just assume it's so the norm that you're making some sort of subconscious decision about who this person is from looking at them.

17:46But I find it helpful to know that it is something that we, even though you kind of do it a second nature, it is something that we have been conditioned to do. So I find it really helpful to know that there are other ways of being and thinking, thinking about things, people and reality. So that knowledge, even though I haven't been kind of like socialized in one of those kind of alternative cultures that I'm talking about, knowing that they have existed, knowing that these alternatives exist, helps me kind of like question myself in ways that like I check myself. And I feel like I am so much less judgmental about people's appearances, about other people's appearances than I used to be when I used to kind of just uncritically reproduce what I had been kind of conditioned to do.

18:41Yeah, I think a period of checking myself has just led to where I am now, where it's actually just not something I do as immediately as I used to. Hi, this is Knox from the Popcast with Knox and Jamie. And maybe like us at the Popcast, you also know people who have been smokers or vapers. And Zen is the one product it seems like everyone is talking about. Because there are many good reasons to make a change to Zen nicotine pouches. Reasons like Zen nicotine pouches are still America's number one choice for smoke-free, hands-free nicotine satisfaction. And you can choose between 10 varieties, each variety available in either 3 or 6 milligrams.

19:17Check out zen.com slash find to find Zen at a store near you. Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. The market's uncertain. Revenue's tight and hiring on hold. That's why results-driven companies are using Upwork to keep work moving. Go to Upwork.com today and start hiring proven freelance talent fast. No bulky overhead. No rigid long-term contracts. Just the right expert right when you need them. Work smarter and faster with Upwork. Go to Upwork.com now and find your freelance expert. That's U-P-W-O-R-K.com. Post a job for free and get started today. Hey, I'm Dr.

19:57Z and I'm a neurosurgeon. So that means long hours, early rounds, late nights, and everything in between. And through it all, I wear figs. They're comfortable when it counts and functional when I need them the most. So where do you wear your figs? On shift, on call, on the couch in the break room listening to this podcast? wherever it is, they fit right in. And now listeners of this podcast can get 15 % off their first order. Just head to wearfigs.com and use code FIGSRX at checkout. That's wearfigs.com, code FIGSRX. Okay, we've heard from Rob Wilson, Amanda DeCadne, and Emma DeBerry. Now, Beverly Knight, Jono Lancaster, Adele Roberts, and Emily Ratajkowski.

20:40It's funny because as I've gotten older, I've become more comfortable with me. And I think that's been the key for me. I was confident in my art and in who I was and my music and what I definitely didn't want to do. I don't think I was, in fact, not I don't think, I know I wasn't confident in Beverly, the woman. I hadn't quite figured that whole thing out yet. I think it's only when I met the man who became, you know, my best friend, my soulmate, Tyrone, who sadly passed 20 years ago now, when I met him and he kind of held my hand and kind of guided me through, you know, how to be the person that was inside somewhere, how to be that woman and how to get me comfortable with showing a bit of leg, which I was absolutely terrified of because I thought I look terrible.

21:33and, you know, and not wanting to show certain parts of me because I thought, no, no, no, no, no, then people are going to think I'm dumb. They're not going to take my music seriously. It was him who I really credit with saying, no, you can be as sassy and as sexy as you want and absolutely be that boss and absolutely have people take you seriously. And it really kicked in, I think, after he died in my 30s and definitely in my 40s, I really hit my stride. And so now I feel like I'm in my full power. So now I'm wearing what the hell I want to wear. And I don't care. No, it gets better and better.

22:18I absolutely agree with you. It gets better when you feel more and more like you know what's right for you without the outside noise. And I think it's, you know, it's really complicated for women, whatever your career, it doesn't matter. or even if you don't have a career or a job even, if you're a mum, you're trying to work out how you want the outside world to see you, how you present yourself, sadly, is such a complicated issue because like you've just said, there's the worry that if you dress a certain way, people won't take you seriously. People won't focus on your talent and your voice. And we're still dealing with that today.

22:54That is still very, very prevalent for all women to be able to walk down the street and feel comfortable and safe, but wearing what you want is still very complicated. It's so complicated. I mean, it all feeds into this idea of your worthiness of being listened to, of being appreciated, of being someone who is a leader or, you know, or just really good and competent. What you do is bound up in the outside garments. I mean, you know, whether they be not a lot or, you know, you're covered from head to toe. It's absolutely ridiculous. It's crazy. And yet it still lives in all of our heads. It does.

23:45And it did for me for such a long time. And that has only changed with age. It really has. Thank God. But we need this messaging out there because I think, again, for women, there's all this fear around ageing. Aging. And you're aging. And oh my God, what are you going to do? You're getting older and you're aging. And it's like, wait, this is from the friends that I've got in their 50s, 60s. Sadly, one of my very good friends who was 80 passed away this year. But she was a great friend of mine. And having a friend who's 80 is amazing. Yes. Getting, having intergenerational friendships where you can have the different perspectives of women of all ages is so, so key.

24:20But aging is not something to be feared. No. Aging is something to be, like, it's something to respect. and to feel more and more comfortable, hopefully, in your own skin as you get older. Honestly, I would say that to anyone out there who feels, you know, oh, my God, I'm 30. Oh, my God. 30 is nothing. You're a baby. 30 is, like, amazing. Exactly. You are a baby. Spend less time with your neurosis. Yeah. Bin it. Get rid of it. Work through it quickly. Quick, quick, quick, quick. And get onto the good part of your life. Because honestly, the minute you lose that neurosis of, what do they think?

25:10What do I look like? Do I look good? Is my bum big in this? Is my bum too small in this? Whatever. Once you get past that, oh, my God. That's freedom. It is freedom, honestly. standing on stage in this, well, I had on this outfit. I felt like Superwoman. I had on this outfit where it's like spandex with loads of mesh and the mesh is covering the bits that are supposed to be covered and the rest was, well, it's out. Deal with it. Deal with it. And I stood on that stage and said, yes, I am Super Bev and you are going to hear me sing some notes today, people. So come with me. Heaven. And it just felt great.

26:00It felt great. And this is for people out there who are worried about either people that feel insecure or there's so many people. I was talking to a male friend about this this morning about body dysmorphia, which nearly everybody has on some level. Yeah. And when we look at age, this isn't about changing yourself so you can then accept yourself. It's about accepting yourself right now and feeling free from, as you say, that neurosis. So you can enjoy being who you're being before you get to, oh, but if I just looked like this or did this or improved in your head, whatever. Then everything will be wonderful.

26:38You've got to like yourself now. You've got to. at 21 life was okay but I was still winging it I became obsessed with food obsessed with my body I felt like I needed apps 24 7 and again I was still struggling with attraction and I thought no girl's going to want to date me and if some girl does manage to have the confidence of dating me they're gonna eventually have a conversation oh i'm dating jonno and then the girls are going to be like why are you dating him and then this girl's going to be like oh his face ain't all that but his body's nice and you know what he'll do absolutely anything for me so again i'm like these people pleasing i didn't have any boundaries obsessed with my body i have some beds i used to run in the sauna to dehydrate myself by the time i were in my 20s i developed all these quick fixes coping mechanisms that kind of helped in that moment but for the long term they were absolutely crushing me and they were ruining me found myself working in a gym that had sunbeds that had so that was just feeding my my coping unhealthy coping mechanisms and one night i'd not seen my face not even working in a gym surrounded by mirrors i'd not seen my face in so long and whenever you go to the gym especially if you're working in a gym you'll notice there's weights left everywhere you know people can use the weights but they can't put them back you lazy but it's impossible so anyway 21 year old jonathan had to put the weights back and the weights were always in front of these giant mirrors from the floor to the ceiling and putting the dumbbells away and I look at my trainers I love my trainers and I was like oh I like my trainers looked at my little sparrow legs and I was like I've got a nice set of pins saw my butt and I was like oh I've got a cute butt I just trained chest and I'm wearing like an extra small t-shirt so I was like oh and I'm on a roll at trainers legs bum chest and normally I stop at my shoulders but I accidentally went up and I saw my face by accident and I looked at my face when I was 21 years old and I saw that I had blue eyes and I hadn't seen my blue eyes in so long and I smiled and I was like oh my god I love the colour of my eyes and as I smiled I realised when I smile I have one dim poke at the side and I was like oh my god that's so cool and I just grinning like a Chesuit cat staring at myself in this mirror in this gym just like wow and it was an energy shift I wouldn't say I'd made it but oh my god that was that was a powerful powerful moment in my life so from then on things did start to progress the market's uncertain revenues tied and hiring on hold that's why results driven companies are using Upwork to keep work moving.

29:54Go to Upwork.com today and start hiring proven freelance talent fast. No bulky overhead, no rigid long-term contracts, just the right expert right when you need them. Work smarter and faster with Upwork. Go to Upwork.com now and find your freelance expert. That's U-P-W-O-R-K.com. Post a job for free and get started today. Hi, this is Knox from the Popcast with Knox and Jamie. And maybe like us at the Popcast, you also know people who have been smokers or vapors. And Zen is the one product it seems like everyone is talking about because there are many good reasons to make a change to Zen nicotine pouches.

30:30Reasons like Zen nicotine pouches are still America's number one choice for smoke-free, hands-free nicotine satisfaction. And you can choose between 10 varieties, each variety available in either 3 or 6 milligrams. Check out zen.com slash find to find Zen at a store near you. Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. Hey, I'm Dr. Z and I'm a neurosurgeon. So that means long hours, early rounds, late nights, and everything in between. And through it all, I wear figs. They're comfortable when it counts and functional when I need them the most. So where do you wear your figs?

31:04On shift, on call, on the couch in the break room listening to this podcast, wherever it is, they fit right in. And now listeners of this podcast can get 15 % off their first order. Just head to wearfigs.com and use code FIGSRX at checkout. That's wearfigs.com, code FIGSRX.

31:24I'm not only grateful for having a stoma for saving my life but also it helped me have a better relationship with my body. I feel bad that I've been so down on myself all these years almost not appreciating what I had. I think there's a lot of reasons for that but I think one of the reasons is not really seeing people like me when I was younger on TV and on radio and that's changed now which is brilliant but I always felt odd. I always felt like I didn't look how I should and yeah unfortunately we didn't really have mirrors in our house as well when I was growing up so I didn't really get to see myself and when I did I used to be like I just didn't like myself and having the stoma just made me go it almost helped me disassociate from my body in the sense that I could look at it as this amazing wonderful thing that I'd been given by the universe to keep me alive like I have the privilege of living in this body this body has kept me alive this body has survived cancer and this body now has a piece of my intestine poking out and is still alive is still going and I was like you are amazing and it gave me that the moment I got it I was like I've been foolish all these years look how incredible the human body is do you know what I wouldn't feel too bad about thinking like that for so long because I think we're women and we are we have so little choice it seems sometimes as to how we feel about our own bodies we are bombarded constantly and probably more so back in the day you know you and I we were similar ash age and we went through that whole period of like heat magazine shaming people and you know I was probably in that on that page you know there's I was definitely after big brother yeah I've got it I've got it a lot I had it after having babies and it's just like oh fuck off you know but it's but we were we've always been bombarded with it or even if you go back to sort of like 90s models and the whole aesthetic there and we're still bombarded with it now on instagram and yes there might be slightly more body diversity online but i think there's still this weird pressure that it's meant to mean something more other than what you've just described it as which is this amazing vessel that keeps us alive yeah so i think most of us still really struggle with that and have days which are good days that are bad but some people have every day is a shit day with their body and they don't feel comfortable with it so I think the insight that you now have from the experience you've been through is such a beautiful gift that you know it's bloody hard one and it's not been easy but to now have that comfort in your skin and to know that you have that gratitude for your body that's what amazing progress it's incredible yeah and it's weird seeing my stoma for the first time I almost felt like that's me it's like I could see myself for the first time in my life uh it was emotional and I just thought I'm complete that's how I should look wow with a stoma with a stoma bag which is yeah I never had that on my bingo card for my life you know but I mean and you talk about this the sort of complexities around you know it may get to the point where you have a stoma reversal and that isn't going to be a straightforward thing of you going yay I'm back to how I was before that would feel like a loss to you you know you've named your stoma which I think is a really wonderful way again of coping with the change and having that sort of almost humanizing what it is Audrey we all know and love Audrey that's going to be a loss if Audrey goes absolutely I think a lot of people who get stomas feel the grief of the loss of their old body when they get them like you say for me it'll be the loss of my stoma that will hopefully I've done the internal work now to be able to accept my body when it goes back to how it was I also feel very privileged and lucky that I will have a scar to show where Audrey's been just as a reminder of what I've learned and how far I've come and to appreciate myself.

35:07I had certainly one personal conclusion which was that I'm obsessed with the female body but equally as sort of terrified of it at the same time and that's that's something I've been mulling over a lot and I think it's informed a lot of how I've acted over the years and how I've expressed myself. So say in my 20s, I did what's called over here a lad's mag. So it's basically like you do a sexy shoe, you're wearing like a PVC outfit, and then, you know, men read the magazine. And I've now in my 40s looked back and I've sort of spoken openly and said, oh yeah, I've got, you know, regret about that or I felt shame.

35:49And then after reading your book, I thought, but do I? Or do I just think that I should say that? you know do I actually feel that bothered about having done that and I don't I don't think I do huh that's so interesting yeah I think women get it from both sides it's something that I'm definitely obsessed with this kind of idea of you know you both obviously feel the pressure to you know or this is the world we live in where you are objectified you're sexualized at maybe very young even if you're a woman who's you know done a bunch of amazing journalistic work like there is kind of this push to be also hot and celebrated in that way.

36:28And then on the other side of it, there's this sort of shaming that comes with it of like, well, now nobody's going to take you seriously because, you know, you're a slut quote unquote, or even from feminists, I think that there's this feeling of like, well, now you've, you've played into the male gaze. So therefore you're not progressive. You're not helping women because that's been my experience even before I was a model or in the public spotlight, just, you know, as a 13 year old getting dressed and kind of like having a new body and having a woman's body for the first time and feeling the attention from men when I dressed a certain way.

37:00Also like feeling afraid because of the attention, also feeling validated because of the attention. Then, you know, having teachers snap my bra strap and feeling like I was typecast in a certain way because of, you know, the way I was presenting myself. So it's complicated. And I think it's something we just get it from all sides, really. Yeah. And, you know, is there a conclusion? Because I think that's the question that I kept asking myself when I was reading your book is, but wait, can a woman and I want the answer to be yes as a feminist, but can can a woman show her sexiness? Can she express her sexual desires, dress in an overtly sexy way and be listened to and be taken seriously and be respected?

37:45I don't know if that is true in the day and age that we're in today. Yeah, I don't think it is. I think it's really complicated. I think there are examples of women who've managed it. Jane Fonda is somebody who's done done both. there are examples for sure. I even think like Megan Thee Stallion is somebody who, you know, people respect, but she also, I mean, music is kind of its own category, interestingly, but there are examples. I would even say Cardi B is a great example. I mean, against all odds, she's had to fight and work for it. And she deals with race, which is a whole other factor of people not taking you seriously.

38:22But I think the issue is that, you know, what a lot of feminists would say is like doing something to feel good if it's playing into the male gaze then it's ultimately actually hurtful and harmful to women my issue is like god doesn't kind of everything we do like in some ways play into that um like even just putting on mascara in the morning and making sure that like our skin looks a certain way and um one of the episodes i'm doing the question i'm asking is can you be a feminist and get plastic surgery because i'm just interested in the kind of lines that women draw around what they feel is feminist and is okay and how you know just what kind of shirt you wear on a given day to work or just not even to work just out on the streets in public so you know it's something I'm really fascinated by and I would say that I don't have an answer oh my god do you know what I needed that I really really did all of those conversations had a huge impact on me.

39:21And listening back to that there, we just have to keep reminding ourselves of this stuff again and again, because the messaging out there is strong. I don't think any of us can be expected to have a definitive answer to these huge and messy topics that encompass so many factors about who we are and the world we live in. But I do think we need a reminder to love ourselves. I really do. We're all going to have our own opinions on what beauty even is. So I think the point is that I want us to live in a world where we can all define that for ourselves. And most importantly, like Adele said, that we have gratitude for what our bodies are capable of, not what they look like.

39:59And then, of course, if you want to adorn it with tattoos or piercings or more clothes or fewer clothes or whatever, then absolutely bloody do it because it's a brilliant, fun way of expressing who you feel you are on the inside. If you've realised you've never heard some of the episodes with any of today's guests, you can go back and listen to them fully anytime you want. The links will be in the show notes. Do go back and listen. A massive thanks again to Rob, Amanda, Emma, Jono, Beverly, Adele and Emily, and to the producer Anushka Tate at Happy Play Studios. And to you, you bloody glorious humans.

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