Adulting - #70 Intersectionality with Ione Gamble & Olivia Graham

Episode Date: June 21, 2020

Hey podulters, hope you’re all good! In this week’s episode I speak to Ione Gamble, founding editor-in-chief of Polyesterzine, and Olivia Graham, visual and audio artist based in Liverpool. Together they host the Polyester Podcast. Polyester is a self-published, intersectional feminist arts and culture platform aiming to bridge the gap of URL feminism with the IRL world. We discuss intersectionality, what that actually means, how to not centre yourself as white woman and lots more, I hope you enjoy O xx Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600. Or visit connectsontario.ca. Select games only. Guarantee void if platform or game outages occur. Guarantee requires play by at least one customer until jackpot is awarded. Or 11 p.m. Eastern. Restrictions apply good and that you're not too bored of lockdown. I am semi done with it, but I'm okay. So it's all good. I hope you're okay too. In this week's episode, speak to ioni and olivia ioni has the most similar name to anyone that i've ever interviewed or even met i think before

so that's exciting um they are the hosts of the polyester podcast polyester is a self-published intersectional feminist arts and culture platform that aims to bridge the gap of url feminism with the irl world irl being in real life of course and ioni is the founding editor-in-chief and olivia is a podcast producer and so together they have their own podcast which is fab and i would definitely recommend you listening to it after this episode where we discuss intersectionality intersectional feminism what that actually means how not to center yourself if you're a privileged person or a white woman and loads more I absolutely love this conversation I think you will too

so do enjoy and as always please rate review and subscribe bye hello and welcome to adulting today I am joined by Ione and Olivia. Hi. Hey. How are you both doing? Yeah, I'm good. How are you? Yeah, I'm good. Thank you. I guess we were just saying before that this new week feels like a new week and maybe a bit more hopeful than last week, but still very conscious of everything that's going on. So I guess it's a mixed bag, really. Yeah, totally. So for people who don't know who you are and what you do could you possibly

give us an intro to your work and what you're about and who you are? Yeah so I'm Ione, I am the founding editor-in-chief of Polyester Zine which is a independent intersectional feminist dance and culture platform. We do print which is kind of like our feminist dance and culture platform. We do print, which is kind of like our original thing. That's about once a year. We also have a newsletter, which is subscription based. Obviously, our podcast, the Polyester podcast, which is weekly. And our tagline is have faith in your own bad taste.

And it's kind of all about celebrating who you are celebrating marginalized people and marginalized identities and kind of using the tools and the platform we have to like explore what identity means and like tell stories that have remained untold or sort of in the shadows for the duration of modern history basically so that's polyester um I founded it nearly six years ago keep adding months to things because I'm getting too old to do that um six months ago six months ago six years ago when I was at university um because I was basically like not impressed with the scope of media that I was seeing out there on the side I'm also a freelance journalist also like a bit of curator I basically like you know I'm like all of us I have my fingers

in many pies master no jack of all trades master of none or master of all trades maybe but Olivia do you think I covered everything I'm like yes I am sorry Olivia oh yeah yeah yeah sorry I was muted what about you Olivia could you tell us a little about you you and what you do yeah so I um I came onto the podcast as a freelance producer and editor and then I I guess me and I only just got on so well and so much of what we do and think about was in line so she was like hey do you want to co-host and then it's gone from there really it's only been a year that I've been involved but it feels like a lot longer it feels like polyester is like my friends associate me so much with

polyester and that's kind of how I associate myself as well and so before I was doing the podcast yeah I was like freelance um podcast editor on a lot of podcasts that majorly work with people whose voices are marginalized. So that's something I've always worked with. And then, yeah, like Ione, master of all trades, I write fiction. So I'm a fiction writer and I also play music. I'd say I'm like a bit of a perhaps do some visual maybe more audio artwork and a few years ago I started a project in Liverpool that was to platform women artists or like um women and non-binary people in creative spaces and so yeah the natural progression for that for me seemed like getting involved with things like polyester so yeah amazing I I love

that and actually I'm just trying to remember my boyfriend's reading this book at the minute and he loves non-fiction and it's something about how generalists do much better in this world so like like you're saying I have loads of different strings to my bone do loads of different jobs and I feel like that's quite a new thing it's quite a millennial thing but actually apparently it's a really great thing to be doing in this current climate so it does sound like a long list but apparently it's the most fruitful way to go so well done you guys and also when you're saying I'm glad to hear that that's really great thank you so much so before we go any further can I just check out to pronounce your name I haven't even said it I can't believe it oh my god don't right yeah it's Anoni that's I was just about to say it's so funny

because every time you say Ioni people pronounce my name like that all the time so then I almost think you're talking to me but yeah it's Anoni it's the most similar name I've had on my on my on my podcast um so you're both talking about how you it's really important for you to amplify marginalized voices. And in the conversations we're having at the minute, one thing I struggle with as a white woman is my whiteness wants me to center myself in these conversations a lot. And I think a lot of people find that hard to tackle that idea of making sure that we're being inclusive, but without pushing ourselves into the narrative too much. In your work, is this something that you've struggled with or have you always managed to strike a really good balance between creating a dialogue and making sure that it is, you know, you're definitely not performative, but making sure that the way you're doing it is the right way, if that makes sense? Yeah, totally. I mean,

I think I have always been a person, like growing up before I even knew what any of these issues really were or whatever that and it's probably like a self-confidence thing or whatever I don't know therapy could probably tell me where I've never really centered myself that much like centering myself is something that's quite unnatural to me and something that obviously not learning in the context of social justice but learning in the context of like writing about my experiences as someone with like chronic illness and disability or learning even like uh hosting a podcast that felt very unnatural to me in some ways so for our first season for example I hosted still but we had like a lot of other people do the interviews because I think what I've always admired in like

movements that I've seen growing up and my peers is community and community learning because especially when it comes to feminism or yeah different social justice issues I have been schooled by my peers a lot whether that's on like tumblr or different social media platforms I'm not like uh formally trained or have a formal academic background in these things so So my learning has really come from other people, which I'm so lucky for. And in that respect, I also think it's kind of like my training as a journalist. I mean, I studied fashion journalism, so I wasn't doing the like hard hitting stuff. But I kind of went to university eight years ago. God, I can't even

remember. Eight years ago. And this it was kind of like at the advent of blogging and the advent of kind of Instagram and stuff so we weren't really seeing this big personal brand shift that we have so much now and we were kind of taught to like never center yourself in the middle of the story so I think all of that training has served me well but I also think naturally I just have like my passion comes from platforming other people, whether that is because like, I am a bit self conscious, or whether it's because I just do genuinely find other people so fascinating. Like I love interviewing, I love, I get like my inspiration from seeing other people do amazing things. And then I consider it like, something

that I do really well is being able to like platform those people provide them with things they haven't maybe been like opportunities they maybe haven't been given but I think especially now with what we're seeing in the past couple of weeks um it is very difficult because of the way that Instagram has kind of positioned us all on our personal accounts we have to take like a personal stance to things well that's kind of how we set up our own account so when we're told to like step back it does kind of feel like an unnatural step I think the best way to kind of tackle that is by listening and taking a more community-based approach to it I don't know what do you think Olivia I feel like I just rambled for ages but yeah no no I think that was good and I think that's so something I always like listening to you speak Iona because I'm always like oh yeah that makes sense about you maybe I'm doing the like therapy

thing but I think that that is you're so right about that like community aspect and like bringing in as many people as possible um I suppose that is such a good question Ione because I've been think I've obviously the conversations around where we are now have been so like complex and important and I think that I can recognize my own privilege in being exposed to these conversations like a long time like one of my friends one of my best friends is a woman of color and a few years ago she wrote an article for xxy magazine um called let me remind you of your race and even like then that was at my the point in my life when I would have been like yeah I totally I'm not a racist and I'm I'm active in challenging racism and reading that I was like I think I just didn't realize the extent of what she was going through and I also recognize that it's like a massive privilege for me to know to even be able

to say that and so I think a lot of what is happening now it really really is important to listen because we we really really don't know where everyone else is up to with the conversation and their awareness of it I mean I'm just going to say the name of the writer it's Michelle Halston I'll sense check whether that she's okay the name of the writer. It's Michelle Halston. I'll sense check whether she's okay with it. But yeah, so the writer is Michelle Halston and she's gone on to write for like Galden Magazine on like reverse racism does not exist.

And I just think, yeah, I think as white women, especially because we're so, I think there was a point when you find out about feminism. So this is specific to white feminism. You find out that you're oppressed in one way or another. And so you're so used to fighting that oppression that you can kind of so easily forget that others around you are experiencing more. And I think as a queer woman, I can understand the complexities of that. And I think it's like, I just can't agree more with Ione that it's really just about like, kind of maybe

it's okay to not be like shouting and kicking off all the time and just like listening and collecting your thoughts ready to go again. You both have raised so many interesting points there. And I think I completely agree with you, Olivia, on the idea that we don't know people's awareness. And I'm the same as you in that I feel like I had this awakening, as it were, to racist issues and the problems that we face systemically in society a few years ago. So when these conversations have arised, I did feel slightly more prepared despite having my personal brand, as you pointed out, Ione. But the difficulty is, as you say, the complexity of the conversations we're having right now, I would say are like level 11. It's really difficult. The things that we're sharing and the resources like Rachel Cargill and Leila Saad, when I

first was faced with them and Reni-Edo Lodge's book and things like that, it did take a lot of unlearning and working through these emotions that would come up. So I think it's really hard if that's your first entry level. It's at quite a high level. Ione, I wanted to ask you with the intersection of having a disability and a chronic illness, if you think that that's played into your feeling of whether or not you want to centre yourself, I probably have every privilege available to anyone apart from the fact that I'm a woman. And as you pointed out, Olivia, when you find out about feminism, you're like, oh my God,

I'm oppressed. But actually, as my feminism has evolved, my own personal oppression is just not enough for me to be fighting about about it there's so much more to this intersectionality and as you're a queer woman as well so you both have intersections much more than mine and I wondered if you could speak on how having that double layer of intersection changes your opinion on feminism and perhaps places you differently in in the conversation yeah I think it's like interesting so I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease when I was 19 kind of like a few months into university and that was probably around the same I mean I was big like on not big online like I wasn't popular but um I was online

a lot as a teenager and kind of that was when I first encountered feminism but then when I got ill it kind of started to become more nuanced, as you said, and like more complicated. It's like interesting, because something that I really attribute to my illness is, I mean, it sounds like literally so silly, but like, having so much more empathy than I did before. I mean, obviously, before I was diagnosed, I was like a bratty teenager too. And when you a teenager you think the world centers around you which is like absolutely fine and I also kind of love like teenage brattiness to some extent and also I don't think Gen Z are the same as us in that respect either but you know like I was very much like kind of adhering

to that stereotype and when I got poorly it kind of opened up this world to me of one I had to completely like recalibrate how I thought of my own body and two it made me just feel like such a deeper empathy for the world around me and a longing to kind of understand and break down these oppressive structures in the way that I thought I could which was through like media and uh magazine culture because that's what I was studying and that's what I was interested in growing up and when you grow up for example you can kind of like watch films and read magazines and even if you do look or sound like those people to some respect you can kind of see that it's fucked up sorry if we can't swear okay great you can kind of see that the

representation is totally fucked up but you just accept that you just accept that that's the way it is and I think getting ill and then researching intersectional feminism and speaking to a lot more people and opening my world up in that way kind of let me see no why is it like this we should be changing this because we all deserve to kind of have the representation that we need and also to be like a big thing with polyester is like glamorizing the things that we are perhaps marginalized for because I have not a problem but a slight arc with acceptance like acceptance is kind of like the base level of something you can do in my opinion and what I aim to do through polyester is glamorize these things and make these people that like maybe are fat like I'm fat too or have

a disability they deserve to feel like glamorous and gorgeous and amazing so a lot of what we do through imagery is that work and I know I've completely gone off the question oh how do different intersections align I think it's like all about talking like when I speak to friends for example that are women of color or like other fat friends or like gender non-conforming and trans friends it's like we all know our difference but we can use our difference to work together under shared goals and especially now it's important to think about like amplifying the specific voices that need to be amplified but I I think from a polyester approach or from an intersectional feminism approach or just from like my circle approach, it's like we all use these differences to make each other stronger and to try and understand each other, if that makes sense.

Yeah, that makes complete sense. And I think that you're right about the more you open yourself up to these different stories, the easier it is to empathize. And that's certainly something that I found. And I think as white women, one lazy thing that we do is constantly, especially when it comes to race, is we try to compare everything to sexism. But all of these things are very different. Olivia, I wonder if you could speak on your experiences as a queer woman, because I feel like we've had really great elevations in conversations around LGBTQI issues. The queer community is really coming forward now, especially even with the language of using queer more frequently and it becoming more normalised. But I wonder if you could speak on your experiences a bit more and what you think, how you think the rhetoric is changing and whether or not we're becoming better in our understanding of sexuality and all its complexities.

Yeah, yeah. No worries to talk about that I think um just kind of going off that idea of like the like intersectional feminism and like the intersections of race class gender and sexuality and everything I think that I I had to learn because I am well because I'll date like both men women and non-binary people so because I'll date both men, women and non-binary people. So because I'll date men, women and non-binary people, I think that when I'm in straight relationships, my queer identity is erased. Or when I'm in relationships with women or non-binary people, then my straight identity is erased.

So I think there's like, and I'm straight passing, so I look like as what people would, I don't know, stereotypically think is a straight woman. And so that like there's erasure in that a lot of the time. And so there's, there's, there's subtleties to the kind of, to my experiences of being queer in that. And I think like exploring that, I then, you can't, I just don't think you can explore that without exploring the out and out like experiences of people who do experience just like absolute homophobia that isn't part of an erasure it's part of like a lack of safety because they they aren't straight passing and then so even though for so much of my sexuality I was like oh I feel like I'm being erased there's like privilege

in that there's privilege in being able to pass in a way that you don't walk into a meeting and people immediately discriminate against you and so on and so forth. And I think that that really like opened up to me the like complexities of like everyone's situation. And then I think, I think one thing that I really learned was that what I found difficult with my own experiences of class and my sexuality and my gender is that they were subtle discriminations. And finding out about them, I was like, oh, that's kind of been happening. Subtle to an extent, you know, I've definitely been on the receiving end of like violent um discrimination against my identity but I think that when it comes to race and it's so important to acknowledge is that the and why it's so important for like white feminists to be to be more and do more is that it's not a subtle discrimination

it's not something that you're like is this happening isn't this happening it's much more prevalent in people's lives and they experience racism and so even that is like there's even like huge privileges in just recognizing the differences there and then in terms of the conversation of the lgbtq plus movement in general i think like i in conversation with my queer friends and my friends who are like involved in that movement i'll talk much more about the nuances of that and the perhaps problems internally and then it's like it's the same with everything and it's probably it must be something that we're seeing now but as a white woman I can't comment is that then the conversation with straight people is much more like watered down or a kind of different conversation in general because you're like at one place with your community and then you're at another place explaining it to someone else and I kind of

like don't want to throw shade on my own community but within my community I'm like throwing shade if that makes sense. That makes complete sense and I had another conversation with a friend of mine who's queer as well and she's bi and she was talking about how actually like intra-community there's lots of lesbians who don't want to date bi women and there's all these conversations that I've never had access to before and it's as you said it resonated with what's going on now in that like when you're talking about it um you need constant exposure so the reason why I think this movement is feeling so massive is because we are being constantly exposed and constantly reminded to keep interrogating but unfortunately a lot of the time these

questions these conversations are happening either within communities or in smaller pockets rather than in the mainstream. I wanted to ask you, Ione, with polyesthesine, with your audience, do you find that it's people coming to you who have already perhaps found an interest or belong to these marginalized communities? Or how much of an impact? I imagine you must get some people reaching out to you saying that they feel that they've really had a massive light bulb moment and really open their eyes to this endless world of possibilities especially

when it comes to identity. Yeah I think it's kind of interesting because there is definitely some a lot of people who maybe yeah are at the early stages of learning about these things or maybe you know do apply to some of these intersections but have never seen them represented and so I remember a few years ago I mean it must have been like four years ago now um I was kind of feeling a bit like downtrodden and like feeling like I wasn't really doing enough political heavy lifting with polyester um because obviously as I said I'm not like academically trained and we are political but a lot of the work we do is through imagery and like we obviously have this like femme aesthetic which people depoliticize like at its core which is a problem

in itself and then I remember I got a message from someone being like oh I was just in kind of like a society group at my school and we were looking at the sheet you did and like we were all talking about how much it like changed our perspective on stretch marks like for example and I was like oh actually like this representation and putting forward these images and these stories is a radical act because these are just things that haven't been shown or spoken about before and I think when you exist within these kind of communities you always hold yourself to like a higher stake of accountability which is such a good thing but all the time you also forget like how much learning or how little representation other people are seeing or like

how much normal media people are consuming which means they are still shut off from these conversations so I think with polyester it's really great because we don't like patronize or spoon feed these conversations um obviously I want it to be an educational tool but it's not like educational in and of itself and we don't only cover like every article for example every podcast isn't about like feminism it's like about different emotions or like how different parts of feminism operate or like different parts of like the body positivity movement and always being critical and like our output is not catering to people that aren't in the communities that we're representing but I think if people from outside go and look at

it then there's still like a lot to love there and I think that's kind of our approach and that's what's important yes I completely agree that's really important I think we see this with every intersection that and that was my fault for saying that in that when we come to talk about these topics we want to talk about them in how do I say this in like an analytical way but actually the best way to expose yourself and and normalize because all of these things are so they're treated as though like people in the queer community are minorities or we treat people as though if they're a person of color they're a minority but I said this on another podcast like London's 44% white so it's it's hardly the minority and I think the being exposed to as you said your podcast as well is like really nice just sitting down and chatting and and I think those building bridges with people

of other intersections and recognizing that there is so much more in common than this divide that we see within society I think that's what makes it really powerful. Olivia you touched on class there briefly and it's something which I have been trying to educate myself more I'm because I'm such a I'm so posh and I don't I've never really I've recently in the past couple of years started talking about class because I think it's one of those things that we forget to analyze because it feels really cringe especially in England I feel like we're not that good at discussing the fact that we are a pretty classist society. I wonder if you could elaborate on that a little bit more. Yeah, I think I totally agree that we definitely don't talk about it. I think funnily enough with class, I think that it's an area of like talking about like in the intersections of identity and existence and whatever.

And it's a kind of maybe one area that I have never really spoken about so sometimes I can potentially and I say potentially because it's just it's just a clear example that I don't actually know exactly how I feel about it I could be potentially on the receiving end of experiencing some classism and I don't I'm not really sure because we just don't talk about it and I can't tell and I'm I'm I'm really quite aware I think if I'm experiencing sexism or some kind of homophobia and I think that like as an extension of that I can I hope like I hope I'm getting myself to a place where I'm good at recognizing that in other people who are experiencing discrimination in ways that I don't personally experience it and kind of like be there in that meeting but then when it comes to class I'm like oh I can sometimes just leave situations

and be like was that why why was that and I think I so easily be like is it because I'm a woman is it you know is it this that or the other and yeah, with class, we just don't talk about it enough. So there's kind of, there's not even any like way into a conversation to kind of be like, was that, is that because I'm saying, because I'm talking about it? Like, you know, is that because of the way I'm talking about it? Because of the way I was brought up and the way, like the type of education I was part of and stuff like that. I don't know. I do I think a big part of my explanation of class as well has been like talking with Ione because yeah the media

world is totally different than what I'm used to and also like I never I never moved to London I think a lot of people involved in these like conversations around publishing or media in any way um are are experiencing that but I've always just sort of stayed in Liverpool well I haven't stayed in Liverpool I went to Manchester in Germany which I don't think the disparities of class are the same as for the ex like people's experience of when they moved to London so I don't know if you feel different Ione about whether it's like been much more prevalent in conversations that you've had yeah that's so interesting because I was just thinking like I probably will always attribute any kind of discrimination to class like over my disability or at least that was the case

like a few years ago like when I was first getting into the media or whatever you want to call it um I definitely felt extremely on the back foot like starting a publication as someone from a working class background with like no contacts no family connections or like no pre-existing support network to be able to do that um and it was only when I kind of gained entry to more of these spaces that I realized how much also like disability, fat phobia, obviously racial discrimination, and all of these other discriminations tie into each other and just kind of work in this such vicious way. I think classism is still so prevalent in our media, all across the board, like even some of the more like progressive independent publishers.

We speak about, we spoke about this a lot on the podcast a couple of weeks ago with one of our guests Tom Rasmussen who is like a working class author drag queen and creative about how just kind of if you're working class and then you gain access to spaces you want to like assimilate you kind of like there is the pressure to assimilate. So then you're not discriminated against for it. And I think there's a long way to go in these conversations. But in general, we need to make the media more accepting of these people because the media at the end of the day is like meant to be a mirror to our world. Like we're meant to find out about the world through the news or through our phones. We're meant to be able to find our interest through films or tv or instagram accounts and if there's only a small pool of like rich

people rich and posh people and privileged people dictating this then we're not getting a true representation of what the world is and I think that's where a lot of these like our problems are arising from and it's also going to take like so much heavy work like I think a lot of the conversations um that have kind of cropped up in the last three weeks we all kind of knew this anyway but society is so entrenched in these kind of like especially in Britain like aristocratic white racist upper class people and history and it's like at this point I'm having thoughts like can you actually undo that? Or do you just need to start all over again?

So yeah, that's my opinion on that. FanDuel Casino Daily Jackpots. Guaranteed to hit by 11pm with your chance at the number one feeling, winning. Which beats even the 27th best feeling, saying I do. Who wants this last parachute?

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in publishing and media, there's unpaid internships, which for like 90% of people is impossible because they don't live in London, as you said, Olivia, where a lot of these places are, or obviously people can't afford to not get paid. How are you going to live? So that's like the first rung in the ladder. People can't even get in. But I wanted to read you this tweet that I saw the other day because it infuriated me. And it was by like a massive CEO of a publishing, really famous literary agents. And they were like, it's far too early to make any conclusions about the past week. But maybe there will now be a desire to read new voices and listen to the unheard and buy the books by those up to now have been ignored by the mainstream.

I want to read them. Send them to us. So I quote tweeted and was like, there's always been a desire. It's the people making the decisions about the books and the work that made it inaccessible, not the readers. And I couldn't believe the level of ignorance that this person genuinely was like, oh, maybe people are going to want to read stuff by black people now. That's basically what they were saying. And so you're right. It needs to be upturned from the inside out. Because I read that and I felt so enraged because actually,

it can be really hard to find outlets that are platforming, as you say, marginalized voices and telling these stories. And I really don't think it's from lack of want of the people consuming it. I think it's the fact that those gatekeepers at the top are just that, they're gatekeepers and they're not opening up doors. If you could imagine like a future where we did kind of try to disband this idea of media, do you imagine, because I've been thinking about this a lot as well, do you imagine that we have to just completely scrap those original outlets that already exist? Or do you think that you have to get in there, as you were saying, and kind of change it from the inside out, but then that problem of assimilation happens and then you know it gets really foggy and complicated have is this something you've been giving thought to because I haven't

like like you said it's pretty impossible to imagine yeah I think I mean it's something that I've been like consistently trying to navigate my way through in like the past five years of working in this industry and I think there's like a perceived risk from the powers that be that comes with working with marginalized voices they think it's a risk because they don't have the marketing stats so they don't have the focus groups to back up what you said that these voices are actually like people are yearning to hear these things and they're like desperate for it but because these people just aren't putting in this legwork they do not have the research they need or whatever to justify that spend like for example

like polyester makes like so little money like it's still not my full-time job like Olivia like is not getting paid at the minute and like all of these things we are kind of doing this legwork and doing this for free and that's a huge problem there needs to be like proper funding and proper support in terms of going in and trying to fuck things up from the inside honestly from like my own personal experience I think that's impossible um I held like a staff position at a uh magazine like an independent like title um five years four years four years ago um and I was only there for a few months because like the disability discrimination that I experienced was so awful that I was basically pushed out the company and told if you don't like it go like these people aren't really willing to change in my opinion we might be seeing an actual change in from the last few weeks which I would welcome but these people have

power for a reason and it's because they've clasped onto it with their grubby little paws and like you can walk into an office now of even like the most radical title that is like you know has these reputations and all of the people that will still be like white privately educated there'll be no people of color in the room there'll certainly be no disabled or fat people in the room and how do you undo that like I think truly we need to start funding alternative publications properly and alternative voices properly because we're seeing now with like I mean I don't know if I've just seen this because I obviously follow a lot of fellow journalists on Twitter people calling out the real big dogs like Honda Nast and like all of these other huge titles

for paying their like black and people of color staff so much less and that is so true across the board I mean obviously I don't have experience being a person of color but like as a disabled writer I know that I've been paid far less and like lost opportunities because of that and at the same time these publications always want us to write about our trauma and write about our identities and like the amount of times I've been told, like, oh, write a piece about your fatness, write a piece about your crone. And I think that's what also put me off centering myself in these conversations a lot of the time because the media was so tokenistic about its approach to these things. So we really need to interrogate from the inside out, like not just are we going to tell these stories, but how are we going to tell them? How are we going to do them justice and who are we giving the power to so I don't feel hopeful

that we can have change from the inside at the moment but I would love to be proved wrong is basically what I'm saying yeah I to be honest with you I uh I totally agree with Ione I'm like I think one thing that I'm learning because both Ione of course are involved in like conversations with media and for me like brands in particular that I've worked with freelance or whatever and um I think the it's just so important what Ione's saying about how if you if part of your identity is marginalized then people want to kind of they want you they want to explore and to be honest people want to kind of, they want you, they want to explore. And to be honest, they want to exploit that. And then,

but then that's all you're worth. And when you're dealing with any way that having a part of an identity that's like questioned by society for whatever reason, and then you're exploited for it. It's so, it's so conflicting. And I think when we think about even like independent publications like yeah like I only was saying like I know that like there's a much more mainstream conversation about like um lgbtqi plus um movements and you know the the resurgence of the use of the word queer and so on but then the reality is there's a hype around that now but it's just it's not been forever and it probably won't be forever but there is a hype around it and just from my perspectives as a queer woman like I can be in these kind of like what would be seen as like creative liberal kind of like really political spaces and it's it and say if

I'm in them with uh like I've been in them in with my with a partner in same-sex relationship and you're you're so hyped in that environment you're getting like oh my god you're such people just straight people in particular like reacting to your relationship in a way that they just absolutely wouldn't do to a straight relationship they're going like above and beyond to to tell you that you're valid and, but not just valid, like interesting and cool and so brave and so whatever. And I've been at like functions or offices or wherever, events where this has happened. And then the disparity then is that like you leave that space and you go outside and you

experience like the other end of like homophobia of people like saying shit to you in the street like I've experienced a lot in same-sex relationships with women and we're both femme and people like expecting that your relationship is a performance for straight men or like like wanting to be forceful for that to happen and so I'm like these spaces either erase you like totally discriminate against you or like all of a sudden for some reason you're a hype and it's kind of still it's still adding to that kind of conflict of your personality and that's like like so disorientating as a person and then I think I've noticed it so much more now with the conversation around race and you know trying to

carry on these conversations that a lot of people have been having for longer than two weeks and how I think I understand there's so much dialogue around the cynicism of white people getting involved in race conversations now because it's I can totally relate to that feeling of like when something is a hype it's like it's not it's not enough to just all of a sudden want to shine a light on something and you've got to think about the conflict of what that does and how that like so so reduces a person like so many people of colour and black people in particular now are being reduced to their race because people now all of a sudden are interested in them when they've been ignored this whole time um and then again it's like people who are now getting involved and are like

staunchly coming into these conversations being like i feel so important that i i'm anti-racist and they're trying to move so fast that all these nuances of racism are just being acted out again and again and again but because it looks like anti-racism it's people white people aren't don't think it's racism in a similar way definitely not in the same way that I can say for my own experiences when people think they're being active in platforming queer voices and it's still defo just contributing to like you are different you you have something to offer that's kind of interesting now but it'll go back to being not interesting again and you're kind of as someone involved in these spaces trying to like

navigate that and it's I know I've just gone on a massive ramp but it's so intense that wasn't around at all I actually think that was a really insightful kind of critical analysis of the difference between performance and allyship and I completely agree with what you're saying that it must feel completely voyeuristic when people kind of want to pry into you and they treat you almost like you're something not even necessarily are still so common, which is why I think the one thread of conversation which has been really prevalent, I think is really important, is this self-interrogation part. I think that white feminism, if that's the kind of feminism that people subscribe to and haven't looked into intersectionality, the reason it's dangerous is it takes no personal interrogation into your own complicity in the patriarchy and the structure of capitalism and all these other structures that marginalize other people of different

intersections. And so white feminism is, you know, just fighting for white women who have the same issues with sexism, definitely. But then that almost, I guess, makes people feel like they are then excluded from the narrative of needing to do the work. And actually, white women, we are massive perpetrators of all the other types of marginalization that exist. And what I hope happens, and maybe not for everyone, but certainly for like a bigger portion of people than were engaged before, is that that moment of listening, as you said, Ione, and that introspection of actually where am I causing issues? Because as you said, if you went into a work environment and they were really interested in you and they thought you were great, that means nothing if they're not going home and

sitting at their dinner table with their family members or educating their children on these issues in order to make sure that it's more than just that performance side. I wondered actually, because we've been talking about intersectionality a lot and I've realised that we haven't really defined it I guess people listen to podcasts probably know what it means but I wonder if either of you could give a really wholesome definition of the difference between white feminism and intersectionality because bridging that gap for me and and doing that was really revolutionary in my own learning and unlearning yeah I'm just trying to collect my thoughts Olivia if you have a better definition then go for it. I mean for me I think I see

intersectional feminism as kind of yeah you take like a 360 approach to looking at the world and the ways in which all of these intricacies of our identities and all of our differences feed into yeah for example patriarchy and how basically feminism isn't feminism without the voices of like trans women of black women of women of color of non-binary people um it's not just about your singular experience as a woman and I would say that like obviously intersectional is a term that is needed sadly to make a distinction from white feminism which you like summarized really really well but these are kind of approaches that we should be aiming to try and incorporate into our thinking as much as we can like not centering yourselves in the conversation as you said taking more of a rounded approach to how we look at the world

and how you know change for white women only or change for like a more privileged group that is still oppressed only is not true radical equality and that is what we need at the moment I think that's how I'd summarize it but I feel like I've just completely like after that Olivia what do you think yeah no I totally agree I think it's about acknowledging all the different facets of oppression and how the yeah essentially I was going to like try and add to it as if you missed something but I don't think you did so let's just be chatting I think that what you said was perfect I guess that the next level of interrogation comes from it has to be active and looking at things like polyestesine and listening to your podcast and the other podcast that you produce as well Olivia because you were saying as well that you

obviously look to work with podcasts that are having these conversations with people who are marginalized I think that's sometimes a laziness that in this millennial generation actually maybe we're not it's not us that are that bad but it's that realization that you can't be passive in this you can't just hope for these things to come to you because they aren't platformed by mainstream media it does take that little bit of agency and autonomy to be like right I am going to go out and I'm going to figure out how I can one, educate myself, but also just familiarize myself. It shouldn't always be that voyeurism that you spoke of. And I think that's a really interesting point. I have the same thing with lots of black creators and black influencers who are my friends who have been really frustrated the past couple of weeks because I've even been sharing their stuff, but then people's attitudes

towards them has been that very thing of like, great, you're black. Okay, so tell me what it's like to be black. And they're like, no, I'm black, but this isn't what I talk about. I talk about sobriety or I talk about fashion. And that minimizing idea of putting someone down to their identity is really problematic and difficult. Sorry that this has been such an intense chat. I'm going to try and lighten it up a bit I wanted to talk to me about your podcast because I know that you've got two different streams you have the sleepover and then obsessions and I wonder if you could talk to me

about that what your ideas were for it and and how it's going I was listening to your latest one about gossip earlier and I loved it and I love gossiping so that was a really great one no totally and I think it's also like kind of important to you know no one's going to kind of wake up to an intersectional mindset overnight and I think a lot of this work goes back to what we're saying about like centering yourself as well like it's totally okay in my opinion in these times to be doing the work you need to do as you said not everyone can jump in on like the level 11 of these very like heavy books and it's great that we have social media to be able

to introduce people to these subjects but it's about you know once you've kind of got your head around that go further and go further and go further and the depth of your learning will increase through that and I think that's just a very important thing we can all focus on like how we can learn on our own time and yeah obviously not put the responsibility of labor onto the people that should really not be taking it on but yeah over to the podcast I mean so we started the podcast I mean me and Olivia started working together about a year ago now so that was probably like the proper proper kickoff um we have the obsessions episodes which kind of like came out of a frustration of a lot of the things we were just talking about kind of just being like marginalized into your own

marginalized identity like people only seeing who you were for what you were marginalized for I was kind of sick of reading like interviews with people and also being interviewed myself or as I already mentioned being asked to write articles like oh how did you make it here like how have you managed to overcome all of these things and still be successful like it not only felt tokenistic it felt a bit like patronizing in the end like oh you've made it where other people can't how why and obviously it's so useful for us to all share these stories because we need to have like open conversations but I was also like these conversations have been had so what can polyester do something that our audience love is like being able to learn about people that aren't traditionally platformed in the media not just on basis of their identity but also

for example like the people that are taking the photos of the talent in magazines our audience are interested in those photographers and like what their lives are why they do what they do and their motivations so I thought it'd be really fun to kind of talk to different creative every other week about something they're obsessed with that is not their job so we've had like a real breadth of things we had like Travis Alabanza talk about how much they love lists and obviously they're a great like playwright and artist and so political and amazing but like having this conversation with them about lists was just like hilarious and we've had God Olivia who have we have we already mentioned Tom Rasmussen who

spoke about their love of northern women which is also great. We've had like Polly Knorr on too, who's the illustrator who draws like the devils to talk about her vintage matchbox collection. It's all of these things that obviously build up who we are as people. I'm obsessed with obsession. And so is Olivia. Like I get obsessed with things so easily. I spent my teenagehood obsessed with things. That's why I started polyester because I was like obsessed with this artistic movement I was seeing coming out of fourth wave feminism so we started obsessions to really just get to know the people that we admired on a deeper level Olivia do you want to explain sleepover club yeah totally I also just want to before we move on from obsessions just just reiterate how obsessed I am with the concept of obsession.

Like I absolutely love it. And it's funny what we were saying at the start when you were like, I know anyway, when you were like, if there's anything that you say that you want to take out, that's fine.

There's been so many obsessions where I've been like, hey, I'm obsessed with this, blah, blah, blah. And then been like, okay, I'm not going to put that in the podcast because it's strange. But yeah, so love the obsession.

And then the sleepover club was because we finished the season last year and I think the last time we like physically saw each other was well it was like about a week before I think the country started to go into lockdown and which is mad to think that I was just like on this train to like I went to London to do a live event and we were like yeah it kind of a bit strange, but I don't know what's going to happen. And I think at that point we were like, we kind of just want to do something, um, that maybe isn't like a huge project. I only had started, well, polyester had started the newsletter. And so we wanted to, we knew that we wanted to start something up again. And then when we did go into lockdown, we were kind of like, we want to assimilate some nurture that's missing, um,

around still experiencing the still like, you know, we've still got access to media. We still exist. So we still want to like challenge these things, but we also still want to be able to provide that like comfort around the conversations and things. so that's why the sleepover club came in because it was kind of like I think a lot of what we end up chatting

um like between Ione and I and the whole polyester community and our own communities is like Ione said a lot on the podcast especially around self-care is like we have these conversations we support each other and then like do they go any further and if they do like how is it executed and we kind of wanted it to be executed in a way that was still that kind of like just chatting with you basically just chatting shit about stuff i think i only described it as one so yeah that's the sleepover club and then every episode we do we get a recommendation from a creative for like three things to help get you through lockdown and even that like I only was saying like that is an aspect of like it's just learning more about a person because of what they're interested in as opposed to being like can you be really raw about

your experiences of being marginalized like it's nice to just know what people are doing with their time and and why and stuff. Yeah, I completely agree. And I think that one of the weird things, especially being like a front-facing person online, and I'm sure that every woman feels like this, is the minute that you talk about something, like coming even more broader than talking about the way that you've been marginalized, but that's all anyone wants you to talk about.

And I initially, weirdly, started out as a fitness influencer, which is a weird segue into what I do now. And I fucking hated it because everyone just thought my only interest in the world was fitness and I didn't actually care that much I just started posting about it and everyone was like engaging with it so I'll keep talking about this and I think as women we often aren't allowed the freedom just to be silly because we have to spend so long like kind of fighting to be like heard and seen obviously I don't anyway know as much as a as a white very privileged woman um but I definitely felt that like at the start of my career that in order for people to take me seriously I had to take myself like super seriously and take everything like really

professionally and be really and I felt like I didn't have the room just to be like I'm not a girl but you know the girl inside you just wants a bloody chat and like chill I felt like that was kind of you kind of spend so long trying to get away from this girlish idea of like oh you're just a young woman and then finally you're like I want that back so I think that's the that's the really lovely hole that you're filling with this podcast is you're allowing that space of people just to also live and talk about stuff which I don't think is any less meaningful in fact it's like literally what is important really when you think about what you talk about with your friends and stuff so I I think it's I think it's really, really lovely.

I don't know if you'd agree if I've just butchered if that is what you think the podcast does. No, totally. And I think it's so important. Like, for example, you mentioned the gossip episode and me and Olivia were saying in that episode, kind of like how we do really construct our worldview based on these conversations that we have with our friends. And obviously you can like, that can be good and bad depending on what your friends are like. But I think it's such an important thing to like just normalize the fact that, you know, chat doesn't have to be intellectualized so much, like to trust, obviously to always be learning, but to trust our feelings and to like use our feelings as ways to suss out

what we want the world to be how we want to you know progress in everything and that you don't have to kind of be this like very front-facing professional person and it's so true especially with the internet like what you said the internet doesn't really leave much room for nuance in a lot of ways especially when it comes to if you're building a career or building whatever because you need to be marketable in that specific way like you mentioned about fitness for example it's just so unrealistic and also just so boring like we want we need to be able to chat and recognize the full breadth of someone's world even to like be a fan of them for example it's easy to compartmentalize people because then you know oh if you want that you can look there if you want that you can look

there but that's not what the world is like I suppose I don't know it's so like flattening to feel like we can and I think this has been exacerbated by Instagram and social media like on the one hand I think our generation are really trying to dismantle labeling especially around like gender and sexuality and we're trying to dismantle labeling, especially around gender and sexuality. And we're trying to break down these paradigms of beauty. But then on the other hand, we have this internet which wants us to fit into hashtags and specific ideals. And so I think there's a big tug of war there where we both are complicit in this new way of communicating, but also personally feel like we want to be freed from these like old fashioned constraints that make us feel a bit suffocated. I've literally

loved chatting to you guys so much. It's been like one of my fave convos. So thank you so much for joining me. Is there anything else that you would like to mention or like to point people in the direction of that we haven't spoken about yet? No, thanks so much us yeah definitely our podcast you can just search the polyester podcast we also have a newsletter which is subscription based so we can stay afloat and I think like a lot of magazines that are independent I'm going to move towards these models now especially like with the whole you know global pandemic that's going on and the advertising budgets have gone out the window so I think just like I would urge people to support the things they want to see whether that's us or whether that's someone else and to just I don't know that's it don't have anything big and philosophical to end with

what about you Olivia? I think that's big and philosophical I also don't have anything big and or philosophical to end with but yeah thanks for having us it's been lovely thank you so much yeah me too I'm sat on my bed in my pajamas oh stunning i actually put makeup on for the first time in uh and i only tell you because we record weekly and i categorically never have anything on except maybe a red lip yeah i was saying before you came on i was like oh she's probably just putting her red lip on oh that's so fun well thank you I'm sad I didn't see it but um I'll go stalk your Instagram later thank you so much and as you said everyone go vote with your wallet and definitely um have a subscription to polyesterzine I've absolutely loved chatting to you I. I'm going to go listen to more of your podcast today.

So yeah, thank you so much for being a part of adulting and I will see everyone next week. Bye. We'll be right back. Enjoy the number one feeling, winning, in an exciting live dealer studio, exclusively on FanDuel Casino, where winning is undefeated. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly.