Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S4 Ep7: Bookshelfie: Jameela Jamil

Episode Date: December 2, 2021

Actor, presenter and advocate Jameela Jamil tells Zawe why we need to own the narrative around women’s bodies.   Jameela started out on T4 in 2009, before becoming the first solo female presenter of the Radio 1 Chart show. But it was her move to the States in 2016 which really propelled her into the international spotlight. Taking on acting for the first time, she landed a role in the NBC series The Good Place, she’s appeared in numerous films and TV shows and has recently been cast by Marvel. All the while being an honest, raw and outspoken voice on social media. She’s not afraid to call out the beauty, fashion or media industries for their unrealistic expectations of women, she’s publicly criticised various celebrities for the impact their words and actions can have on their fans, she’s campaigned to get social media platforms to better protect teenagers and her instagram feed and podcast I Weigh have become a movement to encourage everyone to feel good about their bodies.    Jameela’s book choices are:  ** Hunger: A Memoir of my Body  by Roxanne Gay ** Period Power by Maisie Hill ** The Transgender Issue by Shon Faye ** The Vagina Bible by Dr Jennifer Gunter ** Everything’s Trash but it’s OK by Phoebe Robinson   Zawe Ashton, acclaimed actress, director, playwright and author, hosts Season Four of the chart-topping Women’s Prize for Fiction Podcast. The new Women’s Prize Podcast season continues to celebrate the best fiction written by women, by interviewing inspirational women about the books that have most influenced their life and career.   Make sure you listen and subscribe now, you definitely don’t want to miss the rest of Season Four.   This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Star Wars Andor, streaming exclusively on Disney Plus. Cassian Ander, Empire is choking us. I need all the heroes I can get. From the creators of Rogue One. There is an organized rebel effort. Get a hunt started. Witness the beginning. This is what revolution looks like.

Of rebellion. I'm tired of losing. Wouldn't you rather give it all up to something real? Star Wars Andor, original series streaming September 21st, exclusively on Disney Plus. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's Apply. How's your vagina doing, Jamila?

Much better for having read this book. I feel like that should be a question. I actually held it between my legs and let her read it with me, you know, so we could learn at the same time. With thanks to Bailey's, this is the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast. Celebrating women's writing, sharing our creativity, our voices and our perspectives, all while championing the very best fiction written by women around the world. Hello, I'm Zawi Ashton and I'm your brand new presenter for season four of the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast. The podcast that speaks to women with lives as inspiring as any good fiction to share the five books by women that have shaped them.

My guest today has so many talents. She is an incredible actor. She is a presenter, an advocate, an all-round smart funny woman. It's Jamila Jamil. Jamila started out on T4 in 2009 before becoming the first solo female presenter of the Radio One chart show. But it was her move over to the States in 2016, which really propelled her into the international spotlight. She was taking on acting for the very first time in the brilliant NBC series, The Good Place, and smashed it out of the park. She is a raw, outspoken, honest voice.

She is a wonderful friend, someone who supported me. so much at the beginning of my own career. She has her absolutely brilliant podcast, I-Way and Instagram feed. She's someone who's created a movement that is really encouraging everyone to feel so good about themselves and live in their most authentic spaces. So it's my pleasure to bring you with many warnings about bad language, naturally, the very brilliant Jamila Jamil. It's worth letting you know that the following conversation does include references to sexual assault and violence. You're in L.A. and it's about 12.30. I'm in London and it's 8.30. You look, feel and are vibrating on a very L.A. afternoon frequency.

Am I? Yes. You're wearing, you are wearing a wonderful, sparkly, sequin jacket, which I feel like I've met you've. for like coffee or lunch or something before. All right. So then full disclosure, I just worked out, which is why I was a little bit late today. And I'm still wearing all the clothes I was working out in. And I didn't have time to get fucking changed or shower.

So I put on some eyeliner and some lipstick and a sequin jacket to overcompensate for the fact that I, I fucking stink. I feel like the seat, the sequin jacket is one of those items of clothes that can. and we should look out for these sort of signs more and more, I think. Can signal a nervous breakdown? Yes, 100% that's where I'm at. Yeah, it's just my, it's like, it's my Elton, you know, my inner Elton.

Yeah. My inner Liberace, my Barry Manilow. You know, they are in me. And when I'm particularly stressed, they seep out. Yeah. I actually, Jam Jam was looking up, adjectives. to try and describe you today because you're so many things.

Okay, you're an activist first and I love that you say you're an activist before an actress even though you're wonderfully talented actress. I've stopped saying activist. I'm saying advocate. I start saying advocate because actually I think maybe. I don't think maybe, I think definitely.

Us privileged people and actresses and actors and yeah, just a bunch of people who are so well protected and, well insulated. I don't know if we deserve the title of activist, however hard we may go, because we are not grassroots.

We're not on the ground risking our lives, taking rubber bullets and tear gas. I feel as though we need to be very careful that we don't continue to just take up way too much space in the activism section and then kind of step over the people who are actually risking their fucking lives. I'm tweeting aggressive things, I'm going and speaking in Congress,

and I have security with me when I go and do that. I'm very aware of the fact that the circumstances in which I'm doing it are different to most other lifelong activists. So I say advocate. But yeah, I'm an advocate first and everything else afterwards. This is why I love you as a person and why I deeply respect you as a public figure. is because you are constantly pressing refresh on yourself. And not many people do that.

And I love the term feminist in development that you've also used. Feminist in progress. In progress, sorry, in development. I'm using the clearly the LA terms. You're using the much more educated, like, eloquent version of it. It is something that is supposed to change. And it's a river that is supposed to flow. Being an advocate, being an activist, being someone who's standing up for issues outside of our, like you said, very blanketed world in the arts.

Because the stances that you've taken on, I'm just going to sort of underplay them, tricky social issues, has been really exemplary. And this refresh button that you constantly press on yourself to move with the vital, uh, moments that are occurring in different issues, I think shows someone who is incorruptible, who is not going to lean into any outside toxicity. And I know that's not easy, Jamila. No, it's not. And I'm walking quite a fine line here. And I'm also trying to kind of tread new ground as a public figure who is open about

their mistakes and who doesn't you know especially as a woman when you make a mistake you're encouraged just to fuck off and disappear and kind of almost cancel yourself you know like we see that repeatedly in history like the public or the media or whatever like the school turns on the woman the woman removes herself and I have made a point of not removing myself even when I really really want to because I think it's very important that you know I didn't see women coming back from mistakes or women learning in public or women growing in public. I didn't really get to see women grow. They were either presented to me as perfect until they were ultimately dragged down to the ground

through the gutter by their pubs. Or I didn't see women say anything at all, you know? I just saw women say whatever, you know, either be, you know, pretty and silent or say whatever it was that the patriarchy wanted them to say. And so I thought it was important for me to be, you know, as flawed as I really, am in front of people to show my progress in real time, show my workings out. Remember like at maths, you know, in math school, not in math school, but in school, in math, you know, if you wouldn't, you wouldn't get the full mark if you didn't show your workings out. If you arrived at the perfect

answer, it didn't matter unless you showed your workings out. And I really feel that way that that's my responsibility to advocate to be like, all right, I'm uneducated. I'm a fuck up. I am very mentally ill, on and off in different, you know, on a spectrum of mental illness. it gets worse and it gets better sometimes. I'm not super well read, which is why I don't know why you had me on this podcast. And, you know, and I have a tremendous amount of ignorance,

and that doesn't discourage me from wanting to be better, wanting to learn, wanting to do better. We don't have a lot of encouragement towards progress. We devalue progress in this current day and age. And that's why I have my podcast I weigh to try and learn publicly in front of other people rather than like preach to people from some sort of soapbox

pretending that I am omniscient. I'm not, I don't know shit about fuck, but I am trying and I'm learning and I think we need to make trying and learning cool because otherwise no one's going to try and no one's going to learn anything soon because we've created such an untenably unwelcoming space. You know, that's that expression

that the left are just looking for traitors and not converts. And I really feel like that's a palpable feeling currently. And so we need to be more welcoming and we need to see more women accepting each other's mistakes and mostly accepting their own mistakes and understanding that our best learning comes from when we make mistakes. That's when our neurologically,

we are most impacted by new information. And so, you know, I'm not saying you should be callous. I'm certainly not callous. And a lot of people say that I'm a white feminist for saying that I'm learning. But there's so many different things to learn about that I don't understand that thinking. I think it's really mortifying when people say that sort of thing publicly

because we are always learning. There's always more to learn about. And if you care about multiple different subjects, then you will always need to update yourself. And I think a lot of social justice work and activism has kind of been dragged into academia. And that's great because then it was studied in more depth. But also it means that most of us got left out. And we don't know all of the terminology

and a lot of people don't know what cognitive dissonance is and all the kind of different terminology that gets used constantly now around really basic issues of just like humanity and equality. We've made it much more complicated that it needs to be and we've set the bar really high and kind of turned it into like a Soho House membership. You know, like you have to be some sort of elite

to be allowed into social justice. What kind of luxury do we think we're in that we can pick and choose who helps right now? We all need to, we need everyone to scrap in. It doesn't matter necessarily about their past if they haven't done irrevocable harm. Doesn't matter if someone's annoying. It doesn't matter if someone said something shitty on Twitter 10 years ago

and they have not demonstrated that same behavior in the last 10 years. Take the help we can get. Do we think we're winning? Do we think things are going well? And so I'm just trying to be, that's why I call myself a feminist in progress. It's why I learn publicly. And it's why I won't fuck off even though I probably should.

I wonder when you say, I'm not very well read, which I just don't think is true, because I think if you've read one book, then that's well read enough. But why I invite people onto this podcast and people like you specifically onto this podcast that I'm guest hosting is because it really is about exploring the stories that we are told about ourselves and the stories we tell ourselves and how the narratives of our lives navigate so much of our experience. And I wonder if actual books,

like what role have books played in your life, but more importantly, what role have stories played in your life? When you first asked me to come into this podcast, I practically said no, because you were asking me about literature and literature is not actually something that I have read very much of in my entire life.

and I think part of that comes down to the fact that I'm not a terribly creative person according to me and I don't have a great imagination. Like the things that I watch are mostly based on true stories rather than anything in the fantasy world. I think Marvel is probably one of the only places that my imagination can somehow take hold and now being in Marvel after a life of living not a terribly imaginary fueled existence feels fun and discombobulating. But in my life, I haven't really read many fictional stories. I tend to find fact and true stories or the literal moments of humanity, much scarier, much more fantastical, much more beautiful than anything my mind could ever conjure up. And it's something I wish I could do, but I already have such a short attention span that the times in which I can focus to read,

I try and just ingest as much information as I can. So I've brought five books that are non-fiction-based to this podcast. I love that you've brought a completely new texture to this series because you have chosen books that are non-fiction. And so many of them are kind of manifestos. And each one is extremely potent and powerful in their own ways. And I think we should just jump straight in. because they're all kind of in dialogue with each other,

so I feel like we can just flow really easily between them all. Your first book choice is Hunger, a memoir of My Body by Roxanne Gay. Roxanne is just such a sensational person. I'm so glad that someone has finally chosen one of her books. She rose to fame as an internet diarist on Tumblr, taking full advantage of the emerging platform. In 2012, she posted feminism,

brackets, plural, a short manifesto that became the introduction of her blockbuster, 2014 essay collection Bad Feminist, in which she explores the contradictions that being part of the movement can bring with it. She is now an author and New York Times columnist with a huge readership. She's also the first black woman to write for Marvel Comics. Did you know that about Roxanne? No, I didn't know that. Yes.

Yes. Groundbreaking. The two of you are meant. to be, or two Marvel sisters. This is her critically acclaimed, deeply personal memoir in which she writes with radical candor about a rape she survived at the age of 12, her complex relationship to food, fat phobia, and the struggles that come with having both a public and private identity. I mean, knowing you, as I know you, I don't really need to ask what you loved about this book,

but tell me why this book resonated with you. I'm so drawn to transparency. I think it's something I didn't grow up around necessarily amongst the people I grew up with. And I think that's partly cultural. People hide their feelings in South Asian cultures and they just swallow their sadness, swallow their age, especially the women. And so whenever I see a woman just laying it all bare, I, um, I just feel very inspired and emboldened and humbled.

And I think, you know, from bad feminists has such a massive impact on me. And it was one of the first times I really felt seen in this space as I kind of, I think I was entering the space of feminism around the time that that book came out and struggling with my own hypocrisies. But the reason I chose hunger is because that book had such a huge impact on me and so many women I know. And not just in the fact that Roxanne talks so openly about the heinous thing that happened to her as such a young child regarding the sexual assault, but the nuanced impact that had on her relationship to her body and the fact that no one really talks about that. No one talked about that very much before Roxanne about the ways that trauma can play out physically on your body, not just inside of your body, not just inside your mind.

and the ways in which you try to eat to kind of build a fortress around yourself or you are trying to literally physically push down your feelings with food, all things that I can relate to. I struggled with sexual abuse in my life and different types of abuse and food was a huge coping mechanism for me. And that had never been explained to me as something I was doing to survive to be able to control my life. I was always just told I was lazy and greedy and bad and stupid

and I never had anyone to turn to and no book, no magazine, anywhere that was saying that maybe you are stuffing yourself to the point of discomfort because you're trying to process something that your mind just isn't ready for because you were just too young. And so this book has such a remarkable impact on me. And finally, I mean the way that she talked about, talks, it's just, I mean, she, she makes you never want to open your mouth again because she perfectly words everything that you've always wanted to say and she does it concisely and beautifully

and unpretentiously. She's such an unpretentious writer. And so the nakedness of this book, as well as everything she then goes on to explain about the way that we treat people in bigger bodies, the way that she feels about herself, you know, her journey with weight loss and weight gain. and what that's meant for her. It's just so remarkable. That is my dog in the background, sorry. He loves Roxanne Gay. Just bigging her up.

That's one of the biggest advocates in the background. It's so true what you're saying about the really unexplored country of trauma and its impact on the body and how it keeps, your body does keep the score. And unresolved grief, resolved. deciding in anyone's system is going to be something that subconsciously is driving so much of their behaviour, food aside, right? Oh, totally. I would oscillate between trying to make, I was so torn, like we think so often of eating disorders.

And eating disorders are not just under-eating, they can also be quote-unquote over-eating, but we think of them as a vanity thing or a not caring, not having enough vanity according to society. And really it's often neither of those things. It's often an emotional and psychological trauma or illness. Like it's a disease eating disorders. Anorexia is the highest cause of death in any mental illness. These aren't things that people know about or take seriously. And, you know, I would oscillate between wanting to make my body bigger and less attractive

because I knew that society had told me that a bigger body isn't attractive, especially back in the 90s, you know, when it was heroin chic. and so I would want my body to be bigger so that no one would look at me in a sexual way and then other times I would panic and then realize that I was invisible in society and being bullied because of that big body and then I would go and starve myself

and starve myself and starve myself until my period stopped and so I've had such a long and boring and sad and traumatic and wasteful relationship with my body for 20 years and didn't really understand it until the conversation that Roxanne kicked off. Wow. And I now look at the stuffing myself to the point where I can't breathe.

So I was literally on the phone, on Skype with my boyfriend at the time, having stuffed myself to the point where I could only talk to him when I was on all fours, not in a sexy way at all, not in at all, like covered in pancake batter. I used to look at that as a weakness. And now I look at any of those coping mechanisms, starving myself or stuffing myself, as an amazing survival technique because at least I'm still here. Roxanne also talks about this love, hate relationship with the internal self and the external self, the private and the public identities that are deeply hard to navigate and a choice,

but nonetheless difficult. And I wonder how that works for you, Jamila, and how you manage to navigate these sensitivities that you had around your own body and identity whilst keeping this private and public persona kind of alive enough to do your work, you know? It took a minute, but I think what has finally been digested, like into my soul is, you know, it's no longer something I just say on a surface level like I probably did when I was 24. is that I really don't feel like it's anyone's fucking business. Anything about, I don't think anything about me is anyone's fucking business.

And even if I choose to share it, your opinion about that thing doesn't really matter to me. I've been raised, you know, if you are socialized as female, you are, you are taught that you have to be liked and approved of and believed. And it's just simply not true. you don't have to be liked or approved of or believed or fancied or whatever whatever other thing we were told as our sole purpose in this life oh it was definitely fancied yeah wasn't getting a degree at one point it was like you have to be fancied who will buy me from my dad um yeah god that was so recent that was so recent in in our times that people could just buy us from our dad and we didn't have a choice um but it's no longer

my responsibility to be liked or approved of or fancied or, you know, believed. I, I recognise that as a woman in the public eye, I'm just not going to be afforded those luxuries and if at all, not for very long because there's always like a year and a half that a woman has allowed, kind of, allowed any kind of, I don't know, glory or celebration or just like afforded some like mild level of humanity from the media and social media and the public. It's about, year, year and a half before you are destroyed. It's a very well-oiled system and it's been amazing to be inside of that system that I used to watch as an outsider as a kid. I would watch a woman be loved and loved and then they'd have so many photographs for everywhere so overexposed,

so hyperboised as to how beautiful or amazing or talented or excellent or decent she was. And then there would come a point where the public would become sick of her face and they would start to present her as smug. Her smile would suddenly be positioned as overly self-confident. And so then she's primed for an easy kill in front of everyone. And how delicious the public finds it to watch a woman fall from grace. A woman who thought she was so talented or so funny or so helpful or so, I don't know, educated. How we love to watch her be decimated in public.

It's just the stocks. The stocks have just become, they've just moved online like the rest of the world. We still crave to see people shamed and destroyed, especially a woman. We afford so many second chances to a man. When a man fucks up, even in a massive way, if he fucking assaults someone, he has afforded the big double-page spread where he's very brooding in all the pictures. They're very grainy, very focusing in on his wrinkles to demonstrate his wisdom and his dignity because we find male wrinkles.

Oh, yeah. And he's talking about his abusive childhood. We get context about why he may be behaved the way he does. did and what he's done and he's gone to rehab he's a new man now we're celebrating like what a big person he was we don't do that for women yeah we can't believe it when they stick around we expect them to fuck off and die in a bin which kind of goes back to what i was saying earlier about deciding not to do that with myself and and the only way i was able to make the decision to stick around was just to realize that i'm probably not going to be given a fighting chance for very long as soon as i saw

everyone treat me as if I was, you know, Gandhi with tits, uh, about in like 2018 and, you know, like Harper's Bazaar said the feminist hero we need. I knew I was fucked. I knew I was fucked. The Time magazine thing, naming me one of the 25 most influential. It was like a, it was like a like a warning shot for me as to what was coming. It's that moment where you're at like Alton Towers and you're just about to, you're at the top of the roller coaster waiting for the drop. That's what that year felt like for me. I knew it was coming. I didn't know, I think it was 2019 actually. I didn't know the ways in which I would be targeted and discriminated against and gaslit and maligned would be so insidious and so disgusting. Insidious and blatant at the same

time but it was one of the best things that ever happened to me because it divorced me from the expectation of myself to be appealing in any way to all of these different individual beings of all these different individual tastes i can't believe i ever put that on myself i can't believe i ever thought that i as one individual have to be palatable to all these different billions of people who simply want different things we don't even know what we want from public figures or from women We're still figuring it out. We've still got so much internalised misogyny in us, women and men and non-binary people. Before we move on to your second choice, I'd love to hear from you.

It's not a brief subject, but briefly about how you feel you're able to manage those expectations now that you've joined one of the biggest franchises in the world, which is the Marvel Universe, and how you feel about stepping into the shoes of a female character in that world that could be interpreted so many different ways when it comes to how she looks and behaves. Well, without wanting to talk at all about my character or anything like that, I'm just really glad that I'm old. I'm so happy and thrilled that I'm old. I don't know what this would have done to me as a...

a 21 year old. I can't believe people do this at 21. I'm so, so happy that I am fully formed, absolutely battered, haggard even, emotionally and physically, and ready for it. Like I'm exactly the right amount of jaded where I now feel kind of like a white man. You know, I have that feeling of unbreakability that a white man would have. I think that's what you need to enter this like kind of next level of potential attention or fame or scrutiny that comes with a franchise like this. And so I'm ready, I'm ready for it all. And I also personally think, you know, from what I've experienced in the Marvel universe, being someone who unexpectedly quite loved all of those films and TV shows, like they are nice, they seem like a nice crowd, I think. They seem like a nice crowd, I think.

like a nice crowd, the Marvel fans, and so I'm really excited to meet them and get to know them and they've been really cool to me since I was announced. So I have no idea what's coming, but I'm definitely the readiest for it that I've ever been. I don't think I could go through much worse, touchwood, than what I've already been through publicly, you know, having like my disabled mother or my disabled brother being pictures of them being floated around, with them being mocked and ridiculed by cunt bloggers on the internet. I just I think I've I think they thankfully maxed me out early where where I need it the most. I need the I need the immunity the most.

And so now I actually feel quite ready and quite up for it and very, very excited to take the opportunity of the platform that comes with Marvel to spread hopefully this rhetoric and this confidence and this lack of fucks to give to as many other people as I can. Specifically women. The podcast is made in partnership. Star Wars Andor, streaming exclusively on Disney Plus. Gase and Ander. Empire is choking us. I need all the heroes I can get. From the creators of Rogue One.

There is an organized rebel effort. Get a hunt started. Witness the beginning. This is what revolution looks like. Of rebellion. I'm tired of losing. Wouldn't you rather give it all up to something real? Star Wars Andor.

Original series streaming September 21st. exclusively on Disney Plus. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's Apply. With Bailey's Irish Queen. Bailey's is proudly supporting the women's prize for fiction by helping showcase incredible writing by remarkable women, celebrating their accomplishments

and getting more of their books into the hands of more people. Bayleys is the perfect adult treat, whether in coffee, over ice cream, or paired with your favorite book. Enjoying the Women's Prize for Fiction podcast, Share the literary love and be a part of the future of the Women's Prize Trust by supporting our charitable programs for writers and readers. Donations of all sizes help us to continue empowering women, regardless of their age, race, nationality or background to raise their voice and own their story. Search for Support the Women's Prize to find out more.

Your second bookshelfy is Period Power by Maisie Hill, a book that I'm a book that I'm have read, Maisie Hill is a Margate dweller somewhere that I used to live and developed a very special relationship to my womb, probably living by the sea. And so it's no wonder that she's written such a comprehensive book. This is a book for anyone who feels their period is taking over their life and affecting their mental health. It's designed to help people who menstruate, understand and take control of their monthly cycle by learning everything they need to holistically know about periods and how they affect our body. and our mental help and how to harness their often overlooked superpowers.

Why is this book on your list, Jamila? Because I know why it was on my bookshelf. It changed my fucking life. Because of the way that, again, we're socialised, we're taught that our period is some sort of weakness. It's something to be ashamed of. It's disgusting. And, you know, the way that we would be gaslit about any of our extreme reactions,

not even extreme reactions, just of any reaction. you on your period? So being on your period felt like something that you were weak to succumb to. And so that made me very defensive unconsciously my whole life about pretending like my period didn't exist. Like it was something that I would just not tell anyone about. I would survive it discreetly. I would thrive, if anything, through it. And almost brag about not having intense periods, you know, just like just sort of brag about, oh, no, no, no, I don't really get PMS. Of course, of course I did.

Of course I did, but I'd convinced myself that I didn't. I know, I know, but because we're pandering, really, to trying to defy men's expectations of us, because we're labelled as quote unquote crazy, which is so ridiculous. I think it was Riz Ahmed who told me about the nut mist. Have you ever heard about the nut mist? No. He talks about, he's like, I don't know why women are always painted as so hormonal. Because every, like, men have like a three-day cycle, never mind a 28-day cycle,

where if they don't come, he didn't use these exact words because he's like a very eloquent and special man. But, you know, essentially if you don't, I mean, did call it the nutmiss for God's sake, but he said if you don't, if you basically don't nut,

then you behave like gorillas in the mist, that men behave like gorillas in the mist. And that's why it's called the nutmiss. If you don't come. That is brilliant. The fact that that isn't yet a podcast is confusing to me. I know.

I would make that rom-com with him 100% let's do it. And it's so true. It's so true. Men and women are not educated about their hormonal imbalances or fluctuations that massively impact their behavior. So to have a book that doesn't just explain my period to me and explain my hormones to me, but also teaches me how to harness that information to protect myself and empower myself as incredible. Like there is a certain, you know, she breaks up the month of your cycle into seasons.

So like spring. summer, autumn, winter, and these are the kind of ways that you can kind of digest what part of your period you're in. And there are certain, certain seasons of your period in which you are extra, um, able and switched on and creative and able to be productive. And so if you know when that week is coming around, you can plan your life according to that. It's like, okay, fine, that this is the week I'm going to really get shit done. And next week I know I'm going to be fatigued and exhausted and sleep deprived and need to be in a kind of floatier more tender space great that's the week then i will then maybe pull back god i wish i'd had this information when

i was younger when i had dissertations or when i had a show to do and i'm she's so committed to what she preaches that when i was trying to book her on my podcast i had to do it based on her cycle I love that. Isn't that fucking amazing? Have you ever heard of that before? Can you imagine any woman being that or any person with periods like ever just honoring themselves and their bodies like that? She was like, I'm so sorry I won't be able to do that because that's a couple of days before my period. So like that won't be the right time of my cycle. I won't be switched on enough. So we'll do it. And I had to wait until she was ready for her cycle. And I thought, what a fucking boss. That is so inspiring to me. And it's made me like want to send like Marvel, my period schedule. Just feel like can I do can I do stunts around this time please? It could definitely be something that they fact were in. Like I've just done six months of training on all kinds of times in my cycle where I should have been lying down or I should have been trying new stuff

and breaking new ground like at a certain time where I'm more productive and switched on. I'm, it has changed the way that I look at things. I've given it to my boyfriend to read. I also live with three other men. I've given it to them to read. They can understand my fucking cycle. This needs to be an open conversation. You think you know about your body and your periods,

but you really have no idea until you've read this book. Honestly, it should be mandatory reading for all genders. I'm going to travel towards your third book choice, which is keeping in this incredible conversation that I think is across all of. of your book choices, which is our rights to our own body and rights to our own feelings about our own body and rights to communicating with the wider world about where we're at internally. And your third book choice is the transgender issue by Sean Faye.

The transgender issue is a landmark work, isn't it? It's trying to start a new, healthier conversation about trans life. It's a manifesto for change. It's a call for justice and solidarity between all marginalised people, really. the book moves beyond the media simplified idea of a culture war to explore really what it's like to be trans in a still very transphobic society and I find it to be a call for empathy and compassion tell me about why you've chosen this book

again another book that should be mandatory reading I think that Sean Faye is such a genius and someone who I'm so intimidated by and when she was on my podcast, I've never felt I'm more of a dithering git. She's so educated and, you know, has a history in law and journalism. And what she's done with this book is so special

because she has chosen not to make it personal. She is writing up, she is a trans woman who is writing about the trans experience and trans justice, but not really bringing herself very much into it, which I think is the tendency. It's certainly what publishers would have pushed her to do. But she decided to make a bulletproof argument where she couldn't be accused of bringing her emotions into it or being biased.

She's just written a kind of factual manifesto as to why trans liberation would lead to the liberation of all people. And what's amazing about it is that it's the kind of book that, you know, all of these, like this terrifying rise in transphobia and transviolence that we've seen in the last, like it's in violence against. trans people, like mainstream media, like large public figures, politicians, like everyone jumping in out of nowhere as if trans people have just suddenly started to exist since 2016. It's just been this terrifying rise and hatred and division. And I think they're being used as a diversion tactic away from all the different things that our government and our media are doing to suppress all minorities. They've just decided to create this kind of dog whistling cluster fuck against.

a very endangered minority, which is trans people. And so this book is a perfect response to that. What she's done is she's so kindly. You know, they often, people, modernized people often say, like, we shouldn't have to do the labor to educate you about our experience. But she has gone and done that in a way that is so generous and excellently written and concise and unpretentious.

It's written in plain language that someone like me can understand and it's great for combating the ignorance but also great to read if you're already someone who stands in solidarity with trans people because it gives you the bulletproof talking points that you need to be able to educate the people around you this is a book that all of us need to read we should have this book in schools because it's a great education there's history in there she also doesn't just stick to the you know the elite and the wealthy amongst trans people, you know, they're kind of presented as quite like, kind of bourgeois and like, and people who have access to great luxury. Those are the trans people that we tend to see in mainstream media.

But we don't talk about all of the people who are working class or who, you know, live in poor backgrounds who don't have the money to transition or the access to health care to transition. She focuses on their stories as well. It really just covers the whole spectrum of the trans community. and it's eye-opening and refreshing and important. That's why I chose that book. I wonder if you have any thoughts about how biological women and trans women, how biological men and trans men can, how biological women and biological men can be better allies.

I think first and foremost, just, Educate yourself. Go and buy the transgender issue. I think that our fear was always based in ignorance. You know, we fear what we don't know, what we don't understand. So I would say educate yourself, educate the people around you. And recognize that actually trans people are so much freer than us.

You know, look at the statistics and male suicide, like young male suicide. Men are not okay. they're not okay because patriarchy did just as much of a but just a different number on them they're not allowed to express their feelings these toxic stereotypes that they are you know steeped in and they're marinating in from like adolescence onwards where all of their kind of humanity are stripped away from them and they're kind of told they're not allowed to feel it's having a very like very clear and distinct impact on them so gender stereotypes are harming assault they're harming women like I know that I wasn't I've never been a very girly girl. I was teased because of that and bullied because of that. And my sexuality was mocked because of that. I just didn't fit in. And so rather than I really wish I could have just been allowed to flourish and be me

and not spend so much time wishing I was someone else. I just wasted that time. I couldn't change who I was. I just wished I was someone else. I couldn't fundamentally change my interest. we are also held back by these fucking stereotypes. And trans people, they, they discard those stereotypes. They live true freedom.

And I think that's why a lot of people are very threatened by them. I think they're afraid of people who are so free, who don't feel as though they have to subscribe to these, like, these ridiculous rules. It's so arbitrary the rules that were given, the pink and the blue, like all of it. It's so cliche, it's so embarrassing. And so these people who, choose not to exist within the binary, you know, or even if you do, like, choose to exist

within the binary, they, they understand that gender is a construct and they're able to form their own version of how they wish to proceed in life. Most of us don't really have the courage to do that. We fall in line because we're, you know, it's tribalism. We're afraid of being ostracized if we step, you know, outside of the pack and do something slightly differently. We're so worried about being rejected. They don't have that in the same way. And so we should learn from them and look to them rather than try to destroy them because they've existed forever. This isn't a new thing. And so I think that, you know, it's sad that we once used to, especially in many cultures,

used to regard trans people as the kind of almost the highest in our society, the wisest people. They were treated with so much dignity and respect. What happened to us? Devolution. Yeah. I mean devolution, yeah. So I'll put, Jamila. I'm going to move us on to your fourth bookshelfy choice.

And that is the vagina Bible by Dr. Jennifer Gunter. Now, this is one of the most brilliant guides. There is so much confusing and contradictory information out there about our vaginas, like our periods. But Dr. Gunter has a vagenda. She is on a mission to dismantle. the common misconceptions about vaginal health and her best-selling book aims to educate and empower us with the facts.

Dr. Gunter is an expert on women's health and covers everything from genital hygiene to the vaginal microbiome. Yeah, did you know what that is? No, probably not. Read the book. To which thongs will keep your vagina most happy. And the way the vagina is now monetized with growing vaginal trends,

including cosmetic surgery and vaginal steaming. How's your vagina doing, Jamila. Much better for having read this book. I feel like that should be a question. I actually held it between my legs and let her read it with me, you know, so we could learn at the same time. Yes, fucking masterpiece. I know there's a lot of fanny, you know, in my book choices. But it's important. And it's, and again, this book is just so well written. It's so funny. It's very trans-inclusive, like early in the book. like maybe in the first 20 pages, I think,

she brings up trans women's vaginal issues, et cetera, and trans men's vaginal issues. She's just the fucking best. And she teaches you about the history of gynecology or the lack thereof and like how little information we actually have of it, why, how the system is kind of set up against women and people socialize as female. She explains orgasms.

She explains like parts of the hormones, system again like differently to this isn't at all it's nothing at all like um macy hills book and it's a very kind of like um biology based but extremely relatable and profound again i mean it really is a bible it is a bible it's a guide through your life and she's written other books now about the menopause and um and and how much she goes into the way that we've gone from woefully neglecting the vagina and gaslighting women and not explaining endometriosis and all these different things that happen to our bodies that we are we are told aren't happening polycystic ovarian syndrome like all these different things she explains it all to you i mean i didn't even know until i read her book that i'm not

supposed to be in agony during a regular checkup at gynecologist i thought that was normal because i'm treated with no or until recently i was treated with no humanity no care i'm a trauma victim around sexual assault and so I find it very triggering to go to a gynecologist and have something stuck up myself in some cold clinical room and it's extremely painful for me and I have to be practically sedated and I have to be held down by four nurses just to have a basic pap smit and so I there are a lot of people out there who are actually like this and we don't need to have it just shoved up us and be traumatized sorry to be so graphic but that's what happened to me most of my life So I ended up not going to gynecologists as often as I should have

and therefore missed symptoms of very dangerous things. And she explains what gynecology appointment is supposed to be, like what gynecological care is supposed to, like what it really is supposed to entail. She's just fucking liberating and a diehard feminist and she hates the new trend of the sticking stuff up your vagina to make it to clean it. that's not a thing.

Your vagina is like a self-cleven cleaning oven. You're not to put these things are bad for you. You're going to give yourself thrush. If you try and change its odor, it's scent, we shouldn't be like demonizing the vagina and making it seem like this disgusting, smelly thing.

Like everything always just tailored towards, what would a man like? What would he find less scary or less boring about our vaginas? She talks about the labia and like vagina plastic. It's the exact opposite of everything we read in women's magazines that fucked us all up. And she dispels all of the myths and it's again a must read for every gender.

We all could stand to understand the thing that we came out of better. I couldn't agree more. I'm having vivid flashbacks of going to see the vagina monologues with my mum when I was 12. And if you've read that play or seen that play, you will know that pretty much halfway through. There is a real crescendo. And every person in the audience is asked, by this one particular actor to stand up and reclaim the word cunt.

And at 12, standing up next to my mum, who, you know, she's an edgy lady, but I think even she was kind of slightly reticent about standing up next to her 12-year-old daughter and putting her fist in the air and yelling the word cunt over and over again. I don't think she will ever know or anyone who was performing in that play,

how life-changing that was for me at 12. Because once I got over the giggles about shouting a naughty word, what started to vibrate throughout the room was this liberation, genuine liberation. And it feels so strange to now be in my sort of mid to late 30, and to have really kind of lost sight of that, I feel like I only really address my vagina when something is wrong. Yeah.

Honestly, when it's about to drop off my body is the only time I'll even think twice about my vagina. Why is that? Why do we feel? Misogyny, because we've been taught that it's like ugly and weird and wrong and just there for men, but men shouldn't have to see it. They should just feel it and it should smell like, I don't know, like a packet of wine gums or whatever they want it to smell like like for fuck sake i it's just it's just patriarchy it's all patriarchy the fact that we have not been taught to understand

this vital part like this sort of opening to our internal organs like this vital part of our lives just continues to be so embarrassing from men how dare they they're so embarrassing we all would have been better off knowing more about this we don't find Penises. I mean, some of us find penis is quite scary, but, you know, like we don't find the penis or the balls or prostate cancer or scrotum, all these different things. They're just not as like appalling and hidden as the vagina has been all this time. And so we've just really got to, I mean, even names for it. Terrible. A growler. Why did we call it a growler? I mean, it's funny. But a growler. That's so violent. So, all. You're so right. Beef curtains. Language when talking... Oh, you've stopped me in my tracks.

Sorry. Plunge. My God. I'm sorry. I've really like... I've gone down a path here. Just pull me back. I'm sorry.

Let's move on to your fifth and final book this week. It is Everything's Trash, but it's OK, by the brilliant Phoebe Robinson. Phoebe Robinson is a stand-up comedian, best known for the... the award-winning podcast turned TV series, Two Dope Queens. She's now an author of three books and founder of publishing imprint Tiny Reparations books. She's just one of the most deft and hilarious cultural commentators around. And this book is a collection of essays that explores a wide range of topics from body image to intersectionality and feminism to our culture of overwork.

It's a call to action, inspiring women to use their voices for change. This feels like it encapsulates the whole conversation that we've been having this episode. Tell me about why this has made it onto your list. Well, because I also love reading comedy. And what I love about Phoebe is that Phoebe is able to break down huge societal issues, but in such an inimitable and hilarious way. And I mean, her new book, Please Don't Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes is also a must read. and I'd say almost maybe probably her best book so far

but the reason I chose everything's trash but it's okay is just because it had such a huge impact on me I'd never seen anyone talk about these things the way that she does and it's just honestly like it takes a while to read that book because there are so many jokes packed into every single paragraph like good jokes that you want to go back over it so you didn't miss anything it's so well written she was so young when she wrote it And she talks about so many taboo things, talking about her body and talking about, you know, like dating a white man as a young black woman and what that means to other people and how she feels about that.

And she also talks about, I think this is one of the things that really stood out to me about money, which we just don't have enough women in particular talking about. We're 80% of consumers and yet we are given little to no guidance, I think, very deliberately as to how to manage our funds. And as much as capitalism is grotesque and responsible for so much pain in this world, currently under the current system, sadly, financial freedom is one of the main ways that women don't have to live under the kind of under the control of men. You know, it's how we are able to be independent and it's incredibly sad that that's the only way we can be given kind of autonomy over our own lives. But I think it's really important that we have the conversation about money that we teach women how to budget, how to save.

All women are encouraged to do is to spend. We are constantly told that we're broken in every way. We don't have enough. We are not enough so that we will go out and buy remedies to fix what we were told is broken. We're never taught to invest in our mental. health, we're never taught to save, we're never encouraged to, we're encouraged to get the nice bag or the new bum or the, you know, whatever, like the latest must have, quote unquote,

must have or the it thing. We're never taught to budget and save for a house or, you know, congratulated for paying off our student loans, all these different things. And so she talks about her relationship with money and going kind of bankrupt and having to work her way out of a debt. I mean, she didn't even tell her parents about it. And they found out, the book came out to read about it in her book um you know and so she just breaks down these um these conversations that are normally so stigmatized and she breaks them down in a way that just feel like you're having the conversation with your best friend it's the warmest book you you like i carried it everywhere with me for months um and uh just fell madly in love with her through the book

and now i'm just so delighted that the next book is also fucking exceptional um but she's really masterful and there's nothing else out there quite like it. And it just made me realize that you can have these hard, scary conversations with humour. And actually, that's probably much more effective than just screaming at people. You do that for me, Jamila. I feel like there's a lot of overlap with you and Phoebe. when feminism and any issue that on paper makes people sort of run for the hills is intertwined with laughter.

That's when I personally, I'm in a very sweet spot. I don't know if you've seen any of the new Will Smith documentary recently around his new memoir that he's publishing Will, but he said something. Is that one where he throws up when he comes? I don't know about that bit. That's what I've heard. That's what I've heard. It was a bit that actually relates slightly closer to your good self and Phoebe's good self.

He said that when he was making the fresh prince and was essentially the only black man at the table with huge executives and people making money from his talent, right? He said being able to make people laugh is what always endeared him to himself, but also to those people sitting at those tables. Almost like you have to be so funny, people forget your brown. And I wonder if you can relate to that. It's the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down. I mean, I don't think I would have any of the things I have if it weren't for comedy and how that has kind of, you're kind of, you're kind of, accepted immediately as a friend if you make someone laugh and so uh Phoebe is just so masterful at that and she doesn't pull any punches by the way she is extremely direct but she you don't know it's happening

you're just learning without realizing and that's my favorite way to learn and it's what I kind of tried to do with my podcast and with um the iway instagram is just try and not make it feel like something intimidating not make you feel like you're at school make you feel like this is something fun and exciting and silly, you know, and I, that's why I burden my listeners with all of my stupid and mortifying stories amidst very serious conversations with very esteemed, educated, excellent people who have to tolerate their stories. But what's great about your podcast is you're so disarming in that way. I'm sure all of those people have come with some kind of, you know, slightly prescripted approach

because they are all brilliant or like excellent pundits or so versed in, you know, whatever, Yeah, of course, of course. You know, their field is. And that disarming nature of your humour gets to nuggets that I probably don't think they even expected to share. I mean, do you think you've used humour as a way to disarm in your career, in your life? 100%. 100%. It's been my defence mechanism my whole life.

You know, I grew up with such depressed, unhappy and mentally unwell people. And the only way I could ever see glimpses of them, the real them, was when I would make them laugh. And so I learned very quickly that my love language would be humor and that humor would be my survival mechanism. And if I wanted to see my parents, you know, my real parents that I would have to make them laugh and entertain them to be able to get them out of their sadness. And same thing with uncles, you know, siblings, etc. And so I became the family clown and the class clown, except I think everyone was probably laughing at me, not with me. and I've just continued my clownery into adulthood and it makes me feel safe. And I only really feel, you know, if I'm honest, I only really feel alive when I'm laughing.

I'm making them laugh. It's just how I've, it's my biggest coping mechanism. And I found it's also been why my social justice work has been effective. Like, for example, I was able to get that, that global policy changed and get into Congress regarding diet and detox products because I made a heinously disgusting. parody video of an influencer if they were honest and really drank those drinks and what would happen to them and this involves like me like crying and sort of shitting um shitting fire really on a toilet in a video that went viral around the world and ended up on the news in japan india australia america it was seen everywhere millions and millions of

times and that video helped me start a petition regarding these diet and detox products that got 250,000 signatures in three days and then I was able to take that and move Facebook and Instagram to be more responsible and then eventually it led to me in Congress being able to you know talk about diet culture for children and and teens like it it paved the way it like fast tracked me through social justice work it's so ridiculous that the most like uncouth foul but ultimately like memorable and it made it, I don't know what it is about humour, but it just stays in the brain in a different way. It's just much more like poignant for some reason sometimes.

You can't do that with everything, but it definitely has been more effective for me personally in the areas in which I work. And do you think it's a weapon that women in our industry or in the arts can sort of use and utilise No, I don't, I don't. I mean, I think we should, but we've been discouraged from doing so. Like, you know this.

Funny women have been treated like some sort of anomaly. Why are people so terrible. Even someone as brilliant and educated as Christopher Hitchens, just so fucking ignorant about women. You know, he wrote that piece for Vanity Fair about why women aren't funny, and it's the dumbest shit I've ever read from one of the smartest men, you know, ever. In some ways. I think until pre-bridesmaid,

with the exceptions of people like whoopey, you know, Goldberg, I think we only allocated certain women to be allowed to be funny. Women who men already did not deem societally attractive. They were allowed to be funny because men didn't want to fuck them.

It's only like post the kind of bridesmaids era that we've seen more women be allowed to be, I don't know, societally deemed acceptable, but also quite funny. We've just like opened the, we've opened up the spectrum of who's allowed to be funny and humorous.

Women are so much funnier than they know what they are ever encouraged to be. When I'm alone with women, they're so much funnier than they are when men are around. And that makes me so sad. And it's some sort of subliminal conditioning that's like, don't be your full self. Don't be too quick. Don't intimidate someone with your wit or your humour. And that makes me sad. But Phoebe doesn't do that.

She doesn't hold back. She's hilarious. Well, I do have to ask you a difficult final question. If you did have to choose one book from the list as a favourite, which one would it be and why? Is it, is this the book that I would want to read again and again and again or the book that I think is the most important, like if I was president of the world and I had to force everyone to read just one book, like what's the context here? It's very stressful.

I think it should be the book that you would want to read again and again yourself. I think if it was the book I wanted to read again and again and again, just because I have read it again and again and it would be, everything's trashed but it's okay by Phoebe Robinson because it's so, fucking enjoyable. But I'm just going to add here, if there was a book that I had to mandate for the world, it would be period power of all of them oddly. I think it's the book that the world most needs to understand because it's going to happen forever. It's been happening forever. Let's just finally fucking understand it. I'm Zawi Ashton and you've been listening to the Women's

Prize for Fiction podcast. Please rate and review this podcast. It's the easiest way to to help spread the word about the female talent you've heard about today. Thank you so much for listening. Hope to see you next time. You've been listening to the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast, brought to you by Bayleys and produced by Birdline Media.