Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S9 Ep13: Bookshelfie: Ashley James

Episode Date: June 2, 2026

Live from Baileys HQ, Ashley James joins Vick Hope to discuss how motherhood transformed her perspective, the realities of class in modern Britain, and the rise of the “trad-wife” movement.Ashley is a broadcaster, author, DJ and advocate who first appeared on our screens in the early days of Made in Chelsea back in 2012, and has since gone on to be a feminist campaigner and social commentator. Her debut book BIMBO was published earlier this year. A Number 1 Sunday Times bestseller, BIMBO has been described as a rallying cry for every woman who’s ever felt ‘too much’ or ‘not enough’, covering the many themes of feminism and the labels that box women in.Ashley’s book choices are:09:16 The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood20:07 La Place (or A Man’s Place) by Annie Ernaux29:54 Fix the System, Not the Women by Laura Bates41:00 Matrescence by Lucy Jones49:50 Yesteryear by Caro Claire BurkeYou can buy all books mentioned from our dedicated shelf on Bookshop.org  – every purchase supports the work of the Women's Prize Trust and independent bookshops. Every week on Bookshelfie, Vick Hope is joined by inspirational women to discuss the work of incredible female authors. The Women’s Prize for Fiction, the greatest celebration of female creativity in the world, is run by the Women’s Prize Trust, the charity building a better future by championing women’s writing. Don’t want to miss the rest of season nine? Follow or subscribe now!This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media.

Hi everyone, it's Vic here. Just to note that in this episode we do cover some hard-hitting topics, including rape and sexual violence. Coming up on foodshelty. If you want to be taken seriously, don't on a car, don't be feminine, don't show your body. You know, it was like that was in my rules and then suddenly being put into the celebrity world, it was like, where are they going to close? Where all makeup? And it felt like suddenly I was trying to achieve a whole new set of rules of what, being successful woman looked like.

Nothing made me feel wonder than opening this book and realizing that the pages are yellow, it looks like something kind in a vintage shop and it was all new. And I remember my brother and sister saying to me, you haven't to tell my dad that you're gonna be on me in Chelsea. I think it was like a week before then I actually got a palmer. And when I said, I'm gonna do all my child,

my mom was like, would you not be better on Jolie short? And I'll tell you all highs. Every time they say piles are prolapse in social media, you do lose a lot of the annoying men and that. So really, I'll explain to it. No, it's good. Hello, I'm Vic Hope and this is Bookshelfy, the podcast from the Women's Prize that asks women,

with lives as inspiring as any fiction, to share the five books by women that have shaped them. Now, before we begin, remember to subscribe or follow so you never miss an episode, with thanks to our sponsor, Bayleys. Today I'm joined by Ashley James. Ashley is a broadcaster, author, DJ and advocate who first appeared on our screens in the early days of Made in Chelsea back in 2012. And as soon it's gone on to be a feminist campaigner and social commentator, her popularity spans major networks and channels, including her regular role for ITVs this morning as political and social affairs correspondent. She also appeared in Channel 5's all female celebrity big brother.

the Year of the Woman series in a salute to a centenary of women's suffrage and celebrity mastermind where her specialist subject was 19th century suffragette Lady Constance Lytton. Praised by Carol Woodman for being a difficult woman. What's an accolated. Yeah, Harold. Ashley is widely known for her quick wits and authenticity on social media and uses her platform to discuss topics including equality, social justice and feminism. Her debut book, Bimbo, which is over here, and it looks lolling on our table. It was published earlier this year, a number one Sunday Times bestseller. Bimbo has been described, yeah, has been described as a rallying cry for every woman who's ever felt too much or not enough, covering the many themes of feminism

and the labels that box women in. I should say, we're coming to you live from Bayes, H.K. in London our lovely bookshelty sponsors. So please join me in welcoming Ashley James. Thank you. Thank you. So I know it's always a bit of an awkward one listening to all the accolades and everything you've done in the intro, how's it feel? It's so weird listening to yourself being introduced because I feel like you'd only really Emma has that at your funeral. Do you know what I mean? And you're alive, Ashley James. You're alive. Well, let's start with Bimbo. It was published in February. How does it feel to be a debut author to have put pen to paper? Do you know what? It actually feels amazing. It's probably one of the, I was going to say

the scariest thing I've ever done. The scariest thing I've ever done was definitely a deputy mastermind. It is that chair. Have you done it? Yes. I cannot believe it. I said to Nick Ferrari, who I do this morning with it. I was like, have you done some mastermind? He was like, I really never do that. It's too scary. And that made me feel better. Yeah, that's it. I'm advice to like two weeks for that? Solidly. I remember getting to the hotel and like four and everybody was like well there's happy more you can do now

or I was like I haven't been started I'm going to have to swat up. I felt like university again. There's always more we can do. Yeah. But I did well, not on the general knowledge, but the important thing was I did well on Lady Concer's Lytton but I was writing Bimbo at the time. But it's such a weird thing because I always wanted to write a book but I didn't really know what it would be about.

And then, you know, I think when you're right, you have these moments where you're like, this is going to be amazing. Oh, no, this is going to be terrible. People did an art list and I read it probably about seven times towards the end being like, is it good? Is it good? And I got friends to read it.

So then I remember when I was waiting for my publisher to tell me if it was going to be Sunday Times bestseller because I made the mistake of like making it really obvious. It was my ambition for ego, but also because I really, really believe that people should read it and it's the book that I wish I'd had when I was a teenager or when I was single feeling like I was swimming against the current of kind of the outdated expectations but also when I was a new mom and I felt really isolated and like I guess like I was failing at it and so when they rang me I actually ignored the call because

I was too nervous but then I sat down and then I answered and when they said it is number one I was just like, oh my God, amazing. What an incredible achievement for your debut. What have you made of the reception, beyond the figures, but more the things that people have told you about how it made them feel? Yeah, I think that's the best thing about it, because every single day I get messages from people and it's received how I was hoping it would be received. And, you know, it's like people of all ages.

It's men who are like, I wish I'd wish I'd. I'd had access to this sooner. Like I can so understand my wife more or my daughter and what she's going through in adolescence. So that's really nice. But yeah, it's just, I guess it's like the book that one day I want my son and my daughter to read. And hopefully so that women don't feel like so small and so shrunken and that they find their voice sooner than I found mine. But also so that they don't feel like a lot of, I feel like even though they're all very different, of our struggles are universal and actually it's structural, but when they feel like it's us.

So the reception is the best thing about it. Well, in Bimbo, you pose the radical question, what if we as women stop trying to be acceptable and started being free? So I'd love to ask, what does freedom look like for you? I think freedom means being who you want to be and not who you feel like you should be. So it's living outside of diet culture and beauty standards. And by the way, I'm a working progress. And I talk a lot in the book about my own contradictions,

like recognizing that the age industry is terrible, women aren't allowed to age, but yeah, I get Botox. So I'm not speaking from a pedestal. I'm speaking as like a real human being. But it's learning to be you and learning to not try to be like, a good girl or a good woman because what I've realized is you can't be good because their expectations and standards are impossible to me because you're either a slut or a prude or you're like when it comes to motherhood. I mean child free women and mothers are often pissed against each other but even as

moms you're a working mom or a stay-at-home mom and both are kind of judge. So it's just learning to live outside of the rules and to stop judging each other by rules that actually don't serve us. tall. You said that this is a book that you wish you'd had at certain times in your life. When you were younger, for example, we're going to talk about the books that you did have that helped you in some way that helped shape you. And we would just say before we came in, reading is hard at the moment. I've just had a baby as well. And we're co-sleeping again. There is no time when I can have the light on. So we've got the little torch on the phone under the cover. When do you do most of your reading? Yeah, it's hard, isn't it?

And do you know what? When I'm in a book, I will find that time to read anywhere. Like, I'll read anywhere. But then I get, like, a bit of book morning when it comes to the end. And then it takes me a while to get back into a new book. And then I'm like, to have up time, don't have time. But actually, if I'm reading a book, like, I literally don't want to do anything else. I'll be, like, reading in between anything.

But I'm not co-sleeping anymore. So I try to read before bed. you all know, I typically laughed about one page before I fall in sleep. I go up the night of the baffters. I'd stay in a hotel, so I had this little reading light, and I woke up until in the morning. I thought, why is it so bright? And it's because I don't fall in asleep with my book in my hands.

It's a really bright reading light on. So, yeah, I do my best, but I'm much slower than when I was at uni or school. But it is the best feeling being inside it, inside one of those books that has you racing to the end, but then has you bereft when it's over. So let's get into the books that you have loved so, so much. Your first book, Shelfy Book, is The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. And I should also say, Ashley is an excellent student and has brought all of her books today.

So we can hold up, where is it, amongst the pile. There we go. Can I also just say that nothing made me feel longer than opening this book and realizing that for pages of yellow, it looks like something you find in a vintage shop. and it was all new when I was 17 or 18. So that made me feel really old today. It means you have lived in those pages, Ashley. The multi-award-winning dystopian classic follows,

offerings a handmade in the Republic of Gilead, a religious totalitarian state in what was formerly known as the United States. She's placed in the household of the commander and has only one function to breed. If Offred it refuses, she will be. hand. Yet even a repressive state cannot eradicate hope and desire. As she recalls her pre-revolution life in flashbacks, Alfred must navigate through the terrifying landscape of torture and persecution in the present day and between two men upon which her future hands. Masterfully conceived and executed, this is a haunting vision of the future from the multi-women's Prize-nominated author and has been adapted

into an equally successful Emmy Award-winning TV series. So you said you were about 17, 18 when you read this book. Studied it? Yeah, yeah, my novels. And you described it as initiating a feminist awakening on how political women's bodies are and the fragility of women's rights. Talk to me about the impact this book had on you.

Yeah, so I studied literature, and I went on to study literature at uni, but I feel like this is the first. book that kind of put into words how I unknowingly felt as a teenage child at an all-boy school where, you know, there was a real hypocrisy and double standards around our freedom, our sexuality, the way we expressed ourselves. And I remember reading this book and finding out that everything she wrote in it had happened somewhere in the world. And I think it might be the first time I discovered what the term dystopia meant.

And I said, this is just such an amazing concept. But it was the first time I'd really considered how politicised women's bodies are. And I think back then, I very much believe, like, aren't we so lucky to live in the West and to be living in a period of progress? And it's funny now, because obviously, the book has since become a series,

as you mentioned, and so do the people now know to talk about this book. And it feels now less like a, just don't be a nightmare, and more like a warning and a reminder of how fragile our rights are. So I feel like it has really grown with me as my own understanding of feminism and politics

has developed and a reminder that we can't be complacent. So I just love, that's why I picked it because it was like from when I was 17 and now, I was a 39-year-old woman. It's kind of stayed in my heart. What was your early engagement with feminism? What did feminism mean to you when you first encountered it? I talked about this in Bidipo, but I would say that my first thought of feminism was why,

well, that's not me, because I shake my armpits and I don't smell of hemp. And, you know, I had this very, like, I'm not feminality. and I was very much someone who had a lot of internalised misogyny because it was survival in a, so just context, I went to more boys school, I was 14 when they started Allaring Girls and it is very male-donated, it was a boys rugby school,

it was very much an environment where boys will be boys and girls learn to stay in line and to behave like ladies, and that's something I talk a lot about in Bimbo. and so I didn't identify as a feminist and yet I knew I felt angry at the different standards and what was acceptable for men and I fought against that but I didn't understand that that was early feminism. Where do you think you would have started calling it feminism? I think towards my late 20s when so I became single at 27 which I feel like there's quite

painical time in a woman's life to become single because so many of us have these invisible timelines and you know you kind of expect or you start to be married and have babies and all of those things by my late 20s and suddenly I was single in my 20s and I think um you know I talk a lot about body image and bimbo as well and having big boobs and navigating the idea of beauty and brains and being taken seriously and you know all of the discourse around my body and a sexualisation around my body and really craving being taken seriously and trying to navigate all of that and then being single and a feeling like I was swimming against the current and trying to find happiness as a single woman and trying to prove that I had value

outside of my relationship status. I think that's when I was like, oh, I think I'm a feminist. But again, I talk about this in Bimbo. I was a feminist and I loved it. Also I went on to Sleb Big Brother around that time and for the year of the woman. But I realized once I became a mum how much internalised misogyny I had against motherhood. So I think that's why I say motherhood radicalised my feminism. You've actually taken so much from the Handmaid's Town, what you said there about that dystopia feeling so close to our reality. It's never felt truer.

We've seen women's bodily autonomy being rolled. back around the world. Progresses never want, and sometimes it feels like it's slipping through our fingers. How high are the stakes right now? I mean, they couldn't be higher. I think for all of us, we look at what's happening in the USA, especially growing up. Like for me, USA, it is like the American dream, not to mention, I always had family in the US, but I remember if you go there and everything would be like half price. It was literally like the best space ever. But yeah, and yeah, I remember. It was just like a really exciting tardam, I feel like, I remember when like Barack Obama became president.

It was like, we're living in progress. How cool is this? And the reversal of Roe versus Wade, I think, was such a wake-up call for all of us. And even, you know, we had the local elections recently. And seeing what so many elected councillors have said about women and other groups of people. We're like, how are we living? like how is this the present day and suddenly Gilead feels like

very very close and part of what Margaret at with White's about is how it's such a slow movement towards this authoritarian state there's nothing in that book that we haven't actually already seen before and that's the truth of it she wasn't just pulling it out of thin air

and we have to remember you actually have a series on Instagram where you dress as a handmaiden in the now iconic red cloak, and you highlight the ways in which women's rights are under attack in society. Going from that and from talking about the Handma's Tale with me tonight to say appearing in Maiden Chelsea,

it's like a cultural whip clash, did reality TV change how you thought about your identity? You keep saying about wanting to prove yourself and say, actually, this is what I talk about, this is what I know. how do you reflect on that time? So, I mean, it kind of fits in with the next book, Anianos, Maplax, which I've just planned out the English name for, and I've forgotten.

But when I did a name Chansy, I was 25 and somebody I had less school. I always wanted to be, I've always been a high achiever and perfectionist, and I've always really, like, strive to be a good, high-achieving girl and then woman. and I remember when I quit my job at 25 with a dream to get into television and I didn't have any contacts and I remember quitting my job doing TV presenting course

which was Monday to Thursday and on the Thursday a friend of mine who I made on the course who I'm still friends with I'm going to be actually made Chelsea do you want to come and I lift up the production company and I saw that they also hosted

the BAFTA red carpet that firm cotton hosted and I was like I can do that So I'll say I'll introduce myself and I'll tell them that I want to be a presenter And then they were like basically do you want to come again? Do you want to do reality TV? And at the time My friends all loved Maiden Chelsea. I was a QI countdown kind of girl and I made the sick thing about probably because I thought I was like too cool to like mainstream things back then. But I was like I didn't know me IT TV. But I was like kind of went with it because I was like how funny that they'll see me once on the show. And then obviously it kind of just grew from now and I've got an agent. But as we'll talk about with the next book, it really heightened a lot of my own insecurities of being from like a different class background and feeling like I didn't really belong, I guess. And it also rigged up all the rules that I was taught at school, which is if you want to be taken seriously, don't on makeup, like don't be feminine.

because if like don't show your body don't you know it was like that was my rules and then suddenly being put into the celebrity world it was like where are being in a clothes where all makeup and it felt like suddenly I was trying to achieve a whole new set of rules of what being successful woman looked like when in fact you can be both you can be everything yeah it didn't be a long time to get to that realization and I'm sure so many people relate to that feeling like they have to fit into a certain box to be taken seriously as a woman which I thing he's more convenient for the others than it is for us. And like you say, it resonates hugely in your second book, Shelfy Book, which is Laplace by Annie Abneau. This is a deeply reflected memoir in which Annie Arnaud examines the life of her father after his death, tracing his journey from rural worker class polity to running a small cafe and grocery shop in Normandy. Through a strained, almost documentary style prose, Elnol explored. the emotional distance, the education and social mobility created between them. The boo becomes both a portrait of one man and a wider meditation on class, memory, shame,

and the cost of moving between social worlds. And in English, it's a man's place. Tell us about how you came to read this book. So when I was at university, I studied English in French literature. And in my primary literature, I'm hearing across this book, Laplace. And it's the first time I've ever seen anyone write or talk about the alienation. I think that is a part of social mobility. So I went a scholarship to a boarding school when I was eight years old. And no, my older brother had also won a scholarship.

So he was the first person in my whole hangary line that I'd ever studied past D.S.E. and I suddenly found myself kind of straddling two-class systems. My parents, my mum's a hairdresser, my dad's a farmer, they live in the northeast, really hard-working people. And then I found myself in a school where I was the only girl living my year to not have a title. And I had to write letters every Sunday. And it's funny because my parents still have that are all the envelopes. It would say, Lord and Lady, or so I obviously had a complex that I didn't.

which kind of like seeks to the kind of environments I was living in and I very much felt again going back to this idea of wanting to be a good girl or wanting to please people that there was one set of like rules of being normal at school and then one set of rules of being normal at home and I really felt my dad's embarrassment I think of my different accent because my parents speak the Georgie accent my dad and my sister and I laugh because I I remember once say he was in a seeded market and barred into his nates and he was like yeah I'll move it, yeah yeah it's not bad and we were like

dang! And he actually pretended that we weren't his and you know there were so many almost like comedy occasions where I'd like in the Frasian like oh my god it's amazing we've got a patte and dad was like

oh fuck all beef man and I just never really had anyone vogue lies this feeling of the more you progress. Annie, I know it talks about that basically she changed social class through education and marriage. And whilst that usually is like rewarded and praised in society, there's this kind of

idea that you never quite feel like you belong in either. But also, you know, you might have very different political opinions suddenly to the people like you grew up with. Your accent's different and trying to navigate that feeling of being really proud of where you come from, but also not quite identifying with it anymore. And the idea of normal just seeing so different. Another example, at school, we were told to address four men, male adults is sir. No titles for the women. And I'm going to co-op home and the men serving on the till, I was like, thank you, sir. And my time. I'm a done. about we stop it.

I'm so confused. I don't know like who to be. And obviously there was like natural teasing. But I feel like no one ever talks really about class like that. And it was a book that I'm actually men of thinking, I might work like this one day. Maybe that's what I'll write about. It's so interesting.

Your dad expressing embarrassment. Was you so with expecting you to say that you were embarrassed of him, perhaps, in this new sort of milieu that you were operating in? Well, I talked about this in Bimbo as well, and obviously it's like horrible to say, but when you're young and you're impressionable, I was embarrassed of them. I remember my dad didn't drive me, he's a wagon driver as well on the side. Both the up had two shops to obviously pay for the education.

And I think my parents are so, they really wanted us to have an education, to have all the things that they didn't have because they both were up on funds and both for various reasons had to leave school early. And so obviously they were like education. That's what we want for our kids. But they didn't quite imagine that we'd come home in like complete different worlds of them. And I remember when my dad would be going to a job in the wagon and he'd be like, wait, I'll get all this stuff in boarding school. And he'd drop on brother off and then me off.

And I remember being like, oh my God, nobody. And I'm pretty sure I can probably say, per se, that no boarding school person ever. apart from our family, it was turned up in a wagon. So it was, it's embarrassing. So then when I start, maybe Chelsea, it kind of heightened that feeling of like, oh, and I hope no one discovers who I am. But it's saying feeling a sign of all this guilt

of being really proud of my parents and really, like, grateful. And I really remember at uni being like, I'm hoping everyone meets them so that they don't hear their accents. And it's horrible. Like, it's so embarrassing as an adult to say that out loud. But obviously, as a child, that was kind of my experience, and it felt like this secret. And I remember my brother and sister saying to me,

you have to tell my dad that you're going to be on me in Chelsea. I think it was like a week before then I actually got to tell me. And when I said, I'm going to do all me of Charleston. My mom was like, would you not be better on Julie short? It's actually a very valid question geographically. And dad, they like, do you have to come in and fix everyone. one on. And then, yeah, I was like, Mom, if you knew, you'll be sure. I think you'd keep your phone happy. Yeah, but obviously, I'm now as an adult, like, very proud and grateful for everything

that they've done. It's funny, it's my kids do not answer a word that they say. And every time I talk about Brenda, I'll have to show us worry. Oh, my mind. Do you still feel like you straddle distinct class backgrounds? Do you feel like it's impacted how, you interact with people today even? I feel like it's now like a superpower that I've got to interact in different classes and my cousins are mixed race and you know she talks about you know that kind of straddling of like my auntie and being a Jordy and her uncle being Indian and growing up in London and that kind of similar disconnect obviously different like one's class one's race but I feel like living in these different worlds has given me a understanding of like a, I guess understanding of fully displaced in a very privileged way that it gives me empathy for displaced people or an understanding that actually there are struggles in every part of the world.

but also I think because I've lived through snobbery, that it, I don't know, it just makes me feel much more empathetic. This book is based in the 1980s. It's set in the 1980s. But do you think that an equivalent conversation has or is happening in the UK, the sort of experience that you're describing reflected back to you in mainstream British cultural discourse, especially right now? Yeah, I mean, I think when you think about our grand and grandparents, I'm very lucky that my grandin is still around, but tentinology wasn't a thing when she was growing up.

Like, you know, we have like political difference. We've got caste differences. But we've also, I mean, even when we get there, what teenagers are going through now, it's so similar to Ewan in that there was no man to sphere. There was no really easy access to buy a little online appalled. You'd have to not. me, but you'd have to go to the newsagists and go to the top shelf. So it's just much less accessible and probably much less violent. And, you know, there's so many differences, I think, generationally, but I think class, we still don't really talk about how that shapes and isolates and creates, like, differences. This episode of Bookshelfy is sponsored by Pitchelphi is sponsored by Bailey's. Bayleys is proudly supporting the 2026 Women's Prize for Fiction, 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 shaking in a cocktail, over ice cream, or paired with your favourite book. Check out baillies.com for our favourite bailey's recipes. Well, on the subject of the system and its ever-changing shape, your third book-shave book is Fix the System, Not the Women by Laura Bates. In this explosive book, feminist writer and activist, Laura Bates exposes the systemic prejudice at the heart of five of our key institutions. Education, politics, media, policing and criminal justice. Too often, we blame women.

For walking home alone at night, for not demanding a seat at the table, for not overcoming the odds that are stacked against them. This distracts us from the real problem, the failings and biases of a society that was not built for them. Combining stories with shonking evidence, fixed assistant, not the women, is a blazing examination of sexual injustice and a rallying cry for reform, inspiring the hashtag hope united movement and becoming an influential bestseller in discussions around sexism and institutional inequality. Is that you're the first non-fiction book on your list? What made you gravitate towards it? And what did you love about it? I have to say, I feel like Laura Bates's mind,

like she's so ahead of the times and it was very hard to just pick wallop her books. I remember reading, maybe Haydalen. I remember reading about that in love dance, what would that be 20? And nobody is talking about it in Manifaxifet. and I remember people seeing you reading it and assuming it was like

oh, classically man-hating for she's really about a man-hating, and I was like, no, it's about men who hate women. It's not man-hating, it's literally men's the opposite. So she is, she founded that everyday sex as a movement. Like she has written another amazing book

about TET and AI that I recommend people read. So it's very hard to narrow down a book, but this book, I think, makes us all realize that so many of our individual feelings of failure are systemic. And whenever I'm on TV and there's a topic that is anything to do with sexism, whether it's sexism in the police force or sexism in media or language, that is the book that I'm like, was the Ruby said about it. And she is so step and research driven.

And I'm just think she's one of the most impressive minds. and I think everybody should have to read her books, to be honest. You described her books as clarifying. They made you see things more clearly, like what? So, for example, a really good example is how we talk about women in the media and how that normalises the way we think and talk about other women. So I'm sure lots of us grow up thinking of a celebrity being like, I hate that person.

she's so wronging. I hate her. I hate it, but we don't know her, so why do we hate it? We hate her because of how the media have been talking about her. And I was kind of this conversation today with someone about how often we hate a woman who, I don't know, their path could have done something horrible, and she calls them out on social media, an example. And then the article will be about her calling the men, and he was like, oh, why don't you just shut up? Whereas actually there's no article on maybe like the guy who hasn't seen his children for a year. It's always on the woman. And the way I don't know that there is all these articles about reading like as she florns her toned to Zique and then they cut a picture deliberately whether I wasn't toned and I'm not

toned but it's like they're doing it as they want people to be like she's not towed or you know some of a show pacing their postparting figure or if I ever talked about the high-executive sexualisation of women's bodies and as some of them on that has big boots and has done since I was 14 and that kind of constant dialogue and sexualisation of my body, the media would then find a picture of me from when I was a lingerie model and be like, Ashibomero is her large dress. And then instead of me, progotted male gaze, things from me in lingerie. So naturally everyone's like, well, if she doesn't want people to lick their boots, maybe she shouldn't be hazing in laundry. And it's all of that that she makes you think, how have I not seen that before? That like everything, everything. And that's just an example of media.

But she is just so, she will change the way that you process information. It's rage-bating, isn't it? It's pushing people's buttons. There's something about the word flaunt. And I only see it in those articles. No one's out there just flaunting. Like what does that even mean? But it makes people hate you.

showcasing your post-a-partum figure. Like, you're just happy and all of it. Like, look at me. Showgacing my body. Do you find having read this book that you're more armed for dealing with that, that onslaught that comes, how does it affect you? It makes you just look at anything different. Like, for example, like she, we talk about victim-bladening in sexual assault

and how so often the victims on trial, She has so much amazing research on how it is not just as a society that we victim blame, but it's in like our judicial system. And I think I actually used this in my own book that there was a case in Italy where a judge decided that a woman couldn't possibly have been sexually assaulted because she was in a public loo of didn't lock the door. Therefore, that could have been a sign of an invitation, even though she'd never met this person before.

So she breaks down all of the different ways that the system is fact against women and how women are often put on trial. And she just does it so brilliantly. You talked about how much you admire the way Laura researches her work. What did the research process for Bimbo look like for you? So the process of writing my book was very similar to how I did, I did coursework at you. uni, which was spent ages doing the research. So all the book, funny enough, I'd kind of of semi-started writing a book in my single days. So I'd read all these different books that I was on my own journey of kind of unpicking and unlearning a lot of the societal views and

standards that we have on success and our relationship status. And I started thinking, I might write it, look at this. So I wrote loads of quotes and stuff to hand. of the pages and things that I thought I don't want to talk about. So I realized at the beginning of Bimbo that I spent a lot of time reading and writing things down. And I like to physically write quotes down and put the page. And then I was like, I'm never done my book. So then I was like, right, don't really do anything.

If I need to try and research, I'll do that after. And then I just rewrote everything. And I think my word, my word count was meant to be 80,000 words. And I wrote 160,000. So then the second draft was basically me trying to then be like, what's just me writing about trauma and what's actually part of the book? It was very so poetic. I wonder how your editors felt.

I think when I said, I've really 160,000 words expecting them to be like, that's amazing. They were like, well, that's quite long. But no, it was a process. And actually, it wasn't going to be bimbo. It was only when I was doing a second draft. that I was like, had an epiphany. And they were like, well, can we stick to it?

I was like, no, this is going to be better. Trust me. So, yeah, I'm probably a bit of a nightmare. I mean, I was a nightmare, even as car down to the cover, and going here the pantone chart and going into waterstones and like looking at every single pink book and taking pictures to see how, what the perfect shaded pink was. Like, I was meticulous in every way.

When you were writing it and at some point thinking, I'm putting my trawler on the base year, what does you hope readers would take away from it and has that changed since it has been in their hands since February? Yeah so I think what I wanted the book to do was to look at how language, societal expectations and outdated expectations, shape our own experiences and make us feel small and I kind of put the book starts in girlhood and goes into maidenhood, womanhood, singlehood, motherhood and then elderhood. I was like, what's a hood for aging? And I just wanted it to feel like there was a purpose for writing down trauma. And there were some things I was thinking, is this too much? For example,

I speak about my own experiences of sexual assault. And it's something that I'd never really spoken about, not just publicly, but even in, you know, my close circles. And I thought, do I want this in? And is it relevant to be in? And am I comfortable with people knowing about it and talking about it? And I remember people being like, maybe you should just take it out because obviously it could get sensationalised and how will you feel if articles are like rape survivor actually? And that did make you feel horrible. I was like, I don't want to be that.

And I don't want to be talked about. And also, I'm not a perfect victim because I never reported it. And I, you know, I basically ticked all the boxes of what not to do as a woman because I'd been at a club. So I was dressed a certain way. I'd had alcohol. I didn't report it. And it was actually when I was writing, there was a lot in the news about Giselle Pelico. And she was just, or she is just such a.

phenomenal woman how she said like shame must change sides and I thought how how can I write a book about shame that not include that because of shame and actually if and when my children read it and if God forbid it ever happened to them or a friend or someone they knew would I want that person to live with like this dirty secret as if it was their shame and I was like no the only way this book can work is if I write about the shame and all of the reasons that would stop someone from coming forward or would worry about a victim blaming and I remember speaking to Elizabeth Day saying how do you know when you write a book what you should keep in and she was like if you're worried about it keep it in that's what

makes a great book that's excellent advice yeah well on the subject of shame and and guilt that perhaps we shouldn't be feeling that is misplaced. Let's talk about your form book, Shavee Butte, which is Matressens by Lizzie Jones. In this groundbreaking, deeply personal investigation, long listed for the Women's Prize for Nonfiction in 2024, journalist and author Lizzie Jones brings to light the emerging concept of matrescence, the profound developmental transition into motherhood. through a blend of memoir, science writing and social critique. Lucy challenges idealised narratives and shows how the changes in the maternal mind, body and brain

are far more profound, wild and enduring than we had ever been led to believe. Butrescence has been praised for reshaping discussions around maternal mental health, identity, childcare and societal support for mothers, and is seen as an influential text on motherhood, feminism and structural inequality. Now this is an amazing piece of work. You described becoming a mother as transformational, as profound as adolescence in terms of transformation. Why do you think society still struggles to acknowledge matrescence as a major life transition? Because it happens to women.

I think, so I really struggled with motherhood. I should say this is all in my book, but I was someone. who thought I would be child free and was child free by choice. And then I found myself pregnant and it was locked down and I was like, I'm going to do it. We, as someone who is child food by choice, I was always being told, you'll run it if you don't and you'll know, you love like it. And all of these things that we tell women mainly who say they don't want children. So when I found myself in that situation against the backdrop of,

despair and death and destruction. It really does feel like fate that I was like, oh, I've got this like literally life and beacon of hope and how bad can it be? Well, guys, it turns out of really bad. And it was really traumatic. I love my pregnancy. Honestly, pregnancy.

If I describe it for me, it was like, you know, Snow White walking around and all the animals come to voice at the time. Just whistling and they're whistling. Yeah. I felt like, Mother Nature has blessed me. Like, I loved my body. I felt like, live in me growing life.

And I even love seeing my body changes. I struggled, I'm honest with having my boots group, Fad Sizes, and that was hard as someone that already had biddose. But when I had a baby, I love that suddenly. My boots were this sexual thing, but it was like this, they had a purpose and a lead, and they were feeding my baby. And of course, I should caveat even though he should never have to and say, I always loved my son. But I really felt like almost like a freak of nature that I was like resent for all that my life,

all the things I thought would be bad about motherhood, really bad about mother. And I was like, this is why I didn't want to have a baby because this is exactly what I didn't want for my life. And it was like everything that I'd learned that about my identity. entity and for me what made me happy I suddenly couldn't do and it was like when lockdown opened at six months I realized how much my life had shifted

and I hurried and that shift and then I thought am I a bad mother woman that I don't have this like maternal like I remember while soon finger puppets it didn't help every kind of sounded and he cried and bear in mind like there were nobody

classes it was locked down like you didn't meet my family. It was really lonely. So at the time, I was like, this is amazing. And I remember doing like finger puppets one day and being like, this time last year,

I was DJing around the world at festivals. And now I didn't even know that she ran at the time. I used to sing Mambo number five. So I was like, one, two, three, four, five. And I was like, what is this meant to complete us? Is this enough? And I felt a sense of regret.

And obviously it's a very tricky and nuanced topic that I speak in much more detail about in Bimbo. But I would Google, like, is it normal to regret motherhood? And what people always say to me is, what do you think that your son will think when he grows up and one day sees you talking about this? And I always say, well, if he decides to have children or his sister or his friends, hopefully he might understand what his partner or the women in his life. life might be going through because I think if if men were the mothers and they were told their whole life get a career, be successful, do all of these things and suddenly you almost are expected to take this time out and kind of adopt this complete different personality and put everything on hold and against by the way I should say a system that doesn't really like value you and

support you and it was this real, mightball moment for me that I was like, oh my God, mounds aren't just negative. It's actually like the system isn't set out for us to thrive. And I'd feel envious that Tommy could just go back to work and shut the door, whereas I was trying to work, but through breast pumping and, you know, all of those things. And you're exhausted. And my mental health, I think, would it be much better if there was more open discussion about the real identity shape. So when I heard the word detressants, I was like, that's what, that's the thing

that I felt why I was alone with. And it's this real thing that no one talks about because everybody's worried that someone will think that you don't have your child. And I always say, like, if it wasn't for the love of my child, I'd walk. Like, I was like, I'm not knowing this, but I loved him.

And I felt so guilty that I was feeding all of these things in my mind and I think that's why this book for me is like transformational. There's something so powerful about giving a word, giving language to a feeling that we've so quietly be dealing with but not felt able to say anything about. The knowledge of that just feels powerful and helpful. And so many women will be experiencing early motherhood and beyond without that word perhaps and suffering silently,

as we so often do. Why would you press this book into their hands? I think because it looks at science as well. It's like I had no idea that having a baby literally rewires your brain and knowing that all of these changes and feelings aren't just you. It's hormonal. it's your brain being literally rewired. And I think there's so much guilt

and this idea that you should be grateful, which of course two things can co-exist. You can be so grateful. But also a lot of people, including myself in my first birth, I were recovering from what is quite a traumatic experience that, again, people don't really talk about. So it's like the physical silent recovery. Like I will say, I was looking forward to getting,

birth because you know how people are always like, Mother and Babe doing well? And I was like, how could she be doing well? She either had a baby out that way or out that way. And neither of those made me feel like that would be well. So I was almost like excited to be like, now I'll get to find that. Well, I was not well. And I still need a lot of surgery to deal with a lot of the physical problems that I experience with, but it's always like brushed aside and you're like, well, don't scare. Like if you don't know, a positive story, doesn't make a good story. That's why mum's love to out-dugging the cells.

No, it's not negative, but it's trauma. And I was really lucky that my second birth, I'd have what you would describe as a positive birth experience. And I want that for everybody who wants to have children. And I think the more we talk about the, you know, lack of or, I'm a lot of, or underfunded maternity care, the better the system can be. And that's silence, like with everything to do with womanhood, only really serves the system or perpetrators. Let's talk about your fifth and final book-shelfy book, which is Yesteryear by Karad Lerwerk. Yesaer follows Natalie,

a glamorous tradwife influencer whose carefully curated social media life revolves around idealised domesticity, religion and traditional gender roles. After mysteriously waking up in what appears to be the brutal reality of the 19th century, she's forced to confront the harshness behind the romantic pioneer lifestyle she once sold online. Blending satire, psychological thriller and social commentary, the novel explores influencer culture, feminism, motherhood, and the performance of femininity in the digital age. This is a brand new novel.

It's brilliantly challenging of the fantasy of this sort of traditional, womanhood that I feel like we're seeing Tauston online so much now in a way that I never remember from before. Like this feels this feels like a new phenomenon. What made you want to pick up this book? I just think

it put into a story what I was feeling about the rise of the Trad Wife movement. That again, because I love history or specifically women's history and so often we have not been written into history and the more I learn, the more

I'm like, our ancestors must be fuming, that they worked so hard and relentlessly. I say in Bimbo that if I was born in the 17th century, I'd have been burned at the stake. If I was born in the 19th century, I would have been put into an asylum. If I was born in the 20th century, I would have been in prison for wanting the right. And today, I would have difficult woman. There's just so many amazing women's stories like Elizabeth Packard, who is an American woman, who was institutionalised because basically she believed in that abolition of slavery. And because her husband was a pastor, he had a church, a lot of the billionaires were basically paying the pastors to not promote the abolition of slavery because obviously they benefited from it. And she became really vocal.

And so he just put her in silent because that's what we could do there. and while she was in a asylum, she was so troublesome because she was like getting all the other women to disobey and to kick her out. And then she realised that she didn't have the right to her house to her children and she fought for so many of the marriage protections that obviously in America, but then that came into the UK and I feel like it annoys me when I see this romanticisation of the past or of the 1950s, again, women who were working,

after war where then they realized that there weren't enough jobs for men so they kind of glamorized us getting back home but you know we forget how recent so many of our rights are even just like the right to league or the right if that your husband rapes you for that to be considered a crime to have financial autonomy like there's so many things so when you see people promoting this romanticised traditional gender role it's so problematic. It's not problematic. I get it. I think so many women are burn out because of the world that we live in now,

that actually for lots of people, the idea of being able to just be at home and live the slow life and be with your children, it is appealing. But we forget a lot of these inferences are making money by telling you to not work and to quit your job and to serve your husband. And at the same time, many young boys are being fed to the manistee and being told that, you know, a wife and the good woman should be submissive. And growing up, we were told like, oh, get back in the kitchen as if it was an insult. And now that the burn rate is declining, suddenly it's had, no, get back in the kitchen. And it's like, you can't just like undervalue you. like the traditional women's role

our whole lives and then suddenly romanticise it instead of just giving us some rights and making motherhood more appealing or fixing childcare. You're suddenly like trying to convince us that this is our biological

fate. So this book, sorry to say it basically Natalie is a trad wife and it's very heather that it shows that the cracks beneath her being tried wife and one day she wakes up and she's in

the 19th century she's in the older days and so she suddenly comes to terms with the lack of freedom that women have and it's so interesting. Why do you think nostalgia for the past is so appealing to so many people at the moment?

Why have obsessed it with it? Even when history tells very different story for women and otherwise I mean it was hard in the past and people seem to overlook that when they have as yearning for it? I think people have always romanticised past. Like, you know, it's that cliche thing, isn't it?

Of like your grand being like, back in my day, everyone believes that one of the things, the literature, per se, that is fair. But, you know, every beginning is better than the olden days and you sort of forget the things that were really difficult. And I suppose it's a fear of an uncertainty of the future. So, you know, back when I was young, it was like computers or MSN Messenger that was going to be the downfall.

And now, for us, it's worrying about AI. And they all feel very real and very frightening because it's an unknown. And I remember growing up being like, I'm just so happy it's romantic. A Luchel's born in the 1950s and men wanted to be with you. And when marriage is lasted, the only reason marriage is lasted was because Lich can leave. Like, even if we want to do, we cannot leave. kind of kind of flate fantasy and a romanticism with the past. And I think, again, because we're not

really taught about the struggle and the fight to get our rights. I mean, the fact that we're talking about squackling the Equality Act in Parliament is just unfalienable. And people are still voting for that. And this book yesterday literally does what I, night. I wish people could go back and realise what it was actually like so that they wouldn't just like, flictantly give away our rights so we end up back in Guineaad. Well, it's this tension between fantasy and reality that sort of underpins the book. And Natalie's online persona is very much built around perfection and performance. We know that what we see on social media isn't real. It's important we keep reminding ourselves of that. But how do you balance the pressures of

of curating a public persona versus sort of normalising the realities of your everyday experiences, because that is what you do. But I feel like I don't curate a fantasy, and I feel like I don't try to be anything other than what I am. What I go to say, is a lot of men, especially a lot, you're actually really nice and be alive, but I feel that I'd be quite scary online. We're quite a man that needs him online. But it's like, that is everything I think, but I just might not bring up every time I meet

someone so of course it's curated in that sense so i tried to think of ways to make it engage it and usually it's like i'm trying to bring out in gilly out out but yeah so anyway i can get beautiful but i when i first got social media i did feel like i had to project this sort of like a perfect fantasy life where i remember that you know editing every part of my face so i didn't have any i actually did i was just too d i actually edited her so much I looked 2D and I just remember I'm editing my eyeballs so they looked really weirding white and you know you zoom in on every bit of yourself and it was quite freeing when I was like enough because the reason I felt like enough was because I started to hate myself in real life and I start

to worry that every person I met would realize that I wasn't the person that I was projecting and in the real kind of epiphany mode for me I think was like in 2015 there's a Victoria secret show and I went online the next day and every woman that I followed was just like hating themselves being like oh that's me not eating again or you know I was like oh my god what are we doing like I don't want us to feel like that and I don't want the next generation of women to feel like we have to zoom in on every single floor and that was when I started wanting to be more authentic and wanting to show myself and actually the I always think the the more you are yourself the more you find your tribe and I think that's true online and offline and for me the thing I love the most about online is like

the like-minded community and especially becoming a mile in lockdown I didn't I didn't know any mams I didn't have real-life mom friends and I couldn't go to club so people online were almost like my lifeline as well because I knew that if there was anything wrong and then I could come to him and also because I had all these different things that I was experiencing after birth I was talking about it online and I'll tell you well I's every time to say piles of prolapse in social media you do lose a lot of the annoying men in that so really I spent it no it did but it made me realize how many other people also had those issues and therefore I could get advice or I'd help people do like oh I didn't realize that

women on the 60 could get proluxes, I think I'd have got that and so it's just nice to actually be more authentic and not feel like you're having to portray perfection. Keep getting that bonnet out. I love it. And you're using

your platform to educate to inform, but what chapter would you like to pursue next in your story? Is there more writing on the cards? What does the future look like? Yeah, I was just actually saying, for it. I have come up with a new book idea

and I saved for me and he because it really didn't take over my life and I only just accomplished it in February and I came on with this new idea and I was like really not ready to write our book

but I have I didn't make a mistake of telling money to be agent about it and that's fine so not yet but that will hopefully come I say I don't have like goals or five-year-a-fans. I just want to be happy. And I am loving, like, this stage of motherhood. I'm getting to hang out with my kids. And I feel so lucky getting to do all different things that I get to do and get to cool work.

And, you know, even when I think back to that 25-olds who quit the job, and if you lived in the road draw for, like, five years, I'm like, we did it. Like, you know, even if it ends next year, like, I did it, but I feel so grateful every day that now we get to have. have all of those things that are really happy. And I'm definitely in a period of life where like sisterhood, like hanging out my phones is like the best thing in the world. And that makes me happy. And I just want to keep pursuing happiness, even if it looks different next year to what it looks like this year.

Well, listen, joy is radical. And that sisterhood is what we're all here for. That's what this is. So if we look through the sisterhood of authors who you've brought to the table today, the books that you've picked for your bookshelfy, which would be your favourite and why? Not that you would do that with sisters, that would be very unfair, but we'll take that metaphor away.

Which of these books are your favourite? I mean, I think it has to be the Handmaid's Tale just for the impact that it's had on me as somebody like knew, I guess, to literature and feminism, but also just the way the meaning has shape-shifted. What I will say, though, is I was so excited when the series came out and I did watch the series, but now, I can't watch it because it's just too close to reality.

It is, yeah. Well, a lie has been lived in those yellow pages. And thank you for sharing your life and your favourite books with us tonight. And thank you so much to our audience here at Diageo at Bayes HQ. I'm Rick Hope. And that was Bookshelfy from the Women's Prize. Supported by Bayleys and produced by Birdline Media. Thanks for joining me for this episode. find all the books that we discussed in our show notes. There's also a link to our bookshop.org

shelf where every purchase supports independent bookshops and the work of the Women's Prize Trust, a charity helping build a better future by championing women's writing. Now remember to hit the follow or subscribe button so you'll never miss an episode. And if you like this one, then leave us a rating or review to help other readers discover even more brilliant books by women. I'll see you next time.