Girls Gotta Eat - Activism, Body Image, and Cancel Culture with Jameela Jamil

Episode Date: August 24, 2020

We're covering the ABCs (activism, body image, and cancel culture) with actress/activist/inclusivity advocate Jameela Jamil. We discuss how anyone, whether they have a platform or not, can use their voice and make a difference, deep dive into how the internet and influencers have affected our body image and what we can do about it, and break down cancel culture. Jameela also shares her experience having an eating disorder and how it affected her love/sex life, and tells us why her current relationship is so healthy. In the spirit of Jameela's I Weigh community, our listeners share what defines them outside of their physical appearance, and WAP is a consistent theme throughout the episode. We hope you enjoy! Follow Jameela on Instagram at @JameelaJamilOfficial and @i_weigh. Follow us @GirlsGottaEatPodcast, Rayna @Rayna.Greenberg, and Ashley @AshHess. Check our website for tour dates, show tickets, and merchandise. Thank you to our partners for this episode: Allform: To find your perfect sofa and get 20% off all orders, go to allform.com/gge. Klarna: Download the Klarna app to shop thousands of online stores and pay for anything in 4 easy, interest-free payments. Raycon: Get 15% off your order at buyraycon.com/gge. HelloFresh: Get a total of $80 off + free shipping on your first box at hellofresh.com/80gge + code 80gge. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

And I was so stunned because I was like, you would never see a picture of a group of businessmen with their weight written across their body. It would be the awards they've won or their metrics. How big their dicks are. Yeah, exactly. How many women they fucked. Yeah. Welcome back to another episode of Girls Got to Eat. Week 64 of the pandemic.

I'm kidding. Remember those days? I was like, you're doing okay and you're like, yeah. I was trying to do the math. no it's like whatever it's 81 and partly cloudy it's beautiful outside today it's all right ashley's vibe is it's all right it's listen i had car trouble this morning you don't feel like tell them how you managed to prolong recording today yes i do feel like every time it is something but it always sounds like a lie but it's not car trouble that is the biggest

lie in the phone when you walked into the apartment say you looked like you had had car trouble The shirt you were wearing, which looks like a custom girl's got a shirt. And I was like, do we sell those? Or did you make that? And you're like, I don't know. It's a unisex. Look, we'll get into it. Look.

What happened was, today I'm letting my friend take the Xtera to go pick up a kitten. She's been on the hunt for a kitten. And she is our most organized. Yeah, yellow, aura. the most yellow friend. Detail oriented has been on the hunt for this kitten for months. And I will tell you that she is like family. She's such a close friend. I will do anything for her. And when she was talking about the kind of kitten she wanted to adopt, I was like, you know what, let me put it on my Instagram story and see if anybody might know a good,

maybe they're cat of kittens, maybe they know a good adoption place, whatever. And I was like, just send me kind of a description. It was so specific that I was like, I can't post this. So listen, she, because I couldn't even imagine in my wildest dreams what she wrote on that. I need to know what she wrote. And it was just the way, like, she knows what she wants. She wants to cat to look a certain way, which is fine. We all preferences she's adopting. So that's all that matters, right?

She's not buying a kitten or, you know, whatever. It's not like a breed thing. It's just a specific look. She wants it to look like a kitten forever. It's a whole thing. But she described the way its face, its mouth, its nose. It was crazy. And I was like, thinking of how I could rewrite it to just seem a little more chill.

So my followers aren't like, your friends are crazy. And in the meantime, I kept being like, I'm sorry. I know I meant to post that for you. And I'm sorry. I keep forgetting and procrastinating. And she jokes about it. She's like, I know I sounded crazy. I'm like, bitch, you did.

But in the meantime, she did find a kitten. They called me for a reference. You were here. They called me. I've never heard Ashley say such nice things about anybody, including her mother and me. It was amazing. Well, she is. She's so responsible. She sits for Dewey. She would be an amazing pet owner. So she used me as a reference. And she got the cat. And she was taking the Xera today to go get it in like Orangeburg, New Jersey. And the battery was dead. So let's listen. At this point, I don't know if that cat's coming back to Manhattan. Because she, the car is not really should not be on the road. Yeah, but seriously, there's no one I trust in a crisis more than her in the whole world. You know you have some friends. You're like, if this happened to you, you would die. Yeah. She's wonderful. And I mean, if that car breaks down. on the road with like a kitten and a kitten carrier.

Well, I don't have that much interesting stuff going on in my life, which leads me to a couple things. First of all, I got a new Amazon Alexa. I've only said one thing to it. And I feel like Alexa knows everything about me because of this thing. Because I've had it in my home for like a week and a half. And I've only said one thing to it. What?

And that is Alexa play wet-ass pussy. Yes. That is the only thing I've said to it. Does she play it? Does she know it? Thank you. Playing wet-ass pussy. She says that?

No, it says Wop. It really was my dream for her to say it. Alexa play Wop. Oh, does she hear that? Yours doesn't care. She's in the bedroom. She's in the bedroom. I got a second one.

I got a backup one. Also, I got an echo for the bedroom like you. A little baby echo. Oh, you got a big one and a small one. You got a whole speaker system. You're all tricked out. I couldn't let you all shine me. I read this best meme and it was like, of course, you know,

women are dominating their rap charts and we can't even go out and dance or something like that. You know, like, this is like such a hot music summer. I mean, I mean, there's always been like amazing summer bangers, but like especially what once WAP came out and it's like we can't even go to the club. And then it's that I know there's a man to blame for this. It's my favorite song of the summer. Who's the man? You can blame Donald Trump. Okay. So speaking of that, did you know that Baron Trump is like 6'6? Is he hot? No, we're not going there. Rainy's 14. So, like, does he look like he'll be hot?

Oh, my. Okay. Stop of what you're doing. First of all, I thought Baron Trump was like eight. I thought he was 11 at the most. Last night on Twitter, I see Baron is trending. A few reasons. One, he's going to virtual school.

But, yeah, Donald Trump wants to open the schools. Of course, his own son is going to virtual school. Two, there's this video of the three of them, exiting Air Force 1 or whatever Donald Trump is trying to hold Melania's hand she's not having it like the most she's ever not had it like as in like you will not hold my hand swatting him away

multiple times 100% she's voting for Biden by the way vote like Melania she knows that this like agreement they have is about to end she knows she's three months away. Nobody is voting for Biden Harris harder than Melania Trump and Barron is coming down behind them and

he is like his body comes out of the plane first and his head isn't even out of the plate. I'm like, how tall is this motherfucker? Donald Trump is like 6.3 or 6.2. I mean, hands of a 5-7 man. But, like, Baron, Baron Trump is, he's 6-6 at the least. I had no idea.

I thought he was a child. First of all, I thought he was eight. Yes. Right. And like, if you said he's 11, I'd be like, oh, that makes sense. He was 8. Well, you know, a few years ago when, like, how is he 14 and how is he an absolute unit?

I just had to share that. Thank you. No, I literally didn't know. I didn't know he wasn't eight. I had no idea. I just didn't know. But yeah, I just love watching her pure hatred for her husband. Should I throw myself off these steps and die or touch him? And her full body's like die. Yeah. It's a dry ass pussy. I hope you guys are enjoying Donald Trump's slamming. It's only going to get worse over the next few weeks. A couple little housekeeping things. Do you want to talk about the live show? Should I talk about canceling live shows first? First, let's just hype today's episode. We have Jamila Jamil as our guest. We're so excited to have her. We've wanted her for a while. And we are, we're actually doing this in order this time.

So we haven't spoken to her yet. So we can't hype the interview, but we're sure it's going to be amazing. Her voice is, I would go to sleep to her voice. Yeah, she's the best voice. So you guys are in for a serious treat. Yeah. We're going to talk about weight. We're going to talk about confidence, cancel culture, all kinds of things.

Other housekeeping stuff, unfortunately, as well, we let you guys know last week. We have canceled our shows through 2020, our live shows. All the information is on our website. All information is always on our website. Every venue has a little bit of different information about how to get a refund and what the window for refunds are. So check our website, but always reach out to the venues. Please have some patience with them.

Every artist in the United States and probably in the world is dealing with us right now. So we are working to move the dates, not the venues. So we should be at the same venues next year, God willing. Yeah. Can always get everything on the Girl's Got Eapoddypodcast.com. Yep. Everything's on the website, including our virtual stupid live show, which is going to be Wednesday, September 2nd, 9 p.m. Eastern Time, 6 p.m. Pacific time.

It's going to be great. We have a lot of fun stuff planned. We're going to tell some crazy stories, have some fun guests that you guys will recognize. If you listen to the show, some performances, all kinds of things. It's going to be wild. Dewey, of course, they'll make an appearance. And you guys can get tickets. They're affordable.

They're like 12 bucks. portion of proceeds will benefit Black Lives Matter. And again, just go to GirlsGottypodcast.com. Click on live shows. It's right there at the top. And then also on the website, you guys can grab merchandise and all the other things on there. All the other things.

If you guys are newer listeners, you want an episode about a specific topic, whether it's money or sexual fetishes or whatever it is, you can search those now. So every episode is there, and then all of our partners and all of our discount codes. So one-stop shop, got new gifts, got new merch, got new everything.

We're really excited. Yes. So get on that guys. And you said you had an announcement about your personal life you wanted to share. I feel like every six months I tell you guys this

and I'm usually pretty good with it. I've recommitted to getting back out there. Oh my God. I mean, a dating podcast. I cannot be getting fucked. Okay? Listen, safely. Yeah.

With a mask doggy style. Only. I feel like New York has been pretty safe and everybody's following the rules and precautions. I mean, I've been out to dinner quite a bit. I mean, you know, everything's really socially distanced.

Everybody wears masks. And I feel like New Yorkers will scream in your face if you don't follow the rules. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Public shaming. People have really followed the rules in New York, which makes me feel very proud.

But I want to get back out there because I feel like when it gets cold, everything's going to shut down again. So my last chance to find a boyfriend is probably like Thanksgiving and that's it. Oh, like before then. You have time. Yeah, like a couple months. But I feel like once the world shuts down again because it's cold, you can't go to bars like that's it.

And I can't get another boyfriend until like May. Oh, this is true. Yeah. Yeah, you got to start cuffing preseason now. Yeah, because cupping season is not going to last as long as it usually does. We got pandemic, election, cuffing season on steroids. November's going to be wild. So I'm committed.

I like to commit to the audience and to you that I'm going to get back out there. I always say I'm going to do it on dating apps. I don't really have an option other than that, though, because I always say it and I don't do it. I was eager to get on the apps for the first time. Get back. I'm going to get back out there for the first time. Well, I can't meet guys in public anymore. I can just walk up to people and say something gross.

Yeah. You can, but it'll be like muffled through. mask. It's awkward for everybody. Every time I've tried to flirt with somebody, I forget that I have a mask on. And they're like, no one can see what you look like. So I'm going to see those teeth. That's your main thing. I paid enough money for them. So I'm going to get out there for the first time. You need one of those masks that has your smile on the mask. Some people can see what's under there. I mean, it's my best asset on my lips. People look at them and they're like she sucks a great dick. Yeah, the whole mouth. Yeah, the whole mouth. Yeah. All right. Well, Raina's getting back out there on there. She's getting

on there. Catch your own hinge. Or whatever you're... Or if you guys have like really cool, smart, funny brothers, cousins, friends. Ex-boyfriends. I'll fuck your ex-boyfriend.

Depends on why he's your ex-boyfriend. Is he a cheater? I don't want him. Right. But maybe you had like an amicable breakup and it was just because like he made too much money for you. But is he a cheater that'll spit in your mouth? Because then you might make an exception.

Yeah, well, you can't spit anymore in 2020. That's true. Spitting in people's mouth started this whole thing. You can spit on my face. You and that guy in Australia are patient zero. I let that guy do so many things to my body. We know. Yeah.

Okay. So you, I want, you have thoughts on this, more thoughts. I don't think more thoughts than I do. You could start. Well,

yeah, we want to talk about love on the spectrum, which is a show on Netflix. And it is about, it's a dating show. Well, I don't know. It's basically,

it's a show about, singles that are on the autism spectrum that are dating, but also a few couples too. So all kinds of relationships. I love it. I think that we need more shows like this to educate people on people with disabilities and people that are different than you and just to normalize it. And there's a lot of stigma around people with any sort of disability, whether it's being an autism spectrum or anything. And the show was really like the spectrum of autism, you know, from people that live a pretty normal life to people that still need to live with their parents and things like that. So I thought it was great all around.

A few thoughts. My favorite person, I feel like on the show, which I don't think I'm alone. And this was Michael. I just felt like he just wore my heart. I just like, if he doesn't find his queen, I don't know what I'm going to do. Like he is just, I'm so, he is, his just the kindest soul. I just wanted him, I just wanted to watch him the whole time. Like when he wasn't on an episode, I'd be like, more Michael, please.

So I just loved him so much. I just thought he was so wonderful. I loved when his brother was like trying to help him date. He like gave him that checklist. I'm like, can every guy get this checklist? And then I loved the one girl, Maddie, with that big dick energy of I want a hot, muscular rich man and I'm not selling for anything less. Her family was like, you might want to lower your standards a little bit.

She was like, fuck you. This is what I'm out for. She was just like crossing guys off the list left and right. She was like, no, I'm not good enough for me. But one guy was like good looking and paleontology. I thought he was great. She was like, not for me. That guy was hot.

She was just like, no, no, all the women were, the standards, the guys were like, I'll take anyone. And the women were like, nope, not good enough. Next. Thank you next. I just thought this was a really like beautiful representation of a part of society. You don't see that often. And like really important.

I love what Netflix is doing in general with dating shows. But I thought this in particular was extremely important. And we talk about people with disabilities a lot. But you don't hear a lot about people with disabilities dating. And I'd love to do it for our show. Yeah. For sure. We're definitely committed to doing that.

on our podcast, but I don't think you see this side of things and what it's like for parents to help somebody or a sibling to help somebody to just like learn to, you know, pull out a girl's chair or what you ask somebody. And I really do wish like all guys went through this. Because like the stuff that Michael's brother told him, like, you know, try to feel it out. And if she doesn't seem interested in what you're saying, maybe like change the topic or, you know, ask her different question about herself. Like can every dude I ever went on a date with go to that school? That letter that Michael's brother wrote him, I was like, can every guy get this and have to sign off on it that they read it? The honesty was also just like really tremendous between people and just like what they were looking for.

It was so refreshing. Like if everyone could date that way, like there'd be a lot less confusion. I mean, again, you know, like there's a reason why the people in the show speak and act the way that they do. their brains function in a different way. But like, it was the bluntness and just the upfront honesty was so refreshing to see. Like, I think if I took away anything, I was like, man, I just, this is like, it's good to watch. There's no games. There's just like, are you enjoying yourself?

Should we do this again? Nope. Okay, cool. Like, it was just like at the end of every date. It was like this honest conversation between two people about exactly what they were feeling in the moment. Can I see you again? Yes, you can see me again.

That would make me really happy. Yeah, I just, I thought it was sweet. It was a really good, like, feel-good show. Yeah, it also... I hope they all find love. It opened my eyes to a part of society that I just don't... I don't know much about it.

I don't have any family members with a disability. So I haven't been around it, like, growing up, and it's something really important and something we want to highlight on the show as well. So... Yeah, we're definitely on it. We are so excited to welcome our guests today.

She is an actress, a radio presenter, a model, a writer, an activist. In 2018, she founded Iway, which is a community. allyship program that we're going to talk a little bit more with her about. In addition to her activism, she recently starred into the fantasy comedy series, The Good Place, which I am obsessed with. Please welcome to the house studio Jamila Jamil. Hello, thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. So you're coming to us from L.A., right? Okay, and you're in the world of activism.

So how did you get into that? We'd love to hear more about that. God, I got into activism when I was 19 and I just started my recovery from an eating disorder and realized that a large portion of my eating disorder had come from the influence of media in particular fashion. Like I came up during the time of heroin chic. So that was when you were supposed to be sin enough to look like you consume nothing other than heroin in order to be beautiful. And so I really believed that messaging as a 12 year old, as did most of the other people of my generation. And I think recognizing how much that had damaged me once the spell had been broken at 19, after I'd had had a car accident that had left me, like,

hugely disabled for a couple of years. It changed the way that I felt about my body and it made me respect my body a little bit more and want to treat it a bit better than I had during my anorexia, my worst years of anorexia, because it isn't something that you can really get rid of in just a couple of years. But I started campaigning and writing to newspapers about the dangers of the fashion industry,

which I'd seen both as a scout and also as like a, budding teenage model who never really got to do much, but I saw enough to be, to recognize that I was being told by grown adults that if I want to get to the weight that they desire, I would have to just eat one red pepper sliced up a day. And that's it. That should be my entire food. And if I cut it into small pieces, then it can feel like mini meals, which is about 15 calories a day. And I'm about 5 foot 10. That's so crazy. Yeah, for a growing kid, that's a wild thing to say. And I stopped having periods for three years. And I, you know, I damaged my fertility, my kidneys, my adrenal. my digestive system is fucked and so and these are things that are still going on now because the damage

I did back as a teenager and so I think a lot of people think that I got into activism in 2018 when it was trendy because they think that I'm Tahani in real life but actually I've been saying this same shit for 15 years if anything I'm a broken record but it's an interesting path to be on both sides of activism one way you're grassroots and you are standing from the outside as someone with no power and no platform where people don't listen to you or they victim shame you and they willfully ignore you and then to do it as a Hollywood actress and everyone's acting like not only have you never said these things before but no one ever has they listen to you as if you've just created the idea of activism and so it's been an interesting journey to try to make sure that

I utilize my platform the best that I can but also don't take up too much space which is like walking a tightrope yeah because they won't listen to my marginalized people. And I know that because I used to be more marginalized. Right. And said all these same things. And what is your background? Where did you grow up? Did you grow up in the UK? I grew up in London and Pakistan and Spain. So I just basically, wherever the pound was strongest is where I would go, because we had no money growing up. And we were constantly being thrown out of our houses because we couldn't make rent. So we would just move to wherever we could afford to eat, really, or wherever we might have family members who would let us sleep on the floor.

So that was my upbringing until I was about maybe seven or eight and things started to settle down. And I think I only moved like four more times after that. Only four more times. Yeah, I moved 13 times as a child, which is quite a lot. Oh, my gosh. And I think this will resonate with a lot of people, something you said a few moments ago, which is, you know, when you come from a place of such adversity

and you have no platform, but you feel like you have a message and you really want to get it out to people. and I feel like a lot of people probably feel like that right now today. How do you do that? Like, how did you start being an activist without a platform? Truly just letter writing, campaigning, finding other activists, joining movements. You know, I think that something that I want more people to understand

is that activism can take place brick by brick. You don't have to have millions of followers on the internet. You don't have to even stand outside in a march with a placard if you maybe have a disability or social anxiety around crowds. You can make such a difference just from joining. other movements. You don't have to be the leader of the movement. I, for example, all the changes that I've made, like the Instagram and Facebook law that we changed, or global policy that we changed around making sure that minors couldn't see cosmetic surgery procedures and couldn't be sold

diet and detox teas, or the two bills I'm working on now, as much as I am the face of those things, without the 250,000 signatures that I got in three days from other people who joined my movement, without the 1.3 million people who join I weigh, I wouldn't have created all of this noise or been able to make this change. So we do all of this as a group and I think anyone out there who's listening to this or who's been watching the news lately thinking,

shit, I need to do more. I want to be an activist, but I don't know where to start. Do not have the idea of you being at the front of the crowd, just join the crowd because there is so much strength in numbers. So that's how I started was just by kind of jumping onto other, A, educating myself and everyone around me as best I could, but writing in, contacting the British Fashion Council, contacting the government via harassment letters,

and aligning with other people who were older and more experienced than me. Well, and I love that because you never know what's also going to catch on. So like something like what's just happening in Iowa, they had this crazy storm that's like got another word that I don't even know. And like it wasn't getting a lot of press because there's a lot of other things going on. And someone just sent it to me and I posted it. And then it's, I feel like it started to pick up traction. And then you see the original post was just this guy with like a couple hundred followers

that was like, here's what's happening in Iowa, here's how you can help. And I think sometimes you see a post from like someone with literally under a thousand followers that all of a sudden you look at it and it has a half a million likes because it got into the hands of the right people and people just started sharing it around. Also so much of activism takes place like at your dinner table. And if we all took part in just brick by brick activism of educating those around us and ourselves, then the world would be completely transformed within a matter of months. But it's because I think we have this idea that an activist wears a beret and stands like at the front of a march,

like being able to be a great public speaker and has all of this power and charisma. It's like, this isn't, that's not true. It's, it's the masses who make the difference. And, and I think it's really important. I think I see a lot of division within activism and a lot of kind of oppression Olympics and allyship Olympics and you see people wanting their movement to be stronger than another person's movement. And this is just such a warped idea of how we're going to beat the oppressor. The reason the oppressor keeps winning is the oppressor knows how to organize and stick together and put their differences aside. And I feel like liberals definitely still are struggling with being able to do that because they want perfection, they want moral purity. And I understand

that. But I don't know if we are always amazing at looking at the bigger picture at zooming out and seeing the macro of like what we're actually trying to achieve here. And we we deal in the micro sometimes. So I definitely hope that this year, I've seen this year, I think there's been more alignment, especially politically. You can see that more people are like, okay, let's just put our differences aside and get the government in order that we want. Yeah. And you've been pretty open about it. You can't tackle everything, you know, and like, people come at you. They're like, did you see Kim Kardashian's picture? Why aren't you speaking on it, and you're like, okay, but the fact that you were even bringing that,

my attention shows that my work here is done. Like I've I've showed you how to spot these problematic things. So I, and I only, I'm only one person and I can only do so much. And I feel like, correct me if I'm wrong, but you just really honed in on this like fit tea, bullshit serving this stuff to young girls. Like, I feel like we, you can't just cure body image and eating disorder. So you chose a lane almost of like, okay, here's what I see as a problem with influencers peddling this bullshit and I'm going to hone in on this.

Yeah, it's funny. People have all these different ideas of who I am because they don't really know me beyond a tweet. And so some people think I'm the Punisher and that I'm here to come and cancel and kill and go out and just, I'm Batman and they put a bat signal in the air and then I go out and like scream at someone publicly. That's not really what I'm trying to do.

Like I don't want to cancel anyone. I don't want to cancel the Kardashians. Why would I try and cancel people who have loads of money and influence? that they could put to so much good. Why would I, like, truly, I mean, talk about biting the hand that could potentially feed us. Right. And so I want them just to stop selling laxatives and then I will get off their dick. It's really not, like, I don't enjoy this.

This isn't fun for me. Do you hear that, Chloe? Okay. Yeah. And so I tried to, like, approach them with as much empathy as I can because, you know, I was a huge Kardashian family when I was younger because they were the first curvaceous women in media. And I felt like they took so much bullying from the press. over that that I was very on Kim's side and used to constantly speak out in her defense. And then

she, you know, I think it all just kind of got to their heads as to the fact that the priority in their lives, the thing that the media scrutinized the most means that their size, their weight, their appearance must be the most important thing about them, which is a shame because they're actually a very bright group of business women. But you could just see that that damage has been done though because this is the messaging they put out so often. It's like they don't need the money. They're billionaires. They don't need to sell these T's. these detoxes and these corsets and show these pictures of them looking thinner than maybe they are and then they get found out by the paparazzi and then everyone piles in on them again. They don't need

to do that, but they've clearly internalised the idea that what was most important about them is how little space they take up, how young they can look, how sexy they can be. And the media and society did that to them. So I try to act with as much empathy as possible, but I'm not a counsellor. I'm also not an intellectual. I think some people think that I think that I'm a super intellectual. I left school at 16. I don't have any fucking qualifications. I'm not that well read. I'm just someone. I'm an ordinary person who just got put in an extraordinary position on NBC who just said, well, these things are fucked and it will be crazy if I don't say something about them. Otherwise, I'm complicit in the violence against women. I think that we've seen this explosion

of cancel culture this summer. So for people who had never even heard that term before, you can't escape it now. And I like how you liken the Cardass. I don't want to cancel them. I want to re-educate people because how sad is it to lose people that have a platform that large, right? Yeah. And I love the stuff that you said about just sort of re-educating people and not can't. Some people deserve to get canceled. Some people do really terrible, horrible things. But other people really are just products of their environment and deserve to be re-educated. Yeah. And I believe in education. My job here as an activist is I'm more trying to be an educator, right? I'm just trying to, I'm learning all the time and I'm just trying to bring

everyone along on the journey with me so we can all learn together. I don't believe in being judgmental about people who don't know what they don't know yet. I just believe we should all be trying and we should all be on a journey to consistently get better and do better. And so, you know, my role personally in society is just like, I believe in people, I believe in people's intelligence. And I think that if we just gave them the correct information, if we just told kids what Photoshop is, how it works, how everything they're seeing is face tuned, what is really in the detox and diet teas, what happens to you when you wear a corset all of the time? I think if we actually armed them with the information, they would, they are bright enough to protect themselves,

but because they've been left in the dark and they think that porn is real and that's what sex is really like. And we don't tell them anything at school. Their parents don't tell them fuck all. And so I think that I've just kind of decided to kind of step in as a kind of crass, foul-mouthed, older sister for your parents don't want you to talk to, but who's going to tell you the truth that I learned the halfway so that you don't end up as fucked up as I have been. What was your question? Sorry, about educating people. Sorry, yes. I believe... No, you nailed it. Keep going. There are two letters, right? Cancel culture and call out culture. They're two very different things. And I feel like celebrities keep crying about how they are being cancelled just because they're being criticized.

And I think we've had this kind of almost religious approach to celebrities over the last 20 years where we treat them like gods. So they've become accustomed to being treated like gods, never being questioned. And so when they get pushed back, they're like, I can't believe you've cancelled me. It's like, you're a white billionaire, J.K. Rowling. Nobody can cancel you. Only death would be cancellation. Right. Yeah. You can publish your own books. You could start

a publishing fucking house. You're going to be literally fine. Yeah. Yeah. Celebrities don't often get cancelled. Very few ever have been. And so, you know, they normally just go away for a minute and they come back. And so they've been crying about council culture. And I think that has been really unhelpful because it's made people then not understand what cancel culture is. Call out means you are calling someone out for their bad behavior and maybe even piling onto them if that's what it takes to get their attention. Cancellation means de-platforming

someone, taking away their rights, taking away their job, taking away their voice. And I do think that our world that we're in right now is so unforgiving and so impatient and so angry. And I understand why, but I don't like the culture of calling for the cancellation, the de-platforming and whatever, of someone on their first or second mistake, if that mistake isn't intended to harm people. I think we have to be willing to educate people. If we think that people aren't capable of change, then what the fuck is the point of activism anyway?

Right. The hypocrisy is crazy. It's like, don't you want growth? Like, I watch your Trevor Noah clip over and over. I'm not kidding you. I feel like I can quote it. And I love that you say, like, if you haven't caused irrevocable, is that the word?

Irrevocable. Like harm, and you are doing more good in the world. Why are you trying to take these people down and come for their money? And it's like people change and they grow. And shouldn't we love to see somebody that is doing great things in the world that they used to fuck up? Because that's proof that there is so much growth. And it's like we can all do better. Like it's almost like inspiring as opposed to something that you should be trying to ruin someone's life for something they said 10 years ago.

Like to me, it's like the opposite. we should be like, wow, look at how far he or she has come from those comments from a decade ago. This is inspiring. Like, it's so, it's so backwards and I get so fired up. It just makes me quite sad because I think that no one recognizes again, like, let's look at the bigger picture. You're devaluing progress. Devaluing progress to young people. It's like we as adults, we see these things differently, but you have to be aware that kids are watching us. They're watching everything we do. And we are making them afraid of putting their hands up and admitting when they don't know the answer to your question.

or they don't join in with activism because they are afraid that if they aren't perfect and if they don't already know everything, then if you stick your neck out, your head is going to get chopped off. And so we are truly devaluing progress. Why would anyone bother getting better if you're never going to allow them to reenter society? And again, I'm only talking about people who haven't done irrevocable harm. Someone like Harvey Weinstein should buck off and die a bit. Absolutely. But I think other people who have potential to really do amazing things with their power,

We need them. Like, how far along do we think we are that we can just cut off all of our potential allies because they made one mistake maybe 10 years ago? Well, also, I can't even believe I'm using this as an example. But I feel like, you know, nothing anybody's going to do is going to be perfect and no one's ever going to be 100% satisfied with an apology or a comeuppance or whatever. But Britney Spears posted this thing. I can't believe I'm using her as an example. But I actually really liked it. She said, go ahead and criticize me. But just remember to be perfect for the rest of your. life. And I thought that that was a great sentiment. Brittany, I hope you're okay. But I love the sentiment

and I feel like you can sit in silence and judge other people who have tried to do something for the world and say this isn't enough or this is, you know, misguided or whatever. But look at your own life and what are ways that you could be better? Because I have looked at my life every day for months now in this society and said every day, how can I be better and more important? For sure. For sure. I'm always learning. I mean, I fuck up publicly. all the time and I don't shy away from it because I think it's really important for young people in particular to see that someone can grow and change and learn. I believe in showing my workings out as to how I am becoming a better person. I was so fucking problematic, so ignorant, just a couple of

years ago even. I mean, I think it was 2012. I was slut shaming publicly. I was just so careless in the way that I would talk about different kind of subgroups of minorities. You know, I also was a comedian so I would make really, really callous and crass jokes all the time. And I've grown into someone who now uses my platform, not to take people down, but to elevate people. I know I sometimes call people out, but only when they're being dangerous. Other than that, I've now turned my work towards strengthening marginalized groups and trying to help give them my platform. If I'd been cancelled, quote unquote, like had my job and my voice and my everything taken away, then I wouldn't have been able to eventually create I way and start to change all these laws.

So we have to believe in the progress of people. Otherwise, what are we here? for if we don't believe in hope. And I think that it's, it makes me really sad. And I also think it's important to think about this. I guess the psychology behind some of council culture. I feel like, you know, we're quite simple beings, really. And I don't think we've evolved in all of the ways. And I think that there's a feeling of safety in a tribe. And when you see a tribe, you see a mass of people turning against someone, you sometimes join in just for the feeling of safety of like, if I actively stand out against this one thing or criticize this one person and join the pylon, then at least I'm safe within the numbers of the big group who are calling them out

and therefore I don't have to be on my own. I think we do it for safety. Does that make sense? And for example. One to like prove allyship in a way, which is kind of sad. Like Obama talked about this at the end of 2019. There's a, the Daily did a great two-parter on cancel culture. And I think people forgot the end that. I think that they felt like it was so long ago, but like it's still a relatively newer term. And Obama addressed it, I think, in November 2019. And he said, this is kind of how people are trying to prove that they're a good person by judging others and, you know, piling on others.

So it was interesting. So, you know, we co-sign him always. Always forever. I also wonder if it's partially because we see something in someone else that maybe we possess ourselves and we're so disgusted by that. We're embarrassed of it that we rail against it disproportionately. intensely because we hate that part of ourselves and we feel like maybe we can exercise that demon by so violently standing against something else. And by the way, just so you know,

I'm so pro celebrities and powerful people being called out to within an inch of their lives. I'm fine with that. We are too. We've been called out and we're better people for it. Exactly. I'm so much better for it. Everything I know I learned from my mistakes, not from my triumph. Yeah. But there's a difference, like you said, of also trying to ruin someone's life. And they're their livelihood. And I love that you distinguish the difference of call out and let's ruin your life and let you

ever speak again. I want to get back to Iway a little bit. Talk about what you build. I'd love to talk a little bit more about eating disorders and body image if you're comfortable. And since this is a dating show, you know, how that can affect dating and relationships.

If you have any thoughts about that. So that's a loaded question. But... There's not there. Go on. Break it down for me. I'll first. Why don't you tell people I know we know because we know I weigh, but why don't you tell people even what I weigh means? Like what is like someone that's totally unfamiliar with the brand? In 2018, I think I joined Instagram for the good place to promote it and I clicked on the explore button and I really didn't know what I was doing. And all these images kept on coming up of these beautiful, talented, strong, powerful women. And the numbers were written across their bodies, namely the Kardashians. I saw a picture of a group shot of the family with numbers written across their bodies. And I was like, oh, I bet that's how much money they're worth. And then I thought, oh, I wonder how much money there was.

So I clicked on it. And it was their weight. And I was so stunned because I was like, you would never see a picture of a group of businessmen with their weight written across their body. It would be the awards they've won or their metrics. How big their dicks are. Yeah, exactly.

Five, six, seven. How many women they fucked. Yeah. But it was their weight. And because of the algorithms of social media, once I clicked on that one image, it was like, oh, she wants to see pro-ano material. And so suddenly I had all of these images of different famous women and their weight written across their bodies. And I tried so hard to find the same of men. And unless they're a

UFC fighter, I couldn't find a single picture of a man with their weight, written across their body because we don't care. We care what men contribute to society and what they do, not what the numbers on a scale. And so what I weigh is is a new metric for measuring your value, because women have been taught that our value is in how little space we take up and what numbers turn up on a scale. And that is fucking bullshit. And that is the height of patriarchy to give us this method of distracting ourselves

so that we're eating less, we're sleeping less, we feel distracted and awful about our bodies all of the time. Therefore, how can we ever be an equal gender if we have all of this extra homework to do of always looking like a prepubescent Lolita, 14-year-old? So I one day posted, well, I weigh my relationship and my orgasms and my friendships and my financial independence, my activism, the eating disorder I've survived.

and I posted it. I didn't have a very large following. I think I had 16,000 followers in Instagram at the time, and it just went so mega viral around the world in a way that I could never, ever have predicted, and within three days I had 10,000 women post their eyewaves back to me, started an Instagram account, thought it would be a short phase, and yet here I am two years later.

We have 1.3 million followers, a very active community. We've built a podcast. We have a YouTube channel. We're changing laws together, and we really support. I'm getting like all worked. I'm a little choked out. It's wild. It's been so mad, but it also shows that, you know,

like I just touched upon such a global frustration, and it's no longer just a body image movement. It's now just a general movement against shame. And it's about radical inclusivity and representing the groups who are most erased in the most empowering and educational way. It's also, most importantly, the thing that I wanted it to be is what it's now become,

which is this has been a year where a lot of people want to join. join in allyship and they don't know where to start. And again, as we were saying, like, this is not a very forgiving space. Alliship is such a superiority complex space where everyone wants to show how much more they know than you and punish you for what you don't yet know. And so we wanted to create a safe space where it's like, wherever you're at in your journey of learning, you can learn with us.

We have something for everyone. We will introduce you to the best activist. It's not all about me. It's all about other people. the mic has been fully passed over to other smarter, more experienced activists. And when I'm learning there, you can just join me on this. I don't know shit about shit. I don't know.

That's true. I don't know. And I'm learning. And I think that that is joyous. And that's the whole point of life. And so you are welcome to come and join me in that. We're not going to judge you for what you don't know because we're so glad that you're here trying to be better.

I just love that. I love that. It's the energy that people need right now is to like, Because people are so ready to jump down your throat for one misstep when you have a platform. So I love that you're trying to create the safe space of like, it's okay if you say the wrong word. You know, I don't mean like a slur. You know what I mean. Just like.

Yeah. I think just consistently being on a journey to look at your internalized bigotry, wherever it lies, we're internalized misogyny and always be correcting yourself, be hypervigilant. And just do and be better. as long as you are growing every single day, you are on a better path than those who just sit there pointing at you from the sidelines. A lot of the people who criticize others

aren't doing shit to help anyone else. And the reason I know that is because I don't have time to nitpick other people because I'm actually busy trying to help others. If you have time to sit there being a keyboard warrior, picking everyone up on every single syllable, then I think that it shows that you have a lot of time on your hands because you're not being very helpful in the world.

Yeah, read a fucking article. Yeah. And so, you know, like I said, I think accountability is vital in this space and I'm one to definitely hold others to account and I'm held to account all the time. But we just have to have our fucking eyes on the prize. Sometimes I feel like we've actually lost sight of the end goal because we've lost hope in it. And so we're just kind of all we've learned how to do is be angry and complain, but then not actually plan the next step. I feel like we're not planning the next step yet enough

and we're not figuring out how to come together and fix our oppression as one. And it made me laugh when you said, I don't know shit, which is not true. But I think maybe, but maybe. I don't know shit about shit. Learning. And I think that that's cool. And I think being willing to fail is cool. This fucking stupid idea of failure or a mistake being something to be ashamed of,

it's not at all. I mean, failure is a sign that you actually had. the guts to try. And I think that that's incredibly noble. It's way cooler than someone who never bothered who never put themselves out there. But just wants to hide behind their keyboard and, you know, criticize everyone. Really brave. If we wait for everyone to have a perfect understanding of absolutely everything before they join in and try and help, nothing is ever going to get better. Everyone has to jump in, scrap in now, get messy, get dirty, and get into trouble, but work together towards a better future. Right. I love that. So on I way, what kind of

of particular, just I don't want to keep hammering this, but we haven't done a lot of episodes about eating disorders and body image. Body image, yes, but not eating disorders. What type of resources do you provide for people? So we find great activists from around the world who talk about these things, but we also align with charities like Nieder or universities who are doing studies like Harvard Striped. And so we work with them a lot. And I also use my podcast to talk to a lot of scientists or celebrities about their eating disorders. I talk a lot about mine. I had an eating disorder for about 20 years.

I only actively starve myself for about four of those. And then after that, I've just had the kind of, but still like a really odd relationship with food. And food, I used to weaponize food. Food was comfort. Food was rebellion. Food was joy. Food was consolation.

Food was never just fuel until I was like 30. And so I was just so toxic, so obsessed my size and I would step on a scale every single day for 20 years and allow that scale to tell me how I was allowed to feel that day. So it's like the number would decide whether this was going to be a good day or a bad day. How dare I, how dare I let numbers on a scale determine whether or not I have permission to feel good, to feel sexy and to feel happy and strong and worthy? The shit that I've said to myself in my own head is so much worse

than the worst things that any troll could ever say to me on the internet. It is unbelievable when you silence that inner bully, when you realize the peace in your head and how much of your brain was just full of you saying things to yourself that you would never tolerate being said to someone that you love. So I talk a lot about my own eating disorder history and I go out of my way to bring factual information around eating disorder culture, what is a lie and what is actually in the products that are being sold to people in order to make them lose weight. I'm one of the people who has, I think, brought the most attention to the fact that there are laxatives and these diet and detox products. And you basically just shit fire like Game of Thrones and your asshole. And then you can't shit again for like five more days. And the people pushing them aren't using them. Like hello, that's a number one thing to say. It's like this is just you're being lied to straight out of the gate. Yeah, as if they would. As if any of these influences. And also that's why they don't even put the side effects written under. Can you imagine them putting their sexy picture of them in their like. Photoshop shot with like excessive diarrhea and potential hemorrhoids. Like, can you imagine them putting that under in the caption? They deliberately don't put any of the information in because it's so unsexy. It's so bad.

They put Viagra and heavy metals in boys' muscle gain products. So that's why we're seeing such a rise in young impotence amongst boys. Like this stuff is none of it is FDA regulated. All of it is just dodgy powder over the internet. Some of the stuff for women has got speed in it. and there are 24,000 kids a year who get admitted to the emergency room for having taken these products. So these celebrities and influencers aren't talking about that. It's just greed and a complete bankruptcy of morals. And so, you know, if I'm going to participate in this industry that has

poisoned the minds of so many people and made so many people feel ugly and fat and otherwise, then I have to use it to just dispel all of the bullshit that I myself internalized as a kid watching all of these celebrities. And so now I'm just here to, just call bullshit on absolutely everyone. And I don't care how powerful they are and I don't care what happens to me. We say I literally don't care. It's one of our tags. Yeah, I don't give a fuck. Yeah, I'm fresh out of fucks to give. But you mentioned Love Life. I think that's a really important thing to talk about. On my podcast, I talked to talked with Matt McGorry from Orange is the New Black and how to get away with murder about his lifelong eating disorder.

and him and I touched up on the fact that when you are starving yourself or excessively working out and obsessed and fixated when it comes to food and calories and your size, you are the least sexy ever because you hormonally don't have the energy to fuck anyone. You also nutritionally don't have the energy. I'm not a great shag now, but I'm definitely a better shag now than I was. I don't believe. I don't believe in you, okay? Yeah. No, because I, yeah, my hormones were all over the place. I was starving myself. I was weak. You know, I could never go on top.

Oh my God. Imagine trying to fuck somebody when you're hungry. It's like, I think about it right now. You would just being super hungry. I'd be like, get out of my face. I do like get in my face, you know, just suck that dick for a meal. Yeah. Yeah. I'll definitely. I'll swallow for once. I've never swallowed before, but I would. Never? You know I don't swallow. You've never swallowed. Why would I ever swallow? I have like 100% swallow rate. That's why you're glowing. Thank you.

It's all the cone and my sister. I exfoliate with it. I don't want. I don't know why we're going on this room. You don't brush your teeth in it? People are how everyone in Hollywood has such light teeth. That's not because they bought their teeth. That took a turn.

But we don't want to get too far off topic. We want to still hear from you about eating disorders and how the negative body image can affect your dating and relationship and sex life? Well, you want to shag less. You want to shag in the dark always, and I believe some lovers like to see you. Your obsession with food can really, really take over a relationship. It becomes very hard to go out to eat with them, just to eat with them generally, which can be quite a bonding thing to do with someone that you love. And it can really create barriers. I know a lot of my friends who still struggle with eating disorders have tremendous struggles with their lovers,

because their lovers want to help them feel good about themselves because they're with them because they find them attractive as they are and would love them even if they were bigger or whatever size. But they are so consumed with their own self-hatred that they project that onto other people. So it's just, it's a life of misery. And it's also the number one cause of death amongst any mental illness, anorexia is eating disorders.

And I don't think enough people know that will take it seriously enough is that it really does. Unbelievable damage to your bones if you are not eating enough, to your fertility, to your skin, to your heart. You know, a lot of people don't know that the first thing you lose in weight is often muscle before fat, so it's water first and then muscle. You always lose muscle before fat. And your heart is a muscle.

So every time you go on these big crash diets and you are starving yourself and denying your self calories, your heart is thinning. And it's very, very hard to build that back up. And it's how a lot of people die in that kind of 40s and 50s is a heart failure because they didn't eat enough along the way. And so, you know, there just isn't enough information about how deadly and seriously things are. And also the most important thing to understand is that we have one version of what we think an eating disorder looks like. We think it is the four and a half stone kind of emaciated or skeletal person that we see in the film or in the magazine.

No, you can be anorexic and be under-eating and undernourishing yourself at any size. You can be a fat woman, a large fat woman with an eating disorder who may be maybe because you have a slow metabolism or an insulin resistance. you are actually eating like 600 calories a day, but your body is just piling weight onto you. That is possible. You can have an eating disorder at any size and any gender. You could be a man. You could be a woman.

You could be a non-binary person. It can reach you anywhere, and you don't always have to have bones that are visibly showing in order to actually be starving yourself and denying your body vital ingredients. And so how did you get to where you are now? Do you seem like you're in a healthy place? Do you feel?

Okay, so how did? No, I'm in a good place now. I had a therapy called EMDR. therapy, which is eye movement, desensitization and reprocessing therapy, which I utilize to change my coding around food and to change my thoughts about my body. It's a kind of, it's not like hypnosis. What it does is it just reorganizes your thought is mainstream therapy. It's not some rammer, remedying, fuck, Hollywood shit. It's free on the National Health Service. And it is a mainstream science approach to reorganizing the thought processes that you have, like breaks your thought patterns.

and a large portion of eating disorders and body dysmorphia is thought patterns. And it just interrupts them and shifts them and makes you a much more rational person. So now I look at food as fuel, I eat intuitively I eat when I'm hungry. I don't compulsively overeat because I'm stressed and I don't starve to punish myself for when I overeat it. I was a bing and starve like a roller coaster for my for 20 years, which is exhausting and also very expensive. Vinging is especially if you're a real foodie is unbelievably complicated. I think it's why I lost all my money by the time I was 30. Right, we didn't even, people don't even talk about that side.

Exactly. And so, you know, I had EMDR therapy and I stopped weighing myself and I stopped wearing very, very tight clothes. And I finally got myself a stylist who had never worked with, you know, within my career. And I made sure that that stylist was a man who would never, ever question my size. He would always make everything to fit me. He believes that the clothes should fit me. I'm starred by Law Roach, who Zendaya's stylist, and he really, like, he will double the size of a dress for me on the red carpet rather than make me feel like it's my fault for the clothes not fitting me. But outside of that, truly, it's supportive. It's making sure that I have people around me who don't talk about their weight, who don't talk about my weight, don't talk about the weight of other people, and I have changed my feed. I can't believe how much it changed.

I've stopped reading most magazines. I just don't let myself sit. You don't have to subject yourself to that. You don't have to expose yourself to that. You can, you know, and I just want to kind of get back to the time where at least in the 90s, I used to have to like go out of my way. I'd have to buy the $4 magazine in order to feel like shit. Whereas now, because of our phones, it just comes to you.

It finds you like that John Krasinski film. We find you in the night, you know, and it's such seeks you out. And so I think it's just about being more protective of ourselves, the way we would protect our own children. Would you ever let a teenager look at the shit that you look at? No. Right. And I know that I've done a good job curating my feed because when I see you posting about the things that you're taking on with the T's and all the dye culture, I'm like, I don't see that. I don't see it because I'm just like following the right people. Like, you know, like I think this is something that's not even getting into my brain because I have a mute and unfollow, mute and unfollow whenever it feels necessary. You know, how do you even get in this feed in the first place? Yeah, it's mute, block, delete, repeat. Like that is truly the guide to mental health and the internet.

And I like this idea of what you surround yourself with and who you surround yourself with. If you were a drug addict, you would go hang out in a drug den. So if you have body dysmorphia issues, which a lot of people do, then you just don't look at this stuff. And I also loved the self-talk that you mentioned a few minutes ago about like your partner loves the way you look and that's why they're with you. And your family loves who you are and your friends love who you are. And none of these people are in your life because of the way you look.

And I think that's like really powerful self-talk. Really powerful. It's really, really important. And, you know, no one is ever judging you because they're so busy worrying about themselves. I think we also need to understand that. I'm so sure. No one cares about you. Everyone is self-obsessed.

We are a globe of narcissists. So, you know, to worry too much. Like I said, I think if we just tell people the truth, people are smart enough to make their own choices. It's only because we've been lied to for so long that we make these terrible decisions. Well, and I feel like I remember a point of like realizing that Photoshopping was a thing. Like seeing something where like, oh, that's not what they look like if I were to see them on the street. And I don't know what young people, what young women believe nowadays, but I love seeing accounts that show what goes into a face tune, what goes into Photoshopping. For me,

if I'm drawing attention to it, it's not in some petty way. It's just to like let the young people know that this isn't reality. So if you want to touch up your photos, fine. We've been doing this since the beginning of time. It's in magazines. It was Photoshop. Now it's FaceTune. It's whatever. But like paintings. Let's just, right. I don't know way hotter in the painting. Yeah. The original draw me like one of your French girls but make me skinny. Like just as long as people know

you know it's just like that's why I love what you do. It's just like most people are intelligent enough to make their own decisions but let's give them the information and show them what's true and false. Sure. God, Photoshop is such a nightmare. It's such a dangerous thing.

It really, really, really made me hate myself when I was younger because I thought I had to live up to these people who didn't themselves look like that. And so I was covered in stretch marks. I didn't know that that was normal, especially for a tall girl or someone who's gained weights, have stretch marks all across my tits. I didn't know that acne could sometimes be normal as a teenager.

I didn't know that you were supposed to have little sort of lumps of chub, some places that you're not just skin and bone everywhere and that your legs aren't 100 feet long. I didn't know. I felt so ugly because I couldn't match this like AI version of what a woman. woman it's supposed to look like. And it's so toxic and so dangerous. And now FaceTune being kind of democratized and Photoshop being democratized where anyone can use it on an app means that now you no longer have neurotic actresses and models trying to match this impossible beauty standard. You just have everyone,

teachers, gym instructors, kids at school, trying to live up to a digitally enhanced image. And so I genuinely have always believed that plastic surgeons were behind all these apps that can make you look more, quote unquote, attractive, because you can never, no one is above looking in the mirror and comparing themselves to a digitally enhanced photograph and then feeling okay. It's very, very difficult to compare yourself to actual perfection, like AI levels perfection, like X Mahina perfection, and then look in the mirror and be like, I'm okay with my real life pause and stretch marks and cellulite. It's designed to make you then want to in real life match your photoshopped photograph.

So you'll go out and get the surgery, get the fillers, like have the eating disorder, take the detox tea. It's all designed to just fuck women entirely in our brains, just like two dicks in either ear, just fucking us in the brain. And it's working with the highest number of eating disorders

we've ever seen, highest number of self-harm, highest numbers of teen cosmetic surgery. It is, consumerism is winning, and we have to fight back, and we can only fight back with information and solidarity and transparency,

which is why in the good place I would never let them put makeup on my tits, which they would always, like often a new makeup artist would try to do without even thinking or she would try and put those like red lines down the middle of my nose to make my nose look thinner, which is a fucking racially insensitive thing to do that happens to me on every single set, which is why I now do all of my makeup for everything and have done since like 2017. I won't let anyone cover anything up about me. I won't let anything I do be photoshopped, even if it's the cover of Vogue. And when I did a billboard for The Good Place, I insisted that I was not photoshopped,

even when it was a group shop, which then made everything look a little bit weird, but they had to deal with that because that's my rule, because I'm so dedicated to making sure that we are transparent. It's so important to have voices like that today, because I can't even imagine what it's like growing up today. I mean, I've grown up with my whole life, I've struggled with body dysmorphia and locate myself and thinking, you know, is this cellulite normal?

I grew breasts at a crazy young age. And so... Two, two or three? Two breasts or two. No, two or three years old. out of the womb. They were like, damn, do you have? I was like 11 and I needed a bra.

Very early on, like in high school, I started taking no-dose. I just, like, wanted to be this, like, skinny person. I wanted to disappear. I felt really insecure about the attention I got for men and the way my friends looked and blah, blah, blah. But yeah, it really affects you growing up. It affects the way that you date.

It affected the way that, like you said, stepping on a scale and having a really bad day. I've had a lot of days like that. And I think a lot of women have. It's a struggle as a female. And even today, you know, I've gained a bunch of weight through quarantine. And my body's not in the fighting shape I want it to be. And I met this guy in a park the other day.

And my girlfriend was like roasting me so hard for how awkward I acted around him. And she's like, I won't leak this because you were like so bizarre. But I was like, I don't feel good about myself. And it affects the way I approach dating. That's not every day for me. But I have sympathy for people that carry that with them every single day. because it's a lot of weight mentally to carry. It's an amazing way for women just to feel apologetic for existing once again.

Oh, sorry, I'm taking too much space up. What was it that Catherine Ryan, the comedian, was talking about the fact that, you know, we mustn't take up too much space because a man might want to play golf there. You might want to build a golf course there. So we must, women mustn't take up too much space. I thought that was really great. She's great. I know.

She's very great. I love that you have, it sounds like just refused to let people. edit you into an unrealistic version of yourself. I think we really don't understand yet the tremendous dangers of Photoshop. I'm currently working on a tax incentive at the moment in Boston to try to create a bill that will give money to companies and tax breaks to companies that do not Photoshop any of their photographs because it's literal false advertising.

And it's crazy. It is crazy how powerful Photoshop and FaceTUNR because I see all of these women and men. Oh, it makes you a totally different person. In Hollywood, I mean, they look nothing like that. And I'm not trying to shame them. I'm just saying that I wish that I'd embrace that face. So it wasn't a shock to me when I saw them compared to the image that I've been fed.

And it must really fuck with them because they feel embarrassed. If I see myself on FaceTune and I'm pinching my stomach in and my thighs and my arms and all these things, it's internalizing that. It fucks me up in the way that I enter the world because I see what I like, quote unquote, could look like and I don't look like that. and then it informs the other interactions I have, like with men where I'm like, well, you know, if I could just be 10 pounds skinnier like on FaceTune, you know, then I could feel better about myself. And it's, it fucks with your head really bad.

Really, really badly. And it also fucks with men's head, you know, like it's a lot of my friends are really impacted now by social media because they have become hyper normalized to the Photoshop images, which is making it hard for them to get it up for regular women. Right. Which is often those women in real life. those same women that they are. And so it's like impacting what they're attracted to. And so a lot of my male friends have now deleted Instagram and social media and porn because

it's making them very lonely and they are unable to find people they actually connect with because their penis is only responding to this like Lara Croft image that doesn't really exist in real life beyond Emily Rachitowski. Like it's just, it's just wild. We talked about going back and watching the hills like from so many years ago before this movement really. And we're like, oh, right. normal, pretty girls.

Without all of the enhancements and without all the things. And it's like what women look like has just changed drastically. It's truly just Angelina Jolie came along and everyone was like that. That is the perfect whitewashed version of like an exotic woman's eyes and lips, but on a white and acceptably white face and a skinny body but with big breasts. Angelina Jolie and the intersection of her doing Lara Croft change the beauty standard forever. Everyone just looks like a shit

Angelina Jolie or even a great Angelina Jolie but that's what it is. Everyone wants to have the same like slanted up eyes I mean they're having that threading done that incredibly painful procedure where you actually stick a thread in your cheek and pull it up from the inside and that's how all of a sudden these celebrities have slanted eyes

it's called threading. They have threading parties in fucking Hollywood where they all turn up and anisotize themselves and put thread through their cheeks that you can't get out until you hope that it dissolves and doesn't like get infected inside of your body. And it pulls your whole face up. And so it kind of like hurts whenever you smile. And it's just there. That's what creates that lifted look. I love telling people this shit because I just think

we need to warn each other. Do whatever you want. Be honest about it. But please, please, be informed because some of this shit has not been around very long. And we don't know it's long term impacts. I just feel very, very passionate about transparency. Especially if you are off your own beauty. If you have a career where you are given money and people aspire to look like you, tell the fucking truth. Who cares? It's, it does bother me though, because it's just gone too far. It goes back to the like, now we have unrealistic standards of beauty. I don't know. Like, where's the line? It's just, I go both ways. Like, there's no answer, but it's just like, yeah, there's stuff I would fix about my face. Maybe I will one day, you know, but it's also kind of like

how far is too far? Because now we're like part of the problem. I don't know. I think it's just very important to make sure that you spend your money on healing or inside before you spend your money on healing your outside. That's my priority is that all the money that I save that I would spend towards fixing my exterior I put into therapy because I think that if we were to fix our insides, then we would be less fixated on fixing our outsides. Yeah, that would be great.

But in the meantime, it's like what women, what beauty is, is all fucked. But also just be careful of what is going in. Like, don't just truly be very, be very. mindful of who you're following online. I don't follow the Hadid's or the Kardashians or supermodels because they would make me feel naturally like shit about the way that I look. It would go in somewhere even as firm and as strong as like I am and intellectually aware of what's happening. I would compare myself to them and then feel like shit about my clothes or my lifestyle or the way that I look. And so I make sure that I just follow artists and activists and writers

and people who teach me something, educators, so that I'm nourished when I click on Instagram, I don't leave Instagram feeling like shit. And I think that you can really make a difference. I don't surround myself with people who encourage toxicity. I don't allow people who work with me to say coded things to me, like congratulate me around weight loss or comment on my weight when they think I need to be thinner.

I have made sure that I have protected my bubble so well, and we all have the power to do that. get away from a family member who's fat-shaming, you'll educate them, give them a chance, invite them to change the way that they're going to speak, otherwise stop talking to them and change your feed. You don't have to see these images that are just torturing you. I don't follow any of the influencers just because they're hot.

And so if you like to following fashion people, because you like the fashion, the clothes, I mean, whatever, follow whoever you want to, but like women need to hear that you can unfollow, you can mute, like what is the point? What is going in and what purpose is it serving? I realized I was following all these like, I don't know you call like revolve girls. You know, all these girls who's like job it is to model clothes.

It's their job to be skinny and look beautiful. And I realized I was following all these accounts because I like the fashion. And I had to start unfollowing them because I just realized like I see these photos and it makes me like genuinely feel bad about myself. And there's no reason to feel bad about myself. And I was looking at these and I was like, I don't know anything about these people. I never hear them talk. I don't know if they're funny or smart, interesting.

It's their job to sell this clothing. And it doesn't make me feel good. looking at that shit. I think we should only ever do think there's enough in this world, this terrible, terrible world to feel bad about. So why would we ever like willfully bring that into our periphery? And so I think that we learn how to protect our physicality. We need to learn how to protect our mental health. Absolutely. It's powerful advice. Well, we did want to talk about your relationship. You are in a relationship. We want to respect his privacy as well. But would you mind just telling us a little bit about it? Yeah, I have been in a relationship with a man for, fuck me, almost six years.

Oh, my God. It's a really long time. That's my longest relationship by three times. And we live together in Los Angeles. We've bought a house together. I think he's probably my forever person. And he thinks that I am his. And it's a very nice, equal relationship where we don't care about each other's careers. We just are best friends. And so it's been the healthiest relationship we've ever had. We both have gone to therapy, so we didn't take out our own baggage on each other.

We both made sure to come into this with a clean slate and know that we weren't projecting any other bullshit from other people onto one another. And I just think it's the healthiest possible relationship for someone with my mental health record. Okay. And so through coronavirus and quorum, and quarantining. How are you guys keeping it spicy? Exciting. How are you not, or how are you not

killing each other? You know, whatever you want to focus on. We're, well, we're just, like I said, we're best friends and we're both introverts. Like, we're not super party people. So we know, we don't, we're all like big beach people. So we've actually loved being in lockdown. I've never won't stay. Thriving. Yeah. I'm all saying. I am loving this. Yeah, I love this. I love not going outside and we've got a puppy. And so we're just raising this puppy together. We also have friends living with us and it's just been a really fun little nest for us and also just space for us to actually be able to help other people, which we can't do when we're just doing our own stupid careers. And so this has been, it's just been a, it's also been a time of just there's so much to focus

on in the world that we're not focusing on each other too much, you know what I mean? So like it's, it's also great because he's got Call of Duty and I have a podcast, so we're doing like those two different things. You're both wearing a headset, so that he can talk shit to 12-year-olds in another room. Exactly. And we both work from home anyway most of the time. So this for us wasn't too weird. He did have to address that I've been wearing the same t-shirt for four months. He's still wearing today. That sounds like you right now. I haven't let myself go in that respect.

I loved quarantine because I don't run that a shower fan. I'm not a big fan of showering. I hate being wet. Well, I mean, I like you went life. Yeah, it's just the wop only. That's everything else. That's my vibe, wop only. Yeah. Only below the belt. Yeah.

Yeah. We loved having you and we would love for you to tell people where they can find you, learn more from you, read more from you, plug all of your things. I'm truly just an expert on my own experience, but I have been learning from some great people on the I-Way podcast. with Jamila Jamil and on my YouTube channel, which is just forward slash Jamila Jamil, where I interview experts and doctors and scientists and young activists from around the world

and they educate me in real time. So you can watch that happen. And I also have now been able to start giving activists their own shows on my YouTube channel. So they get to interview other people and other celebrities that they love. It's a very inclusive space. And please follow I-W-W-E-G-H on Instagram because we are a super safe and inclusive space where you are almost definitely going to find and see someone who looks like you and see that person being celebrated and respected. And it's the most loving community of people who just cheer each other on all the time. It's truly my favorite place on the internet. So I would say follow that. We have a website, IWaycommunity.com. That's full of

amazing writers and artists. And you can follow me on the internet if you don't mind a lot of swearing, which is, you know, official. And people, can find all that information about you on our website in the episode description on iTunes episode description, Spotify. Ashley puts that all in there when she writes all the description, so that will all be there if you guys forget all this stuff. It's on all of our stuff for resources

too. Yeah. Thanks for having me, guys. Yes, thank you for joining us. Less of love. Well, that concludes our interview with Jamila. You guys stick around. We will be right back with a fun segment to round out this episode. All right

guys, we are back. And what we decided to do for the end segment was inspired by Jamila and her I-Way community that she talked about. And basically, we asked you guys to tell us what you weigh in terms of what defines you. We got some really great responses. Yes, we did. And of course, Ashley and I always want to reach you the funny ones and we're going to ping pong those back and forth. But we were both so impressed by all the stuff that you guys are proud of in your lives and the things that you say really define you. So I'm just going to rattle off like a couple ones that were just such a huge

common theme and then we're going to make you guys laugh with the other ones. But, you know, so many people said the way I treat others, my ability to bounce back, my authenticity, my strength, my resilience, my ambition, my pets, my work ethic, my humor, my empathy, integrity, education, badass career and being a good friend, daughter, sister, mother, partner. And I was always really inspired by all that. And there's no shock here because we love you guys so much. We're always inspired by you. So with that being said, the rest of these are super inspirational as well and funny. I'm going to let Ashley start with our MVP of response giver. She never fails us. Straight out of the gate. Well, she's always right at the top too.

Jenny Jones says she weighs her wits and her tits, which new March alert. She writes poems. And my ability to wrap those bars. Okay. More than half the responses, my Wap, No shock there. Can you imagine that someone's like, what do you weigh? You're like, I don't know. What is this wet ass pussy way? What's his pussy way? What's this?

What's this Wop way? Drop these two pounds on you. I have a chubby badge, so my Wap definitely weighs like at least three pounds. Park this big Mack truck right in this little garage, right in this fat garage. That's the best line of the whole thing. It is the best line.

I want to learn the dance. Okay, I'm committed to learning the dance. You have time, bitch. You're at the lake. What else you do? Nothing but time. I can't. I'm staying with my brother right now.

He walks in and I'm just like, you're humping the floor. You're like that wop, wop, wop, wop. Okay. The next response, living alone for the first time and finally being financially

and emotionally independent. I love that. I feel like I didn't do this on purpose like ping pong these back and forth to be like really sweet and then really disgusting. My ability to be better than men at everything,

especially fingering. especially fingering. Do you think she's fingering women? I took it to mean fingering other women, but also fingering herself. Whatever you want to finger, I'm glad that you're better at it than men are. We're better men than everything.

It's just so true. Okay. The next one, she says she is a DACA student, daughter of Mexican immigrants, scientist and activist. All the things. Go off. This next one,

which is very simple. My muffin top. Okay. I feel that. That's my problem area. The next one, she weighs hot Cheetos. How many hot Cheetos do you?

She says, Hot Cheetos is also my relationship with my mother and being a dog mom. Yep. This next girl, I feel like is me. I am the funniest person I know. Yes. Remember when people just used to be like, the only person that thinks Ashley's funny is Ashley. And I was like, thank you for seeing me.

The next one, she says, I weigh not a fucking man. That's for damn sure. It doesn't really make sense, but I respect it nonetheless. I wrote it down. I heard you saying it. That's why I wrote it down. I heard it in my heart. I guess she was answered like, what defines you?

Not a fucking man. That's for damn sure. She sounds fresh off a breakup, but I respected. I feel like I hurt. I feel Ashley in that sentence. Next line, running for public office

in the county where Amad Arbery was killed. I am 27 and female. I love that so much. I'm in office more than ever. Okay. The way I care about others, also I'll be my blowjob skills. Something to be proud of.

I love the ones you just don't see coming. It's like, I'm so sweet. Also, I suck dick well. I trust and love people when my shitty exes have done nothing but give me reasons not to. Good for you, girl. Keep your head out. I love it. Being a first generation college graduate. I love that. My ability to say fuck it and walk my head high like I'm the best thing on this planet. Yes, same. My courage to change my career after three years of school and four years of working. I love that. It's never too late to make a change and live your truth. Um, my purpose in life is to help others, social work, mental health, addiction therapy, also this fat ass.

Yes. Friendships, activism, alcohol, one night stands in that order. I love that. In that order, don't get a twisted. She's like, friendships are still important, but one night stands also. She's like, I go all my friends, we go to a rally, then we get drunk, then I fuck somebody in that order. And I suck off a stranger. Um, this next one is for you, Ashley, my cute butthole.

cute butthole I mean I don't know what my actual butthole looks like I know I have a long ass crack but I don't I've never gotten in there

and looked right up in the beehole I'm sure it's great you've never bent over and like peered into it oh yeah I have I guess I guess I've just never

brought like a mirror back there but yeah I've I've been over Ace Ventura style and spread my cheeks nobody's a cute butthole there's a brown eye back there on the next

YouTube video of girls got to eat Ashley bends over and talks with her butt cheeks. Straight out in 1994. I can't recommend it enough. I have a pink butt hole also. I have a lot of color consistency through my whole area. Yeah, you probably have a cute butthole.

There's tons of stuff wrong with me. I'm the ugliest feet of all time. But my B-hole is an excellent color. I'm proud of you. Supporting myself and my kids with no financial help from their father. Man, if I can give it up for, well, A, all the mothers, but especially the single mothers, especially during this time, like we respect and support you.

We are slow clapping you all the way. All right. My strong thighs allow me to squat more weight than most men can. And yeah, they jiggled too. That is such a flex. Scorn at the gym, you just out squat every man. I can't do one squat. That girl fucks.

Good for you, girl. My quality of life, I can provide for my dog and how much I love my dog. Ashley can relate. I love that. There's just so much pride of being a good dog mom. I know. Half of these responses were about people's dogs. I was like, how do you know if you're a good dog mom?

Dewey's bad. So maybe I'm not. But Dewey seems happy and I think that's how you measure. He's a good life. I can eat seven pounds of chicken wings in one sitting and not give a fuck. I love that. And I love that she did bring pounds into it. She's like, I weigh seven pounds of fucking chicken wings.

I was trying to like do the math in my head of how many chicken wings is seven pounds. How many do you think a pound of chicken wings? Because you're not eating. But you mean, you think about how much food you get off of a chicken wing. It's so little. So like seven pounds, that could be like a ton of, I don't know. Go ahead, girl. Using my law degree and argumentation skills to help asylum seekers. I love that. I wish I could argue for a living. My incredible ability to make any situation awkward with my dark sense of humor and sarcasm. Is it? Raina snuck this one in. Did I write this?

How I treat others, work ethic, perseverance, vulnerability, and that wet ass pussy. I just, she like, she punctuated each one with an exclamation point. You're right. Can I reread this? How I treat others. Work ethic, perseverance, vulnerability, and that wet ass pussy. Baby laughs that you never saw it coming. That I can make people smile, my resilience to negativity, and the number of tequila shots that I can take. I respect it. How many, though?

I would, I would. Okay. This one was for me and I love it. my ability to smile even on tough days, my family, and my big backpack energy. If you guys didn't listen last week, Ashley brought a backpack on a date with the hottest man I've ever seen. And Raina shamed me. You know what?

Rayna, it's 2020. And I just honestly don't think you should be backpack shaming. I'm showered in like six days. And I'm out of lake, okay? I should shame anybody for anything. That's fair. All right. Last one.

The belief in myself standards and the unapologetic writing off of. assholes. No apologies. No apologies necessary. Do it girl. Well, thank you guys so much. This was so great to read. I'm glad that we did this and found out what you guys think defines you. We love it. We're always inspired by you, but no shock there. You guys are amazing. And I mean, if you have a dry pussy, I don't know. I feel like you're... Maybe that girl that's good. Maybe that girl it's fingering can reach out to some of you. Yeah. Yeah, if your pussy is dry, listen, if your pussy is not wet ass, it's not your fault. Yeah. It's a man's fault. Um, All right, guys.

Well, we hope you enjoyed this episode and Jamila and all the things. You can find everything you need to know about us at Girls Gotta Eat Podcast.com. Click on live shows. Get those tickets to our virtual stupid live show on September 2nd. We can't wait to see you guys there. So many of you guys have been tagging us and you're getting the tickets and we're so excited to party with you guys and make you laugh on September 2nd. Girls Gotta Eat Podcast on Instagram.

Ash Hes and Raina. dot Greenberg on Instagram. Girls underscore Got Eat on Twitter and YouTube.com slash Girls. to eat. And that's all. That's it, guys. Have a great week. Bye.