Her Discussions by Dr Faye - Everything We've Been Told About Women's Safety is WRONG

Episode Date: July 20, 2026

Before you dive into today's episode... We've been nominated for ITV Podcast Creator of the Year (!!!) 🏆 If you've learnt something from the podcast this year, I'd be so grateful if you could take a minute to vote for us. It genuinely means the world: https://bit.ly/4ynqe451. Select ‘Creator Shortlist’2. Scroll down to ‘Podcast bCreator of the Year - Her Discussions with Dr Faye Bate’THANK YOU 🤍In today's episode, I'm joined by Amy Watson, founder of HASSL, a social enterprise working to tackle harassment and violence against women and girls by changing the conversation. Together, we explore why women are still being told to stay safe instead of men being taught not to harm.We talk about:📱 #1 reason why safety apps aren't the solution🤝 what men can actually do to help women feel safer🚨 why women's safety isn't a women's issue🚩 the biggest myth about women's safety💬 how to talk about misogyny without making men defensiveResources & links mentioned:HASSL: ⁠https://www.hassl.org⁠🔔 Join the HERd* broadcast channel here: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/channel/AbY4liwxlLnewx4H/?igsh=MWhuaXFweGtucTB3cA==⁠📱 Find us on socials:Instagram & Tiktok - @drfayebatePodcast Instagram & Tiktok: @herdiscussionspod📩 Want to reach out?Email: ⁠[e-mail]⁠🛑 Disclaimers:Opinions are my own. This content is for educational / entertainment purposes and not medical or financial advice.

My name is Peter Parker, but I'm also Spider-Man. This July, we're faced with a threat. That can be anyone. The world may have forgotten Peter Parker. I'm just a neighbor, friendly neighbor. But he hasn't forgotten them. Sometimes Spider-Man has to do the hard thing. That's my responsibility.

Talk to Banner? I didn't know you could get that big. Spider-Man, brand-new day. In theaters, July 31st. The most unsafe place by far is your own home. One in three women will experience physical or sexual violence in her lifetime. And one woman is killed every 10 minutes by an intimate partner or other family members. Domestic violence increases 26% if England play and then 38% if they lose.

How many times I've been walking home on the phone to someone? How many men are sending to their friends? This is a photo just in case, you know, just in case I don't make it home. How many men on a date are not leaving their drink on the table just in case? We have to start looking at it from a different lens. Women are emotional. Is it women punching their partners when their team loses? We're not saying it's all men.

We're saying it's almost always a man. We never know which man until it's too late. Today I'm sitting down with the founder of Hassel, a movement that's getting men to actually show up for the conversation. We spend so much money inventing all of these ways for women to keep themselves safe. But if men are getting more and more violent, it doesn't stop it. If you go to court, they can... This episode is for us to get very, very, very angry.

But before we get into the conversation, I have an extremely important request, more important than any other request I've ever made, because I do not mean to alarm you. We have been nominated for podcasts of the year. To win, I'm going to need every single one of your votes. This will take you one minute max. Really, really, really, really would love it if you clicked her discussions on the link in the description. As if you haven't already done enough for me by listening to these episodes, but I would just so, so, so, so, so so appreciate that one minute of your time to vote so that we can possibly win this award. Thank you so so much and we'll now get into the episode. Amy, thank you so much for joining us for this episode. We will get into what hassle actually is and what is doing about violence against women and girls shortly.

But first, I want to set the scene. So I've got a couple of stats. Worldwide, a quarter of women aged 15 to 49 years have been in a relationship subjected to physical and or sexual violence from any current or former husband or male intimate partner, at least once in their lives. That is horrific. Why is this a growing problem? I think there's such a combination of things, right? Like, we know the rise in social media, not only kind of that side of technology, but actually improvements in technology are also allowing perpetrators to find even more ways to cause harm that was before maybe more in person. and now there's just all these other outlets in which, you know, people can control abuse.

And also there's some, you know, very scary, harmful narratives being pushed, especially to younger generations. There's a combination of things like different, you know, cost of living crisis and things like this. All of these socio-economic problems allow vans games women to rise. There is epidemic levels in the UK, as there is in many countries across the world. In the UK, for example, there's definitely more of a lack of trust in the gender. justice system. You know, we've seen documentaries like the expose on the met of all the misogy. And we see a lot more of like news stories reported and how they are judged and the consequences. And I think all of that is, you know, not only indicating to perpetrators that

they can essentially get away with harm, but also sort of for anyone who's potentially a victim, they don't feel confident in the system, right? And so all of these factors combined as well as other things are just causing the problem to kind of keep escalating. and not enough as being done at a systemic level to counter that, you know, very rapid progression, really. Yeah. We're going to have to talk about some of the really topical issues at the moment. So the Manusphere documentary and the World Cup as well.

Yes. But first, I want to know, what was your drive for this? Where did that come from? Yeah. I mean, I always say that, like, social issues have just been a thing. For me, my entire life, I've always been quite intense. in politics and things like that. And my parents always taught me about, you know, that stuff.

And also my privilege, I think I was, I always say, quite a weird child. And now I put it down maybe a bit more to ADHD. But I think I always had that really strong, like justice sensitivity thing. And was always very aware of my privilege and kind of felt guilty of like why this was just a lottery. I could have been born to any family anywhere in the world. And I'm not, you know, I got very lucky with the parents that I have. and even just like I'm white, I'm straight, like everything pretty much apart from being a woman is

working in my favour. And so I think I was just always aware of that from being really young. And then I guess, as I say, I guess I put it down to ADHD now, but when I was, I guess, going through school working out what I wanted to do, to me, I always kept coming back to entrepreneurship because I just got bored so quickly of things. And I always wanted to be doing a bit of everything, always had a project like again that weird that weird kid like in i've been in year two and being like um can i put on a school play like by myself and like i made all the props i wrote the scripts i bought the inflatable blow at crocodile because we did peter pan i starred in it you know like that kind of thing and i was what like seven years old i was just a strange child and then when i went to university

i basically went and studied entrepreneurship and found out about the concept of social enterprise which is essentially hybrid between a for-profit company and a charity. So it's kind of using business models, entrepreneurial mindset, all that kind of stuff, but to create social impact in the world rather than just make money. So for me, I was like, this is what I want to do. And so that was kind of like the whole background.

And then I've ran social impacts brands before. And then I was starting one during COVID when I was graduating and COVID ruined all my plans. And so I ended up moving to London. And that's where I'm, I mean, I had experiences from being a teenager, right, like every woman has. But I think it was very heightened in London. I think just I spent a lot of time traveling places on my own, you know, even just like

networking events or going to speak friends or whatever it was. And I think also just obviously there is that social aspect to London where you maybe have a lot more conversations with people and just having those conversations with women all the time being like, oh, I just got followed here. Oh, this just happened. Me telling a story. Oh, yeah, that happened to me last week. like the way that we'd normalised it so much.

And I think as those conversations were happening, I was like, am I in, like, you know, like out of body experience where you're like listening to all these women talking about this stuff that's so crazy and so bad, but we've just normalized it. Yeah. Completely normalised it. Yeah, like, well, I've done it, like just been laughing.

Oh, you know, and it's kind of laughing out of, oh, I could have actually been really badly hurt there. But I think it's the only coping strategy, you know, when you hear about the awful story of Sarah Everard where you think, God, if someone who was claimed to be a policeman came up to me, I was getting the car. Yeah. Like, there's just, it really, really brings it home.

Yeah, you're like, I've been in that situation. How many times I've been walking home on the phone to someone? And like you said, a police officer could have stopped me and I could have been like... And I would got in. I absolutely would have got in. 100%. Because that's what you taught. That's the thing.

You're told to trust. which, you know, ultimately, we should do. We should be able to. We should be able to. Exactly. But that's, you know, so often people in authority figures are still perpetrating the stuff. Yeah, and I just think that that is our only coping strategy because I was explaining before we started recording Dr. Mimi runs, who's, she does sports science and she came on the podcast and we was talking about women's safety, running, training for marathons. Because if you're working at 9-5 and.

it's winter, you can't physically get in your training runs without doing some of them in the dark. Yeah. And she explained a story about how someone came up to her with a rope. And she was laughing about it. And I was like, that's fucked. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But actually, it's difficult to recognise that because if you recognize how awful that is an experience to go through, you start to process, okay, what if I hadn't run away?

what would have happened next? And your brain, you don't want to go there. No, exactly. I think it's like, you know, say this all the time about, like, feminism and stuff. It's like, the more you know, the more, the more anger you get, the deeper you get into it, the more you spot injustice.

And like, and it's the same with a lot of social issues. And I think, like you said, when it's something that's so personal to you as well, it is a coping mechanism because we just never do anything if we actually let it take over. Like, women wouldn't do anything. That's something I've been finding over the last year

is finding the balance between awareness of issues, which I think it's so important. We all have social awareness of injustices that are happening around us. But balancing that with not letting it limit my own life because I think for a long time, because I recognised the injustices against women, it put a cap on my potential

because in the back of my mind, because that's all you're consumed by it. Exactly. Like I knew women were judged for X, Y, and C. Women found it harder to do this. there were all these extra barriers for women and they became limiting beliefs and I actually recently have been trying to work

against that by recognising right faith to break down those barriers you almost need to ignore that they exist applying that to violence against women and girls the awareness of it could almost stop you living your life how do you personally navigate the Hulu original series Furious is coming to Disney Plus

Starring Emmy Rossum, Furious follows FBI agent Alice Black on the hunt for a mysterious and calculating serial killer. Both walk their own paths toward justice, and as their lives start to intertwine, the line between right and wrong begins to blur. Don't miss the three-episode premiere of the Hulu original series Furious on July 27th, only on Hulu on Disney Plus. If you want a $3,000 a month payday for life, What would you feel free to do? Maybe take a long weekend, every weekend, or try a bunch of new hobbies. Would you feel free to upgrade and listen ad-free? Don't worry, we get it.

Every $20 ticket can win you $3,000 a month for life and supports life-saving cancer research at the Princess Margaret. Feel free to buy your payday for life ticket today. Raffle number 155-214. Please play responsibly. I think Hustle's given me something to channel that into, because I've definitely been through phases. Like, as I said, I've always been really interested in, like, social issues and, like, you know,

I'd get really deep into, like, the wars that were going on in the world and all this kind of stuff. But then it can just consume you so you can't do anything else. And I think for the first time, this is where I'm like, okay, but I'm actively doing something about it. So it feels less heavy in some ways because I'm like, okay, I'm channeling all of that frustration and X, Y, and Z into doing something to, you know, I believe anyway to tackle the problem. And I think that's all you can do. I think like I totally get what you mean in terms of you've got to create that balance because, and I think this is where sometimes, not saying that that's what you're doing,

but like internalised misogyny comes from because you get to that a bit more extreme point where it's like, okay, I don't even want to identify with women because I don't want to have to face those same barriers. I don't want to be put in the same group together with them or whatever. you know, like the pick me girl, like all this kind of, I'm not like other girls, that whole thing. Like I still, it enables the problem, but I don't think women are to blame for doing it.

Yeah. Do you know what I mean? It's like through conditioning and through survival, essentially, that women, you know, there's that narrative of like the old woman at work who's really mean. Who's the most sexist person you've ever met. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it's not to say that that's okay.

No. I think so much of it comes from, I either say I'm with women and then I have to deal with all of that, you know, I'm aware of all the stuff I'm going to, or I position. myself is not like other women and potentially it gives me a leg up because I go oh I'm one of the lads or whatever whatever yeah I don't think it's a on an individual I think it's a forced thing through a societal problem that people make different decisions within that sphere right but I think it's

so interesting because again like and probably go into this in a bit but like hassle is all about meeting people where they are and giving people grace and not just being like okay well you're a bad person so see you it's about why do people think the way they do how much of that is conditioning how much of that is circumstance how much is the way that's been brought up and all this kind of stuff and trying to believe that most people are inherently good and understand how to take them on a better path that's kind of like the mentality behind it anyway that was a whole time yeah i'm gonna save the manosphere conversation for when we talk about hassle because i think that will feed in really nicely but let's talk about the world cup domestic value

increases 26% if England play and then 38% if they lose. How does that make you feel during this time when the world's crepe is on? I think on a personal level, I can't think about it too much because I always say this and it sounds quite, I don't know, I don't want to say like psychopath vibes, but you have to detach yourself because we hear the most harrowing things every single day, not just on the news, but also people sending us stories, our own number. Bacet is telling us things. Like, if you internalize all of that, it's so heavy.

And that's without any of my personal experiences, that's without all the hate and abuse and stuff we get. Like, that's just one part. So I think you do have to kind of detach yourself from it in terms of a personal thing. I think football is such a good example of where, I mean, one of the things you always, you know, they always say, women are emotional, women too emotional. And like, is it women punching their partners? their team loses, no.

You know, that's the reality. Like, we don't recognise anger as an emotion for some reason because it's largely associated with men, patriarchy and that's. Those stats are so crazy, right? But we don't... We never call men, hormonal or emotional. Yeah, exactly. And it is that thing as well of, like, football is such a...

You know, especially in the UK, it's such a big thing, especially, you know, increasingly for women, but for men. and these people, they're heroes and the thing is it's not just people going to these games, it's players that are playing this time that have allegations against them that are awaiting trial, like whatever it is. What kind of message does that send?

Like, not just to men who are looking up to these people, but to women of how much your life matters. You know, it's... And how much your voice is valid. Yeah, there's no value there because, like, oh, we'd rather have them play a game ultimately

you know I don't want to take away from I understand that football is a huge thing and like I think it has so much potential for good like it unifies people in a lot of ways and you know it brings people together and especially when England's doing well it's like this whole everyone's like

camaraderie and everything but it is it's like the increase in that alcohol and all of it together plus going to matches and they're often rowdy and they get people get ralding up and, you know, and it isn't just when they go home. It's also when the app matches, you know, men are also suffering not necessarily in the same way, but how many fights,

how many, you know, all these kind of assaults that are happening. And yeah, it's, I mean, it's one of the industries we are in talks with, should I say, in terms of tackling this stuff, because we're very much like looking at an industry, looking at all this stuff from an industry systemic perspective, we're not just like in the nice fuss waste, sticking up some social media posts, like we're really trying to go in, especially in the predominantly male sectors where this problem is just, they have so much power to do so much good in the world. They have so much influence. And if we can use it in the right way, yeah, there's a lot of potential for it to shape a very different future for like women's safety, especially.

Yeah. You mentioned that you get a lot of hate. And when I find it really, interesting in a really sad way. Especially when the conversation comes up around the World Cup about the increase in domestic violence. Yes. There are some people who really take that being brought up as a personal attack.

And how can drawing attention to women and girls being subjected to violence ever be controversial? And it's always so surprising to me that it really is a really controversial topic. Yeah. But first, we're going to play a little game called Bye or Bye.

I'm going to show you something and I would love to know whether you would buy this thing or you would say bye to it. There's only one rule. We love nuance. If you want to give balance, you're welcome to. If you also want to say get in the bin right now, you're welcome to. Personal safety alarms. Can I give the nuance now? Yeah. Okay. Give nuance. It's not like phone of friend. You can use the nuance on everyone. Okay. I would say, I would say with all personal safety stuff and I feel like this is going to apply to a lot of these, if on an individual level, it makes you feel safer, do what you need to do.

This problem isn't solved overnight. You know, I think that way more time and energy needs to be put into prevention, but if there are things that you need to do in the short term, the only problem is with a lot of personal safety things, they either don't work, make you more unsafe. If you go to court, they can be used against you, so many different things like that.

What do you mean if you go to court, they can be used against you? So you can get those personal, like, key chains. They've got like different tools on them, right? Like instead of carrying your keys between your fingers. but again, it can be like, you are carrying a weapon. So then, like in a lot of cases, if you're carrying a weapon, you have some form of violent intentions, it can be, so there's this whole thing.

And I mean, even like personal safety alarms, like, yes, they can work, but what if they just in, they could make the person more angry and no one around could even hear them? And this is why I'm like, I'm not against them, but they're so complicated in terms of they're not just like, oh, they're going to make you safer. And I'd imagine we don't have research and data into how these personal safety features play out in real life. Like, I can't imagine there's research into how an attacker actually reacts if a personal safety alarm is pressed and they're trying to attack you, you know? I think it's something that's very, very hard to collect data on and like quantify, right? I mean, I know there was one, I want to say it was in France, but I might be wrong.

where it's like an app where if you're in danger, you can press something and any woman within a certain radius gets an alert, so they come. And there was a case where they came and the woman was dead, I want to say. But I'm pretty sure that was a story. But otherwise they wouldn't have found her body because the women went and found her. But also all of these apps then like that, great idea in theory, apart from the fact that it puts way more responsibility on women. But also men can pretend to be women to use, like what's the very very important?

vetting process. Like I know there was quite strict ID checks and all this kind of stuff. But I know I was talking to one of our ambassadors and she's in Canada and she was saying like they have this buddy system where like you can request a buddy to help you home. But also is that also prone to violent perpetrators abusing it? You know. Saying we went to the Met and they did like a whole day basically on technology that's being manipulated for and they were saying things down to life, what's it called? Like the weather. What are they called?

The little things. Yeah, like that people were tapping into them to monitor people, like seeing when they were in the house. Like AirPods, they were dropping AirPods to track where they were going, like when their kids were like, like all of this stuff. It's just technology is amazing. But also it never solves a problem. This is the thing.

They all just plaster. Even if they help temporarily or in the moment. And I'm not saying, I think it's just very individual. individual, right, in terms of like how you feel in that moment. But personally, it doesn't make me feel safer. Like, there's definitely things I do. Like, I ring my mom if I'm on my own and things like that. And I would choose like a taxi on an app rather than just like calling in the street or whatever.

So I definitely think there are things. But it's just, again, it's like we spend so much money inventing all of these ways for women to keep themselves safe. But if men are getting more and more violent or even if men are just remaining as violent, as they are. It doesn't stop it, you know? It just plasters. Like, it's good, it's well-intentioned. Like, I think this about all of these things.

I don't think, you know, people out there making safety devices are, I mean, maybe some. But, like, a lot of people are well-intentioned. It comes from personal experience, whatever. But it's just every time I'm like, oh. Yeah, yeah. Because it's just that mental load. Like, how much money are you spending on this stuff? How much time you spent thinking about it?

How many calculation you do? Do I press the button? Do I not press it? I might you know and sometimes often you don't know until it's too late like we have a radar and I feel like women are pretty good at knowing when someone's about to be inappropriate whatever but then you don't know what point it's going to get to and like and then there's stuff like British Transport Police have a number that you can call but how quickly they actually come and you know it's just again it's it's they're all well and good but they're just plastering yeah not really they still increase there's epidemic levels like it's not solving the problem is it so that's my very long-winded nuance to that. No, I like it. But I feel like it applies to pretty much all of the, yeah. Yeah.

Self-defense classes. Yeah. And similar thing. I think if it helps you with your confidence and things like that. And I think, you know, there is people who take the self-defense classes, not just women, just to, you know, especially if they've had an experience before or they just want to feel safer or they work in a certain fields or whatever it is,

I don't think that is inherently bad. just think again it's like oh well the self-defense classes so just go and do that and it's like we shouldn't have to do that and it's that it always disproportionately falls on women that's my problem because then it limits it it's again we're not even equal anyway but then it's adding more financial inequality because I'm to spend money on all this stuff it's adding more emotional mental load onto us because having to think about it or having to calculate or having to and again with all this stuff my biggest issue with like safety tips and everything is that especially younger women will just go

if something happens I didn't do enough because all of the messages do this and you'll stay safe and we get it over and over again where people are just like I think it was my fault though like it's not it literally is never it's the person who chose to harm you

if you were walking around entirely naked like it doesn't matter it doesn't give anyone a right yeah and and this is the thing I think the conditioning is so strong on do this to stay safe. I mean, we were saying this either day, like, we asked our ambassadors,

just write, right things that you do to stay safe. And I think within like 20 minutes, we had about 200 things. Just like these niche little things, you know, down to, oh, if I order a takeaway, I might shout upstairs when they answer the door, just to show that there's someone else in the house. Or, you know, like these really small things. And I read, and I was like, yeah, I actually do loads of these things. I didn't even think that that's what it was for.

Yeah. Because you just trained into it. But then the problem is with all of them, if something happens, it's like, oh, well, I didn't do enough. God, that breaks my heart as if the emotional burden of going through something like that. You're like young girls as well, because I feel like as you get older, you tend to be able to break that a little bit more. But when you're a young teenager and... I would always have looked at self-defense classes and gone, if someone wants to attack me, I don't think a self-defense class is going to even help.

I worked as a doctor on a psychiatric unit for four months. we did like breakaway training, which was actually so, so, so useful. And I really, really, really valued that. But then I had an experience for someone through a glass bottle at my head and that didn't have. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

There's only so much you can do. And I think a lot of this stuff as well, like, you know, we do focus more on public harassment and stuff and I can go into why that's the case. But the reality is the most unsafe place by far is your own home. Yeah. So again, like safety apps and self-defense and like, you know, yes, maybe sometimes they can help. But like you said, it can be a split second and suddenly it's launched something at your head.

You know? And I think that it all feeds into stranger danger. Yeah. Because it's so much easier to conceptualize violence against women and girls when it's a stranger walking around the corner. Yeah. And not the reality for most women, where it's the people closest to them who perpetuate this violence. Fake call-ups.

You mean like where you can kind of have like a man on the phone or whatever? Yeah. I think again, just similar thing, well-intentioned. I think a lot of people, as I say, I do that. I would ring my more-more friend or my parents, whatever. But again, it is just that, it's the same thing. It's like it's nice that you're doing this. And I think it's well-intentioned.

is it solving the problem? No. And I also find, and I'm sure a lot of women can agree with this, that every time they invent a new thing, they just find another way around it. Yeah. There's another thing. So then the mental checklist just gets longer and longer and longer and longer and longer because then you're planning for every single eventuality.

So one of the things all the time is like, oh, you know, if you say if someone, like someone's being inappropriate, whatever, and I've had it before where they're like, oh, do you have a boy? and then I say yes because, you know, it's easier. That's what we've been taught to do. Just pretend you have one and then it gets rid of them. And then I've had it where it's like, oh, but could you be happier? Or I don't want to be your boyfriend.

I just want to be your friend. And then you're having to create all of these other narratives. Like it used to be you could just say, yeah, I've got a boyfriend and it would kind to get rid of them. Do you know what I mean? Like it's just they just adapt and they just find other ways. So it never really, it helps momentarily potentially. and then they go, oh, I'm ready for this one next time.

And then they have another answer or another. If someone doesn't respect a woman's voice or woman's boundaries, whatever answer you give them, it's never going to be in a nurse. 100%. And this is the thing. It's just still going back to women do more. Stop it. Dating apps.

I mean, I don't think they're inherently bad. I think in a lot of ways they, a lot of the major apps are trying to combat some of the stuff, I think still too much of it is put on women in terms of like, you know, trackers and things like this. I think dating apps, again, it's more like it's a tool in which people, like social media, I don't think social media is inherently bad.

I just think it's another avenue. And this is why, like, the problem isn't solved unless you solve the problem at the route. Yeah. Because they just will, you know, social media has many positive, and I'm sure you all agree, like so much positive that, comes out of it and so much that we have been able to do in the world that we would never

have been able to do without social media. But there are people abusing it. Like I think dating apps the same. I think, you know, that's one of the things we talk about a lot is just like the mental load of going on date and how that differs typically, especially between men and women. Yeah. How many men are sending to their friend? This is a photo just in case, you know, just in case I don't make it home. How many, how many boys are their friends checking in? Not to see how they are to check they're still okay. How many men on a date are not leaving their drink on the table just in case? Or like, you know, like just all of these things that, again, I don't think it's dating apps.

I think it's people, you know, I never really think it's. The app isn't the issue. It's the people using the app. And it's more like they need better vetting, like they need better. Like, you know, once someone's reported, this person assaulted me on a date, then they should be removed. Like, there's not, again, it's not strict enough in preventing the harm happening in the first place. It's a lot more like, oh, here's, you know, you can send that you've, to your friend

that you're on a date or whatever. Yeah. Which is like always well intention, but I just think societal narrative is just so focused on women staying safe that people, how often I have meetings with people and they're like, oh, we could give women and I'm like, no, why are we still giving women more stuff to do? No. There's a million tracker apps, safety apps, alarms, personal safety devices. Like, the problem is not going away. Yeah. We have to start looking at. We have to start looking at it from a different lens. And yeah, it's just that I think that's the thing, like that all of these things are, they're just like, yeah, a dating app is just a tool, right? I think it can be used for very positive things as well. It's just there's not enough, like society, there's not

enough prevention of harm. There's not enough consequences when harm does happen to prevent further harm happening to other people. I think that's where the big problems are. And we have to better incentivise these companies to actually focus on that part of the problem. You did a brilliant job of bringing me onto HASSL. So what is HASSEL? What is the mission? So HASSEL is a social enterprise that is all about tackling harassment and violence against women and girls at the route globally. And we always say our mission is to redirect responsibility away from women as individuals

to stay safe and onto societies a whole to do better. And that's primarily by inviting men to be part of the conversation and the solution, but also working with organizations, businesses, bodies, brands, whoever it is to basically create systemic change so that one day women don't have to think about these things. That's essentially what we do. So we have right now a combination of workshops. Again, it's not like HR training. It's very much understanding the mental load, understanding the narratives around stay safe and all this kind of stuff. media narratives, all this kind of thing. So it's kind of the other side to HR compliance,

where I just like, okay, don't get into trouble. Report, you know, X, Y, Z. It's kind of understanding why people don't report because the systems are broken, all this kind of stuff. We have free education resources, so they're primarily designed for men because it's normally women doing the work and educating, and that wasn't what I wanted to do.

So everything's primarily designed for men. We have an ambassador program, part of which we have our men's initiative so we have regular calls with men all over the world so they can like ask questions, you know, if it's about certain situations or if it's just like they share like different like ideas or situations or just things that they've done better

since like joining Hustle, for example, to actively be part of the solution. And this isn't necessarily like bystander stuff. This is like if they're in a position in the workplace to create safer environments or whatever, you know, these kind of things where we're not just reacting in the moment but we're actually preventing harm in the first place. So we have several things like that.

Obviously, we do stuff on social media and we have awareness campaigns, which are very much designed to, always say, like, flip things around and mindset shift. It's not just like someone being violently attacked and then be like, oh, let's not attack people because that doesn't work. It's about how do we reach everyone on that scale.

So we have about 20 million organic views on our awareness campaigns that we literally made for like no money. So it's really like creating stuff. that's highly shareable. We've had loads of people comment be like, they've showed this in my school and like this kind of thing, which is so good that it's getting out there.

I mean, we're just 18 months old, so that's kind of like where we're at now. A lot of the things we've been working on in the background are partnerships, especially with like predominantly male industries. So things like construction, sport, utilities, all the industries, music, transport, all the things where either it's predominantly male

or where you've got the most public harassed. issues kind of thing. So yeah, just working on developing basically industry-specific initiatives that all focus on prevention. And that's going to be like probably in time, our main focus point. We kind of had to get the public on board first

to be like, this is what we want. Now we haven't done any outreach. Everyone's come to us, which is a great position to be in. So there is the demand there. And I do think people are ready for change more than ever. And they also see, you know, Unfortunately, you kind of have to show them what their benefit not only is, you know, we don't

position this as kind of corporate social responsibility. This is like a strategic partnership to not just things like brand reputation, but very tangible things. You know, like for example, women aren't getting public transport because they don't feel safe. Their public transport's losing money. I remember my partner saying to me, like I was getting like a 50 quid, 60 quid Uber back from a night out. And he was like, it was two in the morning. Yeah. And he was like, oh, the best is only three pound. I was like, I'm not getting on the bus. Yeah, absolutely no chance.

Like, this was really early and I was living together. Like, now he's used to the regular, like, oh, I'm going to phone you when I got off the train. Or like, he'll come and pick me up or even just walk me home. Yeah. They just don't know with that. We do this in like the workshops because we do like a mental load thing where I often use a taxi example and just go, what are things you think about when you're getting a taxi? and it doesn't matter what room, what women are in that, like, I don't need to worry that they're not going to have stuff. And then, you know, often the women will all be like, you know, I wouldn't book it, I'd only take it if it was on an app and I'd check the registration play.

And I'd sometimes take photos of the driver or the registration play and I'd sit in a certain place. So I felt safer and I wouldn't tell them the exact location. I'd get dropped off a certain place or I wouldn't open my door until they've left or I wouldn't accept drinks when they offer bottles for water or whatever. There's just like a million different things, right? And so often the men just sit there and are like, oh my God. I had no idea. I've never ever thought about this. Yeah.

Or they might think of like, you know, when we did that one, not that long ago and a guy put his hand up and said the only thing I think about is in terms of safety is if they're texting and I feel like they might crash. That's the only thing. And I thought, and they're actually like, the response has been so good because I think so often, especially in like HR stuff and whatever, and it's not to kind of talk down about what the people do, but I think it kind of feels quite,

don't do this because it's wrong, or don't slap women on the bum, or don't, do you know what I mean? And most, maybe the majority aren't actually doing that. Yeah. But they're not really understanding the difference in how we live every single day and what that does. And it's not about you necessarily causing harm,

but it's about your lack of awareness and your privilege. that we do not have and helping men understand that. Yeah. Because my whole thing is like right now we've got women, the violent perpetrators and then we've got the rest of the men

who maybe enable, some enable it to an extent I mean everyone enables it to a certain, even women, but, you know, aren't violent perpetrators necessarily who are just oblivious. And it's frustrating because people like, well, men should know there's so much. I agree.

I agree. so much information out there, but you could say that about any social issue. Oh, well, white people shouldn't be racist. There's so much information. I agree. I wish they weren't, but that's not the reality. And we found that by having these conversations in an accessible way, there's actually so many men have actually started to engage with it and try and do better. That was my next question, because I wanted to know how the engagement, what the engagement's been like from men. Yeah. And I'd also love to hear a little bit more about like the hate comments or the hate that you get. Because when the Manosphere documentary came out,

there were some interesting social media posts from men who were really criticizing the documentary for highlighting men in the negative way. And they were saying, you know, we've got men who are dealing with mental health and men who don't feel proud to be men anymore. And this Manosphere documentary, it doesn't really. represent all men and it's just making men feel shit about themselves. Yeah. And I'd imagine that they're, you talking about these issues might bring about a similar... 100%?

Similar response. Yeah, probably more extreme. Yeah, I think we get hate from a whole spectrum. I mean, we do get like death threats and... I won't repeat, but we... deserved to have horrible things done to us and X, Y, Z and this kind of thing. What's the rationale? Like, I just, the way, even the Manusphere documentary, I cannot for the life of me,

understand why that was a controversial thing to put out. It's highlighting something that we can all, if you watch it, you can see black and white what is what is happening. Yeah. Highlighting that. If you feel personally offended and personally attacked as a man who watches that, maybe that says more about you. 100%. 100%.

And this is the thing. I think part of it, and again, it's not to excuse men. I think part of it comes down to, especially white, straight, cis men, just have never experienced what it's like to not be privileged. And then when they, it's not even that they are being oppressed, but when something feels like an attack,

it's like it feels like they're being oppressed because they're so used to privilege. Right. I think that's kind of like to some of them, how it manifests in their brain, not saying that's okay. But I think when you've never experienced being, you know, having less opportunity or whatever because of something that's like out of your control, then when something like that happens, it does, it can feel like an attack. And if you're more annoyed that men are being represented in that way than that men are doing that to women, you need to take a long, hard look at yourself. because the outrage, I mean, it's just, again, it's like, men also suffer considerably at the hands of male violence. So even if you don't care about women, male violence is still a huge problem for men.

So it's still bigger than going, oh, women are painting everyone with the same brush. Your bigger threat is not women. It's the men who are violent. It's still by far your biggest threat. And as I say, I think part of it comes from that piece of just never, experiencing what it's like to not have privilege almost. But I think what people, because people say to us all the time,

well, if you said this about race, then it would be, then it would be counted as racist. So how is this not sexist? And I'm like, but the common denominator isn't, we're talking about common denominator here.

The common denominator when it comes to violence across the world, especially sexual violence, is the vast majority of it is perpetrated by men, towards people of all genders, is perpetrated by men. it's not the same when it comes to race. There's not clear, there's certain things where it's put down to structural issues,

like poverty and things like that again. But there is not, it's not one race that's doing this stuff. And all the other races aren't doing anything. And that's what they can't comprehend. We're not saying it's all men. We're saying it's almost always a man. And we never know which man until it's too late. And that's the problem.

We don't want to think it's all men. But it's also if you don't think it's all men and if something happens or why. weren't you more careful? Why don't you do more? Why don't you have more safety apps and self-defense houses and blah-b-b-bah? But then if you do those things, it's like, well, you think all men are bad.

What do you want us to do? And then they go, well, just don't leave the house. And I'm like, I would do that if that was a solution. However, I'm more unsafe in my own home. So what do you want me to do? Because men will comment on our videos all the time saying that. We'll just don't go out.

If it's that dangerous, don't go out. And it's like, we're not even talking about the danger. We're talking about the constant noise. you know, not every single form of harassment, cackling whatever leads to violence. But it's that constant noise. It's not even happening. It's constantly having to plan for it,

having to, is this about to happen? Do I wear that? Because, oh, should I put something longer? Should I put a longer coat to cover at my top? It's like all of those things. Yeah. The violence is the problem ultimately, but it's all of this stuff that they don't think about.

And yeah, I think it is just, again, it's trying to have that conversation in an accessible way, which is like frustrating. Obviously, sometimes I just want to scream and be like, you know? Yeah. But that's not how I think we create an effective solution. I do think from the work we've done,

if you just give men a path, a lot of them will actually do something about it. So, I mean, we have more than a thousand men now part of our online advocacy program from all over the world. We also have, like, we launched our resources a few months ago, and we've had thousands of men using our resources, not just using them, but then sending them being like, oh, I run like this youth club I'm going to use than this,

or, you know, just like sending them on to other people or being like, oh, can I get posters for my workplace because I want to put posters up and all this kind of exponential effect. Plus we have, what, hundreds of thousands of men following us on socials where we're like educating and we have a lot of men creating content. And yes, it's a very small number in the scheme of the whole world. But I think considering we've done it in a very short space of time and we're a team of three people and we have no funding,

I think it gives a pretty good indication that this has actually got potential to create change, you know? And needed. Yeah. And I think a lot of men just say to us, I've never felt like there was a place where I could do something and not, I didn't want to get it wrong. I didn't want to speak over women. Or a lot of women's safety bans are about women.

They're aimed at women. They're marketed to women, which of course they are. But as is aimed at men primarily. And then they've just been like, you know, and it is. It's, I hate sometimes you have to use this. But, you know, it's dads, it's granddad's, it's partners. It's whatever it takes, whatever it takes this point to get you in. Once you're in, we can work on you actually caring about the greater good of the world.

But like, whatever it takes for that initial thing, you know. And people said it wouldn't work, but it is. So we're doing it anyway. Yeah. It's amazing what you're doing. We've got a video that I want to show you to get your opinions on. Yeah. First, a couple of community questions.

Yeah. How can we encourage men to become active allies to this message without feeling defensive or blamed? Okay, so the first thing I would say is, and this is, again, personal choice, but I, we don't really use the term allies. And it's because, especially for younger boys, ally can feel. like you're separating your like all you want to do is be included and be cool and all that kind of stuff and obviously if you're going oh I'm a male ally

as like a 16 year old boy you might feel like you're going to be a bit you know so we talk about it as like being a man is because the whole thing is like it shouldn't be that you're a man or an ally it should be that you're a man or a misogynist because the man should be the common

the more common the majority The default should be, I mean, I think the same for like LGBTQIA plus allies and all this kind. It should just be human or homophobe. That's my opinion. But I think also it helps people come into that conversation when it's just like, no, we're just talking about what it means to be a man. We're not talking about male feminist, male ally that kind of freaks them out, especially if they're further down that scale, right? So that's the first thing. And second thing I would say is, again, it's not easy.

And I don't believe or preach that women should forgive men or have to give men grace or anything like that. but from an effective change perspective, like if you're in a position of influence, like a teacher or someone who's senior in a workplace or whatever it might be, I always preach the whole thing of meeting people where they are and giving people grace to do better, trying to understand why people think the way they do,

recognising your own privilege in the way that you think, because I didn't do that for a long time and actually because I was raised being taught about all this stuff, I have privilege where I don't know if I was raised in a misogynistic household that I wouldn't have been a misogynist. I'd like to think I wouldn't, but you never know, right? And so other people didn't necessarily have access to the same

parents teaching them stuff or critical thinking, like, abilities or whatever it might be. So trying to understand why people think the way they do and also just using the questions of like, oh, what do you mean by that? And not in like a combative way, but just trying to understand. Because so often people like regurgitating something they've seen online or certain influences said or someone in the family said

or whatever it is and if you can try and understand why they think that way you've got far more chance of coming back to them with something that they can respond to if that makes sense rather than if you just,

I mean, if you get angry they're just going to shut down. It's not to say that women shouldn't get angry. I get angry about it all the time, you know what I mean? But it's like if you want to create effective change from a systemic level, from a position of influence,

I believe you have to understand why people think the way they think, try and meet people at that point, get them what, don't try and turn them overnight from being a raging misogynist to a women's rights activist is not going to happen. I mean, in very our cases, but you know what I mean? But just trying to get people up one step on that ladder. That's what I always kind of push people to do.

We're going to come on to another section called Real or Not Real. So I'm going to show you a video and I'd love to know what your thoughts are. Men who do not abuse or sexually assault women still directly benefit from the violence of the men who do. The existence of violent men lowers the standard of behavior for men so low that as a man, all you have to do to be considered a good guy is refrain from raping someone. You don't have to actually protect women. You don't have to stand up to your friends who hit their girlfriend. Simply by virtue of not being a direct perpetrator of violence against women yourself,

you are considered a saint deserving of special treatment because violent men have lowered the bar for you. What would be considered basic decency for a woman practically qualifies a man for a Nobel Peace Prize. And women are encouraged to reward men for bare minimum kindness. Most men don't protect women. Most men don't step in when they see a woman being abused. Most men defend their favorite athletes when they're accused of rape. And that's because these men believe that not being a rapist or an abuser themselves is enough. 50% of women will experience some form of sexual abuse in their lives, and 95% of sexual abuse perpetrators are men.

You've never defended a woman in your life, but because you've never raped one either, you think that you're God's gift to women. Women are often convinced that they have the world's best husband just because he doesn't scream at her and punch holes in the walls. Never mind that he doesn't know your kid's birthday and has no idea where you keep the vacuum. The fact that he's never slapped you during an argument means Jeff is a total sweetheart.

Guys love to get in my comments and say, not all men, not all men, and maybe in the most basic, baby-brained way you might be right. Not all men are abusive towards women, but all men do benefit from women's abuse. Men who do not abuse. I agree with every single thing. Oh my God.

I mean, just on point in every single way. I think this is the thing, like, we always say it's, it's a tricky balance to strike when you're doing what we're doing in terms of, like, celebrating the men who are taking part and who are, because it is a big thing to do in a way, right? And just before I get cancelled. In the sense that you are stepping out of the norm of what has always been, but it shouldn't be a big thing.

It should be very bare minimum. And it's trying to strike that balance between going, like, Okay, this is what we want men to be like and look like, but also this isn't like the most incredible thing in the whole wide world. This is just how it should be. Yeah. And it's definitely, I agree with every single thing she said. I think there was a pod, that Australian,

those two guys who do that Australian podcast. I can't remember what it's called now. And they talked about this on there. And it was just like that a, it was something like a, what's the word? like a really amazing guy is just the average woman. And that's what they talked about in like a very, they're very like green flag as men go.

But in the way that they were saying, like, you know, all of these things that we celebrate men for doing, women are just expected or even, not even expected, but like have negative things thrown at them when they do it. Like there's so many things that, you know, like baby, oh, babysitting your kids.

Like, what a great guy. Like, no, they're his children. You can't babysit you. your own kids. Yeah. But it's like, or it's like, you know,

if he has a career, he's a, he's a provider, he's X, Y, Z. If she has a career, she's neglectful, she's selfish, she doesn't,

there's just like constantly this like double. And this is like some of the things we talk about as well because all of this plays into the same problem, ultimately, right?

And yeah, I think it is just that. Me and my friend used to have this thing like a couple of years ago where we'd say something about a guy like when we were, who were dating or whatever. And then we just like a,

Low bar. We mentally check ourselves because we were like, oh my God, like, you know, I left and like, I went home and like,

he didn't even try to like come back with me. And then we'd be like, oh, that's so good. And then we'd be like, oh my God, this is actually like appalling that we're basically saying that

this guy's so amazing because he didn't force himself on you. Like, because it is. And there's this weird, weird in between of like, if women wake up to it too much, they won't want to be in relationships

because there's such a small, percentage of men who are decent women, if that makes sense, who have the same traits. Because it is that they've never had to. Because of patriarchy and because of privilege. So it doesn't necessarily on an individual level make them a bad person. But, you know, I think more and more women are just getting infuriated by their own partners. Yeah. Especially if they've been with them a long time. That, yeah, why am I just expected to do every single thing in the house? And like, even though we both have jobs and we both earn similar amounts and yeah you know it is that women do most of the unpaid labour women do most of the unpaid care like that's the standard across the world so my poor fiance

gets absolutely yes his entire life shared on this podcast but the bar is in health men the bar really is in health men but the biggest green flag of this man is I remember like say the first time I said to him, I'm not getting the burst. Do you not, are you not worried about me getting attacked and raped? And then ever since then, I never walk home without him being on the phone or him being like with me if he is there. The awareness was raised and then the action, the behaviour changed. When we moved in together, I'd back to back 12 hour shifts. I was coming home every day, the bathroom was just getting more and more and more untidy, more and more dirty, more and I was like, and I just, I came home from a 12 hour shift and I snapped at him and I was like, I'm working

I've worked four up 12-hour shifts. That bathroom is disgusting. Yeah, I shouldn't have to be thinking about that. I'm not, why have you not cleaned that? Snap, the domestic labour is almost, I'm almost like living like a kept woman. He's a phenomenal man. And like maybe I want to end on that by saying,

there are men who will listen. Yeah, absolutely. Like, take real action and who are willing to change. Yes. But it does require raising that awareness. So I think it's just absolutely incredible that you are, raising that awareness. Which is why it's been so wonderful to have you on.

Thanks. So I'm going to ask you the final question that we ask all our guests. Amy, what you wish every woman knew by the time she was 25? I think on this topic specifically, just that if something happens to you, it's not your fault. I think that's such a thing that we're conditioned to think and that women don't unlearn for often a very long time. And it's never about you knowing. It's never about you not preventing it.

It's never about you not doing it. never about you not doing enough. And I think that's the thing that we get messages every day. Like, but did I? No, I don't even need to know what the story is. You didn't. And that's what I think every, because it prevents us from living our lives, from talking about our stories, from reporting, from all of these other things. And if every woman knew it wasn't her fault, then I think we'd make a significant amount of progress when it came to this issue. Again, the standards for men and women are just completely incomparable. There is no world where you walking down a dark alley is comparable to the person who has hacked you.

There is no comparison between one is an active, active violence. It shouldn't even be considered a mistake. It should be a freedom, you know? We can't compare those two things at all, you know, ever. And I think that's such an important message to end on. So thank you so, so, so, so much. We will leave all the details for how to find hassle in the description. And especially if there's any men listening and you want to get involved.

Yeah, come on. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.