If I Speak - 114: Why we can’t let go of the girl boss

Episode Date: May 26, 2026

The girl boss is back – and this time she’s working class, mixed race and fully therapised. Moya asks Ash how we should make sense of Skims entrepreneur Emma Grede and the success of her book, Start With Yourself. Plus: which fantasy archetype are you? Come to see us at Crossed Wires in Sheffield on 4th July! Tickets available here: https://crossedwires.live Send us your dilemmas: [e-mail] Music by Matt Huxley.

So you might feel that you've had more than enough of us for one summer, but just in case you are a thirsty, thirsty little piggy with your snout at the content trough, why not join us at Crossed Wires Festival in Sheffield on July the 4th? You can get tickets at crossedwires.live and there are going to be other live podcasters there as well. So just in case you want to add to your yapping diet, as well as if I speak, they'll be Blind Boy. There'll be bold politics with Zach Polanski and many more to boot. So go to crossedwires.org, and grab your tickets there.

I'm saying hello. This is If I Speak. I'm Moylo O'Ley McLean. With me is, D-da-da-da-da-da-d-an, Ash Sarka. Ash Sarker. And we are here to chat you through all your trials, tribulations,

toils, anything else that begins with tea that you experience in the drudgery of modern life and hopefully cheering up your commute, which we will start by doing with an email. We will start with an email because normally, as dedicated listeners will know, we would do our icebreaker questions. But unusually, I would like us to begin with a dilemma.

And as you will see within the dilemma is itself an icebreaker question. We've actually got two emails because we've got this email and then I'm reading out another email. So let's just call this the listeners feedback, the editor's inbox.

Editors' inbox. Comments and concerns. Okay, so, hi, Ashen Moyer. Thank you for your amazing musings and discussions on the podcast. I'm a big fan. My friends have a big theory

I would value your thoughts on. The idea is that every person in the world can be categorized into one of the following fantasy categories. A wizard, a goblin, a witch, a fairy, a gnome, a mermaid. This is a gut instinct. You should know in your soul very quickly which category someone is in. We have negotiated that people may have elements of two characters, e.g. a rising sign, if you will.

Sorry, Moia, I think you are on a horoscope's ban. Zero days sober. It's actually going pretty well. It's actually going pretty well. Anyway, here's the dilemma. I have been unequivocally categorized as a gnome. This has semi-jokingly, semi-seriously, set off a cascade of insecurities in my brain.

Is it because I'm short? Are gnomes ugly? Do I have a gnomy essence? and what does this mean? I've taken this all very literally and have been down a spiraling journey of self-confrontation. Here's my question. Is this just a big old sense of humour failure on my part?

Are there some earthy reassuring qualities of a gnome that I am missing? When I have expressed that I don't think gnome fully fits me, my friends reply, that's just what a gnome would say. And you know what? Maybe they're right. How can I accept the gnomy part? of me and hold them in high regard.

Any insights, silly or serious, would be very welcome. Thank you. Right. Before we do that, you know what we've got to do. I think they also asked actually in the full email what we were. Oh. I think they did that for us as well. What did they tell us?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I think they just said PS. Because I know what you are, hands down. I know what I'm a no. No, you're a mermaid. What? But obviously a mermaid. Okay, you have.

Your sense of self, in your sense of who you are and who you really are, are, are like, out of odds. So you're always like, oh, in the rom-com, I'm like the facilitating best friend. Nay, nay, you are the lead. And I think the reason, and we've talked about this before, I think that this is a way of you trying to be like, oh, we are in a culture that demands a degree of, like, humility, and you can't be the tall poppy, but bitch, you're the tall poppy.

And you know who else is avoidant? Mermaids. You know who's not avoidant? Noams. Do you know who I immediately thought you are and you might disagree? What? Wizard. Oh, I thought Goblin.

No, I thought, do you know what? I thought Goblin was your rising. But in my soul, I was like, because I was torn, I was like, Ash can go Goblin mode. But I was like, ultimately, I kind of think you're the wizard. For some reason, the knee jerk, I was like, wizard. She's a wizard. There's something, I don't know, there's something. You get very wise.

There's very fantastical elements about you. Like, I do think you would just sweep in and be like, this is the way. But then also like Gandalf, who I was mainly. thinking of. There is like a, you have to overcome an inner battle as well to truly ascend. And I do think, I did think goblin mode for like when you're watching a spurs match or something, where you're at a party, you're like having loads of fun, you're like goblin moaning around. Oh yeah, 100% goblin. I was, I thought cool wizard. You know what? I love that. I love that. I'm so taking wizard. But yeah, you are, you are a mermaid because, you know, mermaids,

mermaids are avoidant, right? Like, you know, they're like playful and gambolling, but like, They will also wreck ships and they'll like fuck off and leave you in the sea to die. Like there are all these elements in there. I really thought gnome. I really thought noam. I'm always dwarf in the, in the, when you're doing Lord of the Rings, I'm always the dwarf. Oh, but I think that's different from a gnome. I think that's different from a gnome.

Because, you know, I would say that dwarves in Lord of the Rings are, but this is, this isn't you. You're not a hard, beery bastard. No, but I'm so, this is what, so. this is coming back to the gnome thing. I see these animals as very rooted, very stubborn, loud. I do think short plays a part, special one. Yeah, I do think if you're short, you're more like to be categorized as a gnome. Like, I'm never going to be an elf in the Lord of the Rings.

Yeah, there was a reason why there were no Bengali elves and the Lord of the Rings. You know what I mean? There weren't any people who've gone in the Lord of Rings. Mate, there were loads. They were just all in Mordor. Yeah, they were all immoral. O-N-P-O-C is for orc. Ork of colour.

Ork is something of colour. So we need to make this special one feel good about being an o-man. First of all, there is something to this, which is don't ask questions you don't want the answer to. Never, never, never, never. I once asked my partner, am I the most beautiful woman in the world? And he said probably not. That's so rude. And then he continued.

Statistically, I just think it's unlikely. Yeah, I mean, that is the correct answer. Like, if I ask my partner that, then the thing is, you can't ask them. You have to wait for them to tell you the shit. Sometimes they'll say, like, when we're in Italy, my partner was so moon-eyed at that point, because it's really early. They were early in, right? He kept saying things like, I've looked around, and I think you're the most beautiful woman in Florence.

And I'm looking at the same street, and I'm like, you are so. sprung right now. I've never met a more sprung man than you in this moment because I can also see my own eyes. You know, eight years of relationship in, nearly three years of marriage, he'd then be saying, I'll spot at least 10, which is where you get. Like, in the first three to six months, you can say any shit to your partner and it feels true when you're like, you're the smartest person I've ever met. Yes, I am going to get up at 5 a.m. and walk the hill with you. I would love to stay in a tent for two days without any running water nearby. That sounds amazing.

And you really believe it. Yeah, you believe all the shit. You believe all the shit. But coming back to gnome. Yeah, back to the gnomes. For me, here's what I like about gnomes. They are collectively minded. Mm.

Right? They are industrious. They are, in my view, the interface between the wildness of nature and the need for order that is the basis of civilization. Because those are in the garden. Do you know what I mean? you know you love a lawn I do

I love a lawn people love a lawn gnomes love a lawn but also they know it can't all be lawn a good gnome is not all lawn I think you should ask your friends if they're confusing

gnomes and dwarfs essences like I was because I think special when if you say I personally think being a gnome is fine what's wrong with being a gnome you're a cheeky

your cheekiest sturdy part of society if you're the type of person who could well shake their fist at the sky and say why I order, then you are a gnome, then you are a gnome if you do that as a comedy element. 100%. I also sort of think that like it's okay.

Like if for me, and I don't mean this in a homophobic way, if I called someone a fairy, that would be derogatory. Yeah, it's like a, oh, you're off the ground of stamina. Yeah. You lack gravitas. Unless the ones, the little teeth. But there's no grit. Oh, no, but they're not serious people. No.

They're not serious people. Also, I find, should I say this? Yes, I will. Too many white women with spice racks and vibrators are like, oh, I'm a witch, actually. No, you're not. You're not a witch, honey. You're not a witch.

You're something else. This is also the problem. problem with this list. I think it's gone very like, it's like mermaid and fairy and a witch. There's not, there's not very, I feel like they're missing out some key, where's the dwarves? This is dwarf Eurasia. Yeah, like, why is it a dwarf instead of a no, where's the gnome instead of a dwarf? I don't understand that. Where's like, where's the wolf? Where's, like, where's the wolf? What, if it's like, key, you know, fantasy categories. Where's the orc? No one wants to be the troll. Where's the or? Where's the or. Where's the hawk?

I also just love that all the orcs were like oh right governor and my favourite or my favourite orc in the Lord of the Rings films is the orc foreman who's like but my lord we don't have the means and he's like well wait and he's like get our boys Ray Winston

in fact that bit of Lord of the Rings is like a Guy Ritchie movie that bit of Lord the Rings me isn't to Guy Ritchie I'm sorry for a special I don't know if we made you feel better about being a gnome, but I think being a gnome is great. I think you need to... Why are your friends making you feel insecure about the gnomeness?

And I don't mean they're making you as in like they're trying to make you feel insecure, but I think you should consider why them saying you're a gnome feels like a dig rather than what it should be, which is like a loving act. Like when my friends say, you remind me of that meme of the small kitten stood against the court, sitting against the corner with their back. turned being like furious. I think that's a lovely thing to say because you see me. When my boyfriend says you are DW from the kid series, Arthur. Oh, you're 100% DW. Yeah, that's my biggest identification. My biggest identification. I think, wow, you really get me.

And then I think, oh, because I'm DW. DW. DW with muffy characteristics. Yeah, fucking love DW. We should do Arthur. We should do an Arthur Axis. She should do an awful one. Look, I mean, I'm not going to say what the nickname is on the pod, because then it would ruin it for me forever. But what I will say is that the most commonly used pet name that my beloved husband has for me is so...

Like, there is nothing beautiful about it. Like, it's... Like, it's... I'll message it to you. I'll message it to you right now. I've said this. I have a vague recollection of you saying it. But you can't read it out

because there are certain things that have to just be. It's private. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. It's just, dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun. Oh.

Oh. I get it. I'm not reading that out. You haven't said it. That's very. Oh. And it's because like, it's because I have,

like, I have to work really hard to have soft feet. I have to work really, really hard. So the natural state takes me to that place. Yeah. And that's, that's the nickname.

And I just, I just sort of think. that like people calling you pretty all the time like isn't actually like it lacks the texture that comes with familiarity. Like real deep bonds of affection. You want to be more gnome than you want to be fairy or you want to be witch.

It's also bad to call you pretty all the time. I wrote it was reading a book recently talking about how it has a negative effect on your body dysmorphia because there's a constant, people who are constantly reinforced being called pretty, then there's this withdrawal and this feeling of like, I have to be at this to have value all the time. It's not actually good for you. It's not good to take compliments.

We also have an email. We're not even doing a delo in the show because now we're doing the top top. We have a feedback email or rather a reply to our request for comment. And it's from a 28F, which means 28th email. And they're writing in because we requested experiences of mentoring from listeners. Like both of you, I've had two mentors, both never explicitly defined as such in my life. They were both men about six to seven years older than me, both extremely influential in the life choices I made, but I still felt like they were my choices to make.

I'm grateful for their guidance and we're still friends acquaintances now. However, this all happened when I was younger. Since a year or so into my career in a male dominated industry, I kept thinking that a senior woman might take me under her wing, but it's not happened. Sometimes I've considered applying to a structured scheme, but I think mentorship is a hard relationship to actively seek out. If you don't know what to ask for, you just know when you have it. You just click.

I was recently at a panel for the industry on International Women's Day and the discussion via towards female mentors. One of the panelists said the way men operate is they look at the new intake of junior people in their company, find one they like, and it's a done deal. They come up with opportunities for them, they present work as if it's better than it is. They give many words of encouragement, push them out of their company, comfort zone, forgive their mistakes, talk to their concerns and ultimately bring them up the ladder

with them. It makes me feel sad because I don't think I've ever been awarded that kind of grace and unconditional support by a senior woman in my industry. I wonder where would be now if I had that. And then there is a question, which I don't think we have time to answer, but we can use it as the second half, which is, where do you two think you'd be now? What would be different if you'd experience the influences of a female mentor at a key age stage in your career? Do you have a quick answer for that? I don't know. I don't know. I find it really hard to do those sort of hypotheticals because all I know is what it's like to be mentored by one Aaron Bastani. It's so idiosyncratic. You might never get in there replicated across any person. I know. It's like, you know, what would be like if you were mentored by someone sane? I don't know. I don't know. I can't say. I also can't say. I can't. I don't know. It's, again, it's dealing in the hypotheticals. I'd probably be at a broadsheet.

and I don't think my life would be happier. Yeah, I wonder if it would have made me more cautious because I'd be being mentored by somebody who has to deal with. Like, you know, one of the things about Aaron and working with him is that I would say he's Navarra's a rocket pilot. And 90% of the time he's taking you to the moon, 10% of the time he's taking you right into an asteroid field. but that's what he's like

in the meetings we have as directors like sometimes he'll lean back in his chair and he'll be like we should buy the flat iron building in Manhattan like he'll just sort of like come out with something you're like what the fuck but like he has an attitude to obstacles which is like

well that can obviously be surmounted and often and this is advice that I need and it's helpful when you're talking to, you know, someone who is racialized more than Aaron is, so like dark skin person of color, like, or someone who's a woman, someone who is treated on that basis, like, kind of in every interaction they have. It's not necessarily that those obstacles are like, okay, they will have to, like, box you in.

But it's almost like they have to be negotiated in a different way. So I think I'm always going to have that impulse in my head. And the thing that I need is actually like, you know, this like slightly like mad industrialist vibe that Aaron brings to the table. Well, it's funny you say that because today's topic is from a woman who says those very same things or rather is centered on a woman as Spark from who says those very same things about caution and gender. And that woman is a lady called Emma Greed. I'm currently holding up her. Breed is good is what she should have named her book. It's no, I actually don't think that's true.

Start with yourself. Am I a disciple now? Maybe. Okay, so today I want to talk about an alluring figure. And a specter that has haunted me since I was birthed into this world and has been around since women were allowed to properly enter the capitalist workforce in great abandon. the yuppie, the yuppie area, I'd say. And that is, she's sister to the trad wife, but fucking hates her.

It is the girl boss. And I want to talk about why the girl boss remains such a seductive figure. There is a woman who keeps appearing on my social media feeds. I have mentioned her name already. I have friends and colleagues who obsess with her. I hadn't heard of it until like two weeks ago because my algorithm isn't geared that way. She's very successful. She's very beautiful.

And she has a fantastic East London accent. She's been a repressed tour recently that includes Oprah. She's friends with Michelle Obama. She's got to the point when she's breaking through into the mainstream with comments picked up by the Daily Mail. That's how you know you're becoming a person of interest. I would put her in the same pantheon of podcasters as the likes of Stephen Bartlett and Jay Shetty, who interviewed her in London.

That's the kind of world we're working in. And her name is Emma Greed, along with her husband Yensgride, who is Swedish. She's responsible for brands like skims and good American because her niche is creating brands with celebrities. She works with like the Kardashians, Chrissy Teigen, she's done deals for like Pharrell, well I am.

It's that kind of vibe. Now, Evergreen is particularly interesting because she is mixed race. She was born into a working class family or an economic deprived family in Playstow. She has grafted her way up. She didn't go to university. She's now a multi-millionaire, like big bucks,

like 300 million pounds. like value multi-millionaire. And she has this new book out called Start With Yourself, which is why she is now all over my social media feeds. And I actually get it. She's very frank. She's very funny. She's very direct.

She's very clear-sighted. But I think the advice that Emma Greed is dishing out and the role she occupies is very familiar to veterans. The most recent iteration and archetype of this girl boss role was Cheryl Sandberg, almost 13 years ago now, so we were due another Cheryl. But Emma is sort of the girl boss, I think our generation deserves. You know, she's more therapist. She's from a minority ethnic background.

But the overall message is the same. Get off your ass and do the work. If you want to see the goods, you will have to trade things off. At one point, she says, you will be always one third happy. One third time you'll be happy. One third of the time you'll be all right. And then one third time you'll be miserable. She has another mantra as well that I hear I say quite a lot.

written in the book, which is money doesn't solve all your problems, but it does solve all your money problems. Which is kind of right. Yeah. It's right. So we've talked about the childhood life before, but the girl boss at Emigre is the other side of the corner. And I want to talk about why is the girl boss as constantly recurring figure?

What does she represent? What's her history? And why right now is she on the up again? Ash. Well, I did not read the book, but I did read some interviews with her in preparation for this show. One of the things that's really interesting about her is that she's a second generation girl boss. So her mother was on the trading desk at Morgan Stanley. So you can sort of rather seeing this as, you know, Girl Boss 1.0, Cheryl Sandberg, you know, where it's being

pitched as a sort of reaction to the idea of a woman who's so tangled up in childcare needs that she's unable to work, this is actually a sort of descendant of, you know, a Thatcher right go-getter, really. So I think that's the first thing that I found interesting about her. The second thing is that in the interview with her that I read, is that she is very clear that it's not just about trade-offs. It's about the fact that you have to bring in paid domestic labour. So she says, listen, people imagine that I found some 25th hour in the day. The important conversation is about what I'm not doing. I'm not cooking. I'm not cleaning. I'm not answering school emails. I have four nannies to working at any one time.

I have an army of people. And so in this way, the girl boss is not any different from any other kind of boss. Their agency and mastery of the world is because you're at the pinnacle of a pyramid of other people's labour. And there are of course very literal ways in which this plays out for the industry that she's in, the people who make the garments, the people who are responsible for the US on the websites on which the garments are sold. Like, oh, I want none and on, and the girl boss is the person who's at the top of all of that marshalling of the productive forces of society. And I think that we can, we can and we should have a discussion about whether the

marshalling of all those productive forces in the interest of body shaping undergarments, which are marketed by people who have probably had the most invasive, body modifying surgery short of elective amputation. Like whether that's socially useful at all, right? Whether that, you know, there's all that labor pull together and you go, well, you're selling shit to women that feel bad about their own bodies because they're comparing themselves to ideals that have had millions of dollars worth of surgery and fillers pumped into them.

And then you're selling a product to solve it, which is, shaping underwear, right? I, you know, call me old-fashioned, call me a hairy-legged rad femme, if you will, but I just think, you know, I don't feel better about this than it would it being a woman in charge of ExxonMobil pumping oil into the Gulf of Mexico, you know?

Like, I don't, I don't. But in terms of what is the allure of the girl boss, I think that there are ways in which you have to use the tradwife as a mirror, which is there is an appeal to certain things which are true, right? The tradwife is a rejection of the, you know, inhumanity of being in paid work, right? And it's saying, well, what if you had all this time to dedicate to the nourishment, of your family. And that is a beautiful thing, right? It then is like, and the way you do that is you have no control over your own finances and the man is the head of the household and you do all

the cooking and cleaning and you do it while having massive knockers, that deeply reactionary. But that desire to say, I cannot find my real self or I cannot find love in the workplace, but I can find it here in the family. Totally get that. Similarly, what the girl boss is saying is that being a mother and being a wife is not enough, I want to have left a stamp on the world, which is separate from my identity in relation to my family relationships. And also, money gives me autonomy. It gives me mastery over my world. And the sort of vulnerability that you have as a woman

and you think about things like, what happens if my family breaks down, what happens if my marriage breaks down, you know, what am I left with is that money is your insulator from catastrophe in all of these ways. And all of those things are also true. Do you think that Girl Boss has changed much?

Because I was reading all these, basically, I've been reading all these old profiles of Tina Brown and Anna Winter recently, who are fascinating figures to me because they have enduring cultural power in the journalism field where lots of people fall by the wayside and I wonder what makes sense they are like the ultimate girl bosses

young, precocious when they got their star seen as so hungry, seen as willing to sacrifice everything as you, as the devil wears Prada too spells out for listeners the audience because we're too dumb to get it otherwise Miranda says, well, you have to write about everything that it takes all the hours I miss with my children, all of that. And they're like, okay, the trade-offs, there's trade-offs here.

But they've gone through periods where they've been really degradated for their ambition and really, you know, they were on the rise and then they fall because that's the, that's classic public opinion. And now it's like they're back in the, I would say, the shiny spotlight again. They're being celebrated again. It's like these two titans of industry, these two, ultimate girl bosses. And there is a line also, the devil was part of the only one that is a spelling outline that I thought was really good when Miranda Prieta says,

I love working. Yeah, I mean, I love that line too, but I think it's because me and you are little staccano bite headbangers. But that was a true line. If she just said, if nothing else said that fucking speech, and she just turned to Andy, she goes, I love working. That would have said everything that needed to be said

about that character, about what she's sacrificed or what she was willing to give up, what she would be doing. You could see her in 50 years, if she's still alive, still trying to do this job, because work is her total escape. She's totally bonded identity to work. And that's when the girl boss comes in, right? So the tried wife totally bonds her identity to the family, and the girl boss totally bonds her identity to work.

Why are these two spheres? I don't know, like, there's this, there's not, These are the two dominant, I think, cultural models of womanhood that young women are getting at this point. Why is it those two? It's just work or family. There's nothing in between because you can't have it all. To quote the original girl boss, Margaret Thatcher. There's no such thing as society. There are individuals and families. So if you think about what are the two cornerstones of life, of human existence in the neoliberal framework, there is the family, and then there is getting ahead in industry and making money. And that's it. And so I don't think that that's all there is to it. In fact, I was talking to, I mean, speaking of mentor, Aaron Busser, journey. We were walking to the tube station after work the other night and we were chatting. And I was talking about how good I was feeling and, you know, a sense of purpose. And he said,

you know, two things you need in life to be happy. You need the right job and you need the right partner. And I was like, there's a lot of truth in that. For me, though, I would perhaps supplement the right job with a sense of purpose. Now, for me, that purpose is in my job, the politics of my job, the sense of the historic mission of communism in our lifetimes. That's the thing. But those two things, you know, purpose and the right partner, bam. And so I think that there is obviously a huge narrowing of what it means to be a fully flourished human being, to come back to the Greek concept of eudaimonia, of human flourishing. Like, what are the spheres in which that happen? I mean, it's not a.

single sphere, right? Family love, intimate life, domestic life is part of it. Seeing as work is the eight hours of our day in which many people say, well, this is my contribution to the world, to society, to something bigger than myself and my family. That can take a lot of it up, but there have historically been other things, other spheres, the sphere of politics and democracy, the sphere of art, the sphere of religion and spirituality, in which, you know, there has been one may find purpose. I think it's really interesting that girl bossery doesn't seem to focus on the political sphere.

It focuses purely on like producing making consumerism. Emma Greed is in fashion, obviously. But, you know, there was a generation of like mini Hillary Clinton's who wanted to be, gain power in that way.

And now it's about just accumulating money which equals power but it has to be done through you know building a multi-million pound company which has celebrity buy-in etc why is that why have we moved from politics even being on the radar of the girl boss well because i think politics is obviously so much weaker than corporate power and also when you think about what the follow-up to hillary clinton was it was donald trump um you know and and and there's a an interesting thing about behaviours which are increasingly being drummed out of corporate life are finding their expression in politics. You know, it can't just be a flagrant sexual harasser

in the city of London anymore, right? The FT will come and get you. Well, actually, that's fine because those are the kinds of people being elected to your high office. So I think that there is a sort of movement of, um, movement of, um, matter. chismo from the corporate realm into the political one. I also think it's so interesting the way how uneas... When I think about the evolution of the girl boss, and you think about the first girl boss, I would say in the 1980s.

Would you agree? Do you think that's when it really sort of emerged as an archetype rather than just like women occasionally becoming moguls? And you look at that, and you look at the way it sat with feminism and how uneasily the girl boss has always interacted with feminism and you'd have that, you know,

Thatcher saying I'm not a feminist and how I think a lot of like if you talk to women on the trading floor they'd be like yeah I can bust men's balls and I can do it just as hard as the rest of them but if you said are you a feminist they'd be like absolutely not I don't believe in that or what kind of vibes like these layabouts these bra these radical bra burning layabouts while I'm over here actually working and doing my bit these women are just standing outside shouting and it's seen almost like that pursuit of parity through those means was all talk whereas the girl boss is seen as all action. I think that's something you're seeing now. It's like money talks and politics is is this weaker, just chatty, the chattering classes

as opposed to like people actually doing stuff. Well, also there's a sort of naivety, right? Because like, you know, even if you're a Trumpian, there are some form of ideals, right? You know, it might be ideals of the nation. It might be ideals around manhood. Something which is not just about hard currency is in there. And obviously, the same for feminism, the same as left wing politics, whatever. There are values which you cannot just boil down to money. And I think that's seen as stupid, right, naive.

It doesn't, it's not real. It's a figment, whereas this is something which is real and tangible. There's another thing, which is, I think, seeing how this comes out of, like, 1980s neoliberalism is the disdain for dependency. Now, obviously, on the state level, there's a demonization of welfare recipients, right? Like, oh, there's welfare dependency. Nothing for corporate handouts. Entire businesses, sections of the economy, which are privatized but cannot exist without taxpayer money, right? Like, you know, these motherfuckers are taking, you know, the biggest welfare queen on the planet is Elon Musk.

But because he doesn't fit that class gendered and racialized stereotype, he's never going to get called that. But that idea of dependency is held in such content. And I think that one of the things in these stories is never about, and here are all the people that sacrificed. so that I could do something, right? Like it's, you know, or here's actually the role that like free school meals or benefits or council housing, because I exist in a network of other people and other people's money, which enables me.

Like the story is like, you know, I did it all myself. And there's often a thing of like, and my parents never took any handouts. Do you know what I mean? Like that becomes a point of pride. So I think that this like contempt for dependency, like, is it self-ideological? And I don't want to like take it too far because obviously there is a kind of gendered dependency of women on man's money, which is a tool of patriarchal domination. Like obviously it is.

But I think that there is this class element of it as well. this book as well something that I've been thinking about and I'm reading it is it's very clear it's very seductive I I guess this is something

there's two em agreed's right there's the public I'm agreed on socials and then there's the public I'm agreed in a book where there's more nuance and a lot of the things she talks about obviously makes sense she talks about how women when women in positions of power

they are constantly worrying about other people and worrying about it looks bad if they take a bonus or what other people are going to think of them and how they never value themselves to the right degree, how they don't ask for things, how we don't like talking about money because money is ugly, how there is so much guilt. And I think all those things are very truly,

she talks about, you know, you probably will have to overwork to get to a specific place. But I read this and I felt very, tired because I thought I'm not working enough, I'm not doing enough. And I think that's probably a similar feeling. And I don't think Emma agrees anywhere near on this level. I actually I personally think I quite like her and I like this book unfortunately because it speaks to someone like me. But I think that's probably the same feeling we get with all these cults of self-help like from the manosphere, etc. It's this thing being told you're actually not doing

enough and you're not doing it right. And here's how you can do it right. And, and it's tough love. And I think this is a much softer book and a much more empathetic book than the interviews, etc., make it out. But it did make me very tired to read. And I would say that I'm someone who does work at a stupid level already and does do too much.

But then I was like, there's more to do. There's always more to do. And I think that's why there's a backlash against her as well because it's this idea of, there's a real, like, she's touched a nerve. She's touched a real nerve. But look, I think it's just that thing of like, if hard work made you a millionaire,

every cleaner in the country would be living in a mansion. Exactly. And so I just think that I think that there is an inherent value to working hard. I think there is an inherent value of doing the best you can

to the best of your ability in your role, whatever that is, or in your sort of like contribution to society. I think that's a good thing. But you have to decouple the idea that hard work equals money, right?

There is a ceiling on how many people can earn that much money. And the fact is that you can only become a millionaire to the tune of like $300 million or you can only become a billionaire because other people are being underpaid. Other people are not being remunerated fairly to their contribution to this economic endeavor of which you find yourself at the pinnacle. And that's how you're able to have as much wealth and control as much wealth. you do, right? That's how the thing fucking works. And so I just think that that's the, you know, there will be advice in books like this where you go, oh, this is actually really helpful

for helping me understand the office dynamics of which I'm a part. Oh, there is advice in here, which is really relevant to roles of leadership that I take on within my chosen profession. Of course there is. But the heart of the book is a lie, which is that hard work is rewarded by money. Well, she does actually say in the book that there's loads of like cleaners and doctors and nurses who will never get this kind of money and it's actually not a parity thing, well, meritocracy. So she does, she does talk about that, but you are right. Like, obviously the book is sold on this idea that these are the things that you can do in order to get closer to the sort of money I'm getting. Although it's much more couch than that. She's not as

much of a griff merchant in that sense. But I don't know. Something else I'm thinking about as well is like watching people engage with it and their people who are very disillusioned by, they're often women who seem very disillusioned by like modern relationships. And I've been there as well where I throw myself into work as the escape from my disappointments with modern relationships and specifically, specifically romantic, but also like friendships and just like, who are feeling lonely and disconnected. And it's like, fuck that time to get the bag, you know, fuck all that and getting the bag. and I

people talk about the girl boss as the as like the the return of an emigreed like an emigreed figure coming up as sort of a backlash to tradwifery and I don't think that's true I think that you completely coexist quite happily against each other

because it's like the two camps and one is totally brought into the domestic fantasy and the other or the people engaging with it are buying into this domestic fantasy of course if the domestic fantasy was ever realized they'd be really unhappy I think and the same for emma greed it is all like this aspirational fantasy of a future and like tomorrow I'm going to this I'm going to do that but it's this future where they don't as you say they're

not dependent financially but they're also not dependent emotionally well there was a bit in the interview that I read where I was just like ugh um she's wearing a diamond the size of an almond on her ring finger although this is not the ring her husband proposed with it's two rings later she says he upgrades me without asking, but I wouldn't say no. And I just, one, like, you know, call me sentimental. Call me sentimental, but I actually think that the ring with which you get engaged and with which you get married shouldn't ever be upgraded because it is a memory and a moment which is there forever, right?

it's the promise you made at that time. And so the idea to upgrade it for a bigger and a fancier diamond I think actually completely cuts against what marriage is meant to be, which is this vow to stick with each other and to never upgrade for whatever seems shinier and more alluring, right? So that's the first thing. The second thing is that she is as much selling an idealised lifestyle, which includes domestic arrangements as much as as tradwives are.

Yeah, well, this is the funny thing because in the book, she's very like, she's very clear that, as you say about the help it takes, how she misses out on things, how she cuts out things and the whole chapter about the trade-offs. She feels an incredible amount of guilt about her parenting. She says she carves in this time to spend with her kids in this time. She actually makes some very like matter-of-fact things where she's like, people coddle their kids too much. like you should just like let them enjoy risk and things like that which i think you would agree with

but obviously the messages people are taking overall which is like i have this rich husband who loves me very much and we have four children and we make it work and i live this life like people are not you can when you get to a certain point of celebrity and especially on social media she's like it's a highlight real obviously i feel sad a lot of the time i have you know i I had to learn emotional regulation, all these different things. But the point of this is aspiration. So the highlight real and the things people, what people want to hear is, I have this husband, I have this other stuff.

But I'm agreed selling point is not actually the husband to a lot of the women, or at least they're not admitting that. They're like, I'm going to be this independent person. And then I'll find the husband. I think there's a deep down thing where they're like, maybe I could have, if not all, but at least I'll get this bag and then maybe I'll get some love, you know. Although with her, I was actually the way around, she got with this guy who was at her talent agency. And she, you know, he happened to be very rich. She was making loads of money on her own

by then, but like he was even richer. And together they then invested in all these companies and launched them. So when she wants to launch a new company before, you know, good America or whatever, she said, she went to him and his business partner and asked for like three million. And they said, no, I'll give you one million and you get the rest from other people. But like even that one million from your husband is something more than other people have access to. But she's, I think she's very likable so I don't want to do down on what she's achieved. Like I'm not, I'm not, you know, I don't, I don't know much about her, all right? But what I'll say is that, like, whether it's good American or whether it skims, I do just think

that these are like multi-million, if not billion dollar companies which thrive and exploit the insecurities of women and injecting consumerism into that space where women don't feel good enough about their bodies, right? That's like that's what the Kardashians are, right? They're sort of like plastic surgery bots which are presenting you with a constant idealized and unattainable unless you pay a lot of money for it, form of womanhood.

And she's injected herself into that space and she's made a lot of money from it, right? Like I don't think that that's morally neutral to do. And I do just, should I say this? that vision of like Kardashian, Jenna and now if I may tack on greed, girl bossery

comes with that like facial and body and aesthetic homogenization. Do you know what I mean? And like there is this trickle down of it which has rendered the world very uncanny. Right?

Like I see the Kardashian face everywhere I go plastered onto the heads of different women walking around. who've gotten the eye lift just so, the nose done, the lips, da-da-da, BBL, all of these things. And I just think that, like, sure, before it was like a lot of men making money from all this stuff, but I just, if you're asking me about, like, is it power, like, is it a form of power for a woman to be profiting off of this? the answer is yes.

But I suppose me and you share a feeling, which is we don't want power to exist as it does. We don't want it to be expressed in the way that it currently is. Oh, I'm so torn between my love of a girl boss and my knowledge that it actually, when I live a girl boss life, it robs me of the things that make me happy. That's the fundamental thing. I think I have, I've lived by the tenants that she preaches,

and it does sort of rob my life of colour. but I also think she's really fun. Wow, nuance. Newance. Shall we move on? I've had enough of nuance. Yeah, let's do a dilemma real quick. Here is the dilemma.

Do you want to read it out or shall I? You read it out. You read it up. And first you have to tell people how they send in dilemmas. If they would like to get, if you would like to send your dilemma in, send it to if I speak at Navaramedia.com. That is if I speak at Navaramedia.com. I'm going to be brief with this one.

Dear Ash and Moyer, long-time listener, first-time caller. Here's my trouble. Great way of putting it. I'm what you might call a real doer, and I've always been happy to take on responsibility. Head girl at school, that's me. I'm now in my early 30s and no less eager to apply myself to symbolically paid non-career responsibilities,

like being a board member, a local cultural institution in my building or leading the parent representatives group in the kindergarten. I don't do this because I have plenty of excess time, but because I truly feel a deep sense of responsibility and eagerness to contribute to my local community. I feel like I can do good that I'm needed. In the past few years, however, I found myself frustrated with the lack of gratitude and understanding directed towards the roles I take on. Neighbors suspicious I'm enriching myself when shared costs go up

or getting personally blamed and socially excluded due to necessary but unpopular decisions made. It exhausts me that people who didn't step up to this challenge get to scrutinize or actually gets done or lack knowledge or interest in understanding how this type of organisational work takes place. Lately I've started thinking these responsibilities are merely some kind of elaborate self-harming I do to feed the parental child in me. Call in undiagnosed Saviour complex. We're diagnosing it now. I'm humble enough to understand I'm not irreplaceable, but what should be my way forward? Do I stop saying yes to duties? Do I need to integrate educating people around me as part of the position? What lessons can I learn from activists and like who face so much resistance?

but keep going. And last but not least, I know, I even thinking the community will congratulate me for giving a shit. Thank you.

A Scandinavian special one. You know, special one. You could use a little bit of emigreed. Hmm. You can use a bit of emigreed. You want power and you want influence and you also want to be liked.

Choose one. Choose one. I think what you've said in the last line where you're saying I'm humble enough to understand I'm not irreplaceable. Yeah, but you fear that you are replaceable. That's the real problem. You fear that you'll be replaced and that shows that actually all these things where you get your value from, don't define you'll have to find something else because you probably spent

your whole life using adding value or being the person who organizes and sorts stuff out or leads as a way to give yourself validation and a sense of self. And that's now exhausting you. At some point, our coping mechanism stop working. And they start instead feeling both outdated and sometimes even harmful. And leadership and management are really thankless tasks. People are always going to complain if you put yourself in a leadership role. Even if you're doing a good job, there's always someone who's going to complain. If you are still able to weather it, then those complaints are sort of outweighed by the benefits. I think when it gets to the point when you're just like, I can't do this anymore and I don't want to.

And I'm fed up with these fucking whining people who cannot see how much of a martyr I am, who cannot see how I bend over backwards for them. That's when you have to stop doing it for a bit. That'll be forever. But I think it would do you good to jettison all those roles personally for just like, oh well, and see what else you can do that might not be in such a savior mindset. And I'm not talking about just doing stuff for yourself. I'm talking about maybe do some things.

where you aren't the leader. You can be part of the collective, but you are merely part of the collective. And you don't have to step up and take all the responsibilities on, et cetera. And as an exercise of teaching yourself not to be martyring, because I do think you've identified both the problem

and the core belief that underpins it. Special one. I wonder if there's somebody in your life who trust enough to lovingly, but like with a bit of humor, call you out when you're angling for your pat on the head. Because when you think about how is it that you break patterns of overly relying on a particular coping mechanism, like a big part of it is like reminding yourself or being reminded that it's actually very visible to other people

and you're not as slick as you think you are. Like the only person you've ever been fooling is you. And so I wonder if there's someone, a partner, a friend, a family member who you sort of write a permission slip for to say, look, tell me when I'm angling for a biscuit and a pound the head, right? You can even have like little code words for it, right? Like, you know, I have short hands for this, like with my closest friends and with my partner, which is like, you know, a way of saying, hey, you're doing that thing.

because look I think that it's I think it's fine to go I have something to contribute and that contribution involves taking leadership but if you're doing that because what you want is all of the munchkins in munchkin land

to go hooray like you killed the wicked witch of the West like it's never going to happen like that is a fantasy like it's not going to happen you just have to go there is the inherent value of the contribution which I think I'm making and that's good enough for me and if it's not stop doing it.

And you are doing great things by the way but you just can't expect to get any thanks to them. It's just the way it is. Same with the lone thing that I mentioned the last episode. I'd love a pound on the head and a biscuit. I really do that. I really want a biscuit now. Yeah, I'm absolutely jonesing for biscuit. The moment you mentioned I thought, oh, biscuit.

Because we didn't do any quickfire questions, why don't we end on one? Favorite biscuit? Oh, it's those, um, it's probably actually like a miso brown butter cookie, but if we're doing traditional biscuits, Fox is Viennese Waltz. It's not Viennese Waltz, is it? Whirls. No, there's another one. Oh, and it's like got the chocolate in the middle and then two biscuit either side.

And there are foxes for sure. Foxes Are they Vienies biscuits? Yeah Fox's milk chocolate Viennese Oh they're delectable It's like shortbready It's not shortbready

It's not shortbreadish or shortbreadfish God I want one of those What about yours? If we're excluding cookies Which I think we ought to Yeah yeah we should It's a ginger thin for me Oh lovely

A lovely choice I've gone so British just then Sorry oh Oh lovely All right shall we think Another picture Yeah let's think I'm a Bickey.

All right, bye, special ones. Bye.