If I Speak - 51: Am I feminine enough for you?

Episode Date: February 11, 2025

Ash and Moya respond to a mystery question about femininity with a conversation about desire, agency and sexual politics. Plus: advice for a listener tangled up in their in-laws’ finances. Send us your dilemmas: [e-mail] Music by Matt Huxley.

Hello and welcome to If I Speak, if I've got Maths Right, which I might not. You may be listening to this just before Valentine's Day, in which case, I love you, I need you, I can change, forgive me, come back. Moya, how are you? I'm great. If you're listening to this just before Valentine's Day, come to, and you're in London, come to my club night at Peckham Audio.

We probably would have sold out tickets by the time this is out, but there was always some on the door and it's really fun. And you can come as a couple, you can come as a single, and there's a good chance you will leave with someone. What if you've come as a couple? You can leave with the person that you arrived with? That's not up to me to say, but you will leave with someone.

Could be the bounce. As Denzel Washington said, I'm leaving here with something. Exactly. Our one year anniversary is coming up. So on the 18th of February, it will be a whole 365 days since our very first, if I speak. How do you feel about our first anniversary coming up?

Honestly, time hasn't stopped long enough for me, really for me to revel in it at all. And I didn't realize it was coming up until you said. So I'm like, I can't believe we've been doing this for a year. And it has been notably more successful than most of my other projects that I've been grinding at for so long. It's my favorite thing in my life. Well, apart from my friends and all that. It's my favorite thing in my professional life.

Let's put it that way. To celebrate, we'll be doing an Ask Me Anything. An Ask Me Anything. So if you've got questions for me and Moya, there is nothing too dumb or too deranged. Email ifispeakatnevaramedia.com. That's ifispeakat navaramedia.com. That's if I speak at navaramedia.com. Questions, speaking of which.

Speaking of questions, this is 73 questions minus 70, and you're in the firing range. Ah! First question, let's keep it simple. Bath or shower? Shower. Okay, why?

Baths I enjoy and it's nice for special when you're doing your feet. Very very nice. But ultimately I sometimes feel a bit stuck and then I get a bit bored. Whereas showers, they last just the right amount of time and I always have my best inklings when I'm in the shower. Second is really hard, okay. Oh. So Shag, Marry, Kill. Ah!

Tech Overlords. Ah! Addition. He he he he. Zuckerberg, Musk, Bezos. That's fucking cool. Okay. Kill, Musk. Yep, so in a way.

Shag, Zuckerberg, because that might kill him anyway. He doesn't look strong. He's really too well. Ash, keep up. He does MMA. He's so strong now. That's part of his right swing. Nah, I'd like, I'd eat him for breakfast.

He wouldn't survive this. He would not survive this. And I guess marry Bezos because he's already had one very expensive divorce. So why not two? Mine would actually be exactly the same. I have to kill him in the musk. He's so annoying. The most annoying man in the world. Like, oh, I couldn't be around for more than one second without committing homicide. And

Shag Zuckerberg, because what else to do? Marry Bezos because not only has he had an expensive divorce, he's now such a wife guy. Like there is nowhere that Lauren Sanchez does not go with him. Absolutely nowhere. And not to demean her, but I feel like one push-up bra and I could be in there, you know? Like he's not, he's not a man with exacting taste. And she was a former journalist. So let's get those millions.

Nice. Before we went live, we were discussing some get rich quick schemes. And I had one which you weren't- Wait, wait, wait. This is gonna be my third question. This is now my third question. Oh shit, sorry.

Sorry, sorry, sorry. What? Let's tailor it. What's your best get rich quick scheme? Okay, well, I heard from somebody that romanticy, I mean romantic fantasy, is a big money maker. So that's basically like men with claws and like sex and magic powers and stuff.

So I came up with one, and it's called The Dragon Who Was a Ho and it's about a dragon called Thiccums whose bum is too juicy that it can't fly properly. That's that's a fairy tale. That's not that's not Romantic. No, that's going to be there's going to be Romantic elements. This is just like Shrek. The title and the premise. No, Romantic is like it's basically, oh, there's this beautiful, skinny peasant woman and she's so skinny, but she has huge tits and she got even skinnier during the last

famine. And sometimes weird stuff happens and she has these powers, but she doesn't really know. She's actually just a really normal girl, but somehow her eyebrows are really like threaded in her peasant village. And then like a beautiful fairy guy comes along and he's so evil. And he demands immediately for some reason that they have to have sex right there to save a great evil from hitting the village and she doesn't want to do it but she comes anyway like that's romantic.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like we're starting with Thiccums the dragon and we're gonna get there. I would like to say that I've read a lot of Drek, right? Like I read a lot of Drek. I read books that are thought of highfalutin. I was reading James Joyce the other day. But I also- What accent was that? I was reading James Joyce the other day.

I was reading James Joyce the other day. I've got actually no idea. I would never try and do an Irish accent, so it was just whatever came around. No, that was like sort of Steve Irwin put through a wind turbine. So but I read like I'll read some Highfalutin but I am not afraid to get in the mud and also I think that the romantic comedy genre is the finest. It's my great passion. I love

it. So occasionally I'll veer off and be like, okay, I'll try some more romantic drama stuff. I saw a comment on TikTok which said, Romantic is made for people who can't and won't read. Obviously they can read but it is it is written by people who don't like writing and it is read by people who don't like reading and I'm sorry if you don't like that. I promise you there are other books out there that are equally fluffy and puffy and but are just not dreck. Like, there is stuff that will satisfy you on this level that is not dreck and it upsets me that Romanticie has become such a gateway because it is such dreck. Our standards are so much lower and I don't think that's an elitist thing to say.

I read Louise Bagshaw. I read shit. I love shit. I love to roll in the shit. It's fun and it's fluffy, but the Romanticie stuff is beyond shit. I love to roll in the shit. It's fun and it's fluffy, but the romantisy stuff is beyond shit. It's like when I go into a club and the DJ's, it's like an R&B night and the DJ's just playing like,

nasty gal. And you're like fucking pull your fucking finger out. There is a, like your bottom bar in basement, there is so much out there you could just put on it even if you're being lazy. Romantisy reminds me of that DJ who was just playing Nasty Gal. Is it Nasty Gal?

Yeah, it's Nasty Gal. I was not very well over the weekend, so I was just reading the Captain Hornblower novels. I don't know what a Misson sale is, but maybe I'll work it out. That's my direct. You are, you really are. Like, someone, you know how everyone's like, okay,

I was about to be like, you're such a man, but I'm like, do you know what? You actually really defeat gender stereotypes, and that's very important and radical. Because you love Napoleon and Captain Hornblatt. I'm just very boycoded. This week, we have a mystery question from our producer, Chal, who's going to ding me.

Any second. Ooh, we got a ding. This is so on theme. Is it? Well, maybe she tailored it. You both identify as women. Oh. How feminine are you? Oh, no, this is a minefield. I don't want to do this. We love the minefields. Because it's like, we're going to end up saying stuff like, oh, this is feminine and this isn't feminine.

And it's like. No, but I think, I think that that's what makes it interesting. So part of it is like, what is femininity to you? Yes. Who taught you that? Like, why did you get taught that?

What are the things which defy those expectations? And also how have norms of femininity changed? Like in the, you know, 32 years in my case that I've been alive, there's loads in this. There is so much, I just, I'm trying to think about, I think the problem is as well, like I don't really consider myself to be performing femininity, even. I just, I'm trying to think about... I think the problem is as well, like I don't really consider myself to be performing femininity, even though I am. It's just so ingrained into my sense of self.

But don't your little hair clips not performing femininity? Yeah, but I don't see them as like feminine things. Does that make sense? I'm not saying they're not, or they're not coded as that, but I never think, oh, I'm going to dress girly today, I'm going to dress this. I think I'm going to dressly today. I'm gonna dress this I think I'm gonna dress like this and I Identify so solidly as a cis woman that it's never been an issue of like oh, I'm gonna dress like a boy I think more in terms of like I am going to I'm going to put makeup on today because I want to look like more snatched Like my mental illness or whatever is like I'm gonna wear I don't know. I want wanna dress more grungy today,

but I never think this is more boyish, this is more girly. I always just think this is a particular style of dressing. Does that make sense? Like. That does make sense. I suppose like for me. I don't think in gender terms, sadly. I think for me, and I wonder how much this does

or doesn't resonate for you, but like I've often felt because of racism that my femininity is, you know, not fully accepted. On the one hand, you've got people who are just like racist shit heads on the internet who will refer to me as it or he will say I've got a mustache. There are online transphobes who are convinced that I'm secretly a trans woman and I'm like... Those trans investigators love to trans investigate literally. They fuck, I was just like I don't...

They need to go fucking get a real job as a private detective and do some of this. Get a real job. It's also like the way in which it goes from like... Go fucking follow the corporate accounts. Like they're like okay like, like this, you know, five foot 11 woman is transgender. She's too tall to be a woman. I was like, they're tall women.

And then they're like, this five foot three Binggali must also. And I'm just like, can we have some rules here about the height rules of trans investigations? I mean, it's a way of denigrating both trans women and women of colour. I think this would be a more interesting question to ask if we had people of different gender identities in the room because the way that I consider femininity is so different to the way that my trans friends talk to me about how they think about femininity and consider femininity.

It's like something that's much more loaded for them and they perform, like the friends I have perform a version of femininity often that's much more traditional and conventional because it's something that like they write about this much better than I do but like there's they've been drawn to and they love and they identify with probably more than I do. And we both occupy different spaces in womanhood. But I think that that is a really important conversation, but I don't think that means that we can't have it.

And I think that it's important to, because in a way then it's almost like saying, okay, well, there is such a thing as natural femininity, which belongs to cisgender women. And then we'll talk about the ways in which femininity is historically constituted or socially constructed when we're talking about trans women. Do you see what I mean?

I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is I don't have anything interesting to say about femininity. Because I think of, when I was thinking about this, I was like, when I think of like terms of womanhood, I don't think in terms of femininity, I think of, when I was thinking about this, I was like, when I think of like terms of womanhood, I don't think in terms of femininity, I think of terms of sexiness. That's what I-

Okay, well talk to me about that. That's what I distance. That's something. That's when I think I'm gonna perform sexiness. That's when I actively am thinking about I'm gonna perform this and that. That I don't think I'm gonna perform femininity. I think I'm gonna perform sex kitten,

I'm not gonna perform it. Or I think I'm lacking, I can't perform sex. Desirability, that's what I think in'm gonna perform sex kitten. I'm not gonna perform it. Or I think I'm lacking. I can't perform sex. Desirability, that's what I think in my head. Like that's what I'm considering a lot rather than I don't think I ever really think of terms of femininity, except sometimes when I'm joking about being made

to switch the wifi on and off in my childhood home. Okay, well talk about sexiness. Talk about sexiness. I know that I definitely want to talk about femininity. You start with your femininity and then I'll talk about sexiness. I know that I definitely want to talk about femininity. You start with your femininity and then I'll talk about sexiness. Okay, so one is that like, I feel very excluded from like conventional norms of femininity on account of my race and people do not fucking let me forget it. So I remember having a conversation

with a former student of mine, this one used to be a lecturer, who, who's non-binary and they were like, well, you know, you should want to be non-binary because it means that you're liberated from gender. And I was like, I see it a bit differently. My personal experience being genderless or not being gendered is to not be fully recognized as human. I'm not saying that's the case for everybody. I'm certainly not saying that that's going to be the case for non-binary people of colour, but that's my experience of it. And yet at the same time,

when it comes to the idea of like performing femininity for sexiness, that's not quite how my own sense of sexiness works. I don't think I really have a sense of sexiness, which is a whole other kettle of neuroses. I don't think I really have a sense of sexiness, which is a whole other kettle of neuroses. I think that a big part of how I think about my social role is so tied to an idea of what I think a woman's job is and what I think of as being a woman's job from being raised by a single parent for my formative years is everything. You take responsibility for everything and it is your job to make sure everyone's happy all the time, to

like bring everyone together, to take responsibility for other people's emotional states which is obviously insane and particularly stuff to do with conviviality like cooking,, very, very big part of it. I think that there are also things which are interesting in exploring, which are the ways in which we internalize certain ideas around femininity and masculinity within the context of interpersonal conflict.

Like, I think that there is, and people talk about this with regards to like hetero pessimism, so a sort of discourse which is, you know, propagated by like, you know, heterosexual women that like, you know, straight men and loving them is just like a curse and it's always going to go badly. And it puts you in the role of like a feminized victim who lacks agency and to whom things always happen. And I've definitely had to, within my own relationships,

work to move past that way of thinking because it's so corrosive to a functioning relationship where you go, I'm the person to whom things are done, you are the person who does things to me. And so that's a way in which, you go, I'm the person to whom things are done. You are the person who does things to me. And so that's a way in which, you know, femininity, and I, and I guess it's not just to do with, do you think about the Roman empire every day or like certain kinds of sexiness? It's also the ways in which you've been socialized into your gender and the way

in which you, you breathe life into it, like every day through your navigation of personal relationships. Like I think you do have a lot to say about that. I think I haven't interrogated it that much when it comes to me. I don't know what the block is for me when it's like thinking about femininity and maybe it's just because I'm talking, maybe we're talking about similar concepts but we understand them in different terms. Like when you think about this conventional

femininity, I know you've just mentioned, you know, caretaking roles and bits of appearance, but what really comes home to you when you're like the conventional femininity? What is that archetype? So I suppose like conventional femininity, I think desirability is so in there. You were completely right to bring that up. To be recognized as feminine is to be desired in some way by men. And so I think that that's where the race thing comes into it. When they're saying, I don't consider you feminine, what it means is how

disgusting would it be to desire you? It would be, it would be unnatural. You cannot be an object of desire. Um, I think that, you know, that there are archetypes of, of femininity. The famous ones are always like, you know, Madonna or like those are both feminine archetypes that no woman can fully escape. I think that there's assumptions around a sort of passivity or a certain holding back from acting in the world and being agentic. I think that that's in there.

But certainly, like, when I think about what it means to be typically feminine, it's so racialized in my head. It's so, so racialized. I find it very difficult to put somebody that looks like me on that pedestal, even though, obviously, you know, many women of colour are hugely feminine. Hugely. It's really hard for me because obviously theoretically I'm like, I know what is considered conventionally feminine and it's, you know, it's things I would attach to you. It's like having long hair is like presenting as a woman. Like these things are all considered,

when I say as a woman as well, I should really narrow it down. It's like, I want to say presenting as like a femme. It's presenting as a femme, like the clues in the fucking name, you know? Clues in the term. I guess, I don't attack, and I know people think like, oh, it's like beauty plays such a part in it,

like painting your nails, upholding maintenance, things like that. But when I think of performing femininity myself, I never attach myself to that word, even if I do those things, because I don't know why. It's just never something, I think I don't enjoy the word. I don't enjoy the word and I don't enjoy its connotations.

And probably I scorn it a bit, like the conventional femininity, which I'm not saying I don't play into it at all. Like I'm such a femme, but I definitely, when I see people who make that their main pillar of identity, I just scorn them. I'm like, that's probably a bit of internalised misogyny as well, you know? I'm just like, that's pathetic, that you've that you've turned that into something

that's so- In what ways? In what ways do you think you've internalised misogyny? I see weakness. There is a weakness to but it's around desirability and it's around, and I'm sure I perform like do all these things myself. there's a weakness to when you're doing it for the sake of men. I don't see that weakness when I'm like, I know that women are performing femininity for other women, which I think happens a lot more than we believe, but it's when I see women talking about,

I do this so that men will like me, which is on the rise at the moment, that kind of language. But I think so much of femininity is actually performed for other women. And that's what I actually take great pleasure in, I think. And I But I think so much of femininity is actually performed for other women. And that's what I actually take great pleasure in, I think. And I don't think of it as femininity, it's like dressing up. My friend the other day says,

oh, I always so excited to see what you're gonna wear because you have so many clothes. Which wasn't exactly a compliment, but I was like, I love that she's excited about what I'm gonna wear because I have so many clothes. You know, like those aspects where it's like, I'm dressing up, my favourite things are,

you know, before I go out being like, what character am I going to play today? That's what I was trying to think about before. It's like, what character am I going to play? Am I going to be like tight fitting sex kitten vibes? Am I going to be like nonchalant minimalist? Am I going to be laid back low rise trousers? That is so fun, putting together that presentation. But I never think of it in terms of like, this is feminine, this is masculine. And when you're talking about behaviors in terms of femininity, I think because I've already decided for myself that, I don't even call it unconventional, I saw people the other day being like, the scariest thing that a woman can be is over 30 and child-free and single.

Shut the fuck up! Like. Shut the fuck up! Shut the fuck up! You hate it when people make motherhood a virtue, so why are you doing it about us? Why can't we just be neutral about this? But because I've already decided that I don't want children and that takes the pressure off from me to find a partner to raise those children with because I couldn't financially do it alone,

I might be, you know, probably won't be single for the rest of my life, but I might not end up having a partner for long periods. So those things are kind of, I don't think it's unconventional in the same way that it used to be, but it's certainly still not considered the cultural norm, even if there's a shift and there's a lot more representation of people like me.

So I've removed myself from motherhood. I've removed myself from motherhood. I've removed myself from desperately requiring a partner to do motherhood. Those are two two parts of like womanhood associated with femininity that immediately I've like X'd out of. And I don't know, I'm just like, my path is my own. And I think also there is something else that, I don't know how to put this because it sounds kind of mental and you know. That's my favorite Moira content. No, no, no.

I mean, like, I don't want to sound boastful, but I've always been told that I'm attractive. I've always been told that I am beautiful. Even when I've had hate comments, people are like, oh, she's so stupid, but like, she's really hot. You know, like my favorite type of hate comment. She's so stupid. like she's really hot you know like my favorite she's so stupid end of sentence one incel once and it says a lot that i've remembered this one incel once wrote like he identified as a um what do they call it like one of those magic not magic

what the fuck did they call it the game the game i was about to say mad at the gathering different thing um uh one of those pick up artists, pick up artists, once wrote a hit piece, a shit hit piece on me because I'd written some article. And he was like, she's not the worst looking female, but she has some bad ideas. And I was like, I, like, literally that was like the biggest fucking compliment

because even these people are like, she's fit. And I think that's the problem. Like I haven't really had that much degraded. I've always been praised for my appearance. I've always been affirmed that even if they don't like my opinions, they can't fault the face. The face card is still going. And that's actually got nothing really to do with the face card. It's got everything to do with where I sit in desirability

politics. If I was born in the 1960s, I'm pretty sure it would be a different story. But because I'm born at a particular time where my particular intersection of ethnicities is super desirable and I'm like very racially ambiguous and my features you know my mum gave me some good features then I've got very lucky so I can't pretend that isn't the thing I don't want to be like pretty privileged because it's a really annoying term but But there's definitely a cushioning. What if you're like, I know I've got pretty privilege and everyone's like, no, you know, yeah, imagine. Well, they probably will because people have to knock you down. But like,

sorry, people have come up to come up, people come up to me and cries and like, you're so beautiful. I just had to say it. When you get that, I've been with you when that's happened. When you get that a lot, there is a cushioning that happens. And that probably has fortified my ability to be like, well, I'm fine. But how much of it is just that I haven't had to, you know, I don't want to use the word fortify again, but how much is it that I haven't had to build up

the resilience because I'm not darker skinned so people can pick on me because of that? Do you know what I mean? Do you know what I'm saying? Do you sound mental? Those of us who have been deemed clapped at various times, I was my life, I had to fight. But this is the thing as well,

because I see this desirability politics. So let's get into the fucking desirability politics. One of my friends always, actually it's Sean, she's written a new book of Love in Exile and in it she talks about the Amina-Sovassian essay about desirability politics and she talks about how Amina compares how trans women and black women are equally ranked in this hierarchy of desirability.

And it's like got nothing to do with how attractive someone is, but it's all to do with the social status attached to being in a romantic partnership with these people in hierarchies of desirability. And when you are someone who exists higher up in the hierarchy, like the social hierarchy of desirability, there's a lot more coddling that you get. You don't have to fortify yourself in the same way. You don't have to think all the time about how you're performing femininity

or performing conventional attractiveness. It's easy. It's the weight off your fucking mind. People always say, it's really funny. People are like, you think everyone's beautiful? My friend Annie is always like, you think everyone's beautiful? And sometimes they're not not they're clapped

I really think it's it's a byproduct of just being like I do think everyone's beautiful and maybe it's because I hold less stake in beauty because I've not had to have as much of a stake in it does that make sense it's quite tangled I'm trying to work it out but it's like I haven't had to think about as much so I, so I'm much more generous with my definitions of beauty. I think maybe if I could do a summary and then you can tell me if I'm on it or not. Part of the reason why maybe you don't have to think about performing femininity is because you are perceived

as beautiful and desirable, your femininity is sort of without question. By some, don't tell me I'm not everyone else. Like, you've never had to fight your femininity sort of without question. By some, don't tell me I'm not everyone else. Like, you've never had to like fight to establish your own femininity because, you know, you are doing well in the desirability matrix. And I wonder if maybe some of your sense of like, oh, I don't want to talk about this, like at the beginning of our conversation. I wonder if part of it is like, well,

will people think that I don't have grounds to sort of question or prod at or unpick femininity because I've been a beneficiary of a certain kind of femininity. Is that maybe part of your reticence? Whereas I felt just quite comfortable to be like, yeah, let's fucking jump in. Like, I know that we cannot speak on behalf of trans women. We certainly can't speak on behalf of women who've got disabilities.

Both of us are similar age. We can't speak on behalf of any women whose got disabilities, both of us are similar age. We can't speak on behalf of any women whose identity characters we don't fit. Yeah, do you know what I mean? It's like, but that doesn't make me think that I can't talk about it. Yeah. I'm trying to work out, I think it's because as I said,

I haven't had to interrogate it in, or maybe I haven't bothered interrogating it and how it presents in my own life in the same way. When I was, maybe it's interesting that I'm attaching so much of it to the idea of like aesthetic appearance and social hierarchy of desirability because femininity to me doesn't mean that like, you're this little delicate thing,

the way some people consider femininity. And that's why I want to talk about desirability instead, because that has much more of a resonance to me when it comes to like, we're talking about what's conditioned as femme. But, but desirability is not just about aesthetics in the sense of, you know, what you look like as a sort of static entity, a snapshot. It's also, you know, the little tuck of the hair gesture, the way of like looking down and looking up. I mean, this is something which, you know, many trans writers have been incredibly nuanced observers of, which is not just the look and the clothes and the shape of the body, but the movement of the body and the gestures and these sort of fine grained little details in a sort of different way.

I was doing like a little bit of media training a couple of weeks ago and we were trialing hostile interviews and the thing that I do when I feel really nervous is I hide my hands. And so my hands go like this, they go sort of under the desk, and then the shoulders go forward, and I sort of hold my body in this sort of way. And the guy who's doing the media training was like, it's very endearing, but it's very little girl. And I was like, ah, here's a feminine gesture, which unconsciously I'm performing because I feel uncomfortable

and I'm trying to signal to someone else, don't go for me. So I think that femininity, yes, desirability and attractiveness and how much status is assigned to being in a relationship with you is in there. But there's so much more to femininity than that and how we perform that femininity socially. Yeah, but I guess what's interesting about that is you were like, little girl equals femininity socially. Yeah but I guess what's interesting about that is you were like little girl equals femininity. Whereas I don't, I know that that's probably the mainstream consensus but my personal conception of femininity is not that maybe that has something to do with, this is what I mean when I think of femininity it's like very hard for me to conjure, there's a block on conjuring up what I actually attach to femininity. My mind won't go there and I can't explain why that is. Maybe it's something to do with I grew up in a

matriarchy like I was literally raised by my mother and aunt and there were all these different types of women performing different types of what it means to be a woman which I then attached to femininity like my aunt's are like me you know my mom's like me we yell we're quite bullish um these are the things that i get bad comments about when i'm on things like tv people are like she's so aggressive so aggressive yeah but the thing is the thing is is that womanhood and femininity aren't the same thing yes they're not gaps between those things are really important but also like don't tellira, that you don't perform femininity

when one of your favorite words is girly. And that there is a relationship maybe between infantilization and femininity, and that's why there's this gap between femininity and womanhood, and why femininity is such a disciplining force on women. But I'm not saying I don't perform femininity, I'm saying I'm not thinking about it in the way

that I'm probably presenting it. There's a gap between what I'm considering I'm doing and what I might actually be doing according to an anthropological or sociological study or someone looking at me being like, oh, the hair tuck or the mode I know, the way, the mode I go into when I'm with other people and I suddenly get soft and charming.

Like those behaviors. Charming? I know, you don't get to see Ash actually, it only comes out in certain spaces. I'm joking, you're very charming, you're incredible. No, in some spaces I can be very charming, in some spaces I'm just a horror. And in some spaces I just shut down completely.

Like those are different sides of me, but the charmingness, I'm thinking about, like, often it comes out with men, and not in a sexual sense. Just like, if I come across a man, there's a mode I'll go into. My friend the other day was saying she went to a car dealership, and the guy was, there's a problem with the car she'd been sold. And she, at first she was like, just in the normal mode she would be in,

which is, you know, firm, like, this car has a problem, we need to sort it out. And the guy was awful to her, like so awful. So she had to switch into, please help me sir mode. And then he was really nice and understanding and fixed it. But he was so like, I'm going to put the phone down if you don't stop talking to me like this. When she was like trying to explain the problem, say this is not okay. She had to go into helpless victimized mode, which I think in the terms of we probably classed as some sort of like femininity in order to get him to actually help and he held all the power. And that was like a very traditional patriarchal interaction. But it's fascinating because she was like, I forget that that's what it's like out there. I mean, the thing is, that I think is important in that story is that also performances of femininity also construct the masculinity that you're

going to get and there can be sort of virtuous mirrorings and there can be fucking horrible ones as well. And I was talking about this in an interview that I did with Sean Fay, which is going to be out by the time this episode is out, about her new book Love in Exile, and we're talking about Lana Del Rey. We're talking about the way in which Lana Del Rey constructs an image of American masculinity in order to generate this performance femininity that she's doing. And I think that there's something there and it's not just a sort of like construction of one and the other that happens in pop culture. I think that that's an example of it happening

in real life. When the misogynist idea of like the Haridan or the Harpy is being conjured, when someone's reading you through that lens, you know, a man's like, this is a threat to my sense of masculinity. This is disrespect. When it's like, oh no, sir, please help me. It's like, oh no, this is my like, you know, paternal, generous, gracious, chivalrous masculinity which is being activated. So I think it's important to see femininity not in terms of this thing that I'm doing and that isn't an agentic expression necessarily, it's also something which is socially constituted and being sort of scripted and re-scripted all the time. I suppose my question would be, do you feel that the label of woman

is an expression of your humanity or do you think it cuts any bits off? Not to sort of bring in a castration metaphor there, but that was a little bit, a little bit castrated. But this is the problem because we're talking about personal versus structural. So on a personal level, I fucking love being a woman. I love all the women who surround me.

I think being a woman is a wonderful, amazing thing. I think at its best, it is like so inclusive, so expansive, so full of potential. I would always rather, like when people ask me, would you rather, if you had the choice of like the two binaries, man-woman vibes, be a man in a patriarchal world, no, never, never ever. And some of the other days was, we were talking about like imagining ourselves as different genders and I was like, I've never actually imagined myself as a man.

Like that's how comfortable I've been made to feel in my gender identity. And that's for a whole host of reasons, I guess. So for me, being a woman is only, like even when it's come with the misogyny and it's come with the submission element and it's come with being degraded and disrespected by people I love and from people I don't know,

I have also been protected by my class. So my experience of being a woman is not going to be the same as someone else's. So I have not felt restricted in the same, to such a degree that it ever stops me thinking like, this is not synonymous with humanity. Those things gel together, but that is because of my class.

That is because I have that safety, that coddling, those advantages that allow me to overcome the others enough that it doesn't feel like such huge drawback. And sometimes, yeah, I'm like, what would I be doing if I was a white man in particular? I'd be writing for the Times. I don't wanna do that. I don't wanna do that.

So I love what I'm doing and where I'm doing it, but so much more of it is due to my class overcoming the drawbacks of my gender and my background and very particular experiences, very particular amounts of luck. So my answer is difficult because on a personal level, yes, but I don't want to answer as if that's a broad generalization. But there's so much in what you said, which I think does

sort of gesture at the kind of like, you know, historical and social construction of femininity, because this idea of what is feminine behaviour being, I can't get my hands dirty on this and I require the aid of a man to behave agentically to fix a problem for me is a sort of aristocratic idea of womanhood. Because if you're a working class woman, you have to fix your own fucking problem. No one's doing shit for you because the people around you have their own problems. So I think looking at these behaviors, kind of in yourself and looking at like how it plays out, like it does gesture out to this bigger thing. Like very much so. It's not just like, ah, you know, my class compensates for some of the disadvantages of gender and race. That's true. But also class is in this model of femininity.

Mm. So true. I think I've just been very protected. Wait, wait, wait. Do you think it's women are synonymous with human? Women are synonymous with human. For me, like I said, to be recognized as a woman is to be recognized as human, for me. Because to be stripped of gender is a way of people telling me I am not human, I am not desirable. I am a sort of furry little grot bag that emerged from the primordial ooze. Do you not see it as freedom a little bit? Like if you're...

No, no. I mean, it does not feel like freedom because my experience of this is people telling me that I look like the cheddar man. That's like, that insult is crazy. People are crazy. Like, the fucking cheddar man, they got cheddar man. Cheddar man. Wow. Wow. Like, it's, you know, and so like, you know, I'm a, part of like, saying that's not me, that the sort of like degraded image,

which is constantly being reflected back at me is not me. Part of it is to like assert my womanhood, like, and to really assert it for myself within my relationship. Like one of the things that like, like my partner says this all the time, he's like, you don't really believe me, when I tell you I think you're beautiful. And I was like, fuck no. Like, and he's like, but, but I do like, and to me, like you're, you know, it's, it's a feminine, it's a feminine, womanly, he uses those terms interchangeably, beauty. He's like, you're not an English Rose, you're not an English Rose, but I find English Rose is annoying. Coming back to that though, this idea of relationships, talking about femininity, behaviour, which

we've touched upon briefly, but in my relationships, I am the opposite of feminine. That's the one space I can say I do not feel I behave in a feminine way. I am- Well, then how do you behave and what is the feminine way? Exactly. This is where I can actually point to a site, which is more dominant, I would say, totally independent. Although, you know, occasionally I have in the past, like, been had like a mutual thing where it's like someone will loan me money or help pay for stuff as a partnership thing, but I'm been very independent. Often I give sugar mommy vibes. I love giving gifts. I love buying things for people. I love lavishing. It's like very dummy behavior, you know? My friends laugh at me for this. They're like, why did you, why did you buy me those foot for tickets? Because mummy can. Mummy actually can't. Mummy's broke as fuck right now. But it's that kind of vibe. And then, but on the flip side, that it's like hard and cold when I'm shutting down, very, can be very argumentative, can be very combative.

All those elements, those are things I think of. I'm like, this makes me a difficult person and this is probably something that will make me unlovable and is not feminine. What's interesting though, is that that was the sort of pinnacle of like a medieval courtly woman, supposed to be demanding,

supposed to be making men do like insane shit, like go get that sword out of that stone. No, but I didn't, I don't demand that I go do that. I will hike the stone. No, no, no, but the thing I'm saying is that like, I'm not saying these are exactly the same. I'm saying that to be difficult and cold was the sort of idea of what it meant to be feminine at that time. And the thing

about like femininity and why there are so many contradictory ideas held within it is because we're dealing with the accumulated baggage of centuries, if not millennia. So you can point to any one of these things that you're saying, ah, that's not feminine. And then you can go, actually, at one point, that was the pinnacle of femininity. I think the things that were like often just not feminine. And like, again, there's difference between womanhood and femininity, right? Womanhood is very much about forms of labor, like forms of domestic labour in particular.

Femininity is like some kinds of labour, but don't work too hard. I think femininity is about, it's a performance, isn't it? Femininity is a performance of something. I just can't nail down, and I'm sure we'll get so many most of academics being pissed off at the way we butchered their concepts in this. But guess what? This is a popular podcast. Okay? We're just chatting. A moderately popular podcast. We're popular. Okay? We're popular. A popular podcast where we're just chatting about it and we'll read out your angry emails about femininity and send everyone to JSTOR to read your bloody journal articles. But we're just having a chat. All right. Final question. Final question. Do you perceive me as a feminine? As a feminine person?

I don't think of anyone like that. That's the problem. So I guess no, but I don't think of people being like, it's the Roman Empire chat. I knew it. I knew it. But I don't think it's too much. But this is the thing. It's like feminine. Who did I, I don't, I don't like the fucking word and I don't like attaching it to people. I don't see it as a compliment. I just find that incredibly funny because like you're such a... To me, to me it seems like you're such a coded as feminine person and many of your friends who have met also super feminine coded. You're just so... In how they behave and how they carry themselves and how they present themselves. And so I just think that like,

I don't fully buy that that's entirely unconscious. I don't think, no, I wouldn't say for my friends it's unconscious. They talk to me about this idea of femininity like that all the time. What I'm saying is even if I am performing this, I don't attach it as a compliment and I've never thought of it as a compliment.

I don't think it's a pejorative, but I don't honestly don't think it's a moral term to be always like positive to be feminine. I see it as something a bit I see as like I attach feminine as to weakness I think because I attached to this idea of this retiring like just performing for men girly girl there you go. And then you have to go to the fainting couch. And then you have to go to the fainting couch. And then you have to go to the fainting couch. And someone, I, femininity is the fucking romantasy, some of the romantasy heroines being like, oh, save me, that vibe.

Like, oh, performing, performing femininity, oh, I was, oh, and I was in my tiny peasant dress with my skinny, but it was low cut to show my boobs. And I was, I was so retiring, even though I actually am very spiky on the inside but I was really like that to me is what the connotations I get with femininity so I would never want to attach it to someone that I like and respect like if you said do you see me as a woman I'm like yeah obviously do you see me as an attractive woman yes femininity it's I don't like it.

Even if I'm doing it, I'm not enjoying the concept of doing it. I call it something else. I'm just calling it femininity. What you might call femininity is different because like we said at the start, maybe I haven't had to think so much about my femininity or how that's perceived by other people as you have been made to

because you are much more racialized than me. I think like when it comes to femininity, I don't always see it as a pejorative. I can also see the ways in which people, including myself, have been socialized into it and the way in which that plays out in ways which aren't just to do with, you know, hair, nails, lips, teeth, makeup, dress, da da da. Like I can see how it plays out in terms of the postures people adopt when they're navigating conflict or difficulty.

And I've seen that in myself as well. I think that femininity is different from womanhood. Yeah, womanhood for me, there's, you know, because it's, you know, feminine for me, there is this degree of infantilization, like self infantilization. Whereas womanhood is, you know, for me about embracing responsibility and obligation and strength and resilience and all of these things. And that's because that was what was modeled for me by women in my life. things and that's because that was what was modeled for me by women in my life. But I think for me trying to carve out space where I go, no, you know what, I get to be feminine is sort of a work in progress, like very much a work in progress. And I think that it only feels like it won't be met with ridicule within the context of my marriage. Like it's so private and so small because of how much that idea is like torn apart by a racist audience. And I think the

last thing to sort of talk about is that, and maybe this is a subject for another day is, you know, I'm not always sure where my criticisms of feminine socialization and an internalized misogyny begins. I'm not entirely sure of what the line is between those things. If we turn, if it changed from femininity to vulnerability, then I think I'd have a lot more ability to accept and talk about that, but I just, I hate, I think I really have an aversion to the idea of femininity because of everything that's so loaded and what it comes with. And maybe it's also just shows how little I've had to

examine my own gender identity. Well, maybe, maybe in a few episodes time, we could do the weather's sort of criticism of femininity and internalised misogyny begin. Let's just do the fucking internalised misogyny episode. Let's let's get out our full. Let's get it out. Let's go. What's what are your worst?

No, I've got so much baggage. We'd never have any listeners. So much baggage. Shall we move on to I'm in big trouble? Okay, this is the bit where you can send us your problems and you can send them to... That's not the email address, you can send them to ifispeakatnevaramedia.com. Did you wanna read this out or shall I?

No, I think you should read it out. Okay, cool, right. Dear Moira and Ash, I'm a long time listener and a huge fan of the show. A long time listener now really means that you've been listening for a year, so thank you. I'm reaching out for advice on a financial and family conflict that has been weighing heavily on me.

My partner, F, and I, M, have been together for almost six years and are parents to a wonderful little boy. I've recently finished my studies, started working as a nurse, and thought I was finally in a position to settle into a more secure future for our family. Instead, I found myself caught in a deeply frustrating situation with her parents who co-own the flat we live in. The flat is split between my partner, 50%, and her brothers, 50%, as part of an advance on their inheritance. Early on, I agreed to an informal arrangement with her parents. While I was studying, I would pay rent, which would count

towards partial ownership of my partner's share. Once I was financially stable, I could buy out her brother's. It seemed like a supportive plan, but now I'm ready to follow through feels like a bait and switch. Her parents now insist I pay the full market value for the flat, completely disregarding the love, care and renovations I've poured into it. What initially felt like help for my partner and me now feels like a calculated investment aimed at maximising profit of me, the only one putting actual money into this arrangement. This is extremely upsetting given her parents are extremely wealthy while I come from the working class background." Adding to the tension is the dynamic with her mother who has a very controlling nature.

For example, despite her two brothers being in their thirties, their finances are still managed by their parents. Her mother's involvement became even more apparent when she demanded a second valuation after the first wasn't high enough to meet their expectations. Frustrated, I told them they might as well put the flat on the open market if their goal was to squeeze every possible penny out of me. Things escalated during an angry phone call with her father. Now in a cold war of sorts. While I've reluctantly agreed to their asking price, how much money, where is it coming from? I also expressed how hurtful

and transactional their approach has been. Their response, a polite but dismissive sandwich message that neatly sidesteps any accountability. Although they've technically accepted me as part of the family, I've never felt at home with them. I've always struggled with their traditions which feel alien and performative to me. The whole situation has only deepened my sense of being an outsider. My girlfriend is understandably caught in the middle. She sees both sides,

but I'm disappointedly aren't presenting United Front. I'm now stuck trying to figure out how to navigate this without sacrificing my sense of fairness or damaging my relationship with my girlfriend. How do I repair the relationship with her parents, who are our son's grandparents, while holding onto my dignity? How do I repair the relationship with her parents, who are our son's grandparents, while holding onto my dignity? How do I protest this betrayal without letting it poison my partnership? Thank you so much for taking the time to read this and all the incredible work you do. Who wants to go first?

Money, money, money, money. Money will poison anything. It will. I've got like practical advice. Give your practical advice. I don't really have advice because I'd just be like, get the fuck out, leave. Yeah.

I don't think you should buy this flat. I don't think you should buy this flat. I think that the house should go in the open market. You guys take your money out of it and use that to buy another place. And the reason why I'm saying that is because your interests are completely at odds with one another. All right. Your interests are to get the most affordable possible price for the home that you raise your family in. Their hard-nosed capitalist interest is to get the most possible money from their buyer.

There's no way for you guys to resolve that without one side significantly caving. And because you are in a disempowered position, you already live there. This is a property owned by your in-laws family. They've got you over a barrel. So my way of neutralizing this conflict would be move out. Because if you're having to pay full market value and they're looking to get an even better price, it sounds to me like this isn't going to be the most affordable place for you anyway. That's how it sounds.

But in terms of the sort of broader context, and obviously this isn't advice that's aimed towards you special one, but this is a sort of lesson for the other special ones out there. The words informal arrangement were an absolute red flag when it comes to money, when it comes to property, ain't no informal arrangements because people use what power they have to squeeze the other party. And you need protections. You need protections in that kind of context, which you just don't have.

You said that your partner's family are rich. How do you think rich people stay rich? You know, it's not by being generous and it's not by, you know, saying, all right, we won't maximize profit at every single turn. They stay rich by squeezing absolutely everybody. For what it's worth, I think that the attitude that they've betrayed is not, it's not a good one. It's certainly not one that I would take. I think that they clearly have a significant amount of money. And if they wanted to, they could see the sort of, quote unquote, loss of capital gains as an investment in the future of their grandchild. That's not how they see

it. Maybe from their perspective, you said that the mother takes a very, very active role when it comes to the finances of the brothers. Maybe they see it as them looking out for the financial interest of those two brothers and it's coming at the expense of you, your partner and your child. But this is what happens when there are informal arrangements within the family. Like, so yeah, my advice for resolving this in a way where you're not holding on to bitterness would be, um, buy a different, buy a different flat. Also, then it means that them getting the most possible money is also in your interest because that's your partner's share of the money. So that could be a way of healing the rift.

Well the partner's not going to get any money because the parents, basically the parents own this flat. I think what the email is saying is the parents- No, no, no, no, no. The flat is split between my partner and her two brothers. Yeah, but they, no, it's split in the terms of the parents bought it and said this is your half, this is your half. Because he's paying towards the partner share. His rent went to pay off how much his partner owns on the flat. Is it? Or is it that- How could the parents demand full market ownership

if they, full market payment? Or is it that if he's ultimately contributed, rent that's worth 10% of the property value that boosts the partner share to 60% and the brothers get 40. But they're now saying we want you to buy us out by paying the full the full thing to us. They're not saying about the brothers. They might give the shares to the brothers, but I don't think that's what's happening. Do you see what I mean? I don't necessarily think that's the case. I think it's a buyout from the brothers, but let's say the flat cost 700,000 pounds

and that meant the brother's share was 350,000, but now the value of the flat is 900,000, for instance. And then the brother's share is worth 450. So instead of saying, oh, you've got to buy out to the value of 350, you're now having to buy out to the value 450 350 and I have to buy out to the value 450. Yeah, what I'm what I'm trying to say is the brothers, the brothers basically meet the parents control all the finances, the parents, the ones the money, because if the if the partner had any money properly, then that what that like actually had the inheritance that's meant to be due to her, she would clearly buy the fucking flat, but she doesn't because this is the inheritance. The parents are using the flat again to control the kids, which he says. Um, they don't, they clearly don't have any money of their own.

Um, again, stop relying on your fucking parents. I think you should, this is, this is getting tangled, but what I'm trying to say is, yes, you should move out. You should leave. Um, you should go to another flat because of all the things Asha said, but. Also, like, I know it's hard to leave behind something you've poured love and care and renovations in, but firstly, financially, it makes more sense just to go

because it will cost you way more. And secondly, I just think it'll drive a wedge with you and your girlfriend anyway, if you stay in this flat. Like, you will always resent her for not sticking up for you. You'll resent her for not protecting the family. The parents are crazy. Like, the damage they're willing to do to your family and the relationship. People are so grasping. Actually,

this story, this dilemma actually makes me kind of sick. It makes me so upset. It makes me sick. And it's like the greed that they have and the expectation and entitlement they have for you to somehow pay for their other kids inheritance, a choice that they made before you even on the scene and now you have to stump up the cash for it. If you've got the cash enough to stump up, go buy somewhere else. If you somehow save that cash, go buy somewhere else. You've got to leave this and I know it's not up to your girlfriend to media or whatever, but I am frowning at her. Stand up for yourself.

Yeah, I think that, um, cause also in a, in a way this is, you know, you funneling money either to the parents if they own the flat or to the brothers, if the ownership is in their name, which kind of the bit that I think, I think that, um, if you, what you're saying is that your mother-in-law is very controlling when it comes to finances, it makes sense to get out of her financial orbit. What's it feels very gendered, doesn't it? It's like she controls the sons, their finances, and she expects him to pay towards the daughter's share and to buy out the brothers. Like, what's the, what's your partner doing in all of this?

Where's her, where's her money going? Why is she not paying towards the partial ownership? I don't understand. This is a very confused financial situation. That doesn't make sense. Anyway, it's not fair. Yeah, but hasn't she been buying out her brothers? I mean, who knows?

It's not fair. The money isn't fair. That's how rich people are rich. That's what Ash said. Anyway, we think you should move. Sorry if that's a big of a ball, like a ball ache, but that's the consensus. Well, look, this is as close to financial advice as I'm ever gonna get.

You're good with money, Ash. I'm terrible with money. Yeah, I'm very money under the mattress. Yeah, you're money under the mattress. You've bought a house. Like, you probably have a tax, what's it called? Stocks and shares ISA. I am a profligate, no savings, broke ass, out of my ass kind of vibe. So if anyone wants to donate to me, then feel free.

Please. I have $1,500 spent on candles. My family is dying. Yeah, my family is dying. My candles are actually only like 10 pounds of pop, so it's fine. Okay. This has been, if I speak. I've been very croaky. Thank you for bearing with me. We bore. We bore. Right, see you next week. Bye!