Should I Delete That? - Everyone's Invited with Soma Sara

Episode Date: September 19, 2022

This week, the girls chat to Soma Sara, author and founder of Everyone’s Invited: a forum for people to anonymously share their experiences of sexual assault and harassment. Through opening up that space, Soma was inundated with stories from survivors and has dedicated her time to assist in making a change. She shares her belief in the importance of empathy, compassion and understanding, and how this, above all else, is the key to making that change. With a rapidly changing world that is increasingly focussed online, and where 9 out of 10 school girls are pestered to send nudes, this change couldn’t come quicker.Everyone's InvitedFollow Everyone’s Invited and Soma on InstagramBuy Soma’s book hereFollow us on Instagram @shouldideletethatEmail us at [e-mail] & edited by Daisy GrantMusic by Alex Andrew Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oh my god, why did I post that? Ah, I don't know what to do. Should I delete that? Yeah, you should definitely delete that. Hi, hello everyone. Welcome back to Should I delete that? Hi, M. You're okay.

Hello. You winced when you asked if I was okay. I'm not having my happiest day. Like, I'm not having, like, the happiest day that I've ever had. because sometimes if I'm working online to be a hard thing to do you are having a tough day very tough day yeah but I'm good

I don't want to be like sort of evasive you know people are like I tell you what we're doing now we're uploading the hospital selfie with absolutely no context and then someone's commenting saying are you okay babe and we go yeah PM hon yeah DM me babe

I'm actually I'm so inspired by that level of like um baiting that people do like on their Facebook page I just think god how inspiring good for you I do love that I love I do love to see a bit of baiting I enjoy it but I also don't because I'm like yeah but I want to fucking know oh no everything yeah if I ever end up in hospital rest assured I will just they'll just be the gown and no explanation

just caption of um hopefully going to be better soon feeling really grateful for my friends right now you know who you are oh yes oh yes that's the word Like, that's the absolute worst. And I don't think people use social media quite like this anymore, but I think people definitely used to do that with Facebook, where you'd upload a photo, like,

or you'd upload a status and it's like feeling so grateful for my friends right now. The real ones know who they are. And then the rest of them just have to sit there and go, whilst you're sure of shit, is it talking about me? Yeah, but that's always passive aggressive stuff, isn't it, to make someone feel bad? I mean, I'm pretty sure. that's why social media does like I think yeah that's how Facebook thrives and Instagram yeah it's

yeah 100% that's the point it's like when people break up have breakups and then their social media feed is kind of littered with quotes about how like I don't know like yeah alluding to what's happened like yeah to be fair I feel like I probably did that back in the day as well oh yeah tough times don't last tough people do it reminds me of Do you know what we used to do in uni is like to try and get like a boy's attention or something or like start up a conversation

you text and be like oh sorry wrong person Oh my god I used to do this all the time Yeah you'd be like Hey you up and then be like Oh my god sorry Wrong person

Or you just reply like yeah You try to be even more subtle than that And reply like yeah babe I'm really good thanks How are you thanks for asking And then send another on going Shit sorry wrong person And then it makes it sound like You're kind of having like

Good chat you are people want to know how you are and you are going to tell them oh god so good oh yeah and like you have double text Jesus I was so cow I used to do that and I only had a finite number of of texts available of credit available on my on my Motorola on my like my flip but I probably I think I had I think I had 20 texts a month those things were like like gold dust and I had to be I had to be really calculated and careful you know people talk about like Twitter is the best platform because you have to really think. Back in the day, everyone used to say Twitter's so good because it's 140 characters, so it was a sign of a good writer that it could be concise and funny in that time.

And you know what? I think the reason that we thrived on Twitter as a generation is because we had such a finite number of texts that we could send as teenagers. We had to know how to hook them in from the off. I forgot about that. I forgot about having limited amount of text. We would use them to each other before we even got out of bed in the morning

on the first of the month. Would you? No, you and I. Oh, oh my God, there's just no way. Yeah, there's no way. Also, like, I do that thing, which is so annoying where I send, like, two words

and then another line, another word, and then another line, another word. Like, I don't put it all in, like, some people text in actual, like, what's up in actual paragraphs. I just think, oh, fuck. But you did it yesterday, you did it yesterday, And then I was like, why is she saying hello?

And then, always overthink it. I always overthink it. Or, yeah, the worst is when someone messages go, can I call you? I'm like, can you not? No, yeah. Just fucking ring. Tell me what's wrong, tell me what's wrong. Or just ring.

Don't text and say, can I call you? That's a, that's an abject cruelty in my mind. Yeah, I suppose it is actually, yeah. Yeah, can you talk? We need to talk. Oh, don't. Can you talk? It doesn't matter what I'm doing. It doesn't matter what I'm doing.

I will drop everything I'm holding and make that phone call immediately. I could literally be walking. I could be like holding like I could be holding like 15 frabrege eggs. I don't think I'd be able to hold that many in one go. That's the value. Like that's how little. I could be, I could be robbing the Bank of England with like fragile jewels in my hands. And I would just, I would drop them.

You're a goner. If you texted me saying, can we talk? We're like, yeah, fuck, yeah. We need to talk. Oh, God. I actually thought, I got that feeling in my tummy like someone sent me that message even but nobody has. My phone's on aeroplane mode.

Oh my God, my phone's on airplane mode. What if someone sent me that text? That's why I get hate going to the cinema. Because I just think someone could be texting me right now with an emergency. And I just wouldn't fucking that. Yeah, that's quite, and when you're on a flight, I do sometimes say, that but then I feel like I have to go one of two ways I have to like well I can either I can either go full on head on anxiety fucking hell I need to get off this plane I'm gonna have a panic attack

or I lean into it and I'm like do you know what there's nothing I can do got to make peace with can I have four glasses of wine please yeah get my volume out just kidding you are not okay so I have my goods and my bads and my awkwards and I think pretty much they stem from the moment we stopped recording last week's episode to the very second that we turned off record the following two hours were my bad and my awkward all rolled into one.

So as you know, we finished recording. I think we said it at the end of the episode. Oh, we haven't acknowledged the fact that this episode's on the Tuesday, not a Monday. Hello. Yes. Hello. Sorry. It's Tuesday.

Anyway. so this one makes sense right we finished recording and um we said didn't we i think we said in the last episode we're gonna have a blow dry or we were we were going to our eight we were going to our uh work party we were going to our summer our management's work party and we were at my house we were getting ready together and we'd gone on that massive thing about how we had to get rid of all of our clothes and start again because we were incredibly uncool and unfashionable so as part of that we were like let's look fucking stunning because the thing with management agencies is they do hire like they do have like a wide range of um clients um

yeah there's like the love there's sort of the love island is at one end and then they're sort of asked at the other end so it's like quite different so you've really got to like dog yourself up yeah to anyway so we thought that's what we'd do we'd dog ourselves up so we um we did i've never done this before i feel like it's something you've done quite a lot of because you're a boogey sort of person because of your job, your previous job. But we had a blow dry at my house. I found an app of people of like where you can have, and I love the app, but I'm just because I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, I'm not going to say the app and I'm not

going to say anything else about it. But we had, we found somebody and they came to the house to do our hair. And this is a real, I mean, champagne problem. This is a real first world problem, 100%. So this is just our all. but we just I I didn't know what I wanted because I haven't had like just a blow dry before you know you can have like you know you have at the end of your car or your colour but I've never had just a blow dry so like what do you want to do and I was like I

don't know what do you think we should do like looking at my hair and they were like okay well we're going to do I think we'll do like straight on top and then we'll just do like crazy curls on the bottom I was like that sounds so great let's do that and I sat and I had my hair being done and being curled and then um and then we finished and we took the curls out there just weren't any girls no girls no hair spray which wasn't that nothing

did they just wind up which is fine no biggie like I had shit hair I paid so much money to have shit hair which was a bit sad but that was fine it was fine-ish the real awkward got to when it was your turn to have your hair done so now I pass the microphone

over to Al. So I wear, when I'm going to occasions or events or whatever, I wear clip and extensions to just give myself some volume and some hair. So I brought them with me and I can apply them, I can put them in myself, no problem, but it's always better when someone else does it for you because they can like back home your hair and like get the exact right placement. So it's not like jaggedy and so that it's going to be perfectly covered up. Like with me I have to always be like Dave is it all covered and he has to do like a check like a 360 after turn do a twirl and he has to check. So not the role like Dave envisished for himself.

It's a thing. No, definitely not. It's not ideal. So it's always better when someone puts it in for me. So I was like, yes, let's have a blow dry. So I took my extensions, showed him them. Like it's very straightforward. It's one strip, one line.

Like if I can do it, I, and as everyone, well, as a lot of people listening will know, I cannot do hair for the life of me. I'm shit. If I can do it, like a professional can definitely do it. You know what I mean? Anyway, so this person was like, oh, why don't you do a braid in your hair as well? Like, because I wanted half up, half down. And so I was like, okay, like I'm not the biggest fan of braids in my hair. I don't know, just not. No reason in particular. Just prefer no braid. But you know, when you feel like you can't say no, and I was just like do you know what I don't really have the energy to like make myself say no to this so I was like yeah okay like whatever I'm sure it'll be fine it's not that big a deal so they were doing

they were doing the braid and I could tell straight away like this isn't right because my fringe my little fringe which has become like shorter and shorter they just kind of left two tiny pieces out of the front of the fringe and I was thinking like I don't really understand what's going on because you either have to leave out the full fringe and like blow dry it and make it nice or put it all back but we can't just leave too toughs out right that's obviously not going to work but I'm like trust the process for trust the process I'm trusting this expert fine and so they continue to do the braid and it felt very very tight and the one thing I did say was okay yes you can brave my hair but please can it be very very loose very loose very relaxed

almost like there do you know what I mean like almost like so you're so close to ask you for what you wanted but you didn't quite get there right but they did say yes it will be relaxed okay so I could feel it going in and I was like this is so tight that it's hurting me and it feels really high up in my hair so they did the braid and then they put the extensions in and I just I knew like Dave was there as well and he was watching it and he just kept looking up and just giving me like very confused glances in Dave's defence we kept looking at you because and you kept giving us looks but I I couldn't tell. It was like, is she the happiest person in the world? Or is she really miserable? Who's to know? So I think that's why we were so confused looking at you. Anyway, I digress. So it's done. I know it's shit because then I'm waiting for them to either like blow dry my fringe or put the fringe away. No, no, nothing. So I've got two tufts at the front. Two mini tufts and then this very tight braid. And then the braid is done really high up on my head. So there's about two inches now. I'm not.

not good at measurements but like maybe yeah maybe an inch and a half between braid and where the extensions are put in okay so like the idea is when you have half up half down that the the upness covers the extensions that's the whole point of the upness right so i said and they put the extensions in like like all bunched together like it wasn't out in a straight line it was all bunched together so i kind of felt it and i just said can you are the extensions visible because i'm thinking in my head like I can they were completely out and they said well yeah and I was like okay right okay and that was it yeah that you then this is like this is my favorite thing about like being a human and particularly like your variety and my variety is that you said can I see the extensions

they said yes and that was that and then you stood up and you went okay thanks then then you disappeared upstairs just disappeared my hair was like genuinely straighter than when we'd started like my natural hair was curlier it was actually amazing I was like it didn't look bad it just was I was confused anyway

I was eliz of the words because then you took out my Alex upstairs to you were like needing help upstairs this person was packing up their stuff blessed them their products had exploded all over the kitchen floor as they were trying to leave and we had my friend's dog staying who was absolutely terrified

of them and you were upstairs with Alec for the of scissors and he was cutting out your hair and we were an hour and a half late by this point because the braid had taken so long and obviously when we left it was fucking pissing it down with rain and we arrived with the worst head genuinely the what to combine the worst hair horrible it was so I was so embarrassed of my own head and I was like why are you late oh so I blow dry and everyone gives you that look and they're like interesting anyway I guess was probably my awkward, but my good came from

the text that I received when we left. Okay. So, yeah, at 22, oh well, at about 10pm after after I'm taking my shit hair out for the night, I was going home. You were going home. We all went home

and Al, the Alex's, me and Dave, left together and we said goodbye to you. You've, I mean, I'm going to say you a little, This little, you just definitely, I was loose. You just sort of, sort of, like, wobbled off. We were like, okay, goodbye. Very, like, odd goodbye.

I open my WhatsApp and I have a message from Alex, sent at 2328 saying, I have anxiety. 2328, do you still like me? And 2329, I'm like, ha ha ha ha ha. I love you. And then you apply going, promise. and then I replied going yes I'll I promise and you replied going

okay thanks love you too I literally was like are you fucking kidding me like we've just said goodbye and I tried talking to this trip I was giving you this big hug and I was like

trying to tell you stuff and you were like yeah okay bye see you me and Dave were out here and you and Dave having the biggest song you were not missing your train he was like we are going to miss this train and you were like I am not getting on that fucking train

and we were like how are you going to get home now? And you were like, I don't know it. Just, oh, anyway, it was really fun. So we had some highs, we had some lows. But what the main thing was that we had really shit hair. Do you know, we had really shit hair. The thing was, I had anxiety because at the party,

it felt like when you, you cut, like there were a lot of people there that we know from our industry, right? So it's like, I wanted to go to the bar. I actually went and got something to eat and sat down with it. It was the veggie option. was a Thai curry. So I went and got it and sat down with it and I said I was hungry at that point but then someone came up to speak to me so the curry got left so I never ate the curry and then I was like and then after that conversation like I went to go to the bar but then

someone meets you on the way so I felt like we were there for like three hours or something but I only taught I was only in like pockets of people like do you know what I mean and you were in high demand you were dressed and I say this with a lot of love like she was dressed like a sort of like a Disney princess in yeah it was too much impersonator. You looked like you worked at Disney and there was this one point where I don't know why, coincidentally

you were just talking to three much smaller women and you had your big heels on oh my God that was the other bat that was the bad, the orchid was the fact we had shit hair, the bad was the fact that Alex told me, girl Alex told me, we couldn't,

she said they won't let you in if you're wearing trainers so I put on a pair of fucking stilettos On a Thursday night, which no fucking Londoner would do when they're, oh, gee, I could have killed you. And you know what? My parents got married there. That was when my parents had a wedding reception. And I guarantee you this.

They are not the kind of place that aren't going to let you in if you're wearing dreams. I was told. Sure enough, we got there and I just looked down and they were just sneaking everywhere. I was like, I was only passing on information that had come to me and said, it's a posh place we're all wearing heels it's smart dress so I was like oh my god you were wearing very high heels and there was a point when I came to get you to be like

we need to go home because you're going to miss your train that you were just towering you're not even that tour I don't really get it but you were like towering over these three coincidentally very small women and it did look like you were really small they were making dreams come through at Disney fans

that's what it looked like because they were all looking at you And you were like, yeah, but with a very happy drunk smile that just made you look like a Disney prince. I was just like, this is it. This is her calling. This is where she has to go next. That should have been my awkward actually, just wearing that ridiculous dress. It's like, you know, when you know, you just made us look way too smart.

Yeah, we did. We looked really smart. I got false information. Honestly, I'd like to file a complaint because I would much rather be too dressed down than two dressed up. 100%. 100% much rather i just i felt like such a tosser going in there yeah i would have liked i just like my heels was so high yours were very high actually they were like yeah they were like 70 style platform like very chunky gold heels i ever wear a six inch heels is six inch heels or trainers

yeah if it's a wedding i'll wear the six inch heels if it's literally anything else i will wear the trainers this was literally anything else I was furious with you honestly furious but then also I booked the blow dry so I couldn't be that mad because it was just like well this is my fault

like what's happened to our heads is my fault that was really bad that is why because you said before I imagine this something you've done before I would never do I have never done it in the past

because I know that I don't like it when other people do my hair I just don't. I didn't say that. Because it's been so long that I thought, do you know what? This could be great.

This could be great and it takes the pressure off and does that. It's so hard to say that you don't like to these. People say it all the time about going to the hairdresses and we could sit there

and it's like, we could be receiving the worst haircut in the whole fucking world and still sit there and go, I'm going to love it. Yeah. Like I could literally watch someone shave my head into a mullet

and I'd still say thank you and leave a tip. because I just can't. Like, I haven't got it in me. And I looked in the mirror at this person. We looked in the mirror together at my hair. And they went, do you love it? And I went, I love it.

And as I did it, I was like, why am I, why? I hate it. It's so hard. It's so hard. Oh my God. Your good bad and awkward was altogether. Jesus. Yeah.

Oh, God, I better do mine then. Just wrap it up quickly. My good feels now like a weird good, but it kind of made sense in my head at the time. So as I was getting off the train yesterday, I saw my ex-ex boyfriend, right? One that really, while I was at uni, like, it was a weird and whirlwind love, not love. It was a weird, like, it was a whirlwind love. It was an intense whirlwind thing. And like, I, like, he, like, broke my heart.

it was like not a good time he did no you didn't he broke my heart and i was like devoid absolutely devoid literally i would play the song you know um heartbroken without your love without your love yeah which was like big at the time i've never thought yeah 100 but i've never thought of it in the actual context of heartbreak because it's so cheery i would like listen to it over and over like it was sad it was sad i really have my heartbroken and like and I remember it being my world at the time and obviously I haven't thought about this in well a long very fucking long time 20 to 30 minutes at least still keeps me up um one that got away obviously I haven't thought about this for like years and years and years because this is years ago now this is like 16 years ago Jesus I'm going to say

like 2008 when that got it was big and a guess 2017 2008 yeah it must have been sad um so yeah obviously haven't thought about it for a very long time but at the time that was my world right for that brief period of time and then seeing him and realizing now how well realizing that he has like no like zero impact on my life or whatever I was like hindsight and like time moving on it's an amazing thing isn't it because it made me think like did he see you he didn't see me I was just behind him and So I obviously wasn't going to go and be like, oh, hi, how are you doing? You weren't just going to go there potty with the back of the head.

No, no, no hard, no hard feelings, I really don't care. But actually this is really weird as well, is that, no, I'm actually not going to tell that story because we don't have time. So, but yeah, it just kind of made me realize that actually like things that seem so big at the time, oh my God, this is now making no sense as I'm saying, as I'm saying, as I'm like vocalising it. Because, no, can I just say, I know exactly what you mean, I completely like fancied this guy at school, right?

And more than fancied, it was, I don't know, it went on for like a few years, a couple of years, it was a bit just like, anyway, but this guy really impacted me when I was a teenager and it was like a really big thing. Anyway, and like I just, yeah, I was affected as a teenager, and I always think, and I think what you're saying

is that you think that person's always going to be a part of your life. Yeah. And when I said, the next time I saw him, like, five years after I left school, it was at this nightclub in Brixton. And he literally walked up to him and he went, go for a poo. And I was like, ew. Yeah, you're like, oh my God. I was like, I held you in such fucking high regard.

Right. And you just, the first thing you've said to me in all these years is, I need a poo. And I was like, okay, I'm going to go home now. You're like, that is, yeah, I know, it's so weird, right, isn't it? but I feel like it applies to everything as well, like things that seem so big in the moment, like now or in the moment, like it just, you know, like things do tend to have a way of just settling down and you move on from things, which is really nice.

So that was my good, very weird good. My awkward is that, my awkward is your fault, entirely your fault, actually. I don't even know what I've done. I was sitting in a coffee shop. I was like, I need to go out and work somewhere. I was sitting in a coffee shop. And actually a girl next, who was sitting next to me, I could tell she was kind of like looking at me and I was like, what is going on? What was wrong with me? And then she was a very nice listener of the podcast. So that was really lovely. So we had a quick chat and then went back to our individual laptops and things, but she was still right there. Anyway, I just pulled up my Instagram and you always appear first on my stories. So I watched your stories. And I watched one of you'd videoed a fox in the park. And you'd wrote on it like, God, I wonder like a fox is. thinking, you know, who are the, I want to read it out now, I want to read the actual

story out. I basically said about foxes. I said, do you think that foxes look at dogs and think, why are you attached to humans by a piece of string? Yeah, that's fine. How come you're allowed in their houses? Why do you get to be fed out of a bowl when I have to scrimp through the bins? Like, basically, why are you not feral when I have to be? I read that. And instantly like I felt tears come upon me like just like a media and urgent and really severe and I started sobbing sobbing thinking about all these foxes who are just they're just they're just looking I've never thought about them looking at dogs and being being so sad and so jealous and so like life is so and I was like life is so and then I told you like I

went on trying to donate to foxes. I was like, can we adopt a fox? Um, it was bad. And then this woman said, are you okay? I was like, I'm fine. Obviously couldn't tell the reason. I was like, fine. I just saw something sad online. Um, so thank you for that. Um, sorry. I didn't think, I actually, I was thinking about it. I got some things in my DMs. I think a lot of people speculating that foxes might look at dogs and just think you fucking like, how sad. Okay. That makes me feel about it. They've caught you. They've trapped you.

Okay, that makes you look at us, pral in the streets. But you know what? Like, I genuinely, and I don't know who PR's animals, but I always think this about like squirrels and rats. They're basically the same. Right.

Squirrels have fluffy tails. Oh, do you know something fun? Go on. In Canada, there are black squirrels. And I swear to God, they're the chicest things I've ever seen. Oh, I'm just like, oh my God, a Chanel did squirrels.

It's unbelievable. Oh. It's like, how. Black squirrels. But like, it's wild, but like, birds. beautiful bats gross like squirrels adorable

like they're nuts in their cheeks but wraps or and all because they've got a bald tail I mean how fucking like I'm so discriminatory based on hair loss actually I know I know cruel dogs are allowed in the houses but foxes people shoot

and they use dogs to catch foxes which is weird why don't we milk horses okay that's taking a time Or eat them I just don't understand I get it

I don't want to eat them I don't eat any of it But in Iceland they eat horses Well why do we have dogs as pets And we don't eat them But we have like cows And pigs and sheep As farming

And why don't we eat goats I just don't understand How like the rules Well we don't I mean I know like some people eat goats Yeah some cultures They have goat. Yeah.

Yeah, but it's not like a sort of, it's not like a goat farming industry is huge in the UK. Yeah, I know, it's weird. But then maybe it's just because, I don't know, maybe it's just because we don't need it. I feel like it's all very arbitrary reasons. I don't think there's anything substantial, but behind any of this.

No, and it's just weird that like dogs and cats are pets and then everything else is like an outdoor animal. It just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. And why do we, why do we keep some rabbits, another thing? Why do we keep some rabbits in the house when loads of rabbits live outside? Yeah. But then hamsters.

and guinea pigs why don't hamsters and guinea pigs ever live outside they only ever live inside yeah so like you can have wild rabbits or home rabbits but you only have her like imagine seeing like a wild hamster um i was going to get into a story about hamsters that a girl sent me on our instagram but i don't need to do that next week um next week that's an incentive to come back isn't it um about wild hamster i just i just don't think we see enough of them anyway my bad hang on very quickly oh god sorry you're bad it's fine i left the house, I walked out the house, turn around to lock the door, and Dave's keys were in the door. And they'd been there all night, and that is quite scary. So that is my genuine bad.

Oh. I know. Oh. That's bad. Okay, so it's quite bad, but don't say it's too bad, because I do that. Do you actually? Not. I'm going to say, yeah. I very regularly get a knock on the door, from someone going, hangar. Oh my God, that is terrifying. And every time I say the same thing. I'm like, oh, I God, you're a nice person, not a murderer.

And they go, ha-ha-ha-ha. And yeah, have a nerd. Okay, well, that's terrifying. So, Alex, look out. Yeah, it's not great. Yeah. Is it Dave's fault? Or did you leave the keys?

Did you leave the case? It was mad. I was like, you've put us all at risk. The dog. The fucking dog. What would she have done? Damn it, Dave. So we do have a good interview this week.

We do. I'm so excited. So we spoke to Sorma Sara. I literally found and had a whirlwind falling in love with Sorma last week ahead because I saw an extract of her book had been serialised in The Times. And my Alex was reading it on Sunday morning and he was like, oh my God, this woman is amazing. You have to read about her. You're going to love her.

So I've read her article in The Times. and then basically her book had just come out and I just admit, luckily and generously, been sent her book by her publishers and I read it, I started reading it immediately and I absolutely loved it. What she's doing is so important and once I shared her work on,

once I shared her book on my Instagram, so many teachers got in touch to say that they just really valued what she was doing and she was really changing the way that they were able to communicate with young people around consent. and sex and porn and the way that basically

feminism and misogyny exists online so we knew we had to talk to her and luckily for us she said yes and she was amazing. Honestly the most articulate and eloquent person in the whole wide world could have listened to her for about 45 years. Unfortunately you've only had 45 minutes but she's going to come back

she's amazing. We hope you enjoy it and we know you will. Her book is out now. It's called Everyone's Invited and I desperately encourage everybody to read it. Enjoy. Hello. Hi. I hate starting it so much.

But thank you so much for coming today. This is not your first podcast, but we're going to claim it as your first, like, very unprofessional podcast. Yeah. Because you've done today in focus, and I think this is going to be such like a nose dive since then. But you've come into my life by fate.

I swear to God, I had the weirdest weekend of just like, so I was reading the paper. I was reading an article about you on Sunday morning. It was in the Times, right? Yeah. And then I came downstairs and I had a message for my best friend being like, God, this is this, I've read this thing about everyone's invited. It's so up your street.

And then I opened an envelope on my kitchen counter and it was your book that had just come through. And I was like, am I, is this thing? Oh my God. I'm invited. Like, whatever it is. And obviously it was the press surrounding the book that came out last week or the week before now. It came out on the 1st of September. Congratulations.

Thank you so much. And thank you so much for having me. Oh my God, no. I'm so happy that I was, I was texting you and I was at a wedding. And I was like, we need her. I'm upset. Like, this is just the most amazing thing. And you were at a wedding just like, okay.

I saw a flurry of messages and I've got to go to the toilet. And I was like, yes, definitely. Yes, yes, yes. Sorry. That leaves me alone. How has it been since the books come out for you? It's been really nice. Like we had a really wonderful launch, which was really special.

And it was all like the people in the world that I care about most who came. And there was so much love in the room. And it was just so lovely. And yeah, it's been quite surreal to see people, like, hearing about their views and insights and how their experience of the book and how it makes them feel and how they're connecting with it. and that's like a really crazy feeling and experience. I bet. Yeah.

Can you tell us, can you talk us through the premise of the book and then, and also how it came to be? Yeah. So it's called Everyone's Invited and the name. It comes from basically a charity and a movement that I started in June 2020 and it is basically about people sharing their stories of sexual violence and rape culture online. And it was after, after I had lots of conversations with friends, and we just began to realize how many of us had been victims of sexual violence and harassment and abuse throughout our teenagers

and how they weren't really spoken about, and the experiences were so stigmatized, and it was only in kind of growing up and looking back and coming to terms with how disturbing and traumatic and wrong those experiences really were. so I felt that I wanted to share some of the stories and then I was just overwhelmed with the response online on my social media and it was just my community and my peers reaching out saying oh my goodness that is my experience and you know I've been through the exact same thing and after this kind of mini explosion I decided to create the platform everyone's invited which was just a website and a social media account and the idea of was a safe space online for people to share their stories anonymously. And then it grew into more of an organization.

And the mission was to expose and eradicate rape culture with empathy, compassion and understanding. So it was very kind of overwhelming two years where last year kind of hit the press and exploded in the media around the time of Sarah Everard's death. And it was about people sharing their stories and also naming schools, associated and it really kind of triggered this extraordinary national conversation around this area, sexual violence and abuse and harassment in schools, image-based abuse, digital sexual violence, sexual bullying, kind of the whole spectrum of behaviours from misogyny and sexism to the experiences of, you know, being followed home and stalked or groped at a Christmas

party to things like the non-consensual sharing of intimate photos. then the end of the spectrum, which is rape, assault, violence. So this, the whole spectrum of a rape culture. And it kind of had this crazy moment where we triggered a National Offsted Review in schools and we had government response and we launched the NSPCC helpline for abuse and education. And there was a huge conversation around universities as well. And yeah, Yeah, it's been quite an overwhelming time. So the book is basically a follow-on from that kind of moment. And it was, I guess, my intention to interrogate the culture

and try to kind of grapple with it, get to its root causes and understand it, and then through, in that way, try and find solutions. Reading your book, I literally, I don't know about you, I've got like 45,000 questions on the back of that. I know, so. I don't know what to start. But reading your book, I sent you downstairs when we met that I felt like a great connection with you, reading your experience of growing up in London. The way you describe it, I was saying to these guys before, you write like Carrie Bradshaw, it makes London so fun, it's so great, but then there's this is like, there's this underlying current of danger, and you write that, better than Carrie could, but you write it so well in the, it was something that as I was reading, I was like, oh my God, like I feel.

I really understand and I can feel this feeling and I can like close my eyes and I'm on these nights out just like you were and I was in probably the same or different parts of London to you having these exact same experiences which is what's so amazing about what you're doing and obviously you can feel the inclusivity with the fact that you're saying everyone's invited that so many people you're striking a call with so many people but I think the thing that I find fascinating is we have a very small age gap between us of five years and we have very similar experiences in one sense. But then there is also this world that you live in that we just don't understand. And I can't believe that at 28, I live somewhere where I'm like, I'm old enough to be saying, I just don't get it. But my mum's always said, you're the same age as my sister. My mom's always noticed and identified a really big generational difference between my sister who's 23 and my brother and I who are 26 and 28. And the key difference is that me and my sister got iPhones at the same time. I was 18 and she was 13 because that's when they became mainstream. So our lives have been like totally different because hers has been online in a way that ours was a bit.

Like I had Facebook or MySpace or we kind of were, we had this sort of like fun bumbling coming of age on a social media that grew at the same time we did. But you guys are growing up like in the belly of the beast. and you talk a lot in the book and online about porn culture and digital, there are terms there that people will be listening to that they've never heard before. Older people, parents, older sisters, whatever. And that's what I find the most interesting about what you're doing because you are like unearthing something that so many people have no idea about. And yet for you, it's like your entire life.

And I wondered this, if you were explaining this to somebody who was like an alien, could you explain like what's so different about rape culture online and how that's so prevalent in schools and how that's like what you found out about that? Yeah, so I guess it's exactly as you say like when you're speaking about us growing up in the belly of the beast, I guess that is kind of all we knew and we really began online. there is that lack of separation between the online and the offline. They are intrinsically intertwined for people my age and below. And it's just a completely different way of looking at things.

And it's just fundamentally such a different landscape, which is crazy to think that you're only like a few years older. But even for people like, for people three years younger than me, it's like almost another whole different world of like TikTok, which is like I find that. that difficult to come to terms with because I'm you know but that is like the most important social media platform but it's say that whole career is I know but like for that generation it is like they're all on TikTok yeah they don't go on Instagram it's kind of insane yeah it's like a

whole new ballgame it's savage but um but yeah it is like you know it is a completely different world and it's growing up in the digital age as if you know we were that guinea pig generation and when there was no supervision, no rules, no regulation. It was kind of like we were just thrown into it and kind of all, you know, for a young person, a phone is like a second arm. It's like so part of their life. Like if I lose my phone, I feel like I've lost an arm, honestly. Like everyone is so addictive.

Like we are living, we grew up online. We were living our lives online. We were finding ourselves, figuring out who we were. our identity, developing our views, political opinions, forming relationships, friendships, interactions, flirting, everything online. And therefore, like, you know, as rape culture, as it's always existed, misogyny, sexism, abuse, you know, all of that will inevitably penetrate those platforms. And they have.

And they've taken on these kind of new, more extreme forms online. and it's kind of accelerated age-old forms of abuse. So my grandmother's street flasher is an unsolicited dick online. You know, it's like the same thing. Like the kind of get back in the kitchen banter at a house party is happening there, but it's also happening on a WhatsApp or Facebook or Instagram group chat. And then there's this added sense of kind of permanence online as well. Like you put things out there and they're there forever.

and it's this huge kind of again this is the kind of land of the lawless and it's quite you know it's really an overwhelming place and it is a place where abuse has kind of exploded you know where predators can lurk and where there is little control or accountability and yeah it's it's it is one of those things, though, again, it's like a double-edged sword where everyone's invited would not exist without social media platforms. Like, we blew up on Instagram, on TikTok, everything went viral on those platforms. But at the same time, those are the same platforms where so much of this abuse is existing and it's happening and it's rife. You know, even now with things like meta, kind of developing the virtual world, there have been reports of how, you know, those platforms are rife

with abuse too and harassment is happening on so it's you know it is a place where predators exist and then of course we have pornography but that's a whole other conversation oh god is it like yeah so much because it is I guess yeah and I guess mine is a generation which was the first one where you know we're growing up in an age where porn was the wallpaper of our existence where it was so accessible to anyone at any time and so normalised to have access to it. I remember when I was like 12, a video of a girl in the year above me,

masturbating. I think she'd sent it to her boyfriend or something. I can't even remember. But it was on, like I remember it was like a Motorola flip phone and people were passing it around the room. And that was the one and only time that I was aware of, I just remember thinking like, holy fucking shit, like you can't send, you can't trust anyone.

Like that would, you know, what I, like, I remember just feeling so bad for her. also you feel a lot of things I think when you see something like that because you also feel this kind of like I don't know like I suspect there's a lot of my own feminism there to unpick because I think I probably judged her but anyway I was I must have been younger than 12 it's my primary school anyway that was the one and only time I ever saw anything like that happen and and it was so grainy on a motor road it really could have been anyone it was like watching something on a potato but I'd say now like it was that the sort of thing that

is that the sort of thing when you talk about like it being a background thing like because we hear about revenge porn and stuff, but is that happening in schools? Like, is that more prevalent? It's hugely prevalent. I mean, we've received testimonies of nudes being sent around like wildfire where boys have like WhatsApp groups or like Google drives that are accessible to like hundreds of people across London

and, you know, hosting nudes of girls like underage, air dropping each other's nudes in maths class. So that's like a girl would send it to? Yeah, so. A girl sends something to her boyfriend or someone she's seeing who she trusts. And then what happens is, you know, she is then shamed and blamed when that is sent around without her consent. And the onus was not on the person who violated that consent.

It was on her who was deemed the slut and, you know, ostracized, shamed, humiliated, bullied, and often punished by the school and by staff and by parents and suspended while the perpetrator and the boys who've been sharing it around without her consent obviously went unpunished and you know it incredibly traumatic some of those experiences there were stories of you know a girl's images being projected onto a wall at a house party with like you know in a room full of teenagers you know 14 15 year olds and And so many stories again and again and again of, you know, girls as young as 11, 12, being coerced, like manipulated, you know,

with a barrage of messages, demanding images and so much pressure that they feel like they have to. Because it's like, you know, they're young, they're impressionable, they want to be like, they want to be cool. And I think this is something that is really difficult for older generations, particularly parent generation to understand this, you know, the dynamics of what's happening there and like, you know, how 11 year old she just wants to be like, to be loved, to be seen. And she is being like sent, you know, so many messages. Please, please, please, please, please being begged. She sends it. And, you know, and that happens to her. And it's

incredibly traumatic. And people don't understand the kind of nuances and like the dynamics that going on often like a cool popular older boy who has loads of social power clout who's like promising all this stuff to have very manipulative um people really it's really important that you know this is what we're trying to do through the testimonies through this book is kind of shining a light on the nuances and the undercurrents of these experiences how it's not as simple as a girl has sent a nude and and therefore it's her fault she shouldn't be sending nudes it's like it's the culture. You know, digital sex for that generation is real sex, you know, for a generation that's grown up online. So it would be like, you know, a parent saying to you, don't have sex.

You know, for them, sending nudes, the consensual sending of nudes and sharing of images, that is real sex for them. It's like how they're developing their relationships and exploring their sexuality. So it's really important to have that in mind when we're kind of approaching this conversation and just reframing the way we have we talk about it if we're if we're shaming and we're humiliating we're creating a hostile environment which many of my peers suffered where they felt so ashamed when something happened to them when they experienced that level of abuse that you know they suffered in silence they couldn't do anything and they couldn't seek support or you know hold their perpetrator accountable and you know it is so dehumanized

and traumatic. And yeah, growing up as well, not just from the testimonies, from my own experiences, I remember just countless situations where boys would be showing nudes that they'd been sent to like, you know, groups at a house party, like on a night out. They've been like passed around images. I remember scrolling down on Facebook and seeing someone's fully exposed like breasts posted and you know always kind of stories and things circulating and yeah it was just so common and prevalent and now we know you know through the offsted review that was conducted in response to everyone's invited sexual abuse online digital sexual violence is rife in schools across the country and cyber flashing being sent unsolicited dickpicks and being pressured

into sending images is, you know, ubiquitous and happens to nine out of ten girls. Nine out of ten. And to so much to the extent, all the research in this area that's been done, so the studies that I've been reading and working in the academics I've been working with, and that review in particular, so there's a study by Jessica Wingrose, a UCL professor, which is focusing on tackling image-based abuse and harassment. And also the Offsted Review, they both specifically highlight how girls don't report these things like reporting is basically non-existent because the behavior is so common they think it's normal it's just

totally normalized they're like oh why would we report it happens every day that's leads into something that I was wondering like what something must have prompted that conversation with you and your friends because I mean I guess in a world where this stuff is so ubiquitous it is just completely normalized and you're sensitized to it. I just can't imagine, like, I've never had that conversation with my friends. I guess we are so, it just becomes so normalized. So, like, was there something that prompted that? Or, like, prompted you guys to see it through different eyes, have been like, hang on, all this stuff is not okay? Yeah, there was definitely a moment like that when the pandemic hit,

and I was finishing university, and there was this kind of moment of pause. And I'd also been watching, I may destroy you at the time. So good. Amazing. Yeah. And I think watching that and seeing the kind of nuanced behaviors and different forms of sexual abuse being shown and also being shown a kind of idea of human beings as being like incredibly nuanced and complex and capable of harm and good

and how these characters are moving between the roles of perpetrating. victim, bystander, complicit bystander, you know, understanding things in that way really kind of informed my thinking and helped me, I don't know, reframe and re-look up about all of my experiences growing up. And, yeah, just understanding that notion of, okay, this person, anyone is capable of doing this.

And a rapist isn't an evil monster who, you know, lurks in a human, dark alleyway and like rapes a random stranger. Rapists are our colleagues, family members, friends, husbands, boyfriends, you know, they are people you know. That is what the stats say and it is incredibly rare that someone is actually raped by a stranger by someone that has nothing to do with them. And, you know, rapists, there's such a stigma around the word rape and a rapist, but when

when we're viewing them in that way, we're kind of making them seem like they're this rare, you know, monstrous occurrence that happens. And, you know, it's a bad apple. But actually, it's not a question of one bad apple. It's a bad society. You know, it's not rape for me. It's not an individual problem. It's a social, societal problem where we all have, you know, we all play a part. When someone is raped and they're not believed, they're victim blamed by their community. You know, that person is re-traumatized. When someone is raped and then tries to go to police, she's victim-blamed. They're not believed either.

She is re-traumatized through that policing process and her phone is taken. She's isolated. She's not allowed to go to therapy. You know, and then in the end, she waits years to go. to have to see if her rapist gets convicted, you know, the reality is it's a 1.4% chance of her rapists actually leading, you know, getting any kind of prosecution. And that's a 1 in 70 chance of her rapist being convicted. So the reality is, you know, it's a societal issue. We're all playing a part in a culture. And it's also, you know, if we're allowing misogyny, dehumanizing

derogatory language, we're enabling abuse because we are enabling the dehumanization of individuals. And when someone is dehumanized, they become vulnerable to violence. So for me, it's about recognizing how we all play a part in society, how we all have a role and a responsibility in tackling this culture. And it's not a question of bad apples. You know, when you cancel a bad apple you don't fix the problem of sexual violence you just you know the societal wide problem of sexual violence you just remove it from view you know we've talked and i think we always do talk about the the women and the girls in this case that are going through this right and you said before you know like our parents would say to us don't have sex and now you'd say we'd probably say

to our daughters or whatever the young women that we know don't send nudes and this is why and you know you'd really try and like help the girls understand and navigate the world that they're living in because that's what and you talk about it in your book you know you explain the gender roles and how they're upheld and you know obviously at its core this is a patriarchal thing right because we are conditioned to exist as we do and a massive part of that conditioning is continuing to try and protect the girls by telling them that they can't do this and we can't do this and this is how they have to behave to protect themselves but so that that strikes me as you're saying it we're dealing with such young people here and when you think of a rapist and when you think of a sexual predator you think of an old man like that's that's what you think of but in reality that's not that's not the case we are breeding and raising it sounds so gross to say it but sexual predators now in the same thing that we're teaching these girls to protect themselves right we're teaching boys to do we're teaching boys to be what they're becoming or to be the thing to be the thing that I don't know it's like that it it's so gross it's it's like society is feeding them boys a narrative of like so like feeding them this like misogynistic narrative whereby it's a social currency right to like share nudes to you know objectify women to and then and they're

for it like it does and what you said before is like how to everyone's invited strides to eradicate rape culture through what did you say compassion empathy compassion and understanding empathy compassion understanding and that is the way forward right it has to be because on the one hand they are learning no different through these like through society but tapping into compassion and empathy and understanding must be very difficult when you are faced with these stories and you're reading these thousands of stories, like that is a very difficult thing to try in and tap into, right? Yeah, 100%.

I think it's been quite an emotional rollercoaster, and I think when the initial surge of stories came, and it was really close to home, a lot of my peers and people I knew sharing things about people I knew, and I think there was a lot of anger, and anger is a very important, emotion, but it's also quite a dangerous one. And I think I wrote an essay just last week about it in L. And it was kind of exploring the idea of anger and activism and I guess what it means

and how it can be useful, but also destructive. And I think as a survivor, experiencing that feeling of anger is very justified. But it was about, you know, challenging. channeling the anger into action into something that is meaningful and useful and directed and then moving forward then with compassion and empathy and understanding and it is really hard I think we have asked empathy of our community and also been on the receiving end of really intense backlash because you know people are hurt people have suffered and as a victim it's incredibly hard to, you know, from the very beginning, we've encouraged empathy, reconciliation, and forgiveness. And to ask forgiveness of a survivor is, you know, really difficult thing.

And, you know, it takes time to get to that place. But at the end of the day, if we want to move forward and progress in this world and heal the wounds, you know, it's not going to help if we're just like encouraging this angry backlash of demonization and dehumanization and dehumanization. humanization of the other gender or of perpetrators. It's just creating more division, more polarization, more upset. And we want to help people. We want to, you know, allow people the chance to move forward, to change, to become accountable, to apologize, to become better humans. Because as you mentioned before, a lot of these perpetrators, they were boys, you know. Yeah. Well, this is what I find this is what I wanted to really wanted to talk to you about.

It's like since, I guess, since you've finished the book and since it's been published, the kind of like incredible rise and then removal of Andrew Tate from social media, I think it's been a really alarming thing because it's been kind of the first time that we've really seen the in-cell community or the manosphere or whatever red pill,

whatever stupid name they want to go with in the mainstream. And I think a lot of older people would be very, have been very surprised by him and like by his rise and I have been horrified by the not necessarily by him because he's like I mean he's obviously a monster but by the kids in his comment section who are like totally idolizing him and the way that he operates that you know the way that he's been operating his business was effect you know it was been uncovered that it was basically a pyramid scheme so it was like totally massive scam you could totally. And it was the whole point was that Tate was encouraging his followers to share clips of him on social to get more people to sign up, right? So it basically just, he ended up very deliberately sharing propaganda. Like, it felt, it feels like, I mean, it feels like insult propaganda, but like, I don't,

I don't know if that's a term that, I don't know. But I just wanted to ask about like that, because that's the indoctrination of young boys. is to misogyny right like that this this part of online and how like how is that allowed how is it allowed how do you tap like yeah do you genuinely think like okay we can we can get these guys because i i agree with you in that of course you have to have empathy like you and you're so right and i do really feel sorry for for reading laura bates book men who hate women really gave me an insight into how many men fall into being an insult or fall into the manifest because they're hurt and they feel insecure and their weakness is like taken advantage of

by people. And I think, you know, it's sad. It's like they obviously feel isolated and lonely in the environment, in the landscape. And I think a lot of that is due to patriarchal pressures of a very particular form of masculinity that, you know, culture is encouraging. So the idea of, you know, a masculinity that you have to be hard and strong and robust and perfect and then, you know, not showing any emotions.

You know, it is, I speak about this a lot of my book. It's the socialization of boys to adhere to just being a man, being strong, manning up constantly and not allowing them the same. space to have emotional nuance or literacy or be open about their mental health. And I think what Andrew Tate is promoting is an even more extreme form of the traditional kind of patriarchal masculinity, which is about domination and suppression and the objectification and taming of women, very extreme, violent, this kind of alpha male influencer situation, which, as you say, is a

complete scam because he's not helping any man. It's just about his own rise, right? Individualistic rise. And I think what that creates is this incredibly, these incredibly restrictive scripts of how to behave that are so particular. And again, like, it's not allowing boys to really be human beings to cry or to have empathy or to value compassion or to speak openly about their mental health or to seek support or help or ask someone if they need something. It's about maintaining an impenetrable sense of hardness and pretending, pretending to be a man constantly, pretending. And we have the same thing with kind of femininity as well. And I speak a lot about that in my book and the pressure as well to adhere to a restrictive script of femininity, always being

beautiful and perfect and, you know, so much emphasis. on being passive and nurturing and caring and putting other people's comfort before your own. And my argument in my book is the importance of sharing of masculine and feminine traits. So instead of restricting ourselves to either side, it's about sharing these traits amongst ourselves because masculinity and the traits associated with it,

they aren't bad traits, they're great traits, things like being confident, being empowered, being strong. Those are really important traits, as are the female traits of nurture and compassion and empathy, you know, but they only become toxic when you're told that you can only be one or the other and you can't share them equally. And as human beings, we need the freedom to be both, to be as a woman. I should be able to be confident and strong and empathetic and compassionate too. You know, men should have those opportunities as well to share those equally. and I guess that's the kind of main argument between one of my first essays beyond gender scripts it's about the importance of sharing those gender scripts between us and not restricting them

to each gender so do you think like with fixing this like fixing this world is it too late do you think for the grownups for the parents for the because I think sometimes there's there's certain types of people, like boomer stuff, and you just think you're never going to change their mind. So we just kind of have to wait for them to die. And then hopefully they'll be a more progressive world, which feels really bleak, but also just like where we're at. Or is your focus, you know, is your focus like, okay,

we need to educate everybody? Or do you think we really need to like focus specifically on schools, specifically online? Like, what can people listening? Where can we channel our energy, basically? into being actually practical and then helpful with this because it does feel like terrifying. It feels so big.

So I guess like what do you think is like a helpful and practical outlook? I think like encouraging the importance of empathy and like just continuing this dialogue and having these conversations and being open to listening to people's experiences that might be different from your own and trying to see other people's perspective. I think that we are living in such a polarised, divisive time where there is little bridge between opposing viewpoints.

And, you know, it's really distressing to me. It seems like it's very angry. There's a lot of hostility. You know, there's a lot of hatefulness and kind of dismissing someone who doesn't agree with you. And I think it is so crucial that we are doing, doing all we can to find the empathy to relate to others and find the common ground and share these experiences

and that is what we've had to do with our work with everyone's invited. It's about being as inclusive and as, you know, as the name says, everyone is invited. It's trying to be as inclusive and as open as possible to try and get people on side to listen and to have those difficult and challenging conversations and dialogue and destigmatizing the,

conversation too. But it is a huge challenge and there will be people who don't agree, who are angry, who feel attacked, who get defensive. But it's part of the process. And I also wrote about in that anger essay the importance of backlash and looking, thinking about backlash and thinking, you know, what can be mined from it. And, you know, trying to understand those people who react in that way and understanding that the backlash is evidence that the conversation is happening and it exists and it's also a reminder that there's so much more work

that needs to be done. But then again, I think probably the most fundamental lesson is that we need to listen and to have those conversations to make a change. And to have, which I think, which strikes me more than anything about social media, And maybe it's not just a social media thing, maybe it's a human thing, but that people really struggle to call upon empathy

for anything outside of their own human experience. Yeah. It's like, I see what I see, and I can't see much outside of that. So that's been one of the main things about the kind of parent generation dismissing the testimonies and not being willing to listen or to read them or, you know, saying that they're sordered, a journalist wrote. because it is so different to what they grew up with. You know, pornography and the impact of that

and social media and the landscape that exists now, it is fundamentally different, you know. For them it is, you know, completely, it does not, it's difficult to relate to. And for them, as you say, maybe difficult for them to believe if it is so fundamentally different to what they've experienced.

themselves. Can I ask like what what it was that was described as sorted? Just the testimonies like those you know horrific devastating experiences of like you know people writing their experiences of sexual violence was described as sorted. Yeah because I wonder I I just mean like I think so much of the older generation and it's something that I've experienced a lot and people just say oh take it as a compliment you know like oh you'll miss it. when it stops when you have like builders shout at you or whatever it is or you know you're flat you know it's it's completely minimised and I wonder you know the one there are so many great things about like generations that grow up online despite all of the bad press they get and something

that is amazing is the fact that you've got people opening up in this way and you've got people being so vulnerable and honest and I think that alone makes old people quite uncomfortable right like you've got all these people who are just like so happy to be so vulnerable and it's really disappointing that that people are dismissing it but something that feels really positive is when I shared your stuff on my socials I had so many teachers say how instrumental your work has been in their addressing of their kids and how they've dealt with issues of porn or harassment or whatever in schools that's incredible really cool I didn't realize how big a problem it was in schools like that was really eye-opening for me but I guess teachers have to be a big part of this as

well um it's like what but can teach like can teachers i don't know because we had like one of our teachers telling off the girls for wearing a black bra because it was like they were being told off because it was distracting for the male teachers so bad um so i don't know i did it how's that like relationship changed with with socials like between teacher and student so i think teachers do have a big role in this area and like you know as a teacher as a staff member as a head you have a responsibility in safeguarding young people and it's really important and I think they have been a big part of this conversation and there have been a lot of issues they've been identified and exactly as you described that kind of like age old misogyny around policing

of you know what people are wearing over you know when that takes precedence over someone's like capacity you know like freedom to learn that's a problem but um Yeah, I think I also have a lot of empathy for teachers because it's really challenging topic to approach and it is by no means only on them. It's on everyone. Parents are teachers. They are the first teachers of their children. And this kind of behavior begins, you know, it is being embedded from day one. If you are embedding values of kindness, empathy, boundaries, consent, you're setting up your child to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, carry that with them through their life. But if you have like role models as parents as you know really problematic and you know ideas about women that are dehumanizing and objectifying and you know, I think parents are huge role models for people. But yeah, so teachers are they do have a responsibility as well. I think that as I say again, I do have that empathy. It's really hard for them in particular to be policing, especially things going on online and social media

and having control and supervision on that. Because is it their problem? Yeah. Like if stuff's happening during term time. A lot of the things are happening on the weekend, a house parties on the, you know, so it is really hard. And they can't have oversight of all of that. They just can't. Yeah. It's a huge, it's a huge challenge. But there is so much that they can do. I think that getting an education and understanding these experiences, number one, is so important. Understanding the spectrum of rape culture and understanding how all of this behaviour is connected. And being able to identify the behaviours as well is so important. And then also developing those non-judgmental empathetic spaces where people feel that they can

speak openly about what they've been through is really important. And having open dialogue with the students, with the pupils. Because the pupils of, you know, those are the people who understand this, the culture the most, because they're living in it, because they're living online, teachers are from a different generation. Yeah. You know. Can I ask, like, shoot right back to where we were at the beginning. You said before that quite often the victims, girls who send nudes or whatever, they're the ones that would be punished or suspended. And there's these like Google drives of like images of, it's a two-part question.

first of all is anyone making Google drives of the dick picks that they're being sent without permission like is there is there like a clapback from the girls who have I mean I haven't seen that widely but I'm sure that that's I mean I'm sure that exists like maybe not the Google drives but like a girl non-consensually showing and like a dick pick of a boy I was just sorry yeah which is also you know horrible too but I it has been quite clear from the research and the testimonies that women and like girls are overwhelmingly the victim of that kind of yeah I don't want to be one of the people of dislike I hate it what it is like this is the other way around you and it's really important to recognize um that boys and young men are victims as well

equally in this and and not maybe not equally but they are um victim can be victims of of sexual violence and abuse and male sexual abuse is even more stigmatized and that is also that also comes down to patriarchal forms of masculinity and the pressures on them to be strong and hard and you know it's all connected but um you know they are often takes them decades to speak about their experiences and both historical and recent and many of the testimonies we've received are from men and boys talking about those incredibly traumatic experiences. We've had testimonies from six-year-old men talking about abusive experiences

experienced as a 10-year-old at boarding school or, you know, it is also prevalent but not spoken about at all. Can I ask about what the punishment, if there is any, for the boys that are spreading, that are air-dropping and whatever? Is that, I know a friend of mine who was raped at university

and all they did was all that the university did was move her out of the halls that she was in and put her in another one and there was never any look into and I've heard this a lot on the back of what she went through that the they just seemed to be so

little done and I know that's just one example but so little done for the to the perpetrators to stop them getting their education it's very often the victim's education that's interrupted or changed or, you know, so often they'll end up leaving school or whatever because of what's happened to them and how little

they were listened to and respected by the university or school that they're at. Is that a common thing? Yes. I mean, it's, that's overwhelmingly the narrative that the victim goes through this horrific ordeal and does not receive justice, you know, incredibly rare. It's, again, one in seventy chance that a rapist will be um prosecuted you know it is incredibly incredibly round and universities is another huge conversation where this in particular has been a huge problem um and again it is that age old traditional prioritizing of male promise over female promise you know a man is seen as more valuable and you know important and you know, his well-being and future is prioritised over the female.

And, you know, it's desperately sad, but we live in a patriarchal society, and we have throughout historical time, and their futures are deemed more important, and women are rendered disposable. Can I just ask what, how you tackle, how you tackle people who's rebuttal to this entire topic is false accusations. Women are making false accusations and ruining men's lives. Like, what is, how do you tackle that? So I think it's really important to say that false accusations, they exist and, you know, they happen.

But ultimately, we know from, you know, there's a huge body of research that's been done around this area that they are incredibly rare. And, you know, that is just, it's not a debate. It's a fact. They are very rare and that is a, that's a rebuttal that's used to kind of, basically to dismiss or de-legitimize the testimonies. But ultimately, I guess the anonymity of everyone's invited, the whole point is that, you know, these are people who have nothing to gain really by, they're sharing stories, anonymous stories.

They're not, there's no attention, there's nothing in it for them in terms of like, you know, The whole arguments that are thrown in this direction is, oh, they're trying to get attention. Oh, they're trying to ruin someone's life. Oh, they made a mistake on a drunk night out and now they regret it. But it's like these are anonymous stories. The only thing they're doing is sharing something openly for catharsis and for healing. There is no intention to destroy or ruin anyone's. There's no names.

It's just purely sharing openly. There was nothing to be gained in that way. And, yeah, I guess that is one of the problems that we're trying to tackle against that assumption, the first assumption that people have, oh, she must be lying. I do think that's like an older generation thing as well. Like, for some reason, they've just, like, they see everything through this really cynical lens, especially when it comes to female violence. It's really skewed towards.

Yeah, I think, you know, it. is down to the media, how false accusations are blown up in the media, when in the reality, rape is not covered to that extent, first of all, and then, you know, rape is also rarely even reported. So it's just like the amount of rape that goes on that is like, first of all, the stats show it's like, you know, a child is raped every day, every school day in school. In school. Yeah. And, you know, it's really shocking to understand the scale and the prevalence, you know, it's overwhelming. And the reality is 1.4% get charged. You know, rape cases have soared and charges have hit a record low. And like, if you just look at the stats and that's only things that are recorded. The amount of rapes, most rapes are, are not reported. They just aren't. And that, you know, the testimonies show this. The book shows this, you know, there is this huge overwhelming list of reasons as to why a woman won't report,

you know, the challenges women, the barriers to reporting. They won't, they're worried, they won't be believed, they worry that they'd be judged, that they be shame, that they be ostracized, they're worried that they lose control of their story and what happens to them. This is especially for children and young people. Because, Things get taken out of their hands and the police are called and, you know, they know that nothing's going to happen, that they're never going to see any justice, that many of these cases take years. A child is raped when she's 13. She only goes to court when she's 19 and she's re-traumatized every single year. She fails her GCSEs. She doesn't make her A-level. She doesn't go to university. I mean, it's life changing. I could just completely transform someone's life and ruin someone's life.

And again, it comes down to that. People prioritize men and their promise and their futures and reputations and completely overlook how a woman and a girl or a victim, how their life can be destroyed by rape. We have to finish which is like going to kill me. But I have to know with all of that and knowing, like I would be so angry. I am so angry and I'm so impressed that you can continue

to do this with empathy but how the rebuttal that's okay like I'm taking all the things that make me angry from this conversation like the fact that that's happening

that Rafe is happening so heavily the fact that there is rebuttal the fact that people men are dismissing it or people are dismissing it as women being like all these things that make us angry how in your opinion do we take this anger

and practically put it towards being empathetic. Do we need to have empathy when we talk to these men? Do we have empathy when we talk about these men? How do you suggest that we implement empathy into the places that we're feeling anger? Because I think a lot of people just be feeling angry now. Yeah, I guess it is having holding on to that empathy and it is really hard and having the endurance to keep going and to keep campaigning and to keep talking about this area and to continue those conversations even when they get hard and keep sharing those stories. It is really hard because people get really upset and uncomfortable and defensive and angry. There is a lot of backlash and it comes from men,

some boys, but also a lot of mothers of boys. Really a huge, we've had the angriest, most aggressive and kind of vitriolic backlash from mothers of boys. I imagine because they're terrified. Yeah, right? They're scared. And I think it took me a long time to get to a place of empathy there because it's horrible to be on the receiving end of that. But ultimately we have to understand that this is a mother who is in fear and an instinct, a mother's instinct, is to protect her son, I guess.

And we have to understand that, you know, and it is really hard that it's coming from a place they don't know what to do their son's been accused of rape you know it it can be a terrifying experience and I think people who are in those positions they're just looking for someone to blame

and they can't accept you know it's partly their responsibility it's also all of our responsibilities you know as a society and I think for them that they the instinctual thing to do is absolve themselves from any responsibility be so angry and try and blame someone um and i guess it's a survival instinct do you i think i know the answer to this but like do you think this should be on the

curriculum yes i think it should be respect and boundaries yeah and do you think we'll ever get there do you think it's possible i would hope that sex education is taken as seriously as math in english I hope that we get there. Home economics. I was taught how to fucking set. Well, I didn't because I couldn't. But like... Did you? No. I was also tried to teach cooking. Obviously that didn't work either. But like...

Yeah. Imagine if we've been taught, you know, like those things are just so much more important than... I know. Been able to make a pillow. Or do fucking algebra. Who gives a shit? Boiled potatoes. I know.

I'd rather be able to... I'd rather know how to like... I get so angry at how much I've learned since I left school. Like, reading your book is so amazing because I've learned so much and there's a lot of it you kind of know anyway because you sit on it and you think

you know and you think you have a feeling and reading it and you write so well that you really and I'm loving that I'm learning it and I'm just like why fuck am I learning this now? Like this is so annoying I should have learnt this and it gives me a lot of hope because you are taking this into school or you know everyone's invited

is being used by teachers and what you've created is a resource that is going to educate people but fuck it's annoying that you have to to do this and that it didn't that it's not something that we just get to learn to get to know or that just didn't exist in the first place yeah like don't you ever get annoyed that you're like 23 and you just have to carry this huge emotional burden everywhere you go because like that feels sorry that's the other one final thing I want to say about everyone's invited do there must be

a huge pressure on your shoulders yeah I think I've really like struggled on a personal psychological level with like the work and the weight of it and I've had to like do so much therapy to just finally be at a place where I'm more comfortable with it. I think there were so many levels of like why it was difficult. It was like being exposed and becoming a public figure and being kind of a representative for something that's very traumatic and very intense and emotionally heightened and I felt I really struggled with it. I think that you know, there was a time where I would go out for a drink or like, I couldn't go outside and hang out with friends and not be approached by people who would tell me their like

biggest rape story trauma. Yeah, so much trauma. It is incredible that they feel empowered to share. And I'm so proud of my team and my work and everyone's invited for giving people that. But at the same time, it's like, I'm also a human being and that's like a lot to like, you know, There's a lot of vicarious trauma. My team, we've had to read all these testimonies, and that's been something that we've had to deal with.

We had a counselor helping us and giving kind of therapy sessions and like just open support spaces where we were able to talk about all of this stuff because it was just too much. If you're reading traumatic things, you inevitably will be impacted. And vicarious trauma is a term that will affect anyone from, you know, therapists or journalists or academics working in traumatic content or doctors or, you know, people on the front line, domestic abuse specialists, or even if you have a

friend who is a survivor and you're supporting them, you know, anyone can experience vicarious trauma if they have that closeness to something traumatic. So it's been really challenging. But it's been like an incredible journey and in so many ways I'm so privileged. and just, you know, it's been incredible. It's given me so many opportunities and I've met so many amazing, extraordinary people and learned so much in such a short space of time that it's been such an empowering experience too and building the community is probably the most amazing, rewarding thing. It's such a beautiful community and having those intimate connections with people

who have, you know, been through that trauma and just knowing that you're not alone is like a feeling that, you know, I would never change for, you know, I would never take any of it back because it's changed my life in such an incredible way. But that's not to say that it hasn't been really incredibly difficult

and painful, triggering and traumatic as well. I bet. You know? Well, I mean, thank you for the work you do. It's incredible. and you are changing lives and doing so much good. And I've loved this conversation. Like, I'm so sad we have to wrap up.

I feel like I've talked to for like two or three days. Literally, I know. Yeah, you're incredible. Thank you so much. And will you come back at some point, please? Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, exactly. Come back, yeah.

Oh, yes, and we will put a link to the book in the show notes. That would be amazing. Everyone's invited. And your Instagram account community. yes yes where can people find you on instagram so i just have i have my own instagram which is at somersara and then at everyone's invited as well wonderful they will be in showing us thank you so much for having me thank you should i delete that is part of the acast creator network