Should I Delete That? - Why Do We Want to Be Beautiful? with Ellen Atlanta

Episode Date: April 28, 2024

This week on the podcast, Em and Alex are joined by writer Ellen Atlanta. They delve into the desire to be beautiful and explore how current toxic beauty standards affect women today.Follow Ellen on Instagram @ellenatlantaYou can pre-order Pixel Flesh here: https://geni.us/PixelFleshPurchase tickets here for our first ever ✨LIVE TOUR!!✨Follow us on Instagram @shouldideletethatEmail us at [e-mail] by Daisy GrantMusic by Alex Andrew Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I also want to be beautiful, and that feels like one of the ugliest parts of myself that I want so badly to be seen as beautiful and attractive and perfect and luminous and sparkly and I want people to, you know, want me. To what extent does toxic beauty culture really harm women? We break this question down in this week's episode with writer Ellen Atlanta and we discuss all things around social media, the harm of beauty standards and what we can do to make the world more beautiful for women and children. Ellen wrote a book called Pixel Flesh that really explores the relationship that women are developing

with themselves and each other online. This was a hugely informative conversation and one that we feel is very timely and important. So we hope you enjoy it. Hi Ellen. Thank you so much for coming. in today. Thank you for having me. Yeah, we're really, really excited to talk to you. About your book, which is called Pixel Flesh. This title kind of like stopped me in my track, so I was like, oh my God, what is this about? I need to know more. Can you first of all

tell us about the title? Yeah. What it means how it came about? Yeah, so it wasn't the original title. I had another title that was quite boring. And then I'd already written the first chapter. And I'd written about that kind of lockdown summer where it was very hot. I was with my support bubble. It's kind of towards the end of lockdown. And I was with my support bubble of my friends in in the garden, sunbathing. And I was looking at my friends and their bodies. And, you know, it was a time where everyone had gained a bit of weight. No one was really worrying as much about what they looked like. We were just kind of girls together in the sun. Everyone was a bit sweaty. So it was kind of like belly rolls over kind of laptops, leg hair, body hair, stretch

marks, razor burn. And I just remember looking at my friend's bodies and realizing I hadn't seen women's bodies as they are meant to be in real life for a long time. And so the line that I ended up writing was I hadn't seen bodies in a while, only pixel flesh. And when I was kind of re-looking through, I got goosebumps. I know, that's so good. Yeah, I kind of had this very confronting moment of, oh, this is what, this is how it's supposed to be. And maybe I'm not defective and maybe there's nothing wrong with me. And the image in my head is like a renaissance painting of my friends in that garden that summer. To me, it's so beautiful. And they glowed in a way that you just can't glow on a phone screen. And I, that just stuck out to me when I was

reading my work back. And it just kind of had this epiphany moment of, oh my God, that's the title. And to me, it's paradoxical, it's a dichotomy, you know, pixel flesh, it doesn't, too kind of opposing things. And to me that speaks to what so much of the book is about, which is this kind of state that we're living in right now where we kind of know this standard is harmful. We're very aware of the powers around us or to an extent we are. But we kind of know that although this standard is harmful, it's kind of the best way to thrive.

We're kind of stuck in this middle ground where it's hard to know what's. to do next. And so that's what I started writing the book for. And it also has sci-fi elements to it. There's a dystopian side to pixel flesh. I wasn't writing a book about beauty that was rainbows and sunshine and that was intentional. I didn't want it to feel like this was a book that was, you know, about really pretty things and everything, everyone was really happy and empowered all the time because that's exactly why I wrote it was to kind of remedy that messaging that, you know, not everything is fine. And it's that's okay to admit. and we need to start talking about those things instead of kind of glossing a filter over everything

and acting like we're all just okay and having a great time because actually most of my friends were still struggling just as badly if not worse than kind of they had been before but feeling like they had to do a lot of these things in secret so there's there's kind of dystopian sci-fi elements to the book despite it being non-fiction and I didn't have to make any of that up a lot of the stuff that people were doing or telling me felt otherworldly and non-human. Yeah. It's very real. It's really interesting, like, when you're describing, like, your friends in that summer,

and it's kind of like, when you're speaking, it's like, such a lovely, like, nostalgia. Yeah. And there's something about, this is, like, I mean, so deep on it, but, like, and so early, but. But normally we're like, yeah, exactly. I keep using the expression raw dog. I know you to say that. I was like, I bet she said raw dogging, but raw dogging. I'm raw dogging this.

Well, I am. It's so gross, I'm sorry. It's so foul. It just comes to me all the time. I'm just a raw dog. I hate it. I'm just a natural raw dog. It just comes to me.

It's foul. It's so miserable, isn't it? Anyway, that's going to be the voice clip now. I'm just saying I'm a natural raw dog. Anyway, nice, nice that I'm not alone with it. Raw dog is everywhere. So, no, what I mean by that is it's like, what I meant where I was going with that even, is that it's like, it's so interesting.

when we talk about like real life and those moments it feels like there's a nostalgia attached to them even when we're living them and there are like some songs that I listen to like Ed Sheeran's cast it on the hill and then Maisie Peters did a similar one about the place we were made like this is the place we were made and I listen to the songs and I'm like

I feel instantly nostalgic even though it's happening right now and there's some moments like that I think and maybe because we talk so much about it in this kind of current climate where it's like we're young and you're in your young body and you've got your young friendships and you're carefree,

even though I'm literally the least carefree person in the world. But I'm so full of cares. But like you feel this massive pressure to like to just be natural and chill and be gritty and kind of had those like skin summers. Do you know what I mean? Like I don't know this. And when you're describing that,

it's like even in those moments that you're living them, you feel this pressure to really live in them and live the real life. And I think that, as kind of hard and as stressful as the pressure then to live the perfect one on it's a very interesting time isn't there's not a question here this is just it's just what I was thinking about when you were talking yeah everything feels like performance and that's something that came up a lot with the book is so many girls especially younger girls kind of teenage girls or girls

who had grown up documenting themselves online on tumbler on blog spot on Instagram was this feeling of I always feel like I'm being watched and that was something research is found in girls age like seven, eight, nine, the boys in their classes were completely unaware of. They weren't aware of this kind of voyeur watching them, but all of the girls mentioned being watched, feeling the need to be perfect, feeling this imaginary, often not imaginary audience perceiving them. So I think even if we're all kind of playing out these movies in our heads, and I talk about this a few times in the book, whether it's kind of the hyper-romant, everything is romanticized and whether it's in those kind of gritty.

moments or whether you're feeling the need to perform this perfect self, there's kind of always an inherent performance and not to get deep. Again, raw doggone. But I talk about, she's my type, I like her. Yeah, we're going straight there. On one of the later chapters, I talk about having an abortion. And in that moment, I had it at home in my bathtub. And I remember feeling in that moment, like, this isn't, how does this scene look? Like, what does this look like? Should I be crying? Should I scream? Should I, you know, it doesn't look very aesthetic. Like, this is so flat. And that isn't, this isn't how these moments in my life should be. Wow. And I think even, so it's not always, always the perfect glossy moments, but sometimes

even in those, you know, girls will tell me when I cry, I then find myself wondering if I'm if I look photogenic. I'm sat here talking to you and it is my back arched, is my posture good. What if someone took a picture of me, it would be captured me right now? How would I look? and it's sometimes about fitting into an archetype instead of... That's amazing. That is something that I've actually not considered, but it's so true. I feel like... And I have to remind myself sometimes,

because it's an involuntary thing as well. It's like a learned habit that probably will never go away, but I suck in my stomach at all times. And I thought about this on the tube of the day. I was sucking it in and I was like, hang on, why am I sucking my stomach in right now? And it's because I'm in public. It's because I'm out in public.

And I'm like, no one's looking at me. No one cares. why am I sucking? And even if they were looking at me, whatever, why am I sucking my stomach in? But it's so true. You feel like you have to put on a performance at all times. I think interesting as well what you're saying about your abortion. I see this online to a lesser extent when people talk about their birthdays.

And it's like I've seen quite a lot of people really talk about how much they hate their birthday. And I feel like there's the kind of, it's that same expectation that we have for these, like movie moments and all these big pivotal check-ins like something traumatic happening to us or something marking the passing of time. And we can't handle our own, because it's only our expectation that causes us to be let down and end. But it's really interesting that we've ended up kind of with this, I don't know, we've ended up with expectations.

So it's kind of like the parallel things of like the expectations we have for our ourselves but also kind of for our lives and to kind of try to direct edit and write the script of your life whilst also living it and then being like this doesn't match up with the the script that I had in my head yeah why is that not happening but I wonder if this is all compounded by how much social media we consume now and how of course how much you know how many of us are content creators now I know we hate that term but that that's what it is and it's true as form isn't it like creating content like editing and curating our lives and then like putting out a version online. Yeah. So I guess

we almost are being watched and performing a lot. Oh, 100%. And even people's like Finsters, which is, you know, an ironic term anyway because your fake Instagram account is the more real version of yourself. So you're then kind of acknowledging that the version of yourself that you usually present

is a performance. But even those finsters are a performance of like a carefree chaotic self. They're all like slightly blurry, slightly like off-killed images. I find those harder. I find those images. The big photo jumps of the chaos of the yeah of like the lovely summers like everybody i don't know i find those like oh like barbecue on the beach like campfire with my friend i find that harder than i'm like i can

handle i'm not a massive like sucking like with my body i'm so like i don't i really feel like i don't know why that bit doesn't kind of feel but the other side of it the lifestyle part of it for me feels so real yeah the pressure like those photos that's what I compare myself to. That's kind of what I... Yeah, I mean, we've talked about this on podcast before. Like, I, summer is weird for me. Always has been because I feel like people are always, or always off doing, like, really fun things. They're doing barbecues or like,

picnics in the park and it's all like cool and aesthetic. They're with their mates. They're like, oh my God, best days of our lives, you know. It's all like romantic and whimsical. I'm sweaty and burnt. Yeah, and I'm also not doing that. I'm like, oh, I'm just at home. Like, I haven't been invited to a barbecue today. Haven't been invited to a picnic in the park. I don't know. I do have friends.

But, like, it's so. I don't know, it's just a really, yeah, it's... No, and the performance thing's interesting because it applies, I saw it apply across the board. Like, I went to someone's birthday party a few years ago, and they didn't have loads of followers, like, less than 1,000 followers, and the theme of the party was Tonals, and we all had to come dressed in specific...

I don't know what tonals meant, beige. So I think I bought white clothes because I don't, I wear kind of black or, you know... Bage is a cruel, cruel, cruel theme. So you could go brown, you could have tonals, earthy tones, but I wore white and I ordered loads of clothes for the event because I was like, I don't know how many bloody tonals. And then when we got there, a girl showed up in a red dress, because I don't think she was aware that was a theme. And she was kind of very swiftly taken into a bedroom to change. And the girls were birthday, it was, had a rail of clothes for people to change into.

Holy shit. Because the photos had to look right. And she's, you know, she's not an influencer. It's not her job. She doesn't, you know, require that kind of financially or economically. It was just kind of a, that moment had to be aesthetic. I was struck in the book as well. You described a party or a situation where, and maybe we're just old,

but where you take, where people would take a group photo and then pass the phone round so that they could all. Yeah, that's happened. Sorry, just to finish the thought, because I didn't finish it. Spoilers. Yeah. But people would pass the camera around so that everybody could edit. themselves on face, because I've always thought that on face tune, because I always thought that was a bit brutal if one friend edits themselves and then leaves the rest. So I always wondered,

because you'll sometimes see an edited greet pick and I think, who did that? Who did? Yeah, because if my friend here looks a bit like, she won't like this, or her teeth are a bit yellow, I'm going to white, you know, like, but people don't. That's a surefire way to like know what your, what your insecurities are then. It should be. Yeah, but I've had a side, side quest, but I had a teenage girl, or I had that interviewed, ask if she could edit one of my pictures and I was like for the sake of research go on and to watch someone else edit a picture of you I mean I looked very strange by the time she'd finished it was it brutal I want to say no because I just didn't I was like that list looks strange to me I didn't

I didn't felt I looked good in it yeah and the things but the things she changed wouldn't weren't things I would have changed there were things that I was thinking oh I would have you know changed that about myself if I was going to edit the picture and she didn't bother touching them at all but my lips were like huge and I think she made my hair darker um but yes I've been to parties where photos have been taken and then the kind of you huddle around you pick which one everyone likes which is always a fight and then that phone is then passed around for everyone to kind of face tune themselves individually before the photo can go up now we have the function and I think it's the Google pixel

oh you can swap faces around swap faces yeah so you can be like oh I like my face in that one and the other one says well like my face in that one you could put them together yeah and it's just crazy. It's just crazy. It's like crazy. And I get it as well and I get why that's like there's a need for that now because you know we're also careful about what we put on online and stuff but God of the days, the Facebook days.

Oh my God. Oh my God. I mean for like 400 pictures of yeah. Oh my god. I would take a digital camera out and night out in uni like and take thousands of photographs and put up a Facebook album. We'd have like rave part one. Yeah. And it was a school disco.

Rave part two. I know. I know. I know. 600 pictures in each 17 of them identical to not curate the album at all so that's why we're so fucking humble

millennials I'm telling you do you think yeah Jesus we've not got an opportunity for vanity it was just too traumatising you're like right well I'm lucky

that's fine yeah but we had the opportunity untag the photos that's the worst bit is these photos still exist yeah they still live yeah they're just not mine that's what they keep me up at night

those photos Oh, God. Yeah, I blogged from like 15 onwards and all of those images are still on Google if you Google me. Are they? Yeah. We need to get some good promo for this book so they all get pushed down. Got some nice new headshots so that me at 50.

To be fair, I'm not too embarrassed about it because I'm like, that's how I got here. Yeah. But yeah, some of it's just more of the writing is just cringy. It's like me talking to six people like, hey guys. This is what I'm wearing today. It is. Yeah, we've all been there. Yeah, it's really interesting.

If you haven't embarrassed yourself, you know, extensively on tumblers. Yeah, I think it's really interesting with the like, kind of, you say about people who aren't content creators. Because I think, I don't know, like, interestingly, I think we, Alex and I maybe obviously would identify or be identified as influences. But I don't share, and you don't really either, kind of, I guess, in the traditional way. And for the big moments in my life, because instantly I was thinking, I was like, probably the biggest moment it's like finding out I'm pregnant which I didn't film

and then didn't share and then we did finding out she was a girl which we didn't do anything a way or whatever but then I'm like but even in those moments I think should have I done this right

because actually the reality of finding out I was pregnant I took a pregnancy dress like a loser on my way to work with this Alex at 8am boy Alex was eating in a boiled egg and I walked out of the blue on my way to work

I was like I'm pregnant and he's actually got a mouth full of egg he's like, what? And then I came to see you. We were weird all day. And then I told you not in the way that like you see it online. Yeah. And you think you've done it wrong. And I kind of I actually had to like sit with my own like kind of disappointment in how I'd have that experience for myself. I was like, oh, I did it wrong. I should have, I should have filmed it or done and I didn't do it right. I can definitely see myself going through that. You know, having a family something I've always wanted and I consume so much of that content. Yeah. I kind of have this

very romanticised idea in my head of what the reveal's going to be like and kind of how that's going to go and in reality it's probably going to be me in a bathroom like ah yeah come here yeah um but yeah i think i've i put a lot of pressure on myself birthdays holidays you know i talk in the book about like an all-girls holiday where we spend the majority of the time scanning you know the landscape for optimal photo spots and it's like oh that wall is kind of your color aesthetic and that floor is your color aesthetic and walking to dinner takes two hours because that everyone has to get their content. And that's not content created.

No, that's... How old are you? I'm 28. I forgot then. I was like, I am. What? Wow. And it's exhausting, isn't it?

It's really exhausting. Especially if it, I mean, it doesn't come... I don't know it's what we do, me and I'm, but like, it doesn't come naturally to me. No, it doesn't to me. At all. But I find it really... That's what we're really shit at. We don't do that.

Yeah. We're really, like, we'll do whole days and they're like, oh, we didn't do it's all... No. Oh, fuck it. Yeah. Um, because it's exhaust. Because I've got friends with like Pinterest boards of poses and how they want shots to be taken. And then it's like, here's kind of the mood board for today's shoot.

And I think it's quite important we don't judge those women. No. Because I think this is what society is doing a lot of the minute. It's like it's kind of frivolous or it's vain. And it's what people have always done with women who care about how they look or a perceived care about how they look. But I think like it's really important to kind of look at how we got here. Yeah. And like the inevitability of it.

is one of the things that's really big for me, and I talk about it quite a lot in the book, but this is a completely rational response, and it really frustrates me. Again, it's the same thing, like women, trivial feminine pursuits that women are, you know, crazy for pursuing or to the extent that they do. But beauty culture is, is so intertwined with, you know, art history, politics, racism, abelism, all of these things. And it's such a rational thing to pursue. There's such a logic there of if I do X, Y and Z, I can unlock a specific currency, whether that's online, whether that's in the workplace, you know, beautiful people, there's a halo effect around that, whether you're going to get more likely to get alone, whether you're more likely to get off in court, whether it's more likely that people trust you, think you're healthy, think you're competent. Online, you know, you can get more likes, more follows that again unlocks opportunities. One of my chapters, I go to the nightclubs that girls are invited to for free. if they, you know, have great, beautiful social media profiles.

They get free drinks there. They get to meet wealthy, networked people. They then get taken on weekends away. They get all these experiences, free hotel stays. There's whole apps where if you are beautiful and you connect your social accounts that have followers and have great photos, you can get free food. You can get free holidays. You can get free stays, free travel.

And so it's a completely rational thing to want to pursue. and I think we need to talk about that more as it's not just a silly, frivolous thing there's completely rational to pursue these things and to understand that there's benefits there for you to attain. We need to criticise the system rather than criticise people who are living in the system

and I'm just playing to it. Yeah, it's a really interesting thing as well. If you look at, and I see it online all the fucking time, and bear in mind, like, I mean, we're all chronically online, but, like, I keep seeing these, like, men who, like, I don't know how I've ended up with him, but he was on Love Island he's a jolly guy

he's got really white veneers Oh my god Sam Yeah his veneers come up my mate I'm like too Not him He was really happy

with themselves Yeah he got them in TikTok and then But he talks about how much money he's made And there's this kind of like Absolutely coconut culture of men

Which has always existed How much money they made The Hustle I mean like Look at like The Wolf of Wall Street Right And we're so readily

comfortable watching men Go to extraordinary lengths To make their fortunes And it doesn't matter that they are shafting people stealing money, completely trashing the economy. Like, it doesn't matter that they're doing these bad things. And then with the money, using it incredibly irresponsibly to have, by multiple drugs and women and disrespect and vote for bad. Like, men use money historically very badly. And we're like, rich men. But then when

women hustle to the same degree, and it's a different currency, yeah, like, we're not, it's not money but it's like we are so fucking uncomfortable with it and I saw a really interesting comment on Ashley James who um I don't know if you know about Alex yeah Alex and I know and she did a post recently about her birthday or aging or something and it wasn't necessarily a critical

comment but there was a comment on her post about like how because Ash said you know age I'm finding aging quite difficult she just turned 36 anyway and somebody commented being like I can understand why you're finding ageing difficult because your beauty has always

been your currency, for me, it's never been that for me. And there was kind of a bitter element at the end or whatever. And so it was a bit of a shitty comment. But the point was very interesting. Yeah. But it's like, why are we so uncomfortable with that admission, that acknowledgement that getting older for women is a, it's a very frightening. It's the same.

It's men, because men make more money as they get older. The trajectory is more and more and more, whereas we know we're going to fall off the currency cliff at a point. It's fucking terrifying. Back to that, sorry, back to that money point just quickly. Like, we allow men to be proud of the money that they've made. Yeah. And we almost celebrate it, you know, sort of a best celebrated,

but like we also just allow it to happen. So, like, how many people, like, how many errands come up on your page and, you know, pop up and they're like, this is how I made, 15,000 pounds in a month for, like, six figures per month. Yeah. And there's a girl that I follow. she's a dietitian and she talks about how much money she makes in a month and she says that she makes you know sometimes she makes up to $100,000 a month and every time I see it it shocks me

and initially I was like oh my god that's really I don't know that's really um it's really vulgar yeah it's really vulgar to talk about money at that and I was like hang on yeah how many men how many Nick Carries and if the men are pushing that talking about the money to that extent which which they are all the time and my boyfriends, my male friends that's part of the conversation, all my salaries, my salary says, but if women then talk about and again if we, and I'm not saying we

equated the same, but if we look at using beauty as a currency, if women talk about how they got to be as beautiful as they are, this is the product that I had, this is the tweakment that I had, this that would be like, bad, bad, like you're a cheat, you're a fraud, whereas if men are like, well, I

apply to the job anyway, even though I didn't have the credentials, and then I work this and then I have, you know, I climb the ladder if women climb a different and I'm not saying men and women is as simple men make money and women are beautiful I'm not saying that I'm just comparing the currency yeah I think that's like absolutely wild but this just like this is kind of I don't know that we just we're so you cannot win no and it's back to that paradox again of knowing that beauty investment is seems feels necessary a lot of the time or advantageous but then there's that very fine line of if you do it too much or if you do it wrong or if you don't you know

get it done properly, then you're then penalised. Because if you get too much lip filler, if you get two white veneers, if you get too obvious work, then you're seen as deceitful. It's seen as fake. It's seen as, you know, it's not desirable anymore, which is why so many celebrities won't admit to the work they've had done because it's upholding this idea of virtuous, natural beauty that you haven't actually put any effort in to obtain.

And there's a moral element to it as well, isn't it? Yeah. isn't though I and we will go back to interviewing you really sorry I went to a panel talk and someone someone was on the panel who's in the public eye and she said I've only ever I've never had any work done I've only ever had like my my teeth fix and there was like a cheer and a little clap so there's like it's like oh you're good you're good person then you haven't you know and it which is anyway sorry we'll get that's really bad yeah but that's cool that I mean that is like you talk because you used to work didn't you like in a beauty app that worked you were very

quite vague, which I think was on purpose. Intentional. Yeah. It doesn't exist anymore, so it's fine. Okay. The people who work there still do. So, obviously. So, yeah, that kind of worked in injectables and the treatments and that kind of was the beginning of your journey.

So I think it is really relevant. There is this like morality that's attached to... Hugely, which is also interesting when you think about the fact that the beauty standard is more attainable for people who closely resemble it. So there's a morality attached to, you know, beauty is as goodness, as truth, as purity, but then our beauty standard, an alignment to that is still very Eurocentric, it's very, you know, able-bodied, it's slim. And as much as we all have to work to get to

the beauty standard, there are still people that no matter how much work they do, will never be able to get there. And that's where the currency needs to be looked at critically. It's because there are people who can quite easily cash in or who can get small tweaks done and cash in quite instantaneously and there are people who, for whom that is not a possibility. So I think that's where

kind of a critical lens is needed. Yeah, I guess that's where it becomes really problematic that it's a currency at all. Yeah. Which is very, that also puts women in a very complicated position because it's like, if good women, good feminist women,

and say, right, we're completely disassociating ourselves from all pretty privilege and using beauty by any means to get ahead. And we all have to, like, if we all went by this, we'd all be so much further back individually. No, sorry, wouldn't all. You lose, I couldn't need to explain it. I know what you're saying. You lose that one advantage.

It's like that's one area that women kind of have, that men don't, and men, good-looking men do have it, and tall men have it, and like, it does exist for men. But it's like, if you take that away, you just have women being paid less than men. Yeah, but what's interesting about that and was kind of an epiphany moment whilst I was researching, is that we're already

at a net negative, like you say, but there's already a gender pay gap. And then it's like, you now have to pay X number of hundreds, thousands of pounds to invest in the way that you look in order to get further ahead. It's like, you're already at a net negative, and then you're being told to invest more to get further and that grooming for women in the workplace is seen as essential whereas it's not for men it's seen as you have to look like not even you have to be beautiful you have to look like

you've made an effort to be so it's not about how attractive you are it's about how much effort you've been perceived to have put into being more attractive so having your brows lashes a bit of makeup on whatever and so I think the idea of an investment is slightly false because it's is it really an investment if you're already a step back and then you're being told to pay more money to get to not even quite the same point as the men that you work with. And then even further, men are rewarded so much more

for beauty work. So the grooming that men do, which is far less extensive, let's be real, wash their face, I'm trying their beard. And leave it in the fucking scene. Don't even do that properly. They are then rewarded more financially in the workplace for minimal effort. than women are for putting in, you know, far more expensive.

And that's also the line that you were talking about, because if all of them puts in too much effort, then she's not serious and she's silly and she can't possibly be good at her job because she spends all that time doing her hair and putting her lipstick on. Yeah. So it's very tricky.

Like you said, it's very hard to know how to win if we can win. Yeah. I feel like I've mentioned the point before because I don't want people to be like, because I feel like I've just basically said that women's only currency is beauty not money which it's a more accessible currency

a seemingly more accessible currency for women or it's told that I think there's a message instilled that since we're young that beauty is of primary value if you're a girl like it's important that you're beautiful being beautiful as something you can use and something that is your value and I think I've seen that a lot with

you know you said Ashley James had that comment again you can't win even if you, women who we kind of pedestal as being beautiful have so much more to lose as they age, as they have so much more criticism and focus on their appearance, on their body, on their, you know, sense of self. And I spoke to an amazing academic and writer. She wrote a book called Easy Beauty, Chloe Cooper Jones, who is also a disabled woman. And she spoke about that and said she kind of feels some semblance of peace because she was able to put herself kind of in the eye of the storm and say, well, that's not me. I can't be, I'm never going to be a Kardashian. And she says she fills a certain amount of empathy for women who are closer to that and have all of this pressure to then get as close to that as humanly possible.

But what she also said, which I find really interesting and really stuck with me, is she was like, it really pisses me off when people say like beauty is in the eye of the beholder because it's not. No, it's like, it's not. Yes, beauty can be subjective and you can find anything you want beautiful. But beauty with a capital B, you know, objective, cultural, societal, beauty standards are incredibly objective and to say that they are in the eye of the beholder or you can just think your way out of them completely negates her experience as someone who doesn't

adhere to the ideal in that way and she's like saying I don't see colour it's just it just completely erases any discrimination she faces or any ways that she's penalised as a woman that doesn't adhere to that but then I think the interesting thing is is one of the another interesting thing on the back of that is you you'll have perhaps beautiful women hear this conversation or yeah I mean I mean and I do believe fundamentally that beauty maybe without a capital be beauty in italics or whatever is genuinely in a soul and in yeah and I think when we know and describe our beautiful friends it's not it's because they're flawless it's because they're like just sunshine people yeah and I yeah that's kind of how I identify beauty but that's

definitely something that's happened to me as I've got older but I think what puts the really difficult position and I guess I don't know if you kind of got to a conclusion in your book with it, but if we acknowledge how problematic beauty with the capital B is, the fact that it is so discriminatory and exclusionary of literally everybody that isn't a slim white woman, it is wildly problematic. And so as good feminists and as good people, we think, well, we need to disassociate with this. We need to not be part of it. We can't do this because even by being, even by, you know, accepting it and being part of it, we are part of the problem and we are

accidentally or intent whatever you know we are transphobic or racist or we're not you know we're not doing our bit to dismantle it and in doing that we are damaging these people yeah but how do you unpick that yeah and it's really hard and that's kind of a paralyzing element of writing this book because me sat there thinking how do I fix beauty culture yeah I'm just a girl I can't and they're kind of I did like I'd have a stance

and I think it is hard and I think that's where kind of the confronting elements came in is that I do think ultimately where I land is that I don't want to add to a noise that is already so loud that says you have to spend money to be beautiful you are defective by default

you need lip filler to be pretty you need to edit your pictures to be pretty and I think whilst also acknowledging that that is that is difficult to live and enact day to day perfectly because of the structures and systems that are in place. I think it is on the people with more privilege to be brave about trying to take that down as much as possible, to resist as much as possible, as much as you feel able to and not leaning on an excuse of, you know, knowing when to give yourself grace and

when to be tough on yourself and say, you know, I'm just using that as an excuse and I need to do better. I think that's really important. And I do think ideally if we can, you know, do one less thing, wear a bit less product, don't get lip filler next time, get less Botox or try not to get those treatments at all. I do feel like that creates a safer, more beautiful future for women. post with less edits post more of what you actually look like and how you actually feel that's what I feel like it's at like I feel like that's a bigger worry I don't know then individual treatments beauty treatments I kind of I think I've landed on the side of like well that's your you know your face and your body is your reality but the the danger was the

online with the pixel element that feels really scary but it all compound in my head it all compounds if all you're seeing as an eight-year-old girl is faces that have been tweaked and augmented whether digitally or physically then you're kind of growing up with this notion that in order to be beautiful i need to inject my face and i need to spend hundreds of pounds a month or whatever on treatments and i that's something that was i always will revert to as the kind of the younger girls i've spoken to and you know i talk in the book about going to work with the charity in North London where I was working with girls after school and they'd made these zines that said

you know like everyone is beautiful and you know beauty's on the inside and that's all that matters and I was reading this zine before I met them and I was like it's so cute and it's all like crayon drawings and stuff and then I met the girls and they're showing me their TikTok accounts and their Instagram accounts and it's horrifying like how heavily filtered everything is

they look so much older online than they do in real life like these like baby eight year olds in front of me and online they look like older teenagers and I left when I left I was like you know what should we do next time should we make more collages like should we draw and they were like no we want to learn how to do makeup like yours and I was like like that felt like

a you know a sucker punch and so I think whilst we all have our own individual journeys with beauty work and like I didn't go outside without makeup on for most of my life and that's something I'm building up to now the same thing with like

allowing myself just to be sat here without trying to do this or covering my belly I feel like it's different for everyone and I think it's important to acknowledge that everyone is struggling even if you may appear to be very beautiful what was apparent in my research was that all women seemed to be having some kind of complex or issue with this system

and I think it's important to acknowledge that but yeah I think whilst all having our individual struggles I do think it's important that we act in the interest of the collective. As hard as that may be, I think that's one of the only ways out is to work together. And that extends into work and business, like giving opportunities to women, you know, sharing your network, being generous with funding and things like that as well. But I do think that's where I landed on it. And I feel like it's a hard thing to accept and admit. I'm like, but I also want to be beautiful.

And that feels like one of the ugliest parts of myself that I want so badly to be seen as beautiful and attractive and perfect and luminous and sparkly. And I want people to, you know, want me or want to be me or whatever. But I think I would rather be the woman that I needed when I was a kid that made her not feel so bad about herself. And I'm not saying I'm doing that perfectly or doing that at all very well. But it's where I've landed in my head as that's where I'm aiming. towards. I think you both do a great job of that with the way you use your platforms. Oh, thank you. Thanks, thanks, thanks. Maybe really think though. Yeah, but it's understandable you feel that way. Yeah. That's how I feel as well. I think it's how every, I think we'd struggle to find a

woman who didn't feel that way, who didn't want to be perceived as beautiful and, you know, you say like luminous and sparkly, like that's, yeah. And I think that's, it's so deep within us now. It's like, it's like woven into. Yeah, it's because the way we were spoken to as King. kids. It's like, it goes back to everything and that's something I'd say at the end is kind of going forward, the way we talk to young girls or we talk to other women, try not to prioritize beauty as primary importance. Like when you see your friends, often the first thing we say is, oh my God, you've lost weight. Oh my God, your hair looks amazing. Oh, my God. Your makeup looks great. And we say the first thing we say reinforces beauty as primary importance. And I think,

you know, everyone hears that. The people around you hear it. Your friend hears it. You internalize it instead of saying, I've missed you or I've still looking forward to seeing. you or I'm so proud of you for doing X, Y, and Z recently. You know, when we talk to young girls, we often prioritise their appearance or how pretty they are or, you know, how beautiful their outfit is or the hair. And so it's little things. We have so much power. I think we often think we don't and we think it's easy to say it's a big structural problem

and, oh, well, like, ah, can't fix it, but we can. You're an influencer in your own circle, whether you have loads of followers or not. you're an influencer to your sisters, your family, your friends, and even things like modelling comfort, allowing, like my friends did that summer, allowing their bodies to just be, made me feel so much more at home in mine, like going to swimming pools and going into the changing rooms.

And, you know, I've started going to Zumba classes at my local leisure centre and a woman there just turned 94. And I stopped doing, like, I was really punishing myself like Pilates. I hate, I always hated exercise. I hate it. But now I've started going to Zumba at my local leisure centre where there's women who were just turning 94. We had a party last week.

It was great. And everyone's, you know, I've seen so many different bodies of different ages and it's just completely changed the way I look at myself. And some of these women can twerk like no other. And they're like in their 60s. And I'm just like, I want to be you. Yeah.

And it just, yeah, some of the fittest women there, you know, you wouldn't, you wouldn't look at and think stereotypically are so athletic. But yeah, so I think seeking out women's bodies as they exist as they should have and then trying to model that yourself is important. I kind of trailed off my point there. With the kind of what we were talking about before, kind of away from the athletic side of things.

And with people's fintners and that kind of thing, do you think like we should be sharing more or less? because I don't know if we want more reality or just less content that's everything it feels like it's a big question I think one of the

things that one of the psychologists I spoke to said in terms of like between every chapter I ask a different person the question how can we create a more beautiful future for women and girls and I ask that question to every woman I interviewed

there's over 100 women interviewed and there's 60 in the book but one of the psychologists I interviewed said you know delay exposure for as long as possible. Like give girls as much space to learn who they are, to explore and to be without an algorithm telling them what they like, what they don't like, what they should be, what they shouldn't be.

And so I think in general less, as in like I, and you know, three days off of social media can boost a woman's self-esteem. Like that's proven in studies that you don't have to completely abandon it. And I got to the end of the book and was like, I feel like I should be telling everyone to throw their phones in the sea. Or like Andy and Devil Wise Prada where she like chucks her phone in the house. That always alive me so much. Just like, just don't answer it.

Yeah. Just things like to block them out with the bottom. But this is the thing. Like it's completely unrealistic to say, don't be online. Like that's like saying don't see your family. Don't talk to your friends. Like it's such an integral part of, you know, our economy, our social life, you know, culture, everything.

You can't just not be online. But taking those breaks. I think is really important, taking breaks, because they're platforms that aren't built for us, they're not built with our interests in mind, they're not built to speak to us in a healthy way or to promote healthy behaviours, and we know that, and we can't right now change that very quickly. And so I think, you know, you don't have to completely log off, but taking breaks is important. And in terms of posting, I don't think it's a case of more or less content. I think it's just shifting the way we post content.

And I think, like I said, I'm acknowledging that it's really difficult as someone who also finds it really difficult. But like doing one less thing. If you usually, you know, one of my editors now has turned off her Zoom filter because she's like, I read the proposal and I realized I'd had this Zoom filter on for three years and I've taken off and I don't use it anymore. Like if you're usually using Paris filter, maybe just don't for a few posts and see how you feel. Like see, do a check in, see how you feel. if you're usually face-tuning your pictures maybe just use one less tall maybe to take it baby steps

so I don't think there's a question of more or less content I think it's about doing less to the content that we're posting and just like I said checking in seeing how that feels because eventually it gets to the point where you say you end up with these movie moments of your life in your head and they're

not real they're not they don't line up I had girls saying that they're jealous of past versions of themselves or they find themselves becoming jealous of past versions of themselves and then having to have a reality check and realize that version of themselves wasn't even real at that point. It was an edit of the 500th picture they took where they were uncomfortable and posed and restricted and that's not real, a real version. Before I had a baby, this has been the nutsest thing. Before I had all that I looked back at footage and I'm like, God, I was so this, this, this. And then I'm like, for that one second, like,

and it probably wasn't even, it's so long. And I can't remember, Like, I can't remember the reality of those days. I can't remember. I just think, God, I was so happy and carefree. And I didn't blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was, and all this stuff. And I'm like, was I? I don't know.

I don't know. I can't remember. And I've only got my own, like, distorted dystopian to go by. Yeah, and all those memories are filtered. And I can't imagine what that's like to have a childhood that looks like that. And I spoke to a doctor who, for the book, I interviewed her. But it was part of one thing she told me, which isn't in the book, is that a dad, brought his daughter in to A&E and she'd hurt her nose.

It was like she'd bashed her nose or something. And it was really swollen and he was really worried and she said part of his worry seemed to be focused on whether her nose would be okay long term, whether she would still be quite and quite beautiful because her nose would be important for that. And the doctor asked the dad, can I see a picture of her before this happened just so I can see how bad the swelling is just so I can measure. how badly her nose is damaged. And she watched this dad scroll through pictures of his eight-year-old daughter

and not find a single picture that hadn't been edited or filtered to show to her. And so we're seeing, and again, not an influencer, just a regular dad taking his daughter in to the hospital. And so it's kind of having these filtered childhoods, these filtered upbringings, having your parents editing, filtering pictures of you as a kid, the psychological impact of that, of then of not recognizing yourself of looking in the mirror and not seeing a version of you that

you recognize is, you know, viscerally uncomfortable and going back to the charity I was working with, you know, we did portrait sessions and there's this eight-year-old girl who, a young looking eight-year-old girl who was telling me about her skincare routine. I was like, great. She's like, I don't have, I have great skin. I was like, you're eight. Oh my God, you're a baby. She's like, I didn't get any spots. I was like, because you're eight. But she was painting a picture of herself from a picture she'd taken and the picture she'd taken she'd taken on Snapchat and it was again incredibly heavily filtered she looked about 16 but the painting she was painting looked like a painting painted by an eight year old because she is eight and so it was just really it's just an

image that sticks on my head of like this really glossy picture that she was referencing the painting that she was doing which was like you know kids a kid's painting and then this little girl trying to kind of find the semblance between the two and her own sense of... This is a self-portrait, this was about self-expression and, like, it was just, I kind of find it hard to explain how it felt looking at that scene, but it just felt very odd,

kind of these three versions of this girl, all kind of playing out in real time. Coming back to your question, and I don't... Coming back to your question that you, you know, you asked all the women that you contributed to your book, how do you see a more beautiful future for girls and women? I think we've kind of discussed that and, you know, how you think we can all kind of band together collectively to help make a more beautiful future.

But I want to ask, and this might be a bit of a bleak question, so it's probably not the best to end on. But do you see it happening? How do you see the, how do you see the future in reality, how it's going to be? Yeah, it's not looking great. shit sorry it was a bleak question but I think now is the time you know I interviewed Claire Barnett who's the former executive director of UN Women UK and she says at the beginning of my book you know we're kind of at a very crucial point right now where on one side we have the power

to change what's happening like we can we we need to start acting now or you know we're leaving we're creating a future where it's incredibly detrimental to the physical and mental well-being of young girls and women everywhere. And so we do, there is possibility for change. Unfortunately, the number of women in STEM is falling. Like the women working in these major tech platforms is decreasing, which, again, there's kind of an illusion of progress.

It's not actually being met. And even then, when we've got women working in these platforms, it's structurally still not great. In terms of just because we have women working there doesn't mean that these issues are going to be fixed overnight. Hopefully it would remedy some of the bias that exists. But yeah, I think I'm not, I don't want to say, I'm not hopeful long time, because that sounds really bad.

I'm not hopeful. I did set you up for those. I'm not, I guess for me I found pockets of optimism, and I think that's where I'm clinging to is that, you know, there are moments and every single conversation I had with, women as part of the book was one of them like I say it in my conclusion writing this book has been one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life it was so confronting it was so difficult it was you know times facing these issues just being like I don't know what to do like I can't fix this

what what what like what have I signed myself up for here um speaking about struggles people were going through speaking about how they felt speaking to girls with eating disorders women who'd had, you know, suffered terrible miscarriages and struggles with fertility and how that was impacting their bodies and the way they felt about themselves, you know, people had faced horrendous abuse online. There was those times where I was like, I had just a girl, I don't what to do. I can't, I can't fix this. And then every time I felt like that, I felt it was too big, that it was bigger than me that, you know, maybe this was just a lost cause. I would have another meeting with another woman who decided to give me her time for free in the interest

of sorority and adding to this project. And every one of those conversations was such a lighthouse to have someone sit there and just people shared things with me that they hadn't told anyone before that they were like, I didn't think I'd ever say this out loud or, you know, give myself permission to acknowledge that I felt this way. And I think that was so beautiful. And I talk in the book about, you know, as much as it's a book about the horrors. It's also the horrors of beauty. It's also a book about the beauty of womanhood and there's so much beauty inherent in those bonds. You know, we've talked about the nightclub bathroom and how it feels like the most pure essence of sorority. And when all those barriers come down, when that competitiveness

goes away and everyone's just loving each other and complimenting each other and, you know, checking on everyone to see if they're okay and getting people water and sharing. wearing lipsticks and telling everyone looks, everyone looks amazing. There's moments of that. I talk about sleepovers when you're a young girl and how beautiful and innocent and pure those times are where you're just giving each other silly makeovers and giggling and trying to stay up for as long as possible. And I think trying to return to that state, there's pockets of that and there will be pockets

of that and we can create pockets of that. You know, smile at other women on the street. Don't instantly think of them as your competition. Default to allies over enemies. There's so many things that we can do to create those spaces, to have really honest conversations with each other and create those really beautiful bonds. And, you know, I say in the end, like, being a woman is the most violent thing I'll ever experience, but it's, I wouldn't change it for the world. Like, it's also the most beautiful thing. And I'm so grateful to all the women in it.

And I think that for me is where I have hope for the future. And the more we can break that down, break down the structures that are intent on keeping us apart and keeping us. competitive and keeping us from talking to each other, age old, centuries old forces that have, you know, benefit from that, the stronger we will be. And then the easier it will become to get those opportunities to break down the bigger structural problems. But it starts small and there's something everyone can do. And I think that's optimistic and that feels true to me. Oh, my gosh, you pulled that back. It was going to be very bleaked. Yeah. And I I don't, I think the book, it's important that the book doesn't try and tell, like,

noble lies about where we are. That's the whole point. Like, I, there's so many books about, woo, girl power, girl boss empowered. And the reason I wrote this book is because I was very much in that narrative going, really? I don't feel girl boss empowered right now. And I feel kind of horrendous and insecure. And I, is everyone else feeling really amazing?

And I'm just not. And is that something wrong with me? And then again, these conversations started happening. And I was like, yeah, no, everyone's just doing all the same things slash worse in secret. And yeah, I think it's important to acknowledge these things. I think the only way we're going to make change is by first looking at the ugly sides of this industry and the way we feel and calling them out. And that's the first step. Sometimes you just have to say, this is what we're dealing with.

And then we can figure out how to fix it. but I think acknowledging it and calling it what it is, is the first step. This has been great. Thank you so much. What dates your book out? It's out on the 9th of May. 9th of May. Wherever you buy your books.

Link will be in the show notes. Thank you. Thank you so much for this brilliant conversation. Thank you for having me. It went really fast. Almost does. Did I say anything interesting? A couple of things.

We loved it. Just one or two. It was so great. Thank you so much. No, thank you. Thank you for having me. It was great. Should I delete that is part of the ACAS creator network.