TONTS. - Worth, Weight & Womanhood with Jamila Rizvi

Episode Date: June 14, 2021

This is TONTS. a podcast about feeling all of it. In this episode I chat with author, podcaster, gender advocate and former advisor to Prime Ministers Jamila Rizvi. We talk about coming of age, self esteem and the stories we were told as kids about who we should be. Jam shares openly about her career, her writing, motherhood and how she has dealt with being diagnosed with a brain tumour that completely changed her life.Subscribe here for – tontsnewsletterYou can find me on instagram @clairetonti or at www.clairetonti.comFor more from Jamila Rizvi head to www.jamilarizvi.com.au and listen to her wonderful podcasts The Weekend Briefing and Anonymous was a WomanYou can email me with suggestions for episode topics and guests to [e-mail]. Feel free to leave me a voice memo to be included in the show.A big thank you to this wonderful team:Editing - RAW CollingsTheme Music - Avocado JunkieGraphic Design - Emma HackettPhotography - Anna RobinsonStyling - Hilary Holmes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I have a voice in my head that I affectionately call Maud. Stay with me. Maud is, I think, a bit sexist, overly intrusive and critical. I sometimes wonder where she comes from and I've recently started looking at the stories I absorbed as a kid and what they told me about womanhood, about my worth, my weight and who I should be. This podcast is called Taunts, a show about feeling all of it, about how we see ourselves, our inner critic and our emotions, about the stories we are and were

told and who's been telling them. I'm Claire Taunty and I'm so glad you're here. This week, broadcaster, columnist, gender advocate and former advisor to prime ministers, Jamila Rizvi jumps on the mic to talk about it all. About her love of Spice Girls and what it was like to grow up not seeing women of colour represented on screen. And how far she has come from that teenage girl who thought a job and a boyfriend were the path to making it. Jam's story of how she felt becoming a mum will surprise you. She also speaks openly about the brain tumour diagnosis that has completely changed her life and what it means to be a woman at this time in history.

What I loved about this chat was that it's clear that even the most inspiring intellectual feminist women still have those hang-ups and contradictions. And what a relief it is to know we're not alone. Okay, let's jump in. I am an open book as well. Nothing is, you know, I remember doing a quiz once and it was something like, would you rather be charismatic or mysterious? And I was like, why is that a question? Like everyone wants to be charismatic or mysterious. And I was like, why is that a question?

Like everyone wants to be charismatic. Who wants to be mysterious? I know. I always imagine those women who are mysterious with scarves and look really elegant and walk around saying things like. Dark glasses and they're French. Yes, yes, exactly. And men sort of fall in love with them and then they like vanish

into the night and smoke cigarettes or whatever. Yeah, I was never one of those. Yeah, and they're cool girls, right? Like they're the cool, mysterious, don't sweat the small stuff. Aloof? Yeah. Aloof. And I remember when I first met my husband,

I had a real crack at being one of them and I was actually quite good for a good three months. Playing hard to get. I pulled off cool, mysterious, keep you at a distance. I don't care if you get drunk and hang with your friends. No, do whatever you want. You don't have to spend time with me. And then in about three months I was like, yeah, done with this.

And my poor boyfriend at the time was like, what's happened to you? He used to be so cool. He used to be that trope of the cool girl. Yeah, I know. I used to get told things like, oh, you're just not like those other girls. Oh, that's a big line. That's also such a sexist line. Isn't it?

Cool girl. Men always use that, don't they? As their defining compliment. She's a cool girl. Cool girl is hot. Cool girl is game. Cool girl is fun. Cool girl never gets angry at her man. She only smiles in a chagrin loving manner. Because you had quite traditional ideas in a way of being a woman. Yeah. Growing up. Yeah, I think so. I think my parents had a very traditional relationship, I think so. I think my parents had a very traditional relationship, I think. And so you saw yourself as definitely being a mother. Yeah, I don't think I ever questioned that. It wasn't sort of the main thing I wanted to be.

I wasn't one of those kids who liked playing mummies and babies or anything like that, but it kind of went without saying for me that I was going to have children. And I think I've always felt that way, despite the fact that when I told my mum I was pregnant, she burst into tears and said she just assumed that I was never going to have kids. Was she happy for, was that happy tears? Yeah, she was definitely happy. What have you done with your life? She was definitely happy. I think she was thrilled, but she was more shocked than she was thrilled because she had a picture in her head of me that didn't involve children.

Wow. And what was that picture? I think around that time I had been working in politics and then I had been working in media and both of those were busy, fast-paced, lots of travel, long hours, a lot of responsibility, not a lot of time for people, everything focused on work. And I think she took that to mean I thought those things were more important as opposed to they were the things that were most important to me at that moment. But not necessarily forever.

Yeah. Do you think that the vision of what women were supposed to be or where your life would go was shaped also by the things that you watched as a kid or the stories that you watched? Yeah, absolutely. And the stuff that you absorbed? What did you love? I know that your favourite movie is The Sound of Music.

Yes. And we'll get to that in a minute because I have so many feelings about that, Jule. But what were the things that you watched and absorbed growing up? I think I was just as much shaped by what I didn't watch and absorb as what I did. So I was born in the late 80s, which means I mostly grew up in the 90s, early noughties, I suppose, for teen years. And at that time, there weren't people who looked like me on TV. You didn't really see people of colour. Sometimes you saw like Italian women and I used to get excited about that because it was

kind of like, I thought that was vaguely close to Indian, which it is not. But it was just different, right? And I grew up with an Anglo-Saxon Australian mother and an Indian father. My mum was really diligent and really put a lot of work into making sure my sister and I had diverse and complex role models. She used to like track down the Japanese Barbie at the one shop in Canberra that had it and would go and buy it for us. We never had the blonde haired, blue eyed Barbies and that's all we wanted. So I think she tried really hard and when it came to kind of TV and pop culture, we watched everything, my sister and I,

but my parents on Reflection kind of let us watch a lot of TV. I remember we loved Captain Planet, not because we were very environmentally conscious but because we both liked Guy, who was from Asia. Yeah. Like all of it. Just the continent. The continent of Asia.

Not any specific country, just the whole thing. And then there was Willa who was from New York City. He got the name of his city and she's from the whole of Asia. Anyway. To be fair, Willa is so hot. I really loved Willa. He was cool. He was one of my cartoon crushes.

I have many, including Aladdin. Oh, yeah. Aladdin was ripped under that funny little waistcoat. Yeah, totally. And Eric as well. Yeah. I also watched a lot of Heartbreak High around year five, year six, and I reckon that was the closest I had to like a coming-of-age show because I remember it was before we renovated

our house in Canberra and mum used to look over the island bench into the living room and we had these awful pink and white striped couches. And my sister and I would sit on them and watch Heartbreak High and mum would cook dinner, talk about traditional, and mum would explain things that were happening in Heartbreak High that at 11 or 12 I had a lot of questions about but didn't really understand. There were a lot of like, whoa, what is happening and this is so controversial, which now I think, is it? But at the time it was.

I remember crying when Anita and Drasic broke up. You're your own guy, Dras. You're never going to change. It was a once only thing. No, Drasic, we're finished. I remember being terrified for Katerina when she was dating the teacher who was played by Paul Mercurio from Strictly Ballroom. It was like I loved him so hard.

Proper crash. Proper crash. Way better than Wheeler. Yeah. Or Aladdin. Also because he's an actual human person. That helps. Yeah.

And now he's judging Dancing with the Stars. I know. Exactly. That scene is particularly boring where he comes in and does the dance and Fran's like watching him from the side. I watched that so many times. So good. And the dancing underneath the clothesline in King's Cross

with the like light up Coca-Cola sign. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Just so good. The chemistry. Amazing. It's so funny. My sister and I used to love Strictly Boring and she never understood

why he went for Fran. She was always like, yeah, the blonde girl was, like, so much hotter and a lot cooler. No. Liz was horrible. I know. She was a horrible person. I love that you, like, remember her name's Liz as well.

Yeah. She wore yellow and she always looked a bit like a Tweety bird. Yeah. And she was dancing. And was it Ken in the spa? She sat next to Ken in the spa and they had that whole moment. And he also got to dance with Tina Sparkle, who is Sonia Kruger

who is also on Dancing With The Stars. I think she hosts it. Yes. And we've created the full circle of Australian film and television. And goodness, she's amazing. I loved her in that. I loved her in like a pineapple-y, sequiny-inspired thing and she gets lifted up.

She was just every, Sonia Kruger in that was the woman that I wish that I was, being a nerdy girl who had like a big hand raised all the time in class, but wasn't like the sequined, sparkly, beautiful body of Sonia Kruger. But I wished that I could be that person. Yeah, I think I'd ruled that out. Like I was like, I'm never going to be her. You tapped out early. No point even trying. And so I sort of lowered my standards, my horrible, sexist, gendered, only focused on what people look like standards to Fran who was also stunningly beautiful.

I know. Oh, my God. Because that's the other funny narrative arc, right, in a lot of different pop culture that I watched as a kid where it's the ugly girl or ugly in inverted commas with the glasses or whoever that transforms, you know, which Brickley Borough does really well and then also things like Sabrina. Yes. Yes, you know.

More recently Princess Diaries and She's All That. She's All That. She's All That though. They kind of put some glasses on her and were like, oh, hideous. And some overalls. Oh, no, she's a girl that does things and paints. How unusual. I know.

It's so – but I thought Fel Hook, Lank and Sinker for that stuff. Would you have described yourself as a feminist, you know, from the age of, say, like 5 to 12 or 13? No, I don't think I would have known what that word meant or I would have known it was something from history and I probably would have talked to you about the suffragettes because I really liked Mary Poppins. I'm really getting a picture of you. There's a musical vibe going on. Yes, definitely a musical vibe.

No, I don't think so. I mean, year five and six, maybe even year seven, I talked a lot about girl power. That was some really strong Spice Girls influence. I had everything. Like, I had the impulse body spray. I had everything Spice Girls. Spice Girls is more about music. It's more than about the way we look and what we wear. It's like philosophy. It's a sense of living life. Okay, so what's all this girl power thing?

Girl power is about being individual, being whoever you want to be. Wearing your short skirts, your wonder bras and your make-up. Having something to say as well. I was a big fan. I was in a group of friends where I was the only kid from a culturally diverse background, so they kept trying to make me Scary Spice and everyone wanted to be posh. So that was a hard time for me.

But I think, no, I don't think I would have described myself as a feminist. I genuinely don't think I would have known what that meant. So when, do you remember when you did, when you sort of, did you have like, was it like a light bulb from above? I feel like you suddenly have a halo that's, I'm a feminist now. I think it was really slow. And I actually think I would have got to the wearing of the label, so to speak, really late, like well into university, to be honest. I think I believed in

the principles of feminism pretty young by, I think it was around year 10. Year sort of seven, eight, nine, I was the high school kid who was not popular and really wanted to be. You just, that's all I wanted. I wanted to be cool. And I was not. Yeah, there's nothing more to that sentence. I just wasn't cool. I think you're cool, mate. Thanks, man. Yeah. Late bloomers are the best. That's where they come into their own. Exactly. But I was not.

And then in year nine I got a taste of it because I got a job and I got a boyfriend. And in year nine that's all you needed. You didn't need to be interesting or funny or smart or kind, none of that. You had to have a job and he had to have a boyfriend. I had a boyfriend who was super cool and was captain of all sorts of sporting teams. I actually don't know why he liked me because he was genuinely cool.

And I got a job at Baker's Delight. Whoa. Yeah, so I had made it. I earned $4.95 an hour and more on Saturdays and Sundays. Okay, two things I'm laughing about. One is I also worked at Vegas Delight. What? Did you wear the collage?

I did and the little hat. Yep. No one ever described me as having made it though. When I got a job at Vegas Delight, I did not get a boyfriend. And it is so true that once you get a boyfriend. You're done. You're done. You're made.

That's it. And I think I thought I was cool and I reckon I was. I reckon I was legit cool. We'll have to like poll some of my teenage friends. You absolutely were cool. For maybe six months. And then I just kind of fell off the cool wagon when my boyfriend said he was moving on to greener pastures in an email and started dating a girl who was going to put out

all power to her. But you know, I didn't like her at the time and out. I reckon it was then that I just started doing everything. And that was the year I was like, well, if I'm not going to have that, I'm going to do all the things I love doing. and I don't care if people tease me and I don't care if people don't think I'm cool. And it's when I started doing rocker Stedfords and school yearbooks and plays and sport and everything. And I kind of, I think, found my happy place. And I think that was a form of feminism because that was a letting go of expectations and stereotypes and what the cool boys thought and just going I'm going to do all the stuff I love

and no one's going to stop me. Why do you think that is that you decided to do that after the boyfriend thing? Like do you think that there's something at play there about being chosen by him and thinking that was the end goal of life and then it happening and then realising that maybe there's a lot more out there? Or do you think it was more simple than that? It was just like, boys aren't interested in me now,

so I'm just going to do everything. I don't think it was either. And I think the truth is quite anti-feminist. I think I felt quite validated by having gone out with this cool boy who I had loved since the first week of year seven and that was quite validating and I felt quite powerful and I think it made me feel like I could go after things and even though we weren't together anymore I felt like I'd had a taste of that sort of acceptance and that yeah I don't know I think that actually gave me confidence in a really

warped gross kind of way. Because you'd been kind of chosen. So they had seen something in you, like some kind of creepy agent from New York City. Yeah. I've seen something in you, kid. And so now you're out there doing all the things. Maybe. I have never thought about this in this level of depth. But I, yeah, I think something about it made me feel like I was worthy in some kind of way because it was not like cool boy came

to date me to make me cool. Like I was just me and I think I needed that sense. I needed to be loved like I think a lot of teenage girls do, right? Teenage girls are often looking for love and the problem is for straight kids. Yeah, because this is very true. Who have less of the problems but for straight kids, the problem is that straight boys don Yeah, because this is very. Who have less of the problems, but for straight kids, the problem is that straight boys don't generally look for love at 15. No. Yeah. And

those, what they're looking for and what you're looking for are kind of incompatible. I know. I mean, and this is obviously, yeah, in a hetero context, but completely, that's what's so heartbreaking. I remember, this is so silly. When we went, I went to China on exchange for like a couple of weeks in year 10. And I was there and our guide was so funny and so great and so interesting. And she was in her twenties or something. And she was telling us how she couldn't find a boyfriend. And I genuinely turned to my friend on the trip and was like, why can't Sue find a boyfriend? She's so smart and funny. And my friend was like, Claire, I don't think that's what they're looking for. And it was like someone had dropped a bombshell on me. I was like 16. I mean, honestly, how ridiculous. But it just,

I hadn't really understood that there was this other narrative going on about like, it's not just about how interesting and, you know, great at all the things you are and funny and cool, it's that you have to look a certain aesthetic. You have to look that kind of way. So it kind of breaks my heart for lots of teenage girls, including myself, you know. Yeah, I look back on it all and I kind of think I was pretty fortunate in that I had good boyfriends in high school.

And I'm using the plural like there were a lot. There were two. So I say boyfriends. No, that's a lot. That's true. That's for me. That's a lot. That's good.

But I had good boyfriends, like despite the email breakup. Almost as bad as a post-it. Yeah, almost as bad. That aside, I think I had two really kind, hardworking, good-natured boyfriends when I was at high school who I think I had two really kind, hardworking, good-natured boyfriends when I was at high school who I think somewhere in there did like me for me. Yeah. And I actually think that's quite rare and that is quite life-affirming. That does make you go, I'm a valuable person in the world

and not just because people might want to have sex with me. And I think that is unusual for teenage girls, really sadly unusual. They aren't really lucky in that regard. And I think, yeah, you're absolutely right. I think also you have a very strong sense of self and are really capable. And obviously, like, because you've carried that do everything really well all the time, even into your 30s, you know. I mean, really, mate.

You're one of my most accomplished friends, I have to say. You do a lot. I do a lot. I will not argue with that. I am a doer. I don't know if I am a do-weller. Like I often look at, I think there's a trade-off, right? You can do lots of things kind of good or you can do one

or two things brilliantly. And sometimes, like, I worry I'll never achieve that kind of brilliance because I'm doing too much stuff. But at the same time, I don't want to give anything up because I like doing everything. Well, from the outside, it's so interesting that you say that because I'm sure people looking at your life would think, my goodness, she's so accomplished. She does so much. It's just incredible. And then for you to also have your own, oh, but I worry about me not being brilliant at one particular thing. That's so interesting.

How do you balance it all? Which I guess is the eternal question that people ask women. I have a really strong sense of FOMO, of not wanting to miss out on opportunities. And I keep interrogating where that comes from, because I know it's not about taking every opportunity. I know it's about picking and choosing and making good decisions and it's about what you say no to, not just what you say yes to. But I feel like there's a lot of pressure that's internalised pressure

that comes from being a woman in this point in history and knowing I have choices and opportunities my mum never had and that my grandmothers certainly never had and that my great grandmothers couldn't have dreamed of. And so I sort of feel this sense of obligation to take them all at once and then end up crying. Yeah, but that's just letting off steam. That's letting off the emotional steam and then getting back to doing too much. Yeah, you know, just returning and changing nothing. Yes, exactly. Just lying on the floor and sobbing and then moving along.

Yeah. Yeah. It's fine. It's fine. When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most? When your famous grainy mustard potato salad isn't so famous without the grainy mustard. When the barbecue's lit, but there's nothing to grill. When the in-laws decide that actually

they will stay for dinner. Instacart has all your groceries covered this summer. So download the app and get delivery in as fast as 60 minutes. Plus enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. There's a few things I wanted to talk to you about,

one of which is just, I mean, your books. And for those who don't know, Jamila's written Not Just Lucky, The Motherhood, Untold Resilience, and I'm a Hero Too, which is a children's book, which I loved as well, all about the pandemic and the time that we're living in. Because we are living in extraordinary times. Unprecedented. Un hear. Unprecedented. Oh, my God. All the time. That word. Honestly, I'm sick of living in unprecedented times. Can we just live in precedented times, please?

Is that a word? Precedented? I'm making it a word. I think it should be. Yeah. Surely. Surely it just means stuff that's always happened. Status quo.

Yeah. Yeah? I don't know. Yeah. But what struck me about all of them is that to me, they look like a journey of womanhood, which I wrote down and now looks really naff. But what? Really? Yeah. Okay. So to me in your twenties or for me in my twenties, there's so much buzz about your career and kind of where you're at in that. And I love that book for the

advice that you give women in building their careers. And then The Motherhood explores what it's like to become a mother from lots of different women's perspectives. And gosh, isn't that like a whole thing in itself and difficult. But then Untold Resilience, for me anyway, and I don't know if this rings true for you, I know we're living in a pandemic and the book is about a pandemic, obviously, and not just that but about a whole lot

of different women's stories who have lived through really difficult times before. But I don't know if you've felt this. I feel like my 30s have been a dawning realisation of how fucking hard it is to be a woman. True. And so not that Untold Resilience is just about that at all. And I loved it for the richness of all the women's stories and what you learn from that. It just struck me that I,

that's the arc that I feel like I've gone through from my twenties to now. And then that phrase, I'm a hero too. It's kind of like saying, well, I'm trying to do everything and I'm here during this pandemic and just being a mother and trying to juggle all those things on top of homeschooling, on top of all the other things as well. We're all goddamn heroes. Yeah, indeed. And so, I mean, that's one story. So it's not just like, it's not the collective experience of womanhood, obviously. It just struck me that you can see a journey moving through that. Would you agree or not? I think the reality is not too far from that. You've just made it sound more elegant than what I do. I write books that I wish I'd had just before now. I wrote Not Just Lucky. It was published when I was 31, I think. And I wrote it for me at 27.

Unsure about where my career was going, managing people for the first time, being part of a growing organisation, coming up against that idea of women versus women for senior positions, rather than recognising, actually, we could just try and get more positions, all of us, instead of trying to get a woman spot, calling myself lucky because I didn't want people to hate me when I'd had success. So I wrote that for myself a few years earlier. I wrote the motherhood at 32. I'd had a baby at 30 and I wrote it for me when I had a three month old and I didn't know what to do. And I was sad and may or may not have yelled at my husband. I have ruined my effing life at around day 10. We've all felt that.

It's all right. I've got past that. Best thing I've ever done. Was wrong. Take it back. And then Untold Resilience I wrote during the pandemic because I really wanted to talk to my nan. When the pandemic hit, all I wanted was to talk to my grandmother

who I knew had lived through polio and had lived through tuberculosis and she was sent home from school for six months when she was a teenager to look after her siblings and I wanted someone who'd been there before to tell me this actually isn't unprecedented. Humans have lived through this and harder and this is how you're going to get through. And in her absence found all these other cool old ladies in their 80s and 90s to talk to me.

And then I'm a Hero 2 is the book I needed to read to my kid in the pandemic who was sort of scared and confused by everything that was happening. So I think for me, yes, it's charting womanhood, but it's probably just charting me getting older and doing more stuff because I think I'm very conscious of not wanting to write what I don't know. I like to write from my own experience.

I don't want to try and own someone else's experience or tell someone else what to do. I like to write books that share thoughts and ideas and analysis and experiences that I've had and then kind of put them there for people rather than tell them what to do or tell them what to think, just kind of go, this might help. This would have helped me. And I think the more I write, the more I realise that most of the things I really want to tell my former self

are universal experiences. They are experiences that other people are having as well. Yeah, because it makes you feel seen. Yeah, absolutely and valid. Yeah, and it puts words around experiences that are really huge and deeply, not necessarily always traumatic, but life-changing and life-altering, like becoming a mother or grappling with career. I think I know for a lot of my friends that they haven't necessarily come up against

hurdles in their career in their early 20s until they enter into motherhood. And then it really becomes quite stark what happens from that point on. And so I think the advice in Not Just Lucky is so great for that. But then also knowing that other women are experiencing the same things that you're going through when you're, you know, grappling with motherhood. I know we talked recently about the humiliation that can come along with motherhood. I know we talked recently about the humiliation that can come along with motherhood. I think I felt it in two big bursts. The first was around a week in when everyone left. So my husband had gone back to work. My parents had gone back into state to where they live. My parents-in-law were not around as much. And suddenly it was me alone with a baby

in an apartment and I didn't know what to do. And it was the first time I think I haven't been able to think my way out of a problem because you can't strategically manage a baby. You've just got to go with it. And I've never gone with it my entire life. And so it was the first time I'd done it and I think I felt overwhelmed but also inadequate. Like I think there were real feelings of I'm overwhelmed but also inadequate. Like I think there were real feelings of I'm not up to this.

So that's something to be ashamed of and humiliated by. And I don't know who I was humiliated in front of because there was no one there. But I think that was the first. Yeah, that was the first feeling. I remember one day around, Ruffy would have been about four weeks, five weeks old maybe, and I remember I'd put him on the change table and we had one of those change tables with straps and I strapped him in and he just,

I think I must have caught a tiny little bit of his skin in the strap, no blood or even a scratch but enough to pinch him and for him to cry. He wouldn't stop crying and I was carrying him around the apartment. And after about an hour of it, I just went back to the change table and strapped him back in and just sat on the floor and cried next to the change table because it was just too much. And I just wasn't good at it. And I didn't know how to be good at it. And I also couldn't quit and do something else. I was stuck with it. And I think

that was a moment of humiliation. And then for me, the next one came around four months when I went back to work. And I went back to a workplace where I was used to kind of being the top dog and I was used to being the boss and the one people look to. And I don't think, I think I underestimated how much I'd changed and how much the workplace had changed. And I came back and I had the same pay and I had the same title, but I didn't have the same job. And I don't think I've ever felt so humiliated and ashamed in my life. I just felt like everyone was looking at me and thinking, she kind of can't do it anymore. She can't hack it.

She's got a baby. She's not up to it. And everyone knows that. That's why she doesn't have the same responsibilities. And it was, yeah, humiliated is exactly the right word. Yeah, it was completely humiliated. Sorry that happened to you. Oh, thank you. I think it's unfortunately very normal. And if anything, I'm probably on the easier end of the spectrum. Like women experience so much worse when it comes to pregnancy discrimination and return to work and the circumstances of how they're paid and how they're valued at work and losing jobs,

being sacked on maternity leave. So I think it's not unusual but that doesn't mean it didn't really, it really knocked my confidence and I would say it rattled my confidence for a good couple of years. Yeah, I think even if, like it's like with the pandemic, right? Everyone's experiencing difficulties at different degrees. And just because your experience isn't at the end of the spectrum, it doesn't mean it's not valid. Yeah. And I think that idea of humiliation is shared, I hope, by a lot of women. Not that I hope other women are humiliated.

No, take it back. No, but just that it makes you feel less alone because that's what shocked me. I felt physically humiliated when I gave birth as well. Yeah, right. Just, I had gone in with these lofty notions of one with the universe and my body will do what it needs to do and I'll be an earth mother. And instead it was much more like, this is terrifying. And now my body's like, it's just people everywhere. And it was a lot. And then breastfeeding and all of that stuff, you become, you start being this kind of autonomous

person who has power over themselves and their world if you're lucky enough to. And then you have a baby and suddenly it's not just about you anymore and your choices. You don't have the same kind of options necessarily. And it does, it's amazing and wonderful. And I know how lucky I am as well to have the kids that I do. It's not that I regret it. It's just, it was an experience of being humiliated and then feeling like you can't do all the things that you used to be able to do, which I know you've shared as well with your illness, which is like completely on another level. I just, I can't even begin to understand how you've kind of kept going through all of this and through the pandemic and everything with what you're living through. I don't think there's much

of an alternative, or at least the alternative is not attractive to me. It's not something I want to do. So I was diagnosed with a brain tumour back in the end of 2017 and had a couple of brain surgeries and radiation therapy and now live with a whole giant basket collection of disabilities which I'm still kind of adjusting to and accepting and learning and trying to get medications right and balances right and all this hoo-ha. So it certainly feels like it's something that's still happening

rather than something that happened to me. One of the questions I really struggle with is when people say, are you better now? And I genuinely get very stumped and then create this false binary between, well, the brain tumour's not growing, so yes, but I'm dealing with all the consequences of having stopped it growing, which are enormous and ongoing and ever-changing, so no. And most people go, oh, yeah, but the tumour's not growing.

I find that hard, kind of communicate. But in terms of sort of work and doing things, parenting and, I don't know, wifing. Wifing around, yeah. Just wifing around. Being a good friend and hopefully a vaguely good sister and daughter and things like that. The alternative is not doing that. And most people who have the kind of brain tumour I have

never work full-time again. Most don't work again. I should say many don't work again. I think it's about half. A lot of them have to live with parents or live with full-time again. Most don't work again. I should say many don't work again. I think it's about half. A lot of them have to live with parents or live with full-time carers. Many can't exercise. Many can't live independently and have so much liberty and freedom stolen from them. And as much as I am furious and frustrated by what's happened to me, and I would take it back in a heartbeat. I know that I am really fortunate in terms of what could have happened. Once the tumour is a given, I am in the 1% mostly because I'm a moderately well-off Australian

who had access to healthcare and doctors who have been better trained than anyone else in the world. So there's a lot to hate and a lot to be angry about, but there's also, I think, a lot of privilege and a lot of good luck. I don't live the same life I used to, but I live some proximate version of it, which is pretty good. Pretty good life. Yeah, it really is. It really is.

And I think I've also been really lucky in that, like, if I was, if I'd been a building labourer or if I had been a hairdresser or if I had been a cafe manager, someone who was on their feet all day or had to a really physical job, if I'd been a tennis player, I wanted to be a tennis player when I was 11 years old, I've lost my peripheral vision. All of those jobs would not be possible with the body I have now. They would be impossible because my body wouldn't hack it. But I've been able to kind of adapt what I do to who I am now, which means that a lot of the time I write in bed and a lot of the time I say no to events in person and I do them online. A lot of the time I avoid television because of how my body's changed

and I do more writing or radio. So, yeah, I think my job has been adaptable, which is a really lucky circumstance. I wanted to ask how do you feel about the way women are perceived now or how you perceive yourself in terms of body image and that kind of trajectory in your life? Wow, what a question. I think I was always a kind of ordinary looking kid, if that makes sense.

I was never a pretty child. I was never an objectively unattractive child. I was just kind of in the middle kind of kid. And I think I was that most of my primary school and high school times. I think I had some fleeting moments of attractiveness and some periods of great sadness mostly brought about by fashion choices and puberty. It's so fun to look back on.

Yeah, well, is it? Is it? Yeah, my husband James brought a photo, took a photo of me from Mum's house and showed you guys. Did he show you? He did, yeah. It's all right. I have a photo of me in crushed velvet, you know. Lovely. I love it. I love it. So I think as a kid, that wasn't where

my power came from, which I think as a child is really helpful because it means you find your power in other ways. You find your power from being kind or funny or clever or artistic or whatever it might be, but you have to go looking for power elsewhere. And I think for some people, if you're super duper attractive as a kid, you get a kind of easy run, but you get an easy run off the back of something that isn't going to last. So what do you do when that goes away? And I think I was someone who kind of, by kind of 25, I'd sort of grown into my own face, my own body. And I kind of, I think I looked more conventionally attractive by that age. And I think I really enjoyed that for a little while. And then becoming a mum and getting a brain tumour and

that changes your body and how you look and your perception of how you look so drastically. I have found that readjustment quite hard, I think. So I think body image is something that I am, it is a work in progress. I would not be sitting here writing the book about that yet because I ain't got anything good to say. Isn't that so interesting? Where do you think it comes from? The value that we place on that perfect body, that perfect image. Well, I mean, at a completely macro level, it comes from patriarchy, right? It comes from a view of women as useful for two things only. One was being attractive and being sexually useful to men. And the second is procreating and having children. Now, I can't do the second one anymore. I don't, I'm not trying to put this up for debate.

To my own mind, the first one doesn't apply anymore. So in a world that I'm not trying to put this up for debate. To my own mind, the first one doesn't apply anymore. So in a world that I'm not putting it up for debate. It's a start to it. Anyway, continue. In a world that says that's what a woman should be and that's what makes a woman useful. And I like to think that's changing a little bit, but it still underlies everything we do where men get to be successful

and useful and productive contributors in so many ways, whereas women are generally reduced to those two things, or at least have been historically. It's really hard, I think, to find your self-worth when you don't have a belief in one of those things being true. I think that becomes very, very difficult. And that flows down through all aspects of our society, right? In the way teenage boys talk about who's hot, in the way magazines tell us we're supposed to look, in the way teenagers are Photoshopping teenagers. Everyone's Photoshopping their Instagram to use filters and cropping

and all the rest to make themselves look as good as possible. The fact that a Kardashian sister can literally clear the internet of one image of her that is not perfectly photoshopped because it would be too hideous to deal with the reality of just looking kind of hot but not super hot in the world. I think that, you know, that reaches us in so many ways and we've talked a bit about film and television and media and things like that. You know, I think about the movies that my little boy watches and I work really hard to make sure they are inclusive and body positive, but he loves Frozen, right? Which is great for a little boy

to love a movie that is essentially about two women. But every time Elsa gets hot when she gets powerful and she's walking around with a waist that is absurd for the size of her body and she's suddenly wearing a perfect sparkly dress and all her hair comes down and she looks like a sex kitten and that's when she gets powerful. Like that movie's for five-year-olds. What are we telling kids? Those messages are hard to escape. Yeah, and that's sold as one of the good ones.

Yeah, exactly. That's one of the good ones. It's one of the best ones. I know. It's one of the best ones. I know. And, I mean, I think like you were saying before, we've kind of grown up on a diet of those kind of animations,

those princess stories, the princesses with the big eyes and the tiny waist getting saved by the boy and that validation and all I wanted when I was growing up was to look like that, if I'm honest, and that's not how I see body image now, but it was when I was growing up and I never, my body would never do that. It didn't matter how much I didn't eat or I exercised. I just don't have a frame that has that tiny, tiny waist. And I think as sad as it is, and we're two intelligent women sitting here, it's still

quite a deep seated feeling. It's huge. I mean, I know Glennon Doyle, who I love her writing, she talks about the same thing. You know, you can have so many ideas about patriarchy and feminism and equality, but that narrative still underpins a lot of what we do. And I just wonder if we'll be able to unpick it. Because when you speak to like, I don't know when you speak to your partner, but speaking to my partner, women are much harsher on other women sometimes, I think, and we're harsher to ourselves than we would be to our friends. And I think sometimes we have these exacting standards. I actually don't think all men hold us to in the same way. Would you agree with that?

Maybe. I think internalised misogyny is really strong, but I think externalised misogyny is pretty strong too. So I think men still live in a world where those standards of what is considered beautiful apply. I don't think men experience that kind of pressure themselves, though the data kind of tells us that kids younger than us, like the next generation's boys, are feeling that body image pressure in a far more extreme way than they used to. But I do think your reflection on the diet of television and movies that we were brought up on does have a role to play. I think Disney's got a lot to answer for, right?

Like if I go through the main movies that sort of defined my childhood childhood, it was The Little Mermaid who had to literally sell her voice to get some legs and marry the prince. She literally leaves her entire family, changes her entire identity and loses her voice. Yeah, and can never communicate or be a being who is autonomous ever again. And as strange as it was that Meghan Markle talked about that with Oprah in her interview, like with that whole analogy

of the princess losing her voice. Yeah, it's crazy. It seems so obvious but it wasn't obvious when I was a kid. No, I thought it was beautiful. I used to see Kiss the Girl. Apparently in the movie theatre I used to yell at the screen and say, you have to kiss her, you're running out of time, at age four or something. You know, we had that and then what do we get next?

We get Beauty and the Beast. Okay, yeah, sure. She's celebrated because Belle likes books and she wants a library. Who wouldn't want that damn library, right? But at the same time she decides to stay with her aggressive, violent captor. I mean it is a story of domestic abuse and kidnapping. Like it is messed up.

And then we get told that she stayed with him out of love. She hasn't stayed with him out of love. She hasn't stayed with him out of love. She stayed with him because he is financially, physically, mentally and emotionally abusing her after kidnapping her. It's not an okay story. And then Aladdin is just a story of subterfuge where he just lies to Jasmine in order to get her and then she is used as an object in war by Jafar.

So she is, again, goes from being controlled by her father to being controlled by an aggressor to being controlled by Aladdin, who is apparently the hero but actually is just a lying asshole with good abs. And then you get to the Lion King and Nala has to play second best the whole time because she's only going to get anywhere because she's going to get married to Simba. He just bails, bails on the whole country, all the lionesses,

all the animals, just leaves and goes off to the other jungle where things are nice and sings a kuna matata and they're all starving and living with the hyenas and Scar and then comes back to save the day after Nala's been taking care of business for however many years. Like we were raised on not good stuff, Claire. Just trash my whole childhood. It is so true, though, and once you start watching stuff like this, you can't unsee it.

And it's so depressing, Jamila. It's so depressing because I also love those things. Oh, yeah, and I'm showing them to my child and singing the songs. I know. The lighting's amazing. Except Terrence Problematic, like I know, his poor mother. It's ridiculous. They just get bullshit roles.

And they're animals. Yeah. They could be anything. Yeah, I know. It's so ridiculous. Don't get me on how it's also homophobic and racist. Oh, my gosh. I know.

All the Disney villains and how they're that kind of stereotypical. They're all slightly effeminate men. Yeah. Yeah. I know. But also villainous. I know. My brother gets so cross about that and I agree.

Anyway. We are almost done. But on this note, you love The Sound of Music. Also problematic. So problematic. It is so problematic. Good in that Liesl doesn't marry a Nazi. Yeah, good.

That's good. Good Liesl, good, good, good. It's good that the hottest scene is when Captain Von Trapp comes home from his honeymoon and rips down the Nazi flag and pulls it in half. That's a good moment. Am I sensing he really liked Captain Von Trapp? Oh, yeah, he's really hot. I'm quite sad that he's dead now.

However, problematic. I admit, anything old is problematic. Yeah, this is true. And written by two old, like, white blokes as well because that's the other part of it that there's just, we haven't even really touched on, not even just how women are portrayed but people of colour are portrayed and the lack of diversity on screen in so much of what we watch

and read and listen to, and particularly as kids. Actually, will I ask you that? I will. I have sex. Sex. I have sex. Good. No, 16 going on 17.

I was going to read this for you. Oh, God. Yeah, I know. And then I want to just, have you read it recently? Have you thought about the lyrics? I haven't read it but I know it off by heart, so. All right. Okay.

Okay. So, okay, here we go. Then I'll do your test. What's the first line? What does Friedrich say? Do you remember? Maybe I don't know. It's not Friedrich.

Isn't it Friedrich? No, Friedrich's her brother. Oh. What's his name? Liesel and? Rolf. Rolf. Oh, Rolf.

Friedrich's the eldest brother. How did I get that wrong? I've been living all these years thinking his name was Friedrich. No, that's okay. Rolf's the bad guy. Oh, my God. Okay, you really have shown me up. This is terrible.

It's a terrible start. Okay, well, I'm going to read the first line. Maybe you can do the second line. Okay. You wait, little girl, on an empty stage for fate to turn the light on. Your life, little girl, is an empty page that men will want to write on. Yeah. What the F is that, Jan?

But, you know, giving, I mean, he's a Nazi, right? This is a song by the bad guy. But is he a Nazi at that point though? He's got Nazi tendencies. Okay. He's like leaning. He's leaning on the Nazi. He's leaning Nazi. Towards the Nazi. All right. Okay. He's like leaning. He's leaning on the Nazi. He's leaning Nazi.

Towards the Nazi. All right. Okay. And Lee's also sassy. She is sassy. Like in the house she's sassy and smart, kind of cool. And then she gets out there and she's like. She wants to be loved, right?

That's what we talked about before. We talked about teenage girls just wanting to be loved and teenage boys just wanting to have sex and be Nazis. It's a tale as old as time. And that is what we've learned from this show. If nothing else, all teenage boys want to have sex and be Nazis. Cool. Can I put that on a T-shirt?

I'm going to get in so much trouble for that. I know. And hashtag not all boys. But Rolf. Some. Not Friedrich. That one. That one, exactly.

All right, here we go. You are 16 going on 17. Baby, it's time to think. This is Rolf, by the way. Yeah. Better beware, be canny and careful. Baby, you're on the brink. Yeah.

What's she on the brink of? Womanhood? I guess so. Yeah. Yeah, because dangerous ones, you're a woman. Like a real one. Legitimately, it is true because men will want to write on your page. Yeah, exactly.

And I kind of thought that was hot. Like I liked that idea of men writing on my page. And now it's so problematic. I loved that scene in the greenhouse, the glass rotunda. I was going to say carousel, but, yeah, it's like a rotunda. It's a rotunda and they're dancing around and getting wet and muddy. Like it's a hot scene. Oh, my God. I've been to that too. Rest of but, yeah, it's like a rotunda. It's a rotunda and they're dancing around and getting wet and muddy. Like it's a hot scene. Oh, my God.

I've been to that too. Rest of it. Yeah, it's so good. I actually went to the one in Salzburg. Did. Jumped over the benches. Never thought about the feminist undertones, terrible sexist undertones of the whole thing.

It was really fun. You are 16 going on 17. Fellows will fall in line. Eager young lads and rogues and cads will offer you food and wine. I'd be all right with that. Yeah. Me too. Have a burger and a beer.

Yeah, and, like, everyone loves a bad boy. Yeah, bring it on, rogues and cads. Exactly. I'm all for it. Lovely. Totally unprepared are you to face a world of men. Were you unprepared for the world of men? I feel like I was actually.

I think I was. No, but I actually that line alone I don't have a problem with at all because it was a man's world, still is. You know, like I think of myself at 16 going on 17. By 19 I was working at Parliament House in Canberra and that was a world of men and I felt like a kid in a world of men. Wow. And I did feel like, what is she, naive and?

Yeah, timid and shy and scared. I didn't feel that. No. I knew I was naive. She does say she's naive, yeah, and sweet, naive and sweet. Would you be? I can't. Naive and sweet.

Or just naive. Just naive. None of the other things. Maybe a little bit timid sometimes. Yeah. Would you have been okay with it? Did they offer you a lot of food and wine in the world of men in Parliament House? Yes, mostly wine.

Did that help? I feel like that would help. Or make it worse, actually. Yeah, probably made it worse. I really appreciated the story you shared, actually, at the Women's March about your time at Parliament House. You know, that was a moment when I look back, that was sexual harassment, no question. But I didn't think of it that way at the time. It was this moment where I was made to look very awkward and silly because of the sort of sexual innuendo of a much more senior man in

front of other people. And I remember going back to my room that night and just being mortified. And no part of me was thinking, oh, why did he say that? Why did he do that? What an arsehole. I was just thinking, oh, I should have said this or I could have said this. Why wasn't I cooler? Why wasn't I quick? Why didn't I get it?

Why did I, you know? I was totally unprepared. I was. For the world of men. I shouldn't be laughing. It was a terrible moment for you. I'm sorry. Anyway, shall we go back to this instead?

The world of sound and music. Timid and shine scare to you if things beyond your can. You need someone older and wiser telling you what to do. I am 17 going on 18. I'll take care of you. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think?

Sounds like controlling behaviour, doesn't it? Sounds slightly abusive really, doesn of you. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think? It sounds like controlling behaviour, doesn't it? It sounds slightly abusive really, doesn't it? Yeah. I can see him being the kind of man that says, I need to be able to oversee all of your bank accounts. That kind of guy. How much did those shoes cost? Yeah.

That kind of, yeah. It's not great. I mean, he does become a Nazi, so it's probably not even the worst thing he does. But he's not doing that well, old Rolf. I'm 16 going of 17. I know that I'm naive. Fellows I meet, so this is Liesl singing now, side note. Fellows I meet will tell me I'm sweet and willingly I believe.

Did you believe everything men said to you when you were that age? Yeah, I think I did. Yeah. At 16? Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I was quite a trusting, naive kid. I think I grew up in a small city that was more like a town and it was a very privileged existence. And I had a very stable family who didn't talk a lot about potential bad behaviour that I might witness or be the victim of.

We should have talked about that stuff. The closest we ever got was that when I was about 15, my dad said to me, you're going to be going to parties and going out at night sometimes now because I was allowed to go to parties till 10 o'clock, all this kind of stuff. And he said, no matter where you are and no matter what you've done and no matter how old you are, you need me to come and get you. You call and I will come and get you and I will not ask any questions till the next morning. And then you'll be in big trouble.

But, and I used that once. Wow. Yeah. I used that once when I was 16 and I was at a party with a friend of mine and all these like like it was sort of an acquaintances party. You know how at school you're like someone in another school is having a party, we'll go. They were always the dodgiest ones. So dodgy. And you don't know that many people there and someone's parents are away or something and you enter through the back gate.

You've got it, you've got it. And there were some older guys there, they would have been maybe 18. But they were not at school. And I remember being in a room at one point with my friend and these two guys and just going, this is not a good idea, and sneaking out to go to the bathroom and calling my dad and saying, come and get us. What a good job, your dad.

It was a good job. I mean, I wish he'd just been a little bit more up front and be like, this is all the shit that might go down. The world of men out there, mate. Let me tell you about the world of men. Yeah, exactly. I'll sing you a song and run you around. Let me tell you about the world of men. Yeah, exactly. I'll sing you a song and run you around to like a whatever, a retunda thing.

Yeah, it is scary, isn't it? And that whole idea of parenting teenagers. So full on. Really very scared about that. Yeah. I am scared about a time when I can't fix everything for my kid. And at the moment I can fix everything. Yeah, little kids, little problems, big kids, bigger problems.

Yeah. Yeah, correct. Well, I'm 16 going on 17, innocent as a rose, bachelor dandies, drinkers of brandies, what do I know of those? So totally unprepared am I to face a world of men, timid and shy and scared am I of things you and I can. I need someone older and wiser telling me what to do. You are 17 going on 18.

I'll depend on you. Great. So her life ambition is to depend on a man. That's great. It was of the time. And this is what, this is the conversation that I have with my kid all the time when we watch things that are not of this era and are not totally woke,

some of which were made in the, like, noughties. Or even, like, very recently. I don't think you have to ban that stuff. I think you need to have conversations about that stuff and you need to be smart about it. And I think you need to be able to engage with what happened and what our history was and reckon with it. I don't think you want to erase it, but I think you want to reckon with it. I think we can do better as a community at talking about things

that are no longer appropriate. Rather than cancelling things, like, well, we just won't watch The Sound of Music anymore. And I think there's a difference between cancelling and, say, the removal of statues that are tributes to leaders of the past who were murderers. You know, just recently we've renamed one of the electorates in Victoria, one of the federal electorates,

that was named after a colonialist who killed hundreds of Aboriginal people. And it's a really good thing we renamed that electorate. We didn't erase that person's name from the history books. No. Because the history is important. The story is important. That's how you learn from it.

Because then you have the conversation. Yeah. And like we're having this conversation about a song that is silly but also you're having a conversation about a time and the lens and the environment of that particular decade. You've said that much more succinctly than me. That's what I try and do with my kid. He hates it.

I'm a big one for pausing television and pausing movies for a lesson. Or reading a book and talking about why we would say that, like what's the point of, for example, calling that character fat? Is that necessary? Have we described other characters as skinny? No, we haven't. We've just said that to paint a negative picture of someone. And that word is unnecessary in that context. Kind of having conversations that I think are important with

my son about what women were and weren't allowed to do, what people of colour were and weren't allowed to do, talking about who's not in the story as well as who's in it. For me, that's a really critical part of parenting. I think I would say more broadly it's a really vital part of how we move forward really as a whole culture and as a society. But I do. No, I agree. I agree. We're getting silly about it but it's so true.

We've got to be able to have these conversations and we've got to be able to have these conversations in a way where we don't just scream at each other. And I find that hard myself because I have been on television panels where someone has made me deeply angry and I have gotten really frustrated and struggled to be articulate, but I think we have to find a way to be because you don't get anywhere without convincing people, and I don't think anyone gets convinced by being made to feel small or stupid.

Yeah, absolutely. Or just cancelling them and saying, well, you just don't belong here now. We don't want to talk to you about this. You're just not listening. You don't understand. The angrier we get and the more defensive that just mirrors, you know, our own emotions. And absolutely right, the more we can listen to each other

and pause the telly and have a rich discussion and then continue watching and still enjoying our old favourites. Well, thank you, Jams, so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it. Oh, I would do it every day if I was invited. Okay, careful. All right, you've been listening to Tons, a podcast with me, Claire Tonti,

and this week, Jamila Rizvi. You can find more from Jamila in her role at Future Women on her podcast, Anonymous Was a Woman, and all her books and links to her columns can be found at jamilarizvi.com.au. I would so recommend going to check her out on Instagram too. She's a bloody joy. And I have a bit of a favour. The best way

for me to keep making this show is if right in your app right now, you can subscribe, rate and review. And if you think of someone who would resonate with our chat, I'd love you to share it with them. It will just make my day. Thanks for stopping by. And I can't wait to talk to you again next week. Episodes will drop every Tuesday. Lots of love to you. And as always, a massive thank you to Raw Collings for editing this week's show and to Avocado Junkie for our theme music. For more from me, you can follow me at Claire Totty on Instagram. I have a newsletter that comes out on every Friday,

the download for my brain and some recommendations. So you can subscribe at the link in the show notes to that. And I also have a podcast with my husband, James Clement called Suggestible that drops every Thursday. I would love you to go and listen to that too. All right. That's enough from me till next week. See ya. What's better than a well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue?

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