TRIGGERnometry - Dr Joanna Williams on Feminism, #MeToo & the Gender Pay Gap

Episode Date: June 11, 2018

Dr Joanna Williams, author of Women vs. Feminism, discusses modern feminism, #MeToo, the gender pay gap and free speech with the guys at TRIGGERnometry. Find us on Social Media: https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod About TRIGGERnometry: Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@failinghuman) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, the culture war, feminism, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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All Free Clear uses only essential ingredients. that tackle tough stains and odors. And it's gentle on the skin. It's a powerful clean you can feel good about. So go on. Pick up a bottle of all free clear for your next laundry day. Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster.

I'm Constance and Kisson. And this is the show for you. If you're bored of people arguing on the internet over subjects, they know nothing about it. Trigonometry, we don't pretend to be the experts. We ask the experts. Here at the world famous Angel Comedy Club, amazing expert guest this week is Dr. Joanna Williams, who's the author of Women versus

Feminism and the Associate Editor of Spike magazine. Dr. Joanna Williams, welcome to Trigonometry. Thank you for having me. Well, thank you so much for coming in. Well, you're the author of Women versus Feminism. Let's just get straight into that. I'm assuming that partly in writing that you've had to define the word feminism. Yes. And what is your definition? Well, I'm not one with reluctance. I'm not one, which I guess in and of itself is a controversial thing to say as a woman. I think it's often assumed, particularly if you're a educated woman, that you automatically will be a feminist. When I say that I'm not a feminist, I think people think that that means that I'm all for

women kind of staying at home in the kitchen, having children, which is completely the opposite of what I think. I think women should be out there in the world, making an impact on society, preferably changing the world as they go along. But I think we don't need feminism to do that anymore. And I think it's got to the point where feminism is really holding women back because the feminism that seems to be described as fourth wave feminism or intersectional feminism, but I think is actually the feminism that fills guardian columns, fills school assemblies on everyday sexism,

just seems to be absolutely determined to tell women that they're victims that they're disadvantaged, that they're oppressed, in a way that just doesn't match up with the reality of, certainly of my existence and of all the women who I know, it doesn't match up with the reality of their existence. And I don't think women are victims today. So that's why I wouldn't call myself a feminist. So before we dig into that,

how have you come to the place that you are now to have these views to be the person they are? What's been your journey through life? So I guess when I was much younger, I would have described myself as a feminist. Certainly I was brought up to be a feminist and I was brought up to be very left wing. I'm from Middlesbrough in the north-east of England. I grew up as a child thinking that Margaret Thatcher was the worst person who'd ever walked on this earth and was entirely responsible for all the industry in Middlesbrough coming to an end.

and people who I knew being put out of work. So that's very much my kind of political background. But then I think I began to think about things a lot more critically, and I think feminism changed, and left-wing politics has changed over the course of the past 20, 30 years. And I think some of the things that I believed in 20, 30 years ago, like free speech, like the fact that women are strong and powerful and can do what they want,

those ideas seem to have been abandoned by the political left, and they seem to have been abandoned by feminism. So that's why I no longer really associate myself with those ideas. That's why I wanted, sorry, friends, that's why I wanted to dig into the definition of feminism, because my understanding of feminism, I think, was what you were talking about, which is it's the idea that men and women are and should be equal, right? But there seems to be more to that now. So what do you see as the third or fourth way feminism that you are reacting against? How would you define that?

Yeah, I think that's a really great question. So I think there's two ways of looking at it. I think you're absolutely right. And I've lost track of how many times over the past couple of years. People have told me, oh, go and get a dictionary. Look up feminism and a dictionary, and you'll see that all it means is that men and women are equal, as if this is the most kind of benign and innocent statement in the world. And of course, if that was all that feminism meant,

then yes, we would all be feminist, as the old saying goes. But I think it comes with so much more baggage nowadays. And I think the position of women in society has changed. So, I mean, just a few kind of facts and statistics to back that up. I mean, girls are doing so much better at school than boys nowadays. And I know this is quite widely known, but I think what's less well known is just how long this has been going on for. So more women than men have been going to university for over quarter of a century now.

Over 25 years, we've had more women than men going to university. And as a result, then, you've got more women entering the professions, more women taking top jobs. You've got more women than men working as accountants, as vets, as doctors, as lawyers. And because of this, women are earning more than ever before. as well. So particularly for women under the age of 40, the pay gap is absolutely negligible. I mean, the hour, if you compare hourly rates of pay, the median pay gap is under 2%. So, I mean, it's really negligible. So women's lives have changed. But what feminism does in order to keep

going is it can't ever admit victory. It can't ever say, yeah, guys, you're right. You know, we've got equality or we was near as dammit got equality. Instead, what it does is it digs up more and more obscure areas of inequality. So it looks further to try and find areas where you can justifiably claim that women are still oppressed. So it shifts away from what's going on in reality, jobs and work and it moves into culture and it moves into what I think is looking at men's kind of bad behaviour which a lot of the time isn't even that bad as far as I'm concerned so I'm sure you'll have heard this time last week a professor from King's College London made the terrible terrible mistake of getting into a lift at a conference in San Francisco and asking for the ladies lingerie floor

and this has made news headlines around the world for a week, which is absolutely bizarre that this should be the case. I mean, as comedians, it wasn't the best joke, but the idea that this is somehow an expression of the press of patriarchy might be taken a little bit more. Exactly. So it just seems like feminism has gone in this really bizarre direction where jokes and speech and whistling and winking.

Apparently, I think it's 36% of 18 to 24-year-old women think that winking and whistling is a form of sexual harassment. And I kind of think it's really sad that they've been taught to think that way. Wouldn't you say that there is definitely, feminism definitely should still exist when you think of what is happening globally, for instance, issues such as FGM, for the fact that in certain countries women aren't allowed to vote or they're not allowed to drive, you know,

they still live under a rigid patriarchy. Surely doesn't that mean that we should still have feminism? Well, I think you're absolutely right that. The position of women and men around the world in different countries around the world is very, very different. Actually, I think feminism is far too deferential towards Islam as a religion. And you see very few feminist campaigns which actually challenge some of the patriarchal assumptions of Islam, particularly in countries where Islam is the dominant religion. And I think if the feminists really were looking for areas of inequality,

gender inequality to expose, then they could certainly go a lot further and deeper in looking at what is going on in other countries around the world. But it seems to me that particularly in this country, what you have is incredibly privileged women, women who are presenters at the BBC, for example, women whose salaries look like telephone numbers, who are able to make front-page news stories out of how terrible their lives are.

And, you know, I'm not naive. I certainly don't think that all women, even in this country, are doing fantastically well nowadays and everything's so super brilliant and we just want to put a smile on our face and say, hey, everything's wonderful. You know, I do think there's some women who don't have it so well. But I actually think that those women have far more. in common with men who are in the same position and are much better off fighting for their rights

for better pay, better housing, better childcare alongside men who they live with, who they work with. So for example, one area in society where there is absolutely zero gender pay gap is for people who are earning the minimum wage because if you are in a job that pays the minimum wage, it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman, you both get paid the minimum wage. wage. So those people who are on minimum wage jobs are much better off working alongside each other to fight from higher wages than the women are aligning themselves with BBC presenters, CEOs of Futsi 100 companies in kind of saying this is a specifically an issue that specifically affects women. Now you were saying about just do you think talking about Islam and the patriarchal

attitudes of certain Islamic countries. Do you think that certainly the modern feminist movement is essentially targeting easy targets instead of going for certain issues that they know would be divisive and potentially controversial? I think there's some truth in that, but I think the problem is, I think, and this is going to sound really controversial, but I think feminism nowadays is both an elitist preoccupation and it's self-obsessed. There's a real degree of narcissism. So if you look at like the me too movement, this is all about saying me too, you know, I'm a victim too. Bad things have happened to me as well. And it's about putting themselves in the center of the story.

The narrative becomes their own victimhood. So rather than looking abroad or even in this country to looking at other women who are maybe more disadvantaged than them, this is about us. This is about how disadvantaged I am and there's a real streak of narcissism of making themselves and their own victimhood the centre of the story. Let me put a counter argument to that because I mean it did seem to me that certainly the Me Too Movement at points went too far. A good example is a comedian called Aziz Ansari who you probably remember got into trouble for what seemed to be like a consensual a bad day. Bad day, right. And then the conversations seem to go well bad dates are also a form of Anyway, but it did seem to me, certainly, that there were people who ended up being exposed

as a result of the Me Too Movement, who were absolutely vile, despicable human beings, who were abusing their power, who were taking advantage of women and men, but predominantly women. Why are you critical of a movement that has allowed a lot of people, although I get what you're saying, it allowed a lot of people to go, yes, me too, and maybe their experiences were as bad as someone who might be a victim of Harvey Weinstein or whatever. But it was a movement that exposed a lot of bad behavior, terrible behavior, and it allowed a lot of people to have validation that something they were unable to speak about up to that point they now were able to speak about.

Why are you critical? Well, you say it exposed as if this has been, as if these people have been proven, are found guilty. and I actually think I'm sure, again, I'm not naive, I'm sure bad things have happened and I'm sure people like Harvey Weinstein have no doubt behaved incredibly badly, if not illegally, in the past. But they need to be tried in courts of law. They need to be found guilty in a court of law, punished and sentenced appropriately for what

they've done. And the problem with the Me Too movement is it shifts the debate away from a court of law and it takes it on to social media. So these become Twitter campaigns and Facebook campaigns. And what you have then is allegation, counter-alligation. You get all kinds of blurring of different experiences, all put into the mix together, all contributing to this narrative that to be female today

is to be quite uniquely oppressed and abused. And meanwhile, the likes of Harvey Weinstein are just, as one among many. And I think they actually get let off the hook. You know, they need to be taken to court, and we need to see these allegations tested. Well, actually, why is he not been prosecuted? I don't know.

Any of these people who've got in trouble, apparently, based on allegations, justifiably. So why have none of them been prosecuted? They're sex addicts, mate. Have a bit of respect. All right? It's a mental on this. France is speaking up for the sex-adding civil words.

It doesn't help with this voice, does it? No, no. He's got the wrong accent for that. Why haven't they been possible? Well, I think somebody like Harvey Weinstein, I think there probably are proceedings underway, and I'm sure we'll no doubt see him in court before too long. But I think the problem with the movement, like I said,

it does drag in a lot of other people. So you mentioned Aziz Ansari, where there are simply no, there's nothing about that story that could stand up in a court of law. There is nothing that he did that was in any way illegal. So you just get this kind of general sense of yuckiness. This was not a nice thing that happened to this woman. And you have men, and I'm not somebody who generally goes around saying,

let's feel sorry for men. I've got no time whatsoever for the men's rights movement. But you do have men who've had their judgment. jobs lost, reputations shattered on allegations rather than actually having been found guilty of any particular crime. I mean, I think there's been a huge shift, and I think if you go back 20 years ago and more, you know, women were routinely not believed. Women could take stories and did take stories to the police, or not even stories,

took accusations to the police and were not believed and justice didn't operate in their favour. And I think that's terrible and that's not a time that I have any desire to return to. But I think the pendulum has swung so far the other way now that we have this assumption that women should always be believed that women who make accusations of sexual harassment or sexual assault never lie. And actually, I think that's just as unhelpful as saying women should never be believed. So I'm a woman and I'm quite capable of lying. I do tell lies. Women are better at it.

Tires to time. Actually, I'm not very good at him. But it doesn't stop me from trying over now and again. But I think if we have this assumption that women never lie, that women must always be believed. I think it actually reduces women to the status of children that were put on this kind of special pedestal as a kind of this rare breed apart and it actually doesn't do women any favors at all do you think a large part of the me too campaign was based in the frustrations of women when it came when it comes when it comes to things like conviction rates for sexual assault rape which are notoriously

low and it's incredibly difficult to prove so for some women the only option they felt they have the only power they have is to go on social media and go this happened to me look at I spend a lot of time telling you what's wrong with the world. So let me tell you about something that's actually right. Sleep, specifically getting more of it, better quality, the kind where you wake up and feel like a human being, rather than someone who's been thrown down a staircase. Most mattresses are just layers of synthetic foam and crossed fingers.

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and thoughtfully crafted with real materials to deliver lasting comfort and support. Go to avocado greenmatress.com slash trigger to check out their mattress and furniture sale. That's avocado greenmattress.com slash trigger. Avocado green mattress.com slash trigger. Yeah, not completely convinced. I'm afraid. I think conviction rates for sexual assault, it's very, very difficult to say they are low, because what you're assuming then is that there's a lot of cases where they should have been found guilty but weren't found guilty. So you're kind of reading something in then to non-statistics. You're looking at a lack of allegation or a lack of allegation or a lot of.

lack of successful conviction and reading into that something that we can never, ever know whether it's actually there or not. I'm not really explaining that very clearly, but we're saying that this is a huge problem because there are no statistics to back it up. And I'm always very, very doubtful about doing that. I'm also very doubtful about women who say they are so completely powerless. they had to spill all in the front page of the times, you know, my only option. So if you look at this woman in the lift in San Francisco,

you know, essentially what she's saying is that she felt so exhausted is the word that she's actually used. She was so exhausted by having to deal with sexism on a routine basis that she was completely unable to say there and then in the lift. Actually, that's a really crap joke. it's not even funny and I find it offensive, which personally I think would have been an overreaction anyway, but she was so exhausted by sexism that she couldn't say that. Yet she was able to go off, make an official complaint

and drag the whole thing through pages of newspapers for a week. She should have had my girlfriend in the list. She's got no problem telling me my jokes are crap. And she's bored of me. Well, how much of this do you think, John, is about people's lack of understanding of statistics? because I know from speaking to many women, my wife included, that many, many women, I would argue probably the vast majority of women

have experienced some form of harassment of one shape or form or another. But that does not necessarily mean that the majority of men are doing the harassing. The 80-20 rule would tell us that actually probably it's a small minority of men who are doing a lot of the harassment, which many women experience. But the picture then becomes men are harassers, women are, being harassed and there's this conflict. Do you think that we are, it's just a misunderstanding of statistics basically is what I'm asking. No, I don't think it's a misunderstanding of statistics because I think people interpret and even look for statistics that back up a particular narrative,

but they want to present to the world. I think one thing that has happened is that definitions of harassment and you see this with domestic violence, with even with rape itself, definitions change over time and they expand and they are very subjective definitions. So the one thing that I think the Me Too movement's really thrown up is that the definition of harassment, according to the proponents of Me Too, is unwanted behaviour. It's anything that you don't want to happen is labelled as harassment. So this is why you get things like winking and whistling being interpreted as sexual harassment, and particularly by younger people.

So there's nothing objective. I don't think there's anything in a wink that is objectively abusive or harassing to you. It's how you feel about that wink and how you feel about the person who's winking at you. So you've got these kind of very subjective, very elastic definitions. So then when we come out with statistics like, you know, sometimes I've seen 85, 90% of women have experienced harassment.

And if you're a young woman especially, like, oh my God, that's appalling. You must just walk down the street and it's just like a barrage of harassment from the moment you leave your house. And if you read 90% of women, that is what you're going to think. But then dig down. And like I say, if harassment is being winked at, you know, or being whistled at, then, you know, really? Is this really such a big deal?

Well, here's something, sorry, Francis, let me just ask this one. This is something I really wanted to ask you because, and it's a bit of a complicated point, so let me lay it out. How much of this is about the biological differences between men and women? And here's my point. Men are bigger, stronger, more aggressive, more prone to violence, on average, right, than women are. Can we agree on that? No, you already, I already lost you. Or bigger and stronger, can we agree on that?

Yeah, a little bit. On average? As long as we put in the on average, I would agree with the bigger and stronger. Of course. Of course. Of course. Of course. But I don't think that necessarily means more prone to aggression and violence. No, but testosterone levels and statistics tell us men commit way more violent crime than women. Yeah, but I think perhaps women just perhaps use aggression of violence in different ways, let's say. Okay, physical aggression. Can we agree on physical aggression and violence? Yeah, relictory. Just for the purpose of...

But I don't think men are controlled by their testosterone, and I think to say that, I'll take it back. I'll take it back. So if we start off with men on average, a bigger, stronger, more prone to physical aggression and violence, right? As I'm putting that out there, and you don't have to agree. But if we take that for the point of this argument, right, if you then look at, if I put myself in that position, say I'm, I don't know, five foot nine or something, right, I'm not particularly strong or big or whatever, if a guy, another guy who I knew was sexually interested in me who was much bigger much stronger who i perceived as being prone to way more aggression than i am prone to it could you stop looking everybody just looks at me what the man with herself on an accident and the tattoo suddenly is the aggressor in this situation so let's say i would never be sexually interested in you yes yes i have standards right carry on well let's just pretend that francis was big and strong and not woefully out of shy yes uh so if that was the scenario and say we were in an isolated environment, right? If Francis was to wink at me in a dark alley,

he was bigger and strong. You'd have very good eyesight. Let's say, let's say. I would, my reception of that would differ based on the comparative size and strength difference between the two of us. So how much of it is that women tend to be smaller, they tend to be weaker,

and therefore less able to defend themselves? You add on top of that the fact that, that given the historical situation, men tend to be in positions of power more than women are at this point in time. So then you've got the potential situation where someone who's big or stronger and in a position to influence your career

is making what might be perceived outside of that context as relatively innocuous, suggestive, you know, winking, whatever. But if you put all that together, it's hinting at a problem, which is you're not really fully able to defend yourself and stand up for yourself on that situation. Yeah, not convinced, I'm afraid. I'm open to be convinced, but I wanted to lay that out

because a lot of the people who may be watching this will be having these thoughts, and that's what we'd like to do at Trigonometheus. We'd like to bring an interesting, controversial people and then pose questions to them that I think a lot of people would want to have answers. Definitely. No, well, I mean, you were asking right at the very, very beginning about my kind of political background and what motivates me politically.

And I think one belief that I've had for 20 years, as long as I can remember, I don't know about a belief, but one thing that I've instinctively reacted against is any form of determinism, whether that is a social determinism. So I am how I am because my mother dressed me in pink baby grows and I was given a doll to play with. Or at the same time, a biological determinism. I am how I am simply because of my hormones. And, you know, I instinctively react against both of those things because both of those things are saying that I'm not in control of myself.

You know, I am who I am because of either things that happened to me or what I happened to be born with. And I think the problem with the argument that you've put forward is that it suggests that it's premised on this idea that men are ruled by their testosterone, own that men are potential aggressors. Let's take that out of the equation. No, no, but simply because men are men, women should be fearful of men.

And I have to say, you know, I know men of all different shapes and sizes who are more or less aggressive and there's no connection between physical size and power and aggression. You don't think there's a connection between someone being bigger and stronger and them being more threatening? No, no, absolutely not. I mean, I really don't think that people are programmed in that way.

I don't think, I mean, perhaps if we were living back in cavemen times and we were carrying on in society as if our kind of animal instinct was coming to the fore, then perhaps. But if you think about the way we encounter other people nowadays,

it's not in the rule. like that it tends to be in officers in workplaces on transport etc and I don't think women are kind of automatically shying away from men based on their physical appearance do you think that one of the positives of the Me Too campaign because of course there are positives to every campaign is that it's certainly exposed a certain boorishness in some men's behaviour such as cat calling for instance I the argument would be why should a woman walk down the street and be cat called, I mean, that is intimidation, isn't it, really?

Having a group of men leering and shouting at you. Do you know, I mean, I wonder what kind of world this happens in, I mean, building sites, which is always the kind of stereotypical argument that this is where this goes on, you know, that poor women can't possibly walk past building sites without men, leaching at them and whistling at them. Building contractors actually have written into their contracts nowadays that they are not allowed to do this and this has been the case for many a year and you know maybe it's just me well hold on you're a beautiful woman are you saying you've never experienced any of this? I wouldn't say

never but it's a lot less usual than it once was and you can say well I you know I'm 10 years older obviously than I was 10 years ago but I think this idea that to be a woman is just just to confront this constant barrage of harassment. You know, I don't think that's true. Why should you have to put up with even a single incident? Well, because not every woman hates it. You know, I can certainly, well, I can certainly say that there have been times when I've walked down the street and somebody whistles at you and this is probably a terrible thing to admit, but it puts a spring in my stack and a smile on my face, and I walk down the street feeling a bit happier than I did. But essentially what you're talking about is interaction between men and

women and you think, well, where do we go then if we want to stamp out these spontaneous interactions? So I know Labour MPs have proposed a new law in the Houses of Parliament that cat calling in the street should be outlawed as a misogynistic hate crime. So what do you do then? How do you police that? How much police time, energy, money do you put into having a policeman or woman standing on every street corner, kind of spotting the rogue whistler and going up to give him a slap around the wrist. You know, that's not something I would particularly would see as a priority.

I'd rather they were out catching people with knives who were going to commit knife crime than random wolf whistlers. So then people say, well, it's not a question of having police stand up on the corner. It's a question of education. So again, you know, what do we want? Do we want teachers in schools to say, well, I could teach you about the history of the Tudors and the stewards. but actually I'm not, I'm going to sit down and we're going to re-educate you all now about the correct way for boys and girls to behave in relation to each other. Actually, I think having spontaneity is not a bad thing, and letting men and women have free speech interact is not the worst thing in the world.

On the whistling, on the catcalling, you know, I actually think women are quite capable of giving as good as they get. and certainly in the past, yeah, I made a joke, and I said there's been time, I wasn't a joke, it was true, that there's times when it's put a smile on my face and I've walked down the street happy. There's also been times where I've been quite capable of turning around and telling someone just to fuck off

and leave me alone. And they have done, and they've been quite shocked, and they have left me alone. And I don't think I'm like some rare type of special woman who's got these magic powers because I'm capable of telling a man to fuck off. You know, I know plenty of other women who are just as capable of.

of doing that. So that was all very, very interesting. Now, you mentioned a little bit about the gender pay gap and you said that it isn't as large as has been intimated by some feminists. Could you go into that a little bit more for us? Yeah, definitely. So the gender pay gap, I think, is a really, really good example of how statistics can be used to prove anything that you want them to prove at all

because it all depends on what we measure. So if you want to make the gender pay gap seem massive, then what you do is you look at the earnings of all men and the earnings of all women, and you compare them with each other, and surprise, surprise, you find out that women earn less than men. But obviously what that's not taking into account is the hours that men and women work, the jobs that men and women do,

and this fact that we've already mentioned, you know, in the past, men and women weren't as equal as they are today. So if you look at the top rungs of careers where people have been working for 30, 40 years, they've reached the absolute top of their profession, you are more likely to find men in those positions. So if you do that, you take all men's wages, all women's wages, you find a very, very big gender pay gap. But basically, the more we compare like for like, so the more you look at men and women doing the same jobs, for the same number of hours, for the same level of experience, then the pay gap gap, gets narrower and narrower and

eventually comparing like for like it disappears altogether. There's no gender pay gap. If you look at men and women who are both doing the same job, same length of time, same number of hours each week. And of course that's the case. I mean, you just think about this for like a minute or two because for one thing it's illegal. So if you took two people who are doing the exact same job,

exact same hours, exact same level, and the man was being paid more, the woman could take this company, the boss to court. You know, it would be illegal. They would be breaking the law. But there's an even more common sense argument as well. If bosses could get away with paying women substantially less for doing the exact same work as men do,

but just cheaper, you know, why would any boss anywhere ever employ a man? You know, why would you get a man to do the job? Well, it's interesting that you say that, because we're recording this, and by the time this goes out, it will be a couple of weeks from today, probably. The guest whose episode we've just released is a lady called Dr. Pippen Malgram,

who is a good friend and a wonderful person. She is a former advisor to an American president, founder of her own company, et cetera. And when we talked to her, we asked her about the pay gap as well. And she said that as a speaker, after her political career and all the rest of it, she actually had her own agent, speaking agent, and say to her, your metrics are great,

you're getting better performances than your male counterparts, but we cannot get you the same fees because you're a woman. So there is some, I mean, not everyone is rational, not everyone, I mean, you say it's illegal and it is, but people do illegal stuff all the time, right? So there's probably a small element of discrimination that is part of what causes the gender pay gap. I totally hear your argument about these averages being useless,

essentially, in measuring the real gender pay. pay gap. But, um, so my question, you think there's no discrimination against women at all in a well, I see what. I mean, I, I don't know the woman who you've, you've, um, just interviewed and I'm really looking forward to. Yeah, I'll watch that interview with great interest. But I, I mean, some personal advice from me to her, you know, and I'm sure she's, she probably won't watch and won't appreciate this. But if I was her, I'd sack that agent. That's exactly what she did. Well, Pippa's great. She's not anyone, she's not someone who would whine or complain. She took action. Sack that agent, get yourself

another agent. But my point is she's a very, very accomplished, very powerful person who's made a great success of her life. Not every person is, I'm not as accomplished or successful and I'm, you know, so not everyone is capable necessarily of that. Not everyone is in a position where their

value is so high that they can do that. Definitely. Well, I think there's a couple of things to say here. I mean, for one thing, I think that when we compare, I mean, so we hear on the news about women who work at the BBC being paid a lot less than men, so there was even a story about Martina Navratilova when she was doing the commentary at the Wimbledon at the tennis being paid less than, beyond Borg, no, McEnroe, John McEnroe,

doing likewise doing coverage of Wimbledon. Then you stop and you look at this, you know, McEnroe was a much bigger personality. He was the one who was fronting the BBC's coverage. He was doing 10 times as much of the live broadcasts as Navratelover was. So again, you just were not comparing like for like. And the way the story appears is like, oh, poor Martina Navratlova, isn't it terrible, all this discrimination. So we had another story about Claire Foy and Matt Smith in the Crown.

You know, Claire Foy was being paid less than Matt Smith. Isn't this terrible? She was in the lead role, et cetera, et cetera. Apart from before the Crown, who had heard of Claire Foy, you know, not me, whereas Matt Smith had been Doctor Who. So when we talk about speakers, celebrities, sports stars, their salaries are not worked out in the same way. I mean, if you are working in McDonald's and you say, oh, you know, actually, I'd like to negotiate a bit of a pay rise here. Good luck with that.

They show you the door, you know. But this is not to say that I don't think there's any truth in what you're saying. I do think that there's perhaps a confidence issue of. for women where they are less likely to push themselves forward, perhaps undervalue themselves. You know, I've certainly been in cases particularly when I speak at American universities and they'll ask me, well, what's your going right? And I'm like, oh my God, I have no idea how to answer this question. And the fear is, if you, well, my fear is you pitch yourself too high. They're going to say, no, thank you. And laugh. And you end up underselling myself as a result.

But do you know what? I think feminism today doesn't help women with that confidence problem. I think the more we hear it's so shit being a woman, it's so awful. The more you do then begin to undervalue yourself. You think then when people undervalue you, you think, oh yes, this is just what life's like for being a woman because it's really awful and terrible. So I think the best thing feminism could do for women would be to say, actually there's loads of opportunities out there,

never been a better time to be a woman, get out there, take advantage of all these opportunities, don't sit at home underselling yourself. That's a very, very good point. I mean, we just can focus a little bit on ageing now. I mean, ageism. I know, I know, but ageism is, I mean, to me, ageism is one of the prejudices that is simply accepted in our society.

It's acceptable to go, I've heard, you know, I've seen, especially on social media, supposed liberals go, what would he know? He's just an old man. Yeah. And just like, oh, what, so experience counts for nothing. Do you think that the ageism is particularly more, how can I put this, it's more severe when it comes to women

than it is for men? Do you know what? I think it is, but I think a lot of that comes from other women, comes from younger women, and particularly comes from younger feminists. So I think, for one thing, that there is a whole lack of appreciation for what some of the second wave feminists, some of the battles, that second wave feminists I'm on about people like Germain Greer, you know, the battles that they had to win and the successes that women can enjoy today as a result of the efforts of those second wave feminists is really shocking the lack of appreciation and the insults that are thrown. and not just on social media, but even in the pages of The Guardian, it's quite acceptable. It seems to describe older, second-wave feminists as lobotomized.

You know, that's just quite an everyday statement. But if you take somebody like the French film star, Catherine Deneuve, she came out and criticised me too, she was completely slated for this. You know, this was shock horror. You know, she's a traitor to the cause. How could this woman, you know, she's clearly been labelled. bottomized, stupid old woman. How can she come out and say these things? And that was feminists who were giving all this criticism to her. You know, in the 1970s, Catherine Deneuve wrote another letter

to French newspapers. She wrote a letter, signatory to a letter that said, I have had an abortion. And that was at a time when abortion was illegal in France. So not only was it morally taboo, but it was breaking the law as well. She signed that letter. in signing that letter, she helped bring about a change in the law. And it just seems ironic that when she wrote that letter 40 years ago, it was the French establishment who came down on her, who insulted her, who, you know, treated her really badly. 40 years later, it's feminists who were treating her in that way, you know, insulting her.

And there's no sense of, well, actually, maybe we should pay a bit of respect to a woman who helped bring about some of the major gains that we've got today. It's interesting that you bring that up because last week we interviewed Peter Tatchell, the gay rights activist. And this is the question that I put to him. I mean, do you not, when people are like trying to not know platform you and call you a bigger, there must be a part of you that just goes, how dare these people do that? I mean, it's incredible that anyone would even try to dismiss.

But in terms of that, what do you make of this whole approach where we're no longer really having conversations anymore? It's just if you don't agree with me, you're exphobic, you're this, you're that, you're a bigger, you're misogynistic, you're whatever. So, for example, you can try and have a conversation about the gender pay gap from a purely numbers point of view without any personal involvement at all. Yeah, good luck with that. Yeah, that's my point. So what do you make of this of the state of debate in our society today? Terrible.

That unexpected answer. No, I do. I think it's really bad. I mean, you know, go back a long, long way to when I was at school. If I took part in debates or if we had discussion classes, maybe in my English lessons or something like that, we kind of were taught that ad hominum was a really cheap form of attack if you are taking part in a debate, that this wasn't the right way to go, but you had to look at what people were saying, think carefully, respond to their arguments.

And it seems as if it's completely the opposite. that's the case nowadays, that identity politics means it's quite fair enough to judge people just on the basis of their physical appearance. So the phrase I really, really hate, one of the many phrases I really, really hate is check your privilege. And check your privilege really means shut up, because it means we're making all kinds of assumptions about you based just on what you look like. And on the basis of what you look like, we've determined that you've got kind of X number of privilege points, therefore you are not allowed to have a point of view

or you're not allowed to express that point of view. Whatever you're going to say is invalid just because of who you are. And I think that's that. It closes down debate. It's censorious. And it means that we never actually engage with one another's ideas

because we're just making assumptions based on prejudice, essentially. Do you think we might be overreacting like a lot of these young people. I mean, in my head, I'm still about, I don't know, I'm in my 30s now. And I had a rude awakening the other week because I went and I did a student gig, a comedy gig at a university. And I came there thinking, well, I'm a few years older than these guys.

And I turned up and they all look about 12. So how much of it is we're just forgetting that these people, young people who are idealistic as we once were probably, they're a little bit naive, they don't have quite a lot of life experience. and they're trying to make their mark in the world, in which really everything is pretty great anyway. So if they want to change the world, they really have to focus on these tiny little issues in many cases.

Do you think we're forgetting that these are just kids and they need to have their own moment? Yeah, I mean, I certainly hate the label Snowflake and it's not something that I like applying to young people. And I think, you know, we should be, try to be, a bit more positive about young people and I suddenly think that idealism is not to be knocked. And I think the idea that young people are idealistic, that they want to change the world, that they want to make the world a better place is actually something to celebrate.

But at the same time, I think there's a real risk that we patronise them in doing that. And I think actually engaging with their ideas on a political level and saying, have you not realized the problems with the line in which you're arguing, I think is a good thing to do. And I think that actually shows a lot more respect for young people rather than just kind of giving them a metaphorical pat on the back and saying, isn't that sweet that you want to judge people on their appearance? I think actually saying, you know, have you thought your aspiration to equality is a good one,

but have you thought that you may be going about it the wrong way, that there's some problems with what you're arguing? And I think for me, the problem nowadays isn't really young people as such, but more the fact that an older generation kind of patronises them and confirms the worst in them, if you like, the worst instincts of young people. I mean, who doesn't want to shut up? People they disagree with. I mean, there's plenty of people I disagree with who I would love to secretly,

that you don't tell you. I would secretly love just abandon, make go away. You know, I think for all I'm saying, there's not instincts in people. You know, I do think that is you don't like what somebody's saying. You want to shut them up. Totally. Totally.

I'm like that way was Frances. But I think part of growing up and maturing is that you realize that you can't just make bad ideas go away by wishing them away or by telling people just to shut up. You know, you have to engage. you have to take place in the arguments. And I think the problem for young people nowadays is that they're not allowed to go through that maturation process

because people are just saying, oh, yes, you're absolutely right. If you don't like these bad ideas, you're totally right. We should just make them go away. And if you want to ban them, that's right. We'll let you ban these bad ideas. Do you find it quite worrying that the term free speech is now being associated more and more with the far right

with people like Katie Hopkins and Tommy Robinson and so on? and so forth. That does worry me enormously. I think it's appalling and shocking that that's the case. And I think it's a real abdication of the left that the left has kind of abandoned free speech to the right. I don't think, I mean, for one thing, I think it's hypocritical. I don't think the right in politics, whatever that means nowadays, but I don't believe that the right are big proponents of free speech. And you look back through history, it was traditionally, it was the right that, I'd say if you look at McCarthyism, for example, in the US, it was the right that wanted to censor and to clamp down on free speech.

And it was the left who recognised that they needed free speech for every major political gain that we've had in the past, 100, what, the past forever has come about through free speech rather than through censorship. And it was the civil rights movement. It was all these political struggles of the left, traditionally, have needed free speech. And the left should own free speech. The left should be saying, you know, free speech is our principle.

And we do still have further to go to make the world a better place, as far as I'm concerned. There's still things that could be done. And we need free speech to be able to win more political victories in the future, whereas instead it seems to me that the left's just gone like that, right, hands up, surrender, people on the right, the Katie Hopkins, the Tommy Robbins, if you want free speech, you can have it. We want bans and censorship to get our way. And that is really makes me feel physically sick. I mean, I think that is so horrible.

And I think it puts left-wing people in a really awkward situation. because you then appear to have these horrible bedfellows, people who I would never in a million years want to be getting into bed with, and yet that seems to be who people who are arguing for free speech now automatically appear to be allied to. And that's tragic. But unfortunately, that's politics, you know, and you have to kind of hold your nose, I think,

and still stand up for what you believe in, irrespective of who else tries to pretend they're on your side. Starting a business can seem like a daunting task. unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website to marketing to selling and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel,

Heinz and all birds continue to trust and use them. With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into... Sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com slash special offer. And why do you think the left is unwilling to stand up for free speech? Because, I mean, Peter Tatchell, who as I said, we interviewed the other week, his point was exactly the point that you've just made, which is in his time when he was at the beginning of his fight for equality for gay people, women, et cetera, he was fighting almost for free speech

first because that was the method by which you then achieved the equality for people. why is the left which is so focused on ensuring everyone's well-being which are all great ideals taking care of everybody etc minority groups why have they abandoned the pursuit of free speech as the method by which you achieve those things and has resorted to censorship and almost authoritarianism for something well great question i mean i think for one thing resorting to authoritarianism is a damn site easier than actually fighting for free speech because if you're on a university campus for example it's a lot easier to go and run to the vice chancellor, the head of student experience, whoever, and say, I don't want this speaker to come on to my campus,

than it is to actually have the arguments out with the person who's coming, who you disagree with. So on the one hand, I think it's just a bit intellectually lazy. You know, it's easier to call for ban, to call for censorship, and you can have the kind of moral righteousness on your side when you're doing that than it is to actually win the arguments. I think there's something far more fundamental even than just intellectual laziness. To believe in free speech is to believe in people, as far as I'm concerned.

It's to believe that people can be trusted because I think we make a mistake if we think that free speech is just about the rights of the person who wants to talk. To me, free speech is far more about the right of people who want to hear a particular argument being put forward. And if you believe that, then you have to believe that people are capable of, of hearing arguments, not hearing arguments and turning into some kind of moronic mob who just act out in a robotic way.

You know, if they hear somebody from the far right, they're going to automatically be brainwashed and think completely uncritically and just turn into some far right person themselves, you need to have some faith that people are capable of hearing arguments, of dealing with things that they disagree with, of reaching their own conclusions, that people are fundamentally sensible,

You think a lot of it plays into the fact that people are scared because people nowadays are terrified of being labelled a racist, a sexist, a hymaphore, whatever it is online. And if you expose yourself to views that deemed to be an inverted commas controversial, you may realise you're not as secure in your own opinions as you thought you were. And actually, it turns out that you can change your mind. And I think people worry about changing their mind. And changing your mind is difficult.

a painful thing to do. Yeah, I think there's a lot of truth in what you're saying. You know, I think it comes back down to this idea that it is easier to ban things. And I think there is a real fear of being accused of racism, of sexism, of how this might, how you might appear to be in the outside world. And, you know, I think standing up for free speech, standing up for what you believe in is not easy. And I kind of wish sometimes it was a lot easier to do this. But I think you do have to ultimately have the courage of your convictions and fight for what you believe in.

And do you feel that you personally have an extra responsibility on that front because you're a woman and you get more of a, well, you don't get as much of a hearing as perhaps you feel you deserve, but you get more of a fair hearing than, say, a man standing up and saying exactly the same things as you are? Yeah, I think that's true. I definitely think that's true. I don't know about whether it gives me more responsibility or not, but I definitely think I'm, I think a challenge to feminism that comes from me is perhaps taken more seriously or maybe not taken more seriously. I wish, taken more seriously perhaps less difficult to ignore. And smear probably. And smear, yes. I mean, I'm very aware that if men were to say what I say about things like the gender pay gap or especially. about the Me Too movement, then they would just be written off.

Well, of course they're saying that they're men, they're defending their own interests, they're just irredeemably sexist and terrible people, whereas if I say it, it is less difficult for people to ignore perhaps, yeah. I think that's a fantastic place to wrap up the interview. It's been a great conversation. Before we let you go, Joanna, just one question. We always like to ask our guests and feel free to go anywhere you want with this at all. Is there one thing that you think no one's talking about that we really ought to be talking about today?

I think, I don't know about not talking about it, but something that to me I think is an increasingly big issue. And I know it's the one thing that I say at the moment in a lifetime spent saying lots and lots of controversial things, the thing that people really have the biggest problem with me saying is criticising university consent classes and sex and relationships. education in schools. And I think there's so much emphasis on, and it comes from Me Too, and it comes from feminism, and it also comes from this belief that people are stupid and ignorant and left to their own devices.

You can't argue with that. That's a fact. That's a fact. Let's be honest. Have you been on Twitter? Come on. But this idea that you leave people to their own devices and they just abuse and rape each other

and you need someone to step in and actually tell, young men that raping people is wrong. I mean, it's bizarre because we don't tell them that murdering people is wrong. We kind of assume that they have enough of a moral compass to know that murdering people is wrong. And yet there's this idea that there is a correct way to conduct your sex life. There's a correct way to negotiate getting someone into bed with you and we have to teach young people these kind of scripts to rehearse in the bedroom. And I think that's going completely uncriticised. And I think that is a conversation that really badly needs to be had.

Fantastic stuff. Well, your book is called Women versus Famine. Your latest book is called Women versus Feminism. You're on Twitter at Joe Williams, 293. Joe Williams 293.

I'm Constantine Kisson. I'm at Constantine Kisson. I'm at Confident Kishon. And thank you very much for watching the podcast or listening to it. If you've enjoyed it, please give us a rating,

five stars, say something nice. Tell a friend about it. We are on iTunes. we are on what's the new one the pocket one pocket cast i think is it pocket cast i can never we'll get on that oh you can yeah yeah our producer doesn't know either we're screwed yeah he's just looking at us blankly that's what happens when you when you're in cloud and of course we're on youtube do subscribe to our youtube channel we put it out an episode every week and this has been a fantastic episode thank you so much for coming on john this thank you very much