Woman's Hour - Jessie & Lennie Ware, Nadine Shah, Naomi Wolf & The Beauty Myth 30 years on

Episode Date: March 9, 2020

Popstar turned podcaster Jessie Ware and her mum Lennie Ware discuss working together in their hit podcast Table Manners where they cook dinner for a different celebrity every week. Should racing be doing more to celebrate the fact that it is one of the few sports where men and women compete in the same events? We speak to Jockey Lizzie Kelly - the first woman to win a Grade One race in Britain and now holder of two Grade Ones and two Cheltenham Festival winners. As Cheltenham starts again this year she joins us to discuss Just Jockeys, a campaign by Great British Racing. It was International Women's Day yesterday and one of the events to mark the occasion took place at the Roundhouse in North London. Part of the BBC Radio 6 Music Festival it featured an all female line up. Nadine Shah began yesterday's performance. She spoke to reporter Georgie Rogers. Thirty years ago saw the publication of The Beauty Myth. In it, the author, Naomi Wolf argued that the pressure to be beautiful was what she described as ‘a cultural conspiracy’ and ‘the last, best belief system that keeps male dominance intact What, we ask, has changed three decades on?Presenter: Jenni Murray Interviewed guest: Jessie Ware Interviewed guest: Lennie Ware Interviewed guest: Lizzie Kelly Interviewed guest: Nadine Shah Interviewed guest: Naomi Wolf Reporter: Georgie Rogers Producer: Lucinda Montefiore

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, Jenny Murray welcoming you to the Woman's Hour podcast for Monday 9th March. Good morning. 30 years ago, Naomi Wolfe wrote a book called The Beauty Myth. She argued the pressure to be beautiful was a cultural conspiracy to keep women in their place. What's changed in 30 years? The BBC's Radio 6 Music Festival took place over the weekend, and last night, International Women's Day, there was an all-female line-up.

We'll hear from one of the participants, the Mercury Award-nominated Nadine Shah. And as the races at Cheltenham begin, the women who ride, who want to be described as just jockeys as they compete alongside the men. Now, Jessie Ware used to be best known for her singing and songwriting. She is arguably now even better known in partnership with her mother, Lenny Ware, with whom she publishes a weekly podcast called Table Manners. The two women cook a Friday night dinner to which they invite a guest, Sam Smith, Ed Sheeran, Jo Brand and Paloma Faith to name but a few. It's been going for three

years and attracts millions of listeners. So popular has it become they've now published a cookery book of the same title, Table Manners. Well here in the company of Sam Smith whipped cream is a requirement can I whip cream with a hand blender hold on mom mom we need whipped cream this is gonna be an issue I don't mind having no I mind how do you whip cream have you got ice cream as well this is an absolute mess mum Mum. Oh, hold on, hold on. I found a whisk. OK, well, that could take 20 minutes. Oh, hold on, no. That could take 20 minutes. Oh, my God, look at that whisk.

Should I just try and do it for a bit? I mean, how long's it going to take? A little while, darling. Think of those arm muscles, babe. No, I haven't been able to work out, babe, so I'll just have one Pete Sampras, like, bicep. Oh, no, Mum, it's already whipping. Good. Jessie, what

prompted the idea of a podcast of Friday night dinner with your mother? I think I was always so interested in other people's stories and I was sick of talking about myself. Being in music, it's so self-involved and all-consuming about you, you, you.

So I wanted to have conversations with other people and I thought the best way of having a conversation and not feeling like an interview was having my mum, who is the best host I know, the best cook I know, cooking for these guests and us sitting around the table and having a chat, which felt very informal and light and talking about

family and nostalgia and food memories and some I don't know what happened but everyone seems to quite like it and mum is the absolute star of the show. Lenny what was your response to the idea because it sounds to me as if it was assumed that you would be the cook. It was I was supposed to be in the background I didn't know what a podcast was. I thought I was just cooking for Jessie to chat to friends and I thought this would help her improve her interviewing process and it just took on from there because I couldn't resist joining in with the conversation. You never have been able to resist joining in with the conversation, I suspect. I think that's right.

It does sound, though, Jessie, as if it's not always an easy ride. Mother, daughter, one kitchen. Yeah, I mean, I've talked about this before, and also in the book I talk about it, but Mum showed me tough love in the kitchen. She wasn't one of those ones that you know here's your pinny let's go and let's bake it was you're doing it wrong you're doing it wrong and I learned that way but actually I'm a pretty good cook from it so thank you mother um but yeah we're

living together at the moment which has been testing but we're nearly out the end of it and we've managed to make a podcast together and write a cookbook in that time so And we're not killing each other, so it's all right. I mean, there have been a couple of disastrous moments. The blowtorch moment when we were... The creme brulee with the Hayley Squires, yeah. Yeah. What happened with the creme brulee? Well, Jessie was using it too fiercely, I thought. Mum thought.

So I said, I'll take over. And the whole blowtorch fell apart and set me on fire. Literally, I went up in flames. She was okay though. We never used the blowtorch again. We never used it again. It came apart and Hayley Squires just couldn't believe her eyes. She was just us two arguing and then me going on fire.

What other disasters have you had? Short ribs. Short ribs. George Ezra. They weren't short ribs. They were very long and I marinated them for too long in wine and they were tough as old boots. We had to get a Turkish takeaway and it worked out all right,

but we laughed so much. We laugh a lot. And I think even in these kind of catastrophic moments, we end up laughing and that's just been how we've always worked really how often have people asked you for the recipes because i mean now this book with all the recipes in it have people been saying oh that lovely almost all the time which is why we were approached to do a cookbook so people kept on saying gosh that sounds delicious can i have the recipe and in the end we just just sort of put them all together.

And we've produced a cookbook, which I have to say is so easy. It's about easy cooking and just enjoying a lovely social time over a meal. But how easy was it for you to write down recipes for food that you have been cooking for years? That was tricky because it's all in your head and you do it by instinct. So actually writing the recipes down was tricky. So they were tested. And tested and tested again.

To make sure that they worked. And they weren't just things that we could make work. So everyone's going to be able to make my chicken soup with matzo balls i hope but wasn't there something a recipe that you've done and they couldn't make it work because you'd forgotten the eggs yeah the key lime pie i had done it and in fact we made it for cheryl cheryl yes we did cheryl cheryl well she's called just chery, Cole. As mum is called Lenny now. Yeah, Cheryl. And no one could make it work. So I said, well, I'm going to do it and I'll make it work.

And I couldn't make it work. And then I realised I'd forgotten the eggs. Quite simple. Yeah. It's rectified now. They're in there, don't worry. The eggs are in there. What were your Friday night dinners like as you grew up?

Fun. I mean, they weren't kind of as you would imagine a jewish household you know we lit the candles and then the rest kind of it was whitney houston and and um and dancing around the table and it wasn't necessarily a full jewish meal but there was always the ask of chicken soup wasn't there in shop liver but we'd have all my friends from school who you know i grew up in South London there weren't that many Jewish people there so they'd come over with their parents and we'd have these lovely long dinners together that would end up with singing and dancing at the end. You admit in the book to being a food lover and your mother says your toes used to curl in your high chair yes as the food was on its way what do you love most of your mother's cooking she's the best with flavor i mean i mean i mean

what chicken soup she'll taxi over to me when i'm ill when i'd be losing my voice in a singing um it's the jewish it's jewish yeah jewish penicin, absolutely. But she's so good with flavour and just everything. I don't know, you've always been so brilliant. And also my children, we're living together, and my children won't eat my food, but they'll always eat my mum's food. And I'm like, hold on, she's just done a roast the same as I, but there's something about my mum's cooking that is the best.

I think there is always something about your mum's cooking that's always the best how did you learn i mean where did you probably my mum my skills from your mother yes yes i mean my mum was a good cook i mean a very conservative cook you know i was born 1951 so it was five years after the war there wasn't that much around when she first made spaghetti bolognese, I thought we were absolutely quite continental. And, you know, we didn't have things like broccoli or kiwi fruits or things like that. But now, I mean, she just was a very good basic cook. And I think I'm a very good basic cook.

No, Mum, you're better than that. I think you're more inventive than me. Thanks, Mum. And I've learned a lot from you because Jess is brilliant at curries and adding spices. I'm not as confident. As a single mother for much of the time, with a job as a social worker, how did you manage day after day after day to fit in good home cooking for the kids? It's so important to me, eating and eating together.

That was really important that everyone sat down together at the end of the day and talked about their day and we ate together. So I plan. It's just good planning, really. I would cook in the morning something for the evening and know it was ready there and we could just warm it up and we'd eat together you'd come back from school and there would be the smell of food because she'd already have it ready it was ready yeah so i think if you plan it's easy i think doing the podcast now we're kind of planning all the time what we're going to cook for people but planning together

i mean it's not entirely your responsibility no no we do it together absolutely how easy is it this is probably a really stupid question because you're so famous anyway how easy is it to find your famous guests who are prepared to come to dinner on a Friday night well initially it was me going through my phone books you know we had Sam Smith on the you know the first um series Clara Amphode um Ed was on the second but yeah it was my friends and now it's got a life of its own and people approach us and so it's just um it's now a kind of I don't want to call it a business but you know it's people want to be on it so it's um been and we're meeting more unusual people that we wouldn't have thought of before and that's

really interesting to meet new and different people from different walks of life yeah i think we're on series 10 i mean it just keeps them going and so it's amazing we meet strangers i'll bring yes but you want to know jesse busy with the podcast the book yeah another album yes coming soon yeah two children yes i remember the last time i spoke to you you were a little bit tired because you had a baby and you weren't getting much sleep how are you coping now fitting all this I don't know what it is but the more I've thrown at myself and the happier I am I don't know and I'm working with my mum and that's a very unique beautiful situation and the podcast

has given me such a new found confidence and I have this music that's coming out that is just so fun and my kids are amazing my it takes a village I have my husband helps we have a nanny two days a week you know it's it's a it's a big old everyone gets mucked in mum helps so yeah that's how it works how surprisingly have you been at the success of the podcast beyond my wildest dreams really i i um i can't really measure the success except that if i'm at the tube and i say oh god the bloody northern line someone says are you lenny from the podcast i say how do you know jesse says it's my whinging voice but um people recognize me on planes if i'm chatting they'll say you lenny from the podcast it's so weird so i know it must have a wide audience that that people recognize my voice

it's very odd but how stressful is that then to suddenly become famous after all these years and to be cooking for all her famous friends it's's very strange. I mean, you know, when it's someone like the wonderful Nigella Lawson, I mean, I think we planned for about six months if she ever came on what we cook. But meeting these wonderful people is just great. It's marvellous. How much do you still enjoy cooking? I used to give lots of dinner parties that was my, I love it but I don't give as many dinner parties that's true, I tend to go out to eat

rather than cook Do you enjoy the cooking when you have to do it? Yeah I do, I enjoy being good at it that's what I enjoy sometimes I get tired and my back hurts a bit I've been at it all day She complains a lot but actually still delivers the best

food ever. I hope so. Imagine what it would be if it was cooked with love. Absolutely. I mean, just imagine. So it's not cooked with love at the moment. Pinches of love always go in my food. Thank you both very much, Lenny

and Jessie Ware. And of course the cookery book is out now and it's called surprisingly Table Manners. Thank you both very much. Now the races at Cheltenham are due to start tomorrow and much will be made no doubt of the number of female jockeys we reckon around 10 who'll be taking part and the fact that last year three of their number of female jockeys. We reckon around 10 who'll be taking part. And the fact that last year, three of their number, Brownie Frost, Rachel Blackmore and Lizzie Kelly, had significant wins. But there's a campaign to take the sex out of racing,

a sport where men and women compete on an absolutely equal playing field. It's called Hashtag Just Jockeys, and Lizzie Kelly is an ambassador for the change. Lizzie, what's prompted this campaign now? Great British Racing put together this campaign

after some really good stats came out about female jockeys and the rise of female jockeys and I think after the festival at Cheltenham last year it became quite apparent that female jockeys were probably doing better you know than then they probably should have been and I think that it the time had come to really push that message forward

how did that happen that they were doing better than they should have been um basically there's the stats read that um the percentage of female jockeys winning at chattanooga festival last year was higher uh in comparison to the number of rides that they were getting in comparison to the males. So we were having more winners for the amount of rides, basically. But how difficult has it been for women to be taken seriously as equal competitors? I think that female jockeys have always... There have always been standout female jockeys back through the ages, whether that was Gee Armitage, who rode Charlton Festival winners herself,

or Nina Carberry and Katie Walsh. But I think the thing that's changed is the amount of female jockeys that are taking the plunge to turn professional and are seeing being a jockey as a viable career path not something that's a hobby and they just do once in a while um you know to actually make that choice that that is your career that has increased I think in the last sort of five years it seems to me that you always approached it as a potential career. What made you different? I was very lucky that I was brought up in a yard myself,

so my parents trained racehorses, my stepdad and my mum. So for me, it was, you know, my life, really, riding racehorses from a very young age. How young? Nine, ten, schooling over chase fences at home at 11 years of age. I think my mum was sort of a very, I won't say a pushy parent, but she was very much, if I wanted to do it I had to do it properly and although I never really planned I never thought I could be a jockey I always that was the main plan so I sort of practiced as much as I could in my whole childhood really so not thinking you could ever

be a jockey where did that sense come from that oh I'm a girl they won't let me be a jockey yeah very much so I was a girl and there weren't really any role models it wasn't until I was sort of about 15 16 that I really started to um watch people like Nina Carberry and Katie Walsh I mean every girl needs needs a role model that's out there doing it. And they were my role models. And I think by the time I got to 21 and I'd left university, the options were to give it a bash or to sort of succumb to a life in an office. So I gave it a bash, thankfully.

Being very competitive is often celebrated in sportsmen. How much does that apply to women? And I think that, you know, being competitive, being someone that's out there to do the best for themselves, I think in females can be seen, you know, as being bitchy or other negative connotations, you know. And I think the good thing about the fact that the female jockeys number is growing is that we're all of we're all the same sort of personalities very competitive and and very much sort of trying to do the best for ourselves and yet we're all very good friends and I think that that really helps because it it doesn't make you feel alienated you know if there's lots of us who are all trying to do the same thing and all trying to be competitive and all trying to be the best it doesn't mean that you're not friends with each other and i think it's a really healthy um environment in the female jockeys changing

room now really healthy there was an all women event at zafal yesterday for International Women's Day. And I wondered how good an idea is that when you're actually looking to be seen as just jockeys? Yeah, it's really interesting that you bring that up because I personally felt it was quite contradictory. We have tried and tried and tried to push our message forward that we are as good as men um and obviously the subtle event gave more opportunities to female jockeys but i certainly felt that it sent mixed messages yeah i may be wrong about this but what i've noticed in all of you young women jockeys,

sorry, just jockeys, is that you're always immensely grateful to your horses. Every one of you, when you win a race, always say, no, it wasn't me, it was the horse. Is that different from the way men see it? I don't think so. I think with all jockeys, our love of horses is the reason that we do it. You couldn't have that lifestyle. winners or all the falls or all the hours in the car driving to the races you know the main thing that we are all there for is because we love horses we love riding in races and I think um I think that females just have a better way

of pushing that forward and perhaps we aren't trying to be too tough I think the post race interviews when females have won big races are more so about the emotion whereas I think that the guys focus on the race itself what happened in the race and both are warranted you know both a television viewer wants both you know not everyone wants to hear me blabbering on about how wonderfully it is the horse that is you know some viewers want to hear well this happened at this point in the race so I think both are needed tip for Cheltenham please, a top tip other than yourself. Well I think that if you

really wanted a tip that my tip is Silius Emery in the champion hurdle each way. Lizzie Kelly thank you very much for being with us and the very best of luck to you this week as well Now still to come in today's programme, the beauty myth 30 years on, Naomi Wolfe looks across those best of luck to you this week as well. Now still to come in today's programme The Beauty Myth 30 Years On

Naomi Wolf looks across those 30 years to discuss whether or not she achieved change for the better or the worse. And the sixth episode of the serial Giuseppe de Lampedusa's The Leopard. It was, as I mentioned International Women's Day yesterday

and one of the events to mark the occasion took place last night at the Roundhouse in North London. It was part of the BBC Radio 6 Music Festival and featured an all-female line-up. The poet, playwright and rapper Kate Tempest headlined the show, which included the composer Anna Meredith, Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon and Jenny Beth from Savages. Later in the week, you'll be able to download a Woman's Hour and Six Music podcast, including interviews with some of the best artists on the bill. Well, today it's Nadine Shah, who began yesterday's performance.

She also performed on Friday when she stood in at the last minute for the headliner Michael Kiwanuka. What was that experience like? I was quite fearful of playing on Friday because there's always that worry when an artist has to pull out of a show and then there's other people who come in to replace them and then people, well, I didn't want to see so-and-so.

The whole room was filled with love. Who wants his lady to be a lady room was filled with love. You've got a new record coming out. We should talk about the new track first. Ladies for Babies, Goats for Love. This is based on a brother's painting, right? You tell anything to press. Because I'm a press person. can you please like just write something serious about this song and i'm like

i have to give a pg version when it comes to radio and stuff my brother did make a painting years ago um of his friend naked embracing a goat with the words ladies for babies goats for fun written upon it written upon it and i guess because because I must have been about 10 when he'd made this. So that stuck with me. And so when I'm writing an album and a lot of the songs are made up about, I'm talking about sexism, talking about tradition, talking about marriage and the ticking time bomb of childbirth and the policing of women's bodies and so on and so forth that that phrase came to

mind when I was writing because I think I was very aware with the last album being so like the discourse being so heavily political but not being able to be playful with those lyrics because I was writing about the refugee crisis and writing about people who are displaced and truly suffering and I'm not saying that women women are not suffering in their own way but I feel like as a woman I'm writing about my own personal stories I'm then allowed to be jovial because they're my stories and I'm talking about myself walking to a bus stop and getting harassed like verbally but I can I think you know one of the worst things we always talk about it often, is what do bad men hate most?

It's being laughed at. And so I do bring a lot of humour to the lyrics, so that's kind of why we have that in Ladies for Babies too. The album is called Kitchen Sink, and I guess it's about that time in your life being observational when suddenly everyone starts having kids and the clock ticker oh man is the whole album like a reaction to that in a way no no no it's not i mean most of my

female friends have children now and i'm very respectful of their choices to have children and i love their kids i'm like an auntie to a bunch of weirdos now christmas is very expensive um but i do feel like a lot of my friends in my position in their mid-30s did need a woman their age. Speaking of that similar frustration that they have, because so often we go onto social media and every day someone's getting married or somebody has some other significant thing happening in their life, which is more a traditional path. And a lot of us haven haven't a lot of us women haven't done that and it does leave me feeling nervous and panicked people will bring it up to me like people do

actually say the phrase like oh tick tock if they're oh nearly 30 oh you're 34 now oh time's running out tick tock people genuinely do say these things and so I felt like women in my position did need some anthems to battle it but it's the kind of external pressure of like oh you go to family parties you're not married yet I'm half Pakistani half Geordie imagine the pressure it's like it's way more actually we're all doing this and having great time and actually I'm looking around sometimes at my friends there on the other side and I'm like I great time. And actually, I'm looking around sometimes at my friends that are on the other side, and I'm like, no, I think I'm all right. Yeah, I'm not too sure.

I mean, I would hope that when the industry becomes better equipped, I hope it will be a space where it will be a much friendlier industry towards women who do have children and to help women who do have children to facilitate their jobs. At the minute, I don't feel like in my position I'd be able to bring a child on tour because that is a big problem in the music industry women dropping off as soon as they have family then they they check out of the industry because it's not flexible enough and it's not easy enough to do it yeah exactly that and with female artists as well it's not having

enough female artists present who are over the age of 40. Like in 2016, you had, what, three or four fellas who were 60 years old in the top 10. So they're visible. But a lot of these other women aren't so visible. But we have artists like Brick Smith's start, and we have Lucinda Williams, and we have Patti Smith, that we need more, though, to be visible in order that we can see that we can be it.

You can't be what you can't see. That's a phrase that's really being hammered home at the moment it's true I know it does sound tacky that you can't can't see it can't be it but it's entirely true it's that sentiment it's the same when I'd have like young Muslim girls getting in touch with me being like I didn't know I could yes you can in the time that you've been doing music have you seen anything change more women being around in studios in technical positions all that kind of thing not a lot and not enough the conversations that you've been doing music have you seen anything change more women being around in studios in technical positions all that kind of thing not a lot and not enough the conversation's happening

and because it's happening you assume that oh well so it things must be going on things must be changing they're not they're seriously not I found out what I was getting paid in comparison to other male artists who are my peers but you, you know, playing the same stages, same time, same festivals, and I was getting a third of what they were getting. And that's why it became, I stopped being so shy about it. I knew it was crude to talk about money and crude to talk about certain things, but I just got so sick of it,

I started openly asking fellow male musicians and fellow female musicians what their salaries were and what their frustrations were. And then there was this we connected on it and it was like oh hang on I've got that same problem well why don't we both speak together and we'll have so much more strength in this unity and this kind of power together so I'm seeing that and there's a lot more solidarity with other female artists coming together whereas before we were kind of pitted against each other because female solo

artists was a genre apparently I didn't know and and so it just meant you know there was only ever room for one woman but that's been the same in so many industries you know we'll have to hire one and so that makes women competitive whereas we shouldn't be and I can see so much solidarity like if you see my guest list today I got Gail Porter oh skin was going to Nancy and Brick Smith start it's been so interesting talking to Gail Porter and hearing about her story about what has happened to her within the music industry and in the media the hostile environment she's been around and her strength and what she's come through is just it's awe-inspiring skin he was

one of the first people did she headline Glastonbury one year no but there was all that hoo-ha and people were like oh who's the first person to first black artist to headline Glastonbury and they just forgotten that Skunk Anansi had done it yeah and she's been an inspiration of mine and for so many people for years and years and she's just she's a brilliant brilliant powerful person as is Brick Smith's art who was in the fall who is still making albums she's not just coming out playing fall songs here and there she's making these creative beautiful dream works and is still like a gigging musician you know. When this lineup was first announced it didn't occur to me it was

all female artists I just thought oh Ace loads of my favorites to play in that'll be nice and then was pointed out to me that was all females which was an afterthought for me actually. Yeah because of Michael Cohen you cannot being able to play all of the headliners over the weekend at the Roundhouse have been women. And all ace. You must have seen the discussion around festival line-ups and festival representation for women off the back of the Redding and Leeds

picture that went online. Again, 19 female acts of over 90 announced. What are your thoughts on all this? This is the thing I think so much pressure is put on the festivals themselves. And then radio DJs and artists and people who work in the industry

point their fingers at the festivals. Oh, you know, you've not done this. Well, maybe that radio station should start playing more females. Maybe that record label, they should start signing more females. And maybe these other artists should start forming alliances and helping out other females. So we can't just place the blame solely on festivals, because that's not going to actually make any change. We'll have to put more money into education in schools. Because when I was growing up,

you know, I was never really encouraged to play instruments as a child. It was like, she can sing really well, we'll put her in the choir. But the boys, they can go and do guitar and this over here. And even in toy shops, the instruments were in the boys' aisle. They weren't in the girls' aisle. So it wasn't really an option that you thought was possible, actually. I thought you could look nice and sing. There's no reason, for example, that 18-year-old boys shouldn't like my music

but they're not given it. Someone somewhere has made a decision, 18-year-old David isn't going to like this. Oh, but I think that, you know, that guy who's like in his 50s and that woman who's in her 40s I think they'll like it but that's you making an assumption of how people work and I think I think the general public so often are underestimated and that's where I think things go wrong it's actually if you give people good stuff I think they're going to they're going to like it who's one of

our biggest artists in the UK is Adele. And because she writes classically great painful love songs, which are timeless and could like, someone like you could have been written in the 50s. It's a gorgeous, timely song. But again, it was great and people picked up on it. And it wasn't to do with anything about how she looks because she got

rubbish for that. But it's the same conversation again. I think people just underestimate others too much. Nadine Shah spoke to Georgie Rogers and there are highlights of the festival of course on the BBC iPlayer. 30 years ago, a book was published called The Beauty Myth.

In it, Naomi Wolf argued that the pressure to be beautiful, thin, youthful, small nose, big eyes, smooth skin and silky hair in order to make someone love us was what she described as a cultural conspiracy and the last best belief system that keeps male dominance intact.

Well, 30 years on, what's changed? Are we less or more likely to buy into the myth? Naomi, what's the beauty myth for you of 2020? That's a great question. Thank you so much for having me on Women's Hour. I am always so honored to be here. Well, I'm asked that a lot, as you can imagine. And generally, I say a lot of things have gotten better. Some things have gotten worse. Overwhelmingly, what's better is that I think most women are aware that these ideals are manufactured, and they aren't nearly as internalized as they were 30 years ago. And that's huge, because it's never really been about beauty,

right? It's always been about how many of our life energies do these mythologies constrain and keep us from using elsewhere for revolution, really, and for our own ambitions and goals. But some things are considerably worse. I think that social media is both really liberating for young women and men, but also adds a new kind of metric that, you know, those dopamine hits of likes and filters and perfection, you know, new way for images of perfection to replicate themselves. But also pornography, honestly, has really affected the last couple of generations growing up, because now it's very much part of how young people learn about human sexuality. And so these images are closer to their consciousness. To what extent, though, is it still the last best belief system that keeps male dominance intact?

I don't think that's as true anymore, again, because I think so many women have seen through the quote unquote ideal and understand, especially now with computer generation of images, you know, people understand that what they look at in a Chanel ad is not real life. It's not even how that model looks in real life. And there's so much more diversity, you know, again, with social media being empowering in many ways, so many more images that women and men can look at and say, well, I don't buy into that, or I'm not that color, I'm not that body type, I'm, you know, 65 years old, or whatever it is, that doesn't have to constrain me. So that's good. And as a result,

I think that, honestly, patriarchy is having a hard time finding new ideologies to enslave women with, because, and I talked about this last night, for the first time in history, the Women of the World Festival, which is so extraordinary. For the first time in human history, four generations of feminists are alive on the planet. And so there are four generations of boys and girls, men and women who've been influenced by feminism. So I think patriarchy, it's not gone or evaporated, but there isn't a new ideology to take the place of the last waves of ideology to suppress women. How much in 1990 were you directing your polemic at white women? And now how intersectional is your thinking on this question? That is a very important question. I mean, I think in 1990, I certainly wasn't directing my polemic at white women. I was directing my polemic. I mean, I don't think any writer thinks I'm about to direct a polemic, right? You just say what you have to say. But I was speaking to woman. And so I think in 1990, feminism among white women was not nearly as well informed about what a tiny subculture that have happened to feminism the last 30 years is that, you know, the buzzword is intersectionality.

But that's a hugely important concept. I think that people engaged in feminism, social justice generally are much more aware that what happens to, you know, white middle class people in the global north is not the whole story of humankind and is a tiny fragment of the stories of humankind. And especially with feminism, what's really going on that is news breaking and critically urgent is happening in, you know, in the rest of the world with women's leadership in, you know, on many other continents than in the global north. I remember 30 years ago, you put much of the blame for the beauty myth on women's magazines. And I wondered what now is the impact

of the whole wellness idea, the self-esteem idea, the you're worth it idea. To what extent has the advertising industry played into feminist concerns that actually, oh, it's my decision. Tell me more about what you mean by that. That if someone's saying in an advert, you're worth it, you might think, okay, yes, I'm

a feminist. If I want to do it, I can do it. And yet it's still been a very powerful myth. Yeah. Honestly, I think that the way that mainstream advertisers talk to women now, I'll take it. Because I remember in the 1980s and early 90s, the magazines I was reading made their money, the advertisements made their money by demeaning women and insulting them and, you know, saying like, wrinkles are lesions. This was real language they used. Or that, you know, aging was a disease. And it was shaming, you know, the phrase body shaming is a recent coinage, but there was body shaming going on in the mainstream media. I mean, you and I, if we go back to those years, remember that.

And I have to say, I love this country, but the British press is appallingly misogynist when it comes to body shaming, the shaming of older women. Extraordinary. So the fact that now that's not really, I mean, there's still misogyny in the British press, but advertisers don't. I'm sure there's misogyny in the American press as well. Certainly. It's different flavors of misogyny. Absolutely. But advertisers now generally understand that women's self-esteem is higher and that they're not going to sell products if they insult women. So if they flatter women and cajole gently, you know, I think that's less damaging to women's self-esteem overall than this kind of constant barrage of insult and belittlement that you used to get from Madison Avenue. So why still are so many of us obsessed with the way we look and feeling insecure about it? You hear it all the time. I mean, I can't, I can't really answer that. Because,

honestly, that's not my experience of the women that I'm in contact with. And maybe that's self selecting. I mean, I think obviously, everyone has their insecurity. But I think that those conversations, honestly, are vestigial. I mean, I think it's things people say as a kind of gesture of femininity. I don't know many older women who feel as bad about aging as women used to feel about aging. super hot at badass, if I can say that on the air, you know, and are really excited about this stage of their lives and think they're awesome and they don't want to look 25. I know that, you know, women always have their days of feeling like, oh my God, I, you know, I can't fit into my jeans or it's a bad hair day or whatever, but I don't feel like they, I don't know many women now who feel that that determines their worth in the same way. It's like the weather. A cloud can cross the sun, but it doesn't determine the outcome of what you do that day.

What about young men? To what extent are they buying into a beauty myth? Well, now, Jenny, now you're talking. I mean, you've been talking, but this is a very important subject in the beauty myth. I did foreshadow that the male body would be colonized by advertising. And for sure, men, and this is in the last 15 years, have been targeted by advertisers to feel some of the insecurities that women have traditionally felt. And so you do see a rise in eating disorders among boys. In America, there's abusive steroids among boys who want that perfect six pack, those perfect, you know, biceps and definition. And a lot of young men are talking about their insecurities around their bodies. And I don't think that that's a step forward. On the other hand, it is kind of healthy for feminism that men and women recognize that there's common cause in resisting the kind of commodification of their bodies and minds that capitalism likes to do to people. I was talking to Naomi Wolfe.

Lots of response from you on the question of table manners and Jesse Ware and Lenny Ware and their new cookbook of recipes from their podcast. Di emailed, as a woman of a certain age, I never heard of these two ladies, but I picked up a recipe pull out in a weekend newspaper supplement. I cooked Marbella chicken on Saturday evening for 10 friends. It was amazing. And I received so many compliments. Coincidentally, my daughter Harriet was at a boyfriend's that night who also served Marbella chicken, which was also fantastic.

Edward is a keen listener to the podcast and as a foodie is a big fan. How wonderful to hear Jesse and Lenny on your show today. I'll listen to their podcast now to pick up more recipes to our friends. And Jane, who emailed us from Paris, said, I tuned in today when I saw table manners on your content list, And Jane, who emailed us from Paris, said, to be a polite way of eating in the company of others has gone the way of many other ways of behaving in public. Dorothy Fan-Kulwick on Just Jockeys, I was talking to Liz Kelly, said it's quite simple. All male sports need to be classified as open, meaning opening to both sexes as well as anyone with a gender identity may the best win.

Women's sport, on the other hand, remains restricted based on sex for very, very obvious reasons. And then on Naomi Wolf and the beauty myth, Sue Green said, I know so many women, young women, who are having Bot and all those other, what I would call invasive, but not sure of the names, where they have the top layer of their skin scraped, that sort of thing, procedures. And Hannah McDowell said, I long for the day when women and men can feel good about their age, whatever that is, and however it affects their bodies. I think ageism awareness is shockingly low, especially ageism about ourselves and our older selves coming up. Now do join Jane tomorrow when we'll be continuing the series on friendship and the role it has in different women's lives. She'll be discussing the power of the digital sisterhood,

the friends you meet online who apparently can protect you from online abuse. That's tomorrow morning, two minutes past ten. Join Jane if you can. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know.

It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.