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  • Only a few stones actually hit me.

  • And obviously they don’t hurt.

  • This coat has been through a war, possibly two.

  • Pebbles are nothing.

  • It’s built for grenades.”

  • So Meeder says, “Not only do I detect fact and a bit of humor in here, but I was wondering

  • whether this is a metaphor for being a feminist.

  • The small obstacles are something we blow away; weve got bigger fish to fry.”

  • So that’s a quote from How to Be a Woman, and it’s the opening chapter where I’m

  • describing the worst birthday anyone’s ever had.

  • It was my 13th birthday, and I was walking across some wastelands.

  • And some boys started shouting at me, and then they started throwing stones at me.

  • And I felt like turning round to them and saying, you know, I’m already oppressed

  • enough, simply by being a woman!

  • You don’t need to throw stones at me as well!

  • Society is throwing enough stones at me as it is.

  • So yes, I know, it is very much a metaphor.

  • But you know, but within that metaphor there, cunningly, and I’m making this up as I go

  • along because I hadn’t thought about it, feminism is the coat that youre wearing.

  • In that thing, I was wearing a huge army coat of my dad’s that had been through several wars

  • And that’s what feminism is, it’s the coat that will protect you.

  • It has been through several wars.

  • However many problems there may be being a woman or a girl now, compared to the problems

  • that we had 100 years ago, 150 years ago, you know we are definitelythere’s no

  • better time in history to be a woman than now.

  • Were not getting burnt at the stake anymore.

  • Hair products have improved immeasurably, so frizzy hair need not be a problem.

  • You know, we have Benedict Cumberbatch’s face.

  • You know, things are definitely getting better.

  • Things are improving, for sure.

  • No, I think that’s so true.

  • I think feminism and the feminist movement and finding a community of women through feminism

  • and all of these things have sort of likeit feels like have been creating this force field

  • around me, which has been sort of insulating me from all sorts of cold weathersexism,

  • patriarchy, so.

  • I totally relate.

  • I totally relate.

  • Well it’s that saying, isn’t it?

  • Kind of like standing on the shoulders of giants.

  • And I say I’m standing on the shoulders of aunts.

  • Because that’s who they are, all these women that came before that have done these things.

  • All the little laws that they brought in, all the marches that they went on have incrementally

  • made my life better.

  • You would not be sitting there, and I would not be sitting here, if it wasn’t for probably

  • 20 women who went out there and changed things.

  • But that’s the beautiful thingone person can change things for millions of people.

  • One person can alter the future, and everything that I write, the idea of writing Moranifesto,

  • was everyone, I genuinely believe everyone has one idea, however tiny, that could change

  • the world.

  • And we need all those little ideas.

  • That’s the only way the world changes, is by everybody who has that idea, having, making

  • sure that we have a society that is structured so that if you have a great idea, it can be

  • heard by the right people and can be put into action.

  • That’s the idea of democracy.

  • I love the letter that you wrote to your daughter at the end of Moranifesto.

  • And it actually reminded me of—I’m currently, I’m re-reading 1984 at the moment because

  • I did a film called The Circle, which has a lot of the same themes.

  • And it talks about, in this book, how for the first time in human history, we couldwe

  • actually have the potential, we have the technology, we have the scientific advances, we have the

  • knowledge, for the first time, to feed the world, to possibly create peace, to actually

  • achieve all of these things.

  • But for the first time in human history, we don’t believe that it’s possible, that

  • humanity will allow us to do that.

  • We don’t believe in the innate goodness of humans to achieve this anymore.

  • There’s this kind of disillusionment which has followed the Enlightenment, there’s

  • this lack of hope that we can actually get this done anymore, and it’s so ironic and

  • tragic that it really would be the first moment we would actually be able to do it.

  • And there’s been all these times in history when we were writing books about utopias and

  • we were imagining all of these wonderful societies, and whatever else.

  • And now all we do is we make movies about dystopias and about the world ending and apocalypse

  • and everything just crumbling around us.

  • I thought that was really interesting, and I just—I loved that your—I loved that Moranifesto

  • was just full of hope, and just the idea that this is absolutely possible.

  • You don’t need to watch the news every night.

  • You know, you can actuallyyou can have a diet of hope and belief and faith in human beings

  • Well, totally.

  • Well the future is a propaganda war.

  • You know, kind of like, we are choosing whether were going to be pessimistic or optimistic

  • about the future.

  • And the way that the news media is set up at the moment, and the tone that social media

  • has, these two incredibly powerful places where we have all our conversations, and where

  • we gowhat’s the world like today?

  • I’ll look at the news and I’ll go on social media.

  • That’s what the world is now.

  • And the tone of both those places is incredibly pessimistic.

  • It’s only showing us problems.

  • It’s only showing us things when theyve tipped over and it seems like they can’t

  • be solved anymore.

  • And people’s reaction to that is necessarily one of being completely overwhelmed, and just

  • going well were pumped then, this is it.

  • And but that’s where you realize that like on a day to day basis one of the greatest

  • things that you can do to the continuation of our species and making the world a better

  • place is to be optimistic, is to not believe in that.

  • Because, you know, if we all thought that everything was going to get better, then things

  • would get better.

  • But you know, if at the point where you just become, oh no, it’s just too exhausting,

  • I can’t do anything about itIt’s not going to make a difference.

  • that is where we lose the war.

  • So, there’s a brilliant lyrics by the band The Divine Comedy, “Fate doesn’t hang

  • on a wrong or right choice.

  • Fate just depends on the tone of your voice.”

  • And that is so key, because you know, if you make mistakes in your life, you know, decisions

  • that you make won’t ruin your life.

  • But if your tone all the way through is one of unhappiness or anger or if youre an

  • unpleasant person, that will dictate your life.

  • And it’s the same with our species.

  • We can make all these mistakes, but if our general tone is one of were together in

  • this, were going to make things better, then that

  • is what will happen.

  • But this is why culture’s so key, and the thing that I enjoyed most about my writing

  • and why I think it’s amazing youre doing what youre doing, and it’s because for

  • too long these kinds of conversations have only happened in politics or in academia,

  • and you know, not many people will pay attention to those things.

  • You only come to those things late: you only come to academia when youre in your teens

  • or in your twenties.

  • You probably won’t start to get into politics until that time as well.

  • But as a child, when youre growing up, what you think the world is and what your

  • possibilities are, is stories.

  • It’s the films you watch, it’s the TV you watch, it’s the things you see in magazines.

  • And that’s why making sure that you have as many different stories as possible and

  • as many different people represented in these things are key.

  • One of the big examples that I give in the books is, when I was growing up one of the

  • worst things you could say to a boy in the playground wasyoure a gaylordyou

  • know, “youre a queer.”

  • Like they were destroyed, you know, to say that someone was gay, that was the end of their life

  • Then you fast forward 20 years into the future, and the writer Russell T. Davies writes, first

  • of all, Queer as Folk, and then takes over Doctor Who, and writes into Doctor Who this

  • brilliant, swashbuckling bisexual superhero Captain Jack Harkness, who, in one episode,

  • kisses the Doctor on Prime Time TV.

  • And not only are there no letters of complaint to the BBC about this, but when I go to my

  • daughter’s school on Monday morning, there are boys in the playground fighting to play

  • this bisexual character.

  • Because weve now got a story, weve now got a character.

  • Instead of it just being the wordgayweve got this hero that everybody wants

  • to be.

  • And I can draw a direct line between that show and that character, and then passing

  • the equal marriage act in this country.

  • Because when youve got children in a playground who are fine with bisexuality and see all

  • love as equal, their fathers and grandfathers whore in Parliament can’t go, Well we

  • don’t believe in this.

  • Your children have shamed you.

  • Culture is there to show you possible futures.

  • And again, that’s why it’s so important to make sure that youve got all these different

  • voices, and particularly if you possibly can, to tell an optimistic story.

  • Show us a better future.

  • Show usshow me amazing people doing amazing things.

  • Because that’s what children are watching, and going, “Yeah, that’s gonna be my future!

  • I believe in that!”

  • It’s really interesting, since doing my work with UN Women, and since becoming more

  • involved in this movement generally, people have said, Well, are you going to give up,

  • now?

  • Do you not want to act anymore?

  • Are you not going to be an actress?

  • And if anything, it’s actually reinstilled my passion for what I do, and made it more important

  • Well, the other key thing about culture is, again, if you want to change the world, you

  • can argue all day that something’s right or wrong.

  • You can say women should be equal to men, we should see women in films equally to men,

  • living incredible stories and solving their problems.

  • You can argue that forever, but that argument can go on forever, and there’s no real way

  • of resolving it.

  • Or!

  • You can make the right thing cool, and you can just simply show me an amazing woman.

  • And that’s what culture does time and time again, it doesn’t argue.

  • David Bowie could have spent all of his life writing academic treatises and lobbying Parliament

  • going, you know, bisexuality and gay men who are pretending to be aliens should be accepted

  • into society.

  • It wouldn’t have gone very far.

  • Instead, he dresses like a gay alien and writes Life on Mars and suddenly everyone’s like,

  • I wanna be a gay alien!

  • It’s a great idea, this is genius!

  • Culture wins!

  • It’s faster, and it’s more fun.

  • Because thisthe whole thing about change and the revolution and feminism, you know,

  • all these things were talking about, anti-racism and equality and the trans movement and stuff.

  • It doesn’t need to be worthy and like, eating your fiber and your bran bread, you know and

  • eating your vitamins.

  • The future should be fun, a more inclusive future where people are free to love and are

  • not scared.

  • It should be amazing, that should be a party you want to join!

  • We shouldn’t be having to go, “This is the right thing to do,” we should just be

  • going, “This is where you wanna be, man.”

  • So, Jenny wants to know: in chapter 7, I Encounter Some Sexism, you make a point about the possible

  • reasons why women didn’t have a great role in human history.

  • How did you come to these conclusions?

  • What enlightened you?

  • When youre taught history at school, and you look at the history of women as it’s

  • depicted time and timeyou know, our accepted story of humanity is generally the story of men

  • We tend to only hear about what men did.

  • I’ve learnt a bit more since I wrote that book, because that was 5 years ago.

  • I had just presumed that women weren’t doing anything, and that was primarily because we

  • were giving birth or having raging cystitis that we were gonna have to wait 400 years

  • before they invented antibiotics to cure, and the combination of those two things was

  • why we didn’t discover America; that, and the very uncomfortable skirts and underwear

  • that we were wearing.

  • But since then, I’ve learnt a lot more about female history, and I particularly watchedand

  • I know that youve seen it as wellthat show, The Ascent of Woman, by Dr. Amanda Foreman,

  • who isSuch a major babe!

  • Yes.

  • And she did the brilliant thing.

  • It was an answer to, so the biggest BBC documentary previously about the history of humankind

  • was the history of mankind, and it was Civilization by Dr. Alan Clark*, and that was just the

  • history of men.

  • And so what Dr. Amanda Foreman has done is gone, Ok, let’s have a look at the history

  • of women.

  • And it was one of the most mindblowing premises I’ve ever seen, because she’s done all

  • of her history and all of her research, and she tells an extraordinary story, which tells

  • us that at one point, men and women probably were equal.

  • It’s in pre-history, so we don’t know, but we have to presume there was more equality

  • because we can start to see from 10,000 BC onwards laws coming in that are against women.

  • And the only reason they’d be having to write down these new laws is presumably because

  • they didn’t exist before.

  • So you can see sexism being constructed.

  • You can see gradually women’s rights being taken away from them, being prescribed what

  • women should do.

  • The shut down of women in society, them being hedged out of activity and being shut down.

  • And to watch that, I just genuinely believe it should be on the curriculum, I think every

  • man and woman should watch it, because so many of these things that we experience as

  • emotions, likewomen can’t do these things, women can’t rule a city, we are inferior,

  • we haven’t done anything…”

  • Once you watch that show, it’s like, no, we were trying all the time, because the other

  • great thing she does, even though she’s showing you all the ways that women were shut

  • down, she’s showing you time and time again these women that flourished.

  • These women that did educate themselves, these women that did rule, these women that did

  • try and change things, these women who did try and connect with each other.

  • And it’s—it’s simultaneously incredibly depressing and incredibly uplifting, but at

  • the end of it you just feelyou feel woke, you feel informed as to what it is to be a

  • woman and what has gone before us.

  • Yeah, totally.

  • And again, it’s that thing about needing to see something before you can even know

  • somewhere inside yourself that it’s possible, and I think knowing as a civilization we have

  • found a way to do this, to live in harmony and in equality, and knowing that that’s

  • something that has existed and that we could potentially get back to is pretty cool.

  • Yeah, it’s an amazing show.

  • I think it’s on Netflix nowand so it is available, and I would genuinelyeveryone

  • that I have made watch it, and I have made everybody I know watch it, has just come round

  • the next week and just gone, it blows your mind!

  • You genuinely feel a new part of your mind forming.

  • I tried to harass the BBC to put it back on my player, but didn’t succeed with that,

  • but Netlfix has covered it now, so

  • Well done Netflix.

  • Netflix for the chicks!

  • Celeste wants to know, I thought her argument that many religions were created in a time

  • where women were considered second-class citizens was very important, and wonder what a religion

  • made by a woman would look like in her mind?

  • Well, this is the great thing like kind of one of the things that I’m working on now

  • is, for one of the next books I’m going to write, is imagining that.

  • Because this is a three-parter, isn’t it?

  • No?

  • Well, there probablyyou know what, I’m never going to stop writing.

  • Okay, amazing!

  • Definitely, which will be fun.

  • And you know, and so some people, youre always worried youre going to anger people,

  • but you do have to remind people that religions were invented by people.

  • Some people haven’t thought of that, but these things were invented, all these things

  • that are religious rights, you know, things thatwhen you talk about FGM, and people

  • are going, “It’s a custom.”

  • So, it was invented by someone.

  • So it can be un-invented by someone.

  • You have to remember that these are things that we have invented.

  • And when you look at so much of what’s in religion, you know it’s almost like a little

  • kind ofhow to surviveguidebook.

  • You know, it’s things likedon’t eat pork and shellfish.”

  • That’s cause they lived in a hot place and those were the things that went off quickest,

  • and you know, that would kill you.

  • You’d get food poisoning.

  • And so again, that when theyre writing about women, you have to remember that, you

  • know, this was just what people thought at the time.

  • And so the idea of, if we invented a religion from scratch now, what would it be, that fascinates me

  • If I was a teacher, I’d be in schools, I’d makeyou know, and if I was a religious

  • teacher, I’d go, okay, were going to invent a religion today, and it’s gonna

  • be, let’s see what would happen.

  • What would you kids invent today if you invented a religion, and, you know, you made sure that

  • it was female friendly, that it was about equality?

  • To see what kids would invent, -Fascinating!- would thrill and fascinate me.

  • It would be amazing.

  • Charlie wants to know, why do you think so many parts of the world including our own

  • are so scared of making long-lasting decisions regarding gender equality?

  • What are they afraid of?

  • Well, I mean that’s down to the political system, isn’t it?

  • Which is just a bit unfortunate, because people are only, you know, you only have government

  • terms for four years.

  • And you do get a lot of people who aredon’t really feel politics in their blood,

  • but theyre just kind of like, well that’s a career that I could do for 10 years, I could

  • have done anything.

  • I’ll go into politics for 10 years and then go on to work for other companies or other

  • consultancies.

  • So theyre not really interested in long term plans.

  • And also, long term plans are hard!

  • You know?

  • It’s the difference between being on a diet for 1 day and eating healthfully for the rest

  • of your life.

  • Anybody can just starve for 1 day, but eating healthfully for the rest of your life is an

  • entirely different thing.

  • But, being on a diet for one day and starving is completely useless.

  • Eating healthfully for the rest of your life is a key to what you need to have.

  • So we need to look at the way the political system works, and build in incentives for

  • making long-term improvements in to our society.

  • And well only do that if people, who aren’t career politicians, want to get involved in

  • politics again.

  • The kind of people who will be MPs for 40 or 50 years representing their local area,

  • because then they have accountability.

  • If theyre not there putting in plans that benefit everybody long term, then the people

  • that theyre representing back in their home town will not elect them anymore.

  • So it’s that reconnecting of politics.

  • Just getting those ideas from the people up to Parliament again.

  • And one of the reasons that I wanted to write Moranifesto was to make politics a good profession

  • to go into again.

  • Because I think these days politics is so devalued.

  • People are so disillusioned by politicians.

  • We hate politicians.

  • The rise of Donald Trump in America is people just going, well he’s not a politician.

  • So well vote for him.

  • Yeah, he’s like, he’s talking real talk.

  • Because they think he lives outside of that system.

  • Exactly, well of course he’s hugely part of thathe is the system.

  • He inherited billions of dollars.

  • You know, he is the system.

  • There’s no one more the system than Donald Trump.

  • But people think he’s non-political, he’s not a professional politician, and so theyre

  • voting for him.

  • And people don’t trust politicians anymore, to the point where, if your child came downstairs

  • and said, Mum, I’ve decided I want to be a politician, you would probably treat them

  • as if they had just said, Mum, I’ve decided to be a massive pervert.

  • You know, good people don’t want to go into politics anymore, and that was, you know,

  • we need to change that conversation, and you know, and look to the MPs that do address

  • these things.

  • You know, I love Stella Creasy, who’s a brilliant, obviously female, MP who’s there.

  • She works brilliantly on the local level, she works on the national level.

  • You know, she was there for the tampon tax, she talks about payday loans.

  • You know, just things that change people’s long term.

  • Rather than being one of those politicians who just comes in, kind of shakes some hands,

  • go, “I’m deeply concerned about this,” and then does nothing about it.

  • I mean there are plenty of them.

  • No, it’s true.

  • I think, god, wouldn’t it be awesome if kids were excited to say, I’m going to be

  • a politician one day.

  • It would be amazing!

  • So excited.

  • We have devalued politics, and it’s to ouryou know, it’s the people who get screwed over

  • by that.

  • Aspirational.

  • You know, the demos in democracy means the people.

  • And we are losing the people in democracy, and we need to make it an honorable job again.

  • So, for feminists, the area of everything from porn to stripping to prostitution is

  • often sort of lumped into one category or perceived in the same way as one big problem.

  • And I’m really interested that you have very different views on each individual topic.

  • So you have a very different view on stripping from what you do on porn, from what you do

  • on sex work, from what you doand, I found that really interesting and really specific,

  • and I just wondered if you could talk about how you see all of those things, and why you

  • see them so distinctly and separately.

  • Well youre so right that the big problem is that they do all get lumped together.

  • That’s, again, because were not used to talking about women, and also we freak

  • out about female sexuality, and that is rooted in, again, history.

  • Like, kind of, you know, up until we invented contraception and antibiotics, for a woman

  • to be and to have sexual desire and be sexually active, meant that A: she was at risk of disease,

  • and B: risk of pregnancy.

  • And you know, those are things you generally wanted to avoid, because you had a 1 in 4

  • chance of dying in childbirth, you know, and diseases were completely incurable.

  • So, it was in a woman’s interest to not be sexual, you know, a chaste woman would

  • be a safe woman.

  • She had a better chance of living.

  • And yeah, from a male point of view, you would want a chaste woman because you wouldn’t

  • want to catch a disease from her.

  • These are the simple, you know, awful facts of history.

  • Obviously everything’s changed now.

  • Women can have sex without getting pregnant.

  • You know, we can cure these diseases.

  • So, if we look at all these things now, something like sex work, if we invented sex work now

  • we would not have the attitudes to it that we have, because ours are rooted in a time

  • of fear and disease, and a time when a sexual woman was seen as a bad woman; youre either

  • a whore or a virgin.

  • You know, my view, and you know I’m still flexible on this, I’m still learning about

  • it, but my view on sex work is that we have all these intimate things that were happy

  • to exchange money for.

  • You know, we will pay people to look after our dying people.

  • We will pay people to look after our newborn babies.

  • You can pay someone to bleach your bumhole from brown to pink if you so desire.

  • We are unashamed of all of these things, and yet this one thing, sex work, we sort of go,

  • No, that has to be completely special.

  • We just need to make those women safe now.

  • We can talk later and untangle this huge thing of centuries of us being screwed up about

  • sex, but as things are at the moment, we leave women who do sex work to be in dangerous places.

  • We put them on the edges of towns like sacrificial victims that are left on the edges of towns.

  • Theyre the bad girls that are allowed to be killed.

  • So we need to make sure those women are safe, that’s the first thing we do.

  • We make sure that they can work in brothels, that they are known to the police so if they

  • have any problem they can go to the police.

  • If theyve been trafficked, they can say I’ve been brought into this country illegally,

  • you know, I’m telling you now I need to be helped.

  • And later on we can talk about what sex is, but right now, we can’t let another girl

  • be murdered, be raped, be attacked, be scared, feel that she can’t go to the authorities

  • because what she’s doing is stigmatized and not legal.

  • But you feel very differently about porn and you feel differently about stripping.

  • Well how do you see those as different?

  • Well, with pornography, you know, there’s a big thing that like kind of porn is bad

  • for women.

  • And if you look, you know if youre a feminist you shouldn’t be into pornography.

  • But pornography of itself is just watching some people have sex.

  • And we see that in classical paintings, we see it on the side of vases, we see it in

  • scrolls from 3,000 years ago.

  • If you walk down the street and som\eone’s forgotten to draw their curtains, you can

  • see it through someone’s window, and I can tell you the people at Number 87, they have

  • got it going on right now!

  • And that’s not damaging to me to see that, that’s not damaging to a woman or a feminist

  • to see some people having, you know, some consensual sex.

  • What were talking about in pornography is the pornography industry and the ideas

  • and aesthetic that it has.

  • You know, if all youre seeing, and there’s a kind of monoculture of pornography at the

  • moment, like 90% of the sex that you will see in pornography on the internet will be,

  • a man will come in, a woman will be sitting there, hell like go jigga-jigga-jigga on

  • her tits for 30 seconds,

  • and thenok, jigga-jigga-jigga on the tits, then youll probably go squeak-squeak-squeak

  • like 3 times in the general vagina area, and youre feeling like kind of, you know what,

  • if you found my clitoris, if it’s there, I’ll give you the money myself.

  • You are 3 and a half inches out, there’s no pleasure going on there, that’s not even happening

  • Then hell get on top of her and do her on top, then hell turn her over and do

  • her from behind, then hell do some anal sex, and then hell spaff on her face.

  • And job’s done in like 4 and a half minutes, which is the totally average time of a wank,

  • a male wank.

  • And youre like, well, if that’s all I’m seeing, and that’s where children are getting

  • their sex education, that’s not sex.

  • That’s pornography.

  • And one very specific vision of what sex should be, one very specificthat doesn’t address

  • the multitudes of all the different things that we’d want to do.

  • And the key thing is, that if I’m watching some pornography, that’s just some sex.

  • There’s no great scripts, were not going to see some incredible CGI, there’s no amazing

  • monologues.

  • It’s just some sex.

  • And that’s two people having sex, and if one of them palpably isn’t enjoying it,

  • then that’s not great sex.

  • Weve screwed up sex at that point.

  • I don’t see women having pleasure.

  • I sit there, going looking for women, you know, I’ve got a little list of times when

  • I’ve seen women having a good time.

  • It’s a very small list, theyre all saved in a special folder.

  • What you see instead, because you want to see an emotional response from a woman, is

  • pain instead.

  • You know, slapping–I don’t know when slapping became a huge part of sex, but if I was a

  • 13-year-old now, I would absolutely presume that in some way the sexual mechanics of either

  • lubrication or erection involved at some point having to slap someone repeatedly on the ass.

  • You know, I come from an older age before we invented bum slapping, that just wasn’t a thing

  • We all managed to have sex without repeatedly slapping each other.

  • This is a fashion for sex, it’s a fashion in pornography.

  • So, you know, I love people like Cindy Gallop, who does Make Love Not Porn, where you just

  • see consensual couples having sex.

  • It’s pornography, but it’s pornography that’s about pleasure, and about two people

  • having sex, rather than a man coming to have sex on top of a woman, which is what we see

  • time and time again.

  • I don’t see any women’s ideas in that, you know, she’s not going, Hang on, I’ve

  • got a good idea!

  • We could do it like this!

  • She’s just lying there having sex on top of her.

  • And that’s not what sex is.

  • I’m 41 years old.

  • I’ve had sex 4 or 5 times now, and I can tell you generally not that bad.

  • 4 or 5, huh?

  • I know!

  • Wow.

  • I can tell you about it later.

  • Big, big news.

  • Ha, ha, yeah!

  • I’m a big pumper.

  • Okay, Jenny wants to know, what do you think is the biggest challenge facing the feminist

  • movement in 2016?

  • For people who really want to do something, book clubbers, beyond reading, what are some

  • of the concrete things you think they can do, direct action that can be taken to fight

  • for change.

  • I think the biggest challenge is, again, it comes back down to tone.

  • Feminism has become such a big, hot potato, it's a hot newsworthy subject now in America and in the UK and in parts of Europe in a way that it wasn't 10 years ago.

  • You could not get arrested if you wanted to talk about feminism.

  • I went and pitched an idea of writing a column about funny feminism to a leading women’s

  • magazine, and they went, We couldn’t write about feminism in a women’s magazine, which

  • is why I went away and wrote How to Be a Woman.

  • Now, they are commissioning stuff every week, it’s a huge clickbait thing.

  • People want to read about feminism.

  • But many people have been put off feminism in the last couple of years because the tone

  • gets so heated.

  • You know, weve had feminism wars.

  • First of all, people will argue and fight all the time, that’s absolutely fine.

  • We can’t go, Oh, two women have disagreed with each other, it’s a cat fight, that

  • proves women shouldn’t be able to speak in public, feminism is dead.

  • It’s like, allow women the weakness to be able to argue and fight like men would.

  • True equality is not being perfect immediately, and being some superhero who has an amazing

  • job and incredible hair and a pelvic floor and a tiny little stomach and two children

  • who are perfectly well turned out.

  • You know, that’s exhausting.

  • True equality is being as dim, fat, deluded, nuts, smelly, scruffy, hopeful, joyful, and

  • idiotic as men.

  • You know, it’s not being perfect, it’s just being treated as a human being.

  • So, you know, we need to allow that women will have arguments.

  • But the key thing we need to do is just calm everything down a little bit.

  • It’s so important when these big debates that are about the future of half the population,

  • of womankind, start breaking out on social media, to just be calm.

  • You know, to just bring a bit of a certain sense of humor to it.

  • To listen to it, you don’t need to make your mind up straight away, you don’t need

  • to have a hot take.

  • And very often, you know, I think the problem is that the medium is often the message.

  • If youre doing this stuff on Twitter, which is where the worst stuff happens, Twitter

  • works in such a way that every time someone writes something that youre following,

  • you can’t not see it.

  • It’s short, and it goes like a bullet into your brain, and it provokes a flight or fight response

  • If someone’s written something you disagree with, you flood with adrenaline, youre

  • panicky, youre angry, and you respond in fear and anger, and suddenly an argument’s

  • happening with people who should be on the same side.

  • I’ve seen arguments break out between feminists who have the same life experiences, who want

  • the same things to happen in society, who are disagreeing on the most tiny thing, and

  • I would say Twitter is making them do that; social media is making them do that.

  • If they could just sit down in the pub, have a couple of Bacardis and put some Guns n’

  • Roses on the jukebox, this would all be sorted in 5 minutes flat.

  • So I mean, you know, but that’s another reason we need to get more women in tech.

  • Because I think if women were inventing social media platforms, they would be completely different

  • It would be much easier to break out and have relaxed conversations and talk about things

  • at length.

  • And you know, be able to inject some humor into it and let people know what emotions

  • youre having rather than these shouting statements.

  • It’s everyone waving a placard at the same time.

  • That’s not a conversation.

  • So weve seen all the placards, we know what all the issues are now.

  • Now we need to move it somewhere where we have these conversations.

  • So in terms of, that’s the bad stuff.

  • The good news is that there are places where you can have these conversations.

  • One of the most hopeful things that’s happened in this country in the last couple of years

  • is the formation of the Women’s Equality Party.

  • Because they have said, Okay!

  • Let’s form a party that is just about women’s issues, and were gonna open source policy.

  • So they don’t have an idea for what this party should be, other than, Let’s find

  • out what women want.

  • And they are now just consulting all up and down the country.

  • You can go now, and be a member of the Women’s Equality Party, attend these meetings, and

  • talk about the problems in your life and the things that you think would solve it.

  • And I don’t see any other political party doing that, and going, Women, come and tell

  • us, let’s do this.

  • A party is being build from the ground up now that is inclusive of everybody, that has

  • stated it wants every kind of woman involved in that, whatever your class, whatever your

  • age, whatever your ability, whatever your ethnicity, whatever your religion or your

  • sexuality, go there and talk about being a woman and come up with some ideas.

  • I love a bit of direct action.

  • Yeah, no, direct action is super cool.

  • If you do think that one of the things you want to do on earth is make the world a better place

  • which is what being a feminist is, what being a decent person is, then you have

  • to make sure that you are aware of what you are subconsciously thinking about anybody

  • who speaks up.

  • Because I think we have this subconscious belief that someone can only speak up if they

  • are perfect and have the answers to everything.

  • We are basically waiting for a Feminist Jesus to come along who’s going to write The Feminist

  • Bible that has everything in it, or who has written the Feminist TV Show that has everything

  • and everyone in it, or makes The Film that tells the story of everyone, and that is,

  • of course, impossible.

  • Because, again, you just say to yourself, are the men doing this?

  • Are we expecting a man to come along and write a book that would provide the answers and

  • speak for 3.3 billion men?

  • And what we have to understand is that feminism, there’s never going to be a Feminist Jesus.

  • No one’s ever going to come along with all the answers.

  • If were waiting, if were not going to get behind someone until that comes along,

  • then we will never do anything.

  • We have to understand that feminism is, instead, a patchwork quilt.

  • And what we all do, is we go, we all sew the little squares that we think we can sew with

  • our abilities and our stories and our solutions, and then we join them all together.

  • So you know, I will speak about my experiences and the things that I’ve observed and things

  • that I know, these are my squares here, and then you will talk about your things and your

  • powers and your skills, and we sew that next to there, and then you know, then you get

  • someone who’s like, from the transgender movement, talking about their experiences,

  • and they sew their thing, and you make sure it’s sewn to yours, you make sure youre

  • all working together, you make sure that everybody’s squares are equal, but you make sure that

  • were working this together.

  • Feminism is a collaborative effort, it’s not waiting for one Feminist Jesus to come along.

  • Yeah

  • You talk about this in your book, how in Moranifesto specifically, how you know, Germaine Greer

  • was one of your big inspirations, one of the first pieces of text that you read, and whatever

  • else, and that while you disagree with some of the comments that she made later on, you

  • still appreciate the contributions that she’s made even though she can’t speak for you

  • on every single specific topic.

  • I absolutely, fundamentally disagree with Germaine Greer’s viewpoint on trans issues,

  • and her belief of what a woman is.

  • I come from the point of view that you are what you say you are, whether youre saying

  • youre a man or a woman or a gay space alien, because I was brought up on David Bowie.

  • I just believe what people tell me they feel they are.

  • But, to trash everything that Germaine Greer did, first of all misunderstands what youre

  • standing on, as a woman, to have the power to be ableand the public platform, and

  • the vocabulary, to speak out against Germaine Greer and call her a bad feminist, is to misunderstand

  • that she has given you half those words and that platform and that ability to do that.

  • You know, we are all standing on the shoulders of our aunts.

  • And, particularly, it happens in sort of every political movement and movement for sexual change

  • but it’s particularly noticeable these days because so much of our talk about

  • these things happens on social media, that we don’t bring our elders with us.

  • Were not taking into account what other previous generations did, because theyre

  • not on social media.

  • Theyre not part of the conversation.

  • We’d like to think, well weve moved on from that, we just, you know, these people

  • are outdated, we do things a different way now.

  • And you need to have your tribal elders.

  • You need to have the old people sitting around, because were going to have to fight a lot

  • of battles in order to change things.

  • And these people have fought these battles before.

  • They know the right language to use, they know how you can change legislation, they

  • know the kind of alliances that you need to make, theyve gone through these different tatics before

  • You need people whove been in wars.

  • And yeah, some of the stuff they say will be highly objectionable, but to lose this

  • massive well of wisdom and resource means that we are never going to progress past a certain point

  • We make ourselves weak.

  • You know, have the strength to be able to say, yeah, my heroes are flawed

  • in the same way that I am flawed, in the same way that all of us are flawed.

  • Again, if were waiting for a perfect Feminist Jesus to come along, who’s never made a

  • single mistake, we will have no one.

  • We will continue to be disadvantaged.

  • While the men, who are like, I’m not perfect at all!

  • I’m Jeremy Clarkson!

  • I’m simply going to carry on making racist comments and driving my car where I want,

  • and because I’ve said I don’t want to make the world a better place, I’m just

  • allowed to get away with it!

  • Whereas if you are a person who says I’m trying to be a good person, and you make one mistake

  • then that seems unforgiveable.

  • You know, some days I wish I was Jeremy Clarkson.

  • I would just get up, say 10 absolutely untenable, horrendous things before breakfast, and because

  • he’s essentially saying, [...] no returns, you know, nothing happens.

Only a few stones actually hit me.

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