EP. 50 — Jamie Loftus

Jameela: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to another episode of I Weigh with Jameela Jamil, there is a lot going on. It’s International Women’s Month. And yet. It’s tricky, isn’t it? There’s so much going on in the news, so many difficult conversations happening, so many examples of women not being respected, look at the way that Meghan Markle was treated after her interview with Harry, where she was almost treated as if she was the only one who was there and he was just her puppet. And the onslaught against her to the point where it got so bad that one of her most one of her biggest critics and most vocal and obsessive critics, Piers Morgan, ended up leaving his job at Good Morning Britain because his obsession with Meghan and his disparaging comments about her and the way in which it appeared that he had disregarded her comments about her mental health, he was pulled up on it by his co-anchor and he just had a tantrum. Within about two minutes, he was up and off. Now, this is a man who spent a lot of time calling other people snowflakes, including Meghan, for, you know, struggling under the lens of so much criticism and so much vitriol and so many smearing unkind campaigns, so many people he has called a snowflake for not being able to handle like global pile ons and there he was on national television just being questioned really politely and respectfully by his co-anchor, who was calling him out on his obsessive and disrespectful reaction to Meghan on the show, not just after her interview, but just in general. And he just stormed off and had a tantrum like a big baby and quit just like that. Now, I am happy because I, uh, we do not get along publicly. And he has not I mean, neither of us like each other. That’s all I’ll say. And that has been very that has been a very big weight off my chest. Knowing that he will no longer have access to mainstream broadcasting TV. It’s fine if he’s going to go off and get another job somewhere else. But we’re all safer with him there, where people who are like minded, who want to stay in that kind of echo chamber of of whatever it is that, you know, people like that want to talk about, they can all be off together somewhere, you know, in the shadows away from us. I’m really glad that he no longer that we we have the choice to opt in or opt out of people like that. Whereas when they’re on mainstream television and they’re on a show that gets really good guests because the show has good ratings and it’s on a big network, then you want to tune in to see what the people that you like are going to say. And then you have to tolerate this person that makes a lot of people feel very uncomfortable. It’s so great that now we can have the choice as to whether or not we want to leave our safe echo chamber. I think that’s the important thing is that, you know, I understand why people say, you know, you should be exposed to the opposing views. I get that. But you should have a choice as to whether or not you have to be exposed to those views, because sometimes they’re triggering and traumatic and troubling. And so I’m just glad he’s gone and he can go to whichever well-paid basement he’s off to and to sort of fuck off and stay there for a while, preferably. But anyway, a lot of other things have been happening this week and we have heard more and more devastating news about missing young woman called Sarah Everard. And she was a woman who was walking alone at night and she went missing. And and the immediate reaction to her disappearance from far too many people was, well, why was she alone out at night? And that has triggered a huge global conversation. Once again, this comes around and around and around. But I feel like this time it’s actually really going to stick where people are talking about the fact that why are we still asking what women are doing wrong? Why are we not asking how men can stop attacking us? What can we do about the systemic situation that we find ourselves in where women aren’t safe, why women are not safe? Why are we not making this about the people who actually statistically attack us en masse? And so that is one of the things I talk about in today’s podcast with my excellent guest. I want to quickly offer you a trigger warning, because we do discuss sexual assault and we do discuss rape culture. And we even discuss very loosely just the the ways in which sometimes pedophilic culture can be glamorized by people online. But I just want to give you that heads up so that you know what’s coming. But my guest is Jamie Loftus. She is a writer. She has an excellent stand up, an alternative comedian and animator, a podcast co-host and an actor who is based in Los Angeles. And she is known for her solo work, such as her one woman shows I Lost My Virginity, August 15th, 2010, and Boss: Whom Is Girl that she performed at the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe, she’s super smart, very relatable. She’s had such an interesting journey not only to feminism because she’s a big feminist voice online, but also to comedy, starting with some pretty awkward teen years that some of you may be able to relate to. Some of you may not, but she’s just she represents the thing that I think I am looking for most in the people that I talk to, which is growth and openness to growth and openness to to learning and curiosity. She she’s on this very public evergrowing journey to just understand the world. And I feel like those are the people that will actually learn and turn out to be the wise old people one day because they believe in acquiring information rather than acting like or believing that they already have all the information they will ever need. And so I love that about her. We touch on some tricky topics in this in this chat, but we’re just two women who who want to understand things and question things and and say how we really feel about certain things. And that doesn’t mean that we think that we are right about these things. That doesn’t mean that we think you should feel these things. There are just some some parts of our culture of of ways that we are expected to behave in ways that we do behave in ways that men behave that we just don’t understand. And so we get into it. And it’s just a very vulnerable chat two women who don’t know each other getting all the way into it with one another about so many different subjects. And so I hope you enjoy this as much as I did. As much as I enjoyed having this chat with her and getting to know her. She’s a fascinating young woman. Her name is Jamie Loftus, and I hope you love her a lot. [00:07:03][422.9]

Jameela: [00:07:20] This is for your mom, but Jamie Bethany Loftus, welcome to I Weigh. How are you? [00:07:25][4.9]

Jamie: [00:07:26] I’m great. My mom is going to be so excited. [00:07:28][1.7]

Jameela: [00:07:29] Yeah, they love a middle name, don’t they? [00:07:30][1.7]

Jamie: [00:07:31] They love a middle name. This is going to start us off on a while. But my mom would make our middle names, the names of the first names of her past miscarriages. So she is like, oh, it’s a it’s a double pronged shout out. I think that that is sort of nice. But also like. Well, I don’t know. [00:07:51][19.6]

Jameela: [00:07:52] Oh sure. I don’t know. I don’t know how and I don’t know how I feel about it. It’s none of my business. But that is yeah. It’s a it’s it’s very loving and very sad. Basically. [00:08:03][10.3]

Jamie: [00:08:04] I yeah. I feel like it, there’s a lot of baggage there that I didn’t necessarily sign up for, but it makes her feel great and I didn’t have any say in it. [00:08:15][10.6]

Jameela: [00:08:15] My dad just put his name with an eye on the end because there is clearly an egomaniac. That’s mine. Mine is Aaliyah Jameela Aaliyah Jamil, just because we didn’t have enough Ls and As in the name already, so thank God there are more. [00:08:30][15.3]

Jamie: [00:08:31] I love when there’s just additional name baggage just saddled on to you and then you just have to think about it every day until you die. [00:08:37][6.3]

Jameela: [00:08:38] Oh my goodness. Now I’m so excited to have you on this podcast. I’ve been following you on Twitter for a while now and I’m also a big fan of your writing. You you have had such an interesting journey to where you’re at today, and I would love to get into that so that I can help any of my followers who are not already following you online, just start to meet you and get to know you. And I want to at some point get into how you ended up in comedy and how you have ended up as such a such a sobering and enjoyable and funny and incredibly left field feminist voice online with some of the most ridiculous tactics of raising awareness on certain subjects that I’ve ever seen. But I also really want to start with your start, which is something that happened in your life, really young, that we’ve both, no pun intended, talked about how it shaped you, which is scoliosis. How old were you when you got diagnosed with scoliosis? [00:09:40][62.4]

Jamie: [00:09:41] I think I was I think I was twelve. And I found out in gym class it was like one of those, you know, it’s like my my spine was incredibly crooked in multiple directions. And it was like my gym teacher, Miss Tasinare, who was essentially like, you’re fucked. Someone should have told you was a really long time ago. And and then we went to the doctor and sure enough, I was fucked and I had to wear back braces for the next three years. [00:10:14][32.4]

Jameela: [00:10:15] What a diagnosis. [00:10:15][0.2]

Jamie: [00:10:17] I know it was it was it is fun getting medical diagnoses in New England because they tend to be extremely blunt. [00:10:24][6.8]

Jameela: [00:10:25] Scoliosis is curvature of the spine, correct? [00:10:27][2.0]

Jamie: [00:10:27] Yes, right. Yeah. Yeah. And I had an S curve, which just means that you’re kind of fucked in both directions. So, yeah, it’s good. It’s like that I started growing in the wrong direction and then I started growing in the right direction, but then it went too far. And then I had to wear a plastic cast. So I had to I had to wear a cast when I was sleeping for the first year where it was just kind of pushing you to the left and it was really uncomfortable. [00:10:57][29.3]

Jameela: [00:10:58] And were you able to sleep? [00:10:59][1.3]

Jamie: [00:11:01] No, no. So like that whole year, I was just up late reading and like watching Frasier, like after my parents went to bed and, you know, like just didn’t I don’t know, just like wasn’t sleeping well. I felt awful about myself. And then after the first year it got worse because then I had to wear a back brace. Twenty two hours a day for the next, you know, for my first two years of high school, which was not great. The good I guess like I don’t know, I know it could have been worse because when I got scoliosis and I wonder if other people have had it, like it’s just like you just get a million copies of the book Deenie by Judy Blume. And that’s about and that’s supposed to make you feel better, but it really doesn’t because Deenie is so depressed in that book. She feels awful the whole time. And you’re like, OK, that well, that there I am. That’s me. But I wore a back brace under my clothes, not on top. And so I just like, moved strange and I looked different. But no one really understood what was going on with my body and I did not offer any information. So I just sort of was like, I don’t know, I just was like moving differently and was wearing big clothes and just all this stuff for my first couple of years of high school and I just was not it was not helpful in terms of like friends developments in any area. People were making fun of me because they said I was wearing a bulletproof vest to school. That was like the popular theory, like like. [00:12:45][104.4]

Jameela: [00:12:46] Which in America actually isn’t a bad idea. [00:12:48][1.9]

Jamie: [00:12:49] Yeah. [00:12:49][0.0]

Jameela: [00:12:49] You know, let’s bring that into the uniform. Fine with that. I’m sending my children to school in a uniform vest if I have any. [00:12:57][7.9]

Jamie: [00:12:58] I just have this really clear memory of asking, like I had one really close friend my age and then all of my other friends were my cousins who also went to the same high school. And they were nice cousins and they would like lend me their friends and I would sit with them at lunch. But I had one friend who was so kind and nice and like, let me sit with her at lunch. And I just was so I don’t know, I was really like introverted and just felt ugly and didn’t want to explain myself to anybody. And I just really clearly remember asking her. I’m like, do you know, like, does anyone know, like what is going on? Or I sort of liked dead live in this fantasy where I’m like, oh, people just don’t know. It’s I’m just, you know, I’m navigating high school like anyone else. But my friend was like, yeah, there’s a rumor in geometry that you wear a bulletproof vest to school, which is honestly that wasn’t like my worst case scenario. I don’t know what it would have been, but, um. Yeah, I just like [00:13:59][60.8]

Jameela: [00:14:00] Hinders your romantic life, maybe because you don’t put yourself forward because you don’t want anyone to find out by your bulletproof vest. I mean, they can’t even get a bra off. Can you imagine them trying to get body back, brace off. Jesus Christ, [00:14:11][11.2]

Jamie: [00:14:12] I, I didn’t like I didn’t even you had to wear these awful t shirts underneath the back brace. And they were just at the end of the day like. I know. And this is like something to like coming from like and like low like lower middle income family where I was always really conscious of how I smelled and in a back brace you don’t smell very good no matter who, especially if you’re also like 13 or 14, you already smell not great. And then it was like constantly wearing these sweaty t-shirts and I’d have to switch them out. And I was just so I didn’t want to be near anybody. So I just didn’t I didn’t I just in my head, I just shut down there and I was like, I just am not no one is going to want to be my, like, boyfriend or girlfriend like no one. And it was I was really sad about it, but I just I don’t know. I feel like I just shut down. And. [00:15:06][53.7]

Jameela: [00:15:07] Did you have anyone to talk to about fucking complicated, intense feelings as a teenager? [00:15:12][5.3]

Jamie: [00:15:14] Not really, no, I mostly just wrote on my own, and I I had I was lucky that I mean, I had a pretty close knit family that I could talk to. They didn’t always know how to talk back, but they tried. Um, but yeah, I know in terms of school or stuff like that, I was kind of on my own and I just sort of really was introverted outside of like two hours a day where I could do stuff with my friends or like feel, you know, a little just like more normal. But for the most part, I was just really introverted and didn’t talk. [00:15:50][36.0]

Jamie: [00:15:51] That’s really interesting. I, I know that we have a lot of parents who listen to this podcast who sometimes have kids who are going through things and they really just don’t know what the right thing to say is. And and I can say from experience, because I had damaged my back pretty badly when I was 17 and that the thing that you don’t want is for people to just sort of almost accidentally and very lovingly gaslight you out of your experience, been like it’s not that bad. It looks fine. I can’t even I can’t even notice it. I think you look amazing or or it’s all in your head or just, you know, just just because, you know, the sort of toxic positivity meme culture of the 90s where it was just verbal, where memes were verbal and platitudes were just, oh, my God, you were soaked in the platitudes of well-intentioned adults. What would you have wanted to hear back then? Because I think that’s super helpful information. [00:16:48][57.3]

Jamie: [00:16:50] I just I think what I was looking for was just acknowledgment that it sucked. Like I said,. [00:16:55][5.4]

Jameela: [00:16:56] Solidarity. That’s what you were looking for. [00:16:57][1.6]

Jamie: [00:16:58] Yeah. Like I knew that there was nothing my parents could do. They couldn’t, you know, like but I just exactly what you’re describing of like being told like it’s I don’t think anyone notices. And it’s like, well, then why is my why is my life so miserable? Like, you know, and just or like that’s how I felt as a 14 year old. [00:17:18][20.3]

Jameela: [00:17:18] And you actually came up with some funny ways of sort of I don’t know, I have certain things that I believe you called yourself at the time, like oboe, which is amazing. [00:17:31][12.2]

Jamie: [00:17:32] Yes. [00:17:32][0.0]

Jameela: [00:17:34] Backbrace, school newspaper, still has a flip phone, perpetual virgin. Like where did you write these things? [00:17:40][6.1]

Jamie: [00:17:41] Where did I mean, I would have written these kind of anywhere. I also and when I was I mean, young and still now, but didn’t even realize that I had a lot of issues with OCD when I was a kid. So I was like and my compulsion was documenting things. And so I was writing down stuff all the time. I had notebooks where I would write down a lot of my thoughts. I would also write down and this is like very bizarre. And I’m also I’m like, you know, did no one at the school think like we should talk to her about this? I used to write down what everyone around me was wearing for years when I was like it was like which is so sinister for child to do. [00:18:26][44.5]

Jameela: [00:18:27] What, why? I’m not judging. I’m just asking. [00:18:29][2.0]

Jamie: [00:18:30] I couldn’t tell you like that was the confusion too was I. [00:18:34][4.2]

Jameela: [00:18:35] Please, I’m really not judging. Like when I was that age I was weighing myself every single hour of every single day like, you know, we all have our thing will have. So but please explain how many outfits you were documenting here. Are we talking sixty is it a hundred. Is it five. [00:18:50][15.0]

Jamie: [00:18:51] It was so I was doing this from my earliest memory doing it was in the second grade and when I think I finally was like getting too much shit then I had to stop was around eighth or ninth grade. But it was every single day, every class I was in. I would and I had like a shorthand. So if you looked at my it was like the Zodiac killer kind of the way I was, arranging my letters. It was like a language that only made sense to me. [00:19:17][25.4]

Jameela: [00:19:17] Well, you planning on becoming a detective. Did you think something was going to happen? [00:19:20][3.2]

Jamie: [00:19:22] It was no. Like, it just I just knew I don’t know. It was just like that was how my OCD manifested. I wish it manifested differently, but I just would go to class and I would write down in like shorthand, like yellow shirt, blue jeans, Sketchers, headband, and then two initials for who it was. And I would do that in every single class or room full of people, or if I like, went to the doctor or if I went to a restaurant, it would just be documenting that. And I think my again, my parents, who, like I really did want to do right by me, but they were just kind of like reaching for justifications. They’re like, Jamie wants to be a writer. Jamie is interested in fashion. Maybe? We don’t really know. And then I got caught by my teachers doing it a few times. Which was like horrifying because they’re just like, what is this, you know, like scary murder notebook? You have [00:20:19][57.5]

Jameela: [00:20:20] Well, no. And then I think mechanism, isn’t it? Like, this is what our brains do and it distracted you. And if that afforded you a couple of hours a day of freedom from thinking about your fucking back, then it is what it is. So, you know, [00:20:34][14.5]

Jamie: [00:20:36] It was just. [00:20:36][0.0]

Jameela: [00:20:36] You were like you’re like the OG CCTV. It’s incredible and so cool. [00:20:41][5.2]

Jamie: [00:20:42] If anyone wants to know what they wore to 6th grade in 2004, I feel I can. I have the data. [00:20:49][7.1]

Jameela: [00:20:50] You’re the founding mother of surveillance, so it’s such a privilege to have you on the show. [00:20:54][4.7]

Jamie: [00:20:55] So many paul, Paul Frank monkey T-shirts. [00:20:57][2.4]

Jameela: [00:20:58] Exactly. Oh, my goodness. [00:20:59][1.2]

Jameela: [00:21:07] You have had so much success in the past couple of years and you have so much you’ve such a great reputation in this industry, but how do you get into it? How did you how did you find your way in? [00:21:16][9.4]

Jamie: [00:21:18] It took me I guess I got interested in college, I was still pretty introverted when I went into college, and so I wanted to get into writing and then I got interested in radio was kind of the niche I fell into there because it was like it just felt like a good splitting of the difference of I didn’t feel like especially the first couple of years after I got out of the back brace, I still didn’t feel like physically confident enough to present myself on stage as myself at all. But radio, like at our college radio station, I was like, oh, this is like a good middle ground. Like, I don’t mind. I can talk and I don’t need to be seen. And that felt more comfortable for me and I felt more comfortable kind of, I don’t know, just like speaking with less anxiety, which led to once I felt more comfortable there, trying out for comedy groups and getting involved and starting to do stand up in in Boston for my first couple of years. [00:22:18][60.4]

Jameela: [00:22:19] And interestingly enough, it was being in the industry, in the comedy world that drove you to feminism like it wasn’t something that you had been necessarily fully aware of. I mean, you were busy with other shit. Let’s just be real for a moment. And also, it wasn’t a mainstream conversation. We didn’t have social media. You know, we didn’t we weren’t as informed as as the next generation are now. But it was being around so much misogyny just kind of drenched in patriarchy. And their discomfort with the idea of feminism or equality that pushed you towards feminism, right? [00:22:55][36.2]

Jamie: [00:22:56] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was it was such a strange because this was around like like 2012, 2013 where it was like it felt like as I was starting to perform, like these conversations were just about to start, but they hadn’t quite started. This was around the time that there were conversations in like 2013 around college campus assault like that wave. And if you remember there was like a public demonstration where a girl was carrying a mattress around and like it was this era. And I had also been assaulted by a guy that I performed comedy with at school. And it was just all of this stuff sort of piling on. And I don’t know if it was a combination of my own experience and also the outright hostility that, like the sort of male dominated Boston comedy scene at this time had towards this conversation going on about assault on campus that just made me so angry. But I wasn’t ready to talk about why I was angry as an individual. But I but that was what really pushed me into, like, doubling down on like, if this is so scary to you, there’s really something to it. And I want to know more and I want to understand. And I want to. [00:24:21][85.1]

Jameela: [00:24:22] Push your buttons. [00:24:22][0.3]

Jamie: [00:24:24] Yeah. Yeah. I know this is like a world I want to exist inside of, but not feeling like this. And so what can I do? [00:24:32][8.1]

Jameela: [00:24:32] Can I ask what that attitude was towards, you know, that conversation. Do you have examples of the kind of things that they would say? Just out of curiosity? I know it was a while ago, but [00:24:41][8.5]

Jamie: [00:24:41] a lot of victim blaming, a lot of like, oh, all of a sudden this is bad. Oh. All of a sudden it like it just acting like the idea of being incensed about being assaulted was, first of all, a new concept. And second of all, something that it was like even by reacting to it in any public way, you were seeking attention, you were like it was just an attention seeking technique so that by the time I was sort of finishing college and had spoken about my own experience, that was kind of how that went. And I think [00:25:17][36.2]

Jameela: [00:25:18] You were you were you were treated as though you were attention seeking or, you know, weaponizing an alleged assault. [00:25:27][9.3]

Jamie: [00:25:28] Oh, God. Love alleged. [00:25:30][1.5]

Jameela: [00:25:31] Love alleged. [00:25:32][0.8]

Jamie: [00:25:33] Yeah. I mean, that was just kind of how it went. And I mean, not everyone in my life was like that. And I did find allies in the comedy community at that time that were very welcoming and accommodating and like just willing to listen to me was the bar I was trying to get met and like a willingness to have this conversation and not just a shut shut you down within, like, OK, alleged or shut down with, like, you don’t want to talk about this because it’s because that’s the other threat that was sort of come up is like, well, you don’t want to talk about this or that’s the only thing people are going to know about you and you’re not going to be able to perform anymore like that that came up several times from including from, you know, like women, from people that thought they were, you know, trying to do right by a younger comic, by by saying, look, you don’t want to be the girl who was, you know, assaulted. So, like, you know, I feel for you. I believe you, but stop talking about it, you know? And that was kind of. [00:26:40][67.0]

Jameela: [00:26:41] God, that’s painful. [00:26:41][0.4]

Jamie: [00:26:43] It sucked. Yeah, it sucked. [00:26:44][1.3]

Jameela: [00:26:45] Also, no one wants to be the girl who was fucking assaulted. Literally, literally. Nobody wants to be that girl, but. But part of that is because there’s such a huge stigma on being that girl. And the only way to remove that stigma is for all of us who have been that girl to talk about it so we can realize that actually there’s nothing wrong with you. You didn’t do anything wrong. Something happened to you because there was something wrong with that person and. [00:27:11][26.0]

Jamie: [00:27:11] Right. [00:27:11][0.0]

Jameela: [00:27:11] And and it’s OK. And we’re all like devastatingly all in this together. A statistic came out yesterday, I think, in the news that 97 percent of women in the United Kingdom have been sexually harassed. [00:27:25][13.8]

Jamie: [00:27:26] Good Lord, that is not surprising at all. But it’s like, Jesus Christ. [00:27:30][3.7]

Jameela: [00:27:30] No, I know 97 percent. Who is this magical three percent who’ve just been in hiding in a basement somewhere? Like that is the only way that that’s happening. [00:27:40][9.5]

Jamie: [00:27:41] Oh, my God. [00:27:42][0.5]

Jameela: [00:27:42] That is a terrifying statistic. And that’s now. [00:27:45][2.3]

Jamie: [00:27:45] Curious about that three percent. I’m like, what, what an incredible life. What a what a life to have lived. [00:27:51][6.3]

Jameela: [00:27:51] No, you’re not going outside. If you’re in that three percent, you’re not outside. That’s it. You’re in. You’re you’re staying in or you’re you’re living in sort of butt fuck middle of nowhere where there’s no one to harass you. That’s the only way I think that that is happening. Terrifying. Terrifying. And and and this idea that, you know, you’ve kind of brought up that that we flipped the script on them somehow, like where it had been OK, up until suddenly it’s not OK anymore. It’s it was never OK. And we’re still seeing that discourse this fucking week. You and I were talking on the phone earlier. You know, we have a woman who went missing and they believe they can confirm that she has passed now. Her name is Sarah Everard. And if you have been on social media at all, it is very likely that you have seen this case because it has started a huge conversation online. And I feel like we periodically have these conversations every time there is a high profile moment of not her high profile person, but a high profile case of a woman going missing who was just walking home at night. And the response from the police is always, well, women don’t wear headphones, don’t walk alone at night, don’t leave the house after dark women, there’s an attacker on the loose. So you all have to be aware and stay in. There’s no there’s no onus on men. [00:29:18][86.3]

Jamie: [00:29:20] It’s all the only actionable item is for a woman to protect herself and then it just ends up casting a blame on someone who cannot defend themselves anymore. And it’s I don’t know that conversation is. I was avoiding it at first. And then it sort of started digging into it this afternoon. And it’s just it’s so infuriating because it does feel like the same conversation over and over and over and and the same kind of, you know, dissenting voices being like, well, what’s so wrong about you not going outside at night? Like what? Like just in just an indication that you’re asking for, you know, to be murdered. Like, it’s just such an absurd concept that I it’s so discouraging. And also just like kind of the precedent set of like I feel like, you know, women in general are just asked to, like, talk about the most traumatic thing that’s ever happened to them in their life several times a year. See, no y know, progress really made in terms of how we’re treated. And then, OK, well, here’s the next time you need to talk about the worst thing that’s ever happened to you. And we’ll see if it works this time. Like it’s just so frustrating and exhausting and. Oh, God. Yeah, that the details of that case are so, so, so, sad. [00:30:47][87.1]

Jameela: [00:30:47] So upsetting. And she was just walking home from a friend’s house. She walked for under an hour. It wasn’t like four o’clock in the morning. Even if it was, you should be fucking safe. There are countries in this world where women are safe to walk around in the street. It is possible it’s not inherently British or American thing. It’s not something in the water here. It’s a choice. It’s a societal choice. It’s a it’s an upbringing. It’s a it’s a consciousness. And and it’s a fucking decision. And it needs to be treated in that way. And she the wave of tut tuts when it was announced she had gone missing of like, well, I mean, that’s very late for a young woman to be walking alone. Why is that the conversation I told you before when we were talking about Dr Jackson Katz, who gave a TED talk called Violence Against Women. It’s a men’s issue. And I just want to read to everyone what he what he says, which perfectly highlights a) the the the problem with the rhetoric around this crisis that we continue to be in for yet another fucking year, another century of this shit. But I think also in this highlights why it’s still happening. So he says we talk about how many women were raped last year, not about how many men raped women. We talk about how many girls in a school district were harassed last year, not about how many boys harassed girls. We talk about how many teenage girls got pregnant in the state of Vermont last year, rather than how many men and teenage boys got girls pregnant. So you can see how the use of this passive voice has a political effect. It shifts the focus off men and boys onto girls and women. Even the term violence against women is problematic. It’s a passive construction. There’s no active agent in the sentence. It’s just a bad thing that happens to women. It’s a bad thing that happens to women. But when you look at that term violence against women, nobody is doing it to them. It just happens. Men aren’t even a part of it. Fuck me. [00:32:58][131.1]

Jamie: [00:32:59] I almost hate that a man said that. [00:33:01][1.9]

Jameela: [00:33:02] It kills me, kills me, I’m so I’m angry, I’m jealous,. [00:33:05][3.3]

Jamie: [00:33:06] Dammit. [00:33:06][0.0]

Jameela: [00:33:06] I’m feeling so many things. Yeah, but he fucking nailed it. [00:33:10][4.2]

Jamie: [00:33:11] He did. He really did and I mean, that’s present in the Sarah Everard story that’s present in God so much stuff that’s been on my mind recently. [00:33:20][8.5]

Jameela: [00:33:20] It’s it’s present in history. Never mind just one person’s story. That’s that’s it. That’s the fucking problem. It’s the problem is how we talk about it and how much we what we don’t talk about. And so I feel like this is the first time the discourse has moved away from just so many women coming out and saying, you know, all the different things they have to do in order to protect themselves. You know, I have a thing that I do to get home safe, that I’ll tell you about now. I don’t know if I’ve talked about it in this podcast before. It doesn’t make me sound super stable. But also I’m not as we know. So I and this is kind of sad and ridiculous at the same time, I run as if I’m already being chased. So I am looking behind me. I keep looking behind me as if I’m already running away from someone in the hopes because this world is so fucked that a man who might consider chasing me will be like she’s already taken. She’s already taken. Someone’s already got that one. I’ll wait for the next one. [00:34:26][65.2]

Jamie: [00:34:27] That is galaxy brain. I love it. I mean, every every woman and really anyone of a marginalized gender that, you know, has their tactic of how to get home after a certain hour, like the fact that that is such a commonly recognized. [00:34:42][15.2]

Jameela: [00:34:44] Code. [00:34:44][0.0]

Jamie: [00:34:45] And survival. Yeah, like a survival technique of like I do the I do the fake phone call. I love to be a walking on my phone talking to someone who is not on the other line being like. [00:34:54][9.7]

Jameela: [00:34:55] Who do you imagine? [00:34:55][0.3]

Jamie: [00:34:56] I imagine Joaquin Phoenix. [00:34:57][0.6]

Jameela: [00:35:00] Do you ever imagine Joaquin Phoenix. And he’s not a big talker, so he’s like, terrible, terrible talking to you [00:35:05][5.2]

Jamie: [00:35:07] I’m talking to the literal joker when I walk home. But I like to do my approach is I like to be in like a bit of an argument so no one is going to like hopefully no one’s going to, like, stop me and get it, because it’s not a casual conversation like I’m having. I’m having a one sided argument. And then every at least once a block, I make sure to say, well, I’m almost home, so I’ll be there in a second like that. So I’m having an argument and I keep reminding the person I’m arguing with that I’m about to get home and that’s how I how I how I eventually get there. And we still haven’t worked things out. Me and me and Joaquin. [00:35:48][41.0]

Jameela: [00:35:49] He opens up to me, you see. So I know he might not be a big talker but like I we have a code [00:35:54][4.5]

Jamie: [00:35:56] I can like hear him nodding, you know, I can hear the silence . [00:36:00][4.4]

Jameela: [00:36:01] Yeah the safety of the nod. I want to talk to you about the girl boss. You you have spoken a lot, and under the title of Girl whom is a boss. And I would like you to explain your general thoughts around the girl boss, like it’s a it’s a phenomenon that has become a part of my generation, our generation. And I think Sophia Amoroso from who literally wrote the book Girl Boss, and she started the company Nasty Gal. And there was a Netflix dramatization of the rise of that company. What are your opinions on that culture? [00:36:45][44.5]

Jamie: [00:36:48] That it kind of I mean, I first got turned on to like Girl Bossery in general when I, I was getting frustrated that a podcast that I have been doing for a year is called The Bechdel Cast, it was getting like lumped in with, you know, and [00:37:09][21.2]

Jameela: [00:37:11] Will you explain. I know what your podcast is about the Bechdel test, but will you please tell people because it’s fucking hilarious. [00:37:15][3.8]

Jamie: [00:37:17] The Bechdel Cast it’s built around the Bechdel test. So we just have guests bring their favorite movie and then we analyze how that movie treats women from like an intersectional perspective. And like we start by talking about does it pass the Bechdel test? It’s a media metric invented by Alison Bechdel, whose work is amazing. She wrote Fun Home, among other things, and it’s from her comic collection Dykes To Watch Out For that basically says that in any movie there must be an exchange between two named female characters that talk about something other than a man. And it was originally just kind of like this one off joke, but spiraled out into a kind of like commonly used media metric just to see is there any impactful, you know, female interaction in this movie at all. And, you know, it’s getting better, but often the answer is no. Um, and so we sort of use that as a jumping off point to talk about well, OK, this doesn’t pass the Bechdel test. How are we treating women? What, and then like going into the context of who made this, what are their views, how was it received? How has it affected our guest and us and the way we see ourselves? And just kind of like a big, funny conversation about how movies that don’t treat women particularly well have shaped our own self-image. So we that’s kind of been our, you know, like mission really early on. But we would often get kind of put onto these listicles that we’re like just so broad and kind like we’re they’re like podcast by woman, like, you know, like the kind of list you end up on where it’s like here’s a woman doing a thing and we’re just assuming they’re all kind of doing the same thing. And the people we were getting kind of like lumped in with were sometimes like, oh, well, I like I couldn’t identify with this other person less because they’re they’re where the girl boss concept comes in is I have like a real frustration with the concept that the idea, the end goal of feminism is to just be able to do what men do without being at all critical of what men do, you know. And so so so as kind of there was a term coming together for a girl boss, I felt like and I ended up kind of like building a show around this. I just felt frustrated with the idea that feminism could exist in this vacuum of like I want to be able to do anything I want and in a way that is very uncritical of capitalism in a way that is like intersectional in absolutely no way. And it would just end up being like, you know how men do absolutely vile things for money and have no conscience. I want to do that. And I’m like, well, I think we need to, like, get another draft of that in. But there was like especially I’m thinking of like the peak of it being more like lean in culture of it’s still somewhat blamey towards women because it’s like, oh well your problem is that you are not asking for enough. It’s like just with a few easy tips, you two can commit the atrocities that men commit. And I, its just so frustrating. [00:40:52][215.0]

Jameela: [00:40:53] It’s often it’s often a very beautiful, slender white woman. [00:40:56][3.8]

Jamie: [00:40:58] Almost always. [00:40:58][0.5]

Jameela: [00:40:59] Who is it comes from maybe some privilege, maybe not some privilege, but. But who who will be there explaining to you that, you know, you can easily just get what you want. [00:41:08][9.2]

Jamie: [00:41:09] Yeah. And it’s just like I so so as that sort of stock character was becoming, I mean, there was just kind of a slew of them that came one right after the other. And it’s like I mean, peak for me as Elizabeth Holmes where you’re like, oh, you know, I just don’t think that I don’t know. I if for my litmus test for for like are you a girl, boss? It’s like, well, if you say that you love and appreciate women, but you would never in your life join a union, then then we’ve got a problem, you know, and. Yeah, feminism, that’s not critical of capitalism in any way, it’s just like it’s useless to me. I don’t I don’t I don’t care for it. So I did a lot of writing and performing and I don’t know. I mean, it’s it’s weird because over the years, like, even my own views on it have kind of shifted and grown. But, um, [00:42:07][57.9]

Jameela: [00:42:08] You felt I’ve read before that you, you know, you felt and unheard before that you feel like they’ve also kind of like this this sort of neo feminism that’s kind of used as a kind of, I don’t know, a shield for the capitalist ruthlessness of it all. And like, I’m all too familiar with that with that title of girl boss because so many people tried to lump me in with them and really just and I think it’s because I wear a lot of suits. I don’t know, I, I just like to sit with my legs very wide open. That’s why I wear suits and I like to fart down my trouser legs. You know, this is it’s not a. [00:42:48][39.9]

Jamie: [00:42:48] That’s true. [00:42:48][0.4]

Jameela: [00:42:49] I’m not trying to emulate a guy. [00:42:50][1.0]

Jamie: [00:42:51] That’s final wave feminism. [00:42:52][1.3]

Jameela: [00:42:53] I just want to be free. I want to manspread and fart in freedom. You know, I don’t want to suck anything in. And, uh, and nor should I. But no, my I think it’s because I wear a lot of suits, power suits, I believe they’re called. And and because I am a feminist and I think I don’t know.I think people I actually don’t- let me just think about this because I want to be really careful, because I also want to make sure that people understand I’m very pro women being empowered in this world in any way. And I am pro women, even in spite of all of the evils of capitalism. I am pro women rising in corporate positions because. [00:43:35][42.1]

Jamie: [00:43:36] Sure. [00:43:36][0.0]

Jameela: [00:43:36] Because I think we are hopefully more likely to hire each other because men, men won’t in fact, we’ve actually seen post #metoo statistically the numbers of women in executive positions around the world in business decrease because they’re not being hired by men, because men are now afraid they’re going to be accused of sexual assault or sexual harassment. So they’ve stopped hiring us because they’re afraid. Afraid, so they’ve stopped hiring us. So I do think that there is some there are some great qualities to women rising up, to women acquiring wealth, but not hoarding that wealth, sharing that wealth with one another, like investing in other women, investing transwomen, investing in women of color. We can’t just be the first ones to be like, no, no, no, no, no. Capitalism is evil and men should stop what they’re doing, but we’re not going to participate in it because kind of the only way we can level the playing field or at least start to make significant change in who has the power is via entering that space. So I am I’m definitely with you. [00:44:37][60.8]

Jamie: [00:44:39] Yeah, I mean, it’s like being a woman with power isn’t being a girl boss, like, I feel like the girl boss is the pejorative for a woman who gets power and then proceeds to hoard it, you know, and that and so that’s how I feel in terms of like especially in like I feel like the earlier 2010s when feminism was presented as very binary, like now you can do what horrible men have been doing for centuries when the mission should be, you know, if you are, you know, wanting to hold power and there should absolutely be more women in power. But once once that power is held, what are you doing with that great responsibility? And I feel like for a lot for a period of time and it doesn’t feel like quite that way anymore for the most part. But there was a period of time where just holding the power was like, OK, mission accomplished. We did it. When in fact it’s like, well, what are they doing? You know? And it’s like if you look at what they what some some women who had quite a bit of power were doing while being celebrated as, you know, the end game of feminism when they were all, you know, just white women who started with a lot of advantages, and then they proceeded to not really pay it forward in any meaningful way. And so it’s like, you know, it just didn’t feel like a very meaningful celebration, even though we were asked to be. [00:46:05][86.0]

Jameela: [00:46:05] No I don’t you mean emulation is the highest form of flattery and it implies that that what men are doing is superior and the the the the mold, you know, like, yeah, that’s it. They’ve created the perfect mold. And even just I guess and this is not we’re not trashing anyone we’re definitely not trashing like Servais Amarice or anything or the term girl boss like I get it. And it happened and no one could have predicted that it would have caught like the attention of the zeitgeist the way that it did. It’s no one’s fault. That’s because it appealed to us because of our conditioning. Right. But just tagging the world girl onto the word boss implies that there’s a difference between us as bosses and them. And I think that’s also something to boss bitch girl boss. Like, it all separates us from essentially the the original foundation of a boss. And also being a boss is shit. Being a boss is shit. You get blamed for everything. You have to make all the big decisions. Sure you get some glory, but nowhere near as much of the blame. It’s a lot like, you know, how much I miss being part of a team? Do you know how much I miss just being told what to do. Just just was just getting some fucking guidance. Someone just tell me what to do. Just give me a task and I will do it. I’m fucking tired and I’m scared. I’m lost. [00:47:28][83.3]

Jamie: [00:47:31] Got to put a blanket around you. [00:47:33][1.7]

Jameela: [00:47:33] Are you sure I’m wearing one right now. [00:47:35][1.8]

Jamie: [00:47:36] I know it looks comfortable. [00:47:37][0.2]

Jameela: [00:47:37] It is. This is what you have to wear after you’ve been up all so fucking traumatized. I think what we’re both implying is that it’s just it’s a tightrope to walk. And when we have to be very thoughtful in and if we’re going to do this, as do our own way and let’s do it the right way, let’s rewrite let’s break the fucking mold and remake it properly. [00:47:56][18.9]

Jamie: [00:47:57] Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. [00:47:58][1.6]

Jameela: [00:47:59] Amazing. And I love that you’ve also put so much you’ve put so much thorough and thoughtful investigative work into the subject. You’re not just doing what I’ve done in the past and spouting off some shit that you’ve just come up with in your head, like she really has like looked into this. And I honestly invite everyone to just look into your girl who whom is a boss at work. And speaking of important work that you have been doing, you have a project that is that you’ve been working on recently about Lalita. Will you tell me about this? Because it’s a super fascinating subject. I’m I have so many thoughts already. [00:48:40][40.9]

Jamie: [00:48:42] I’m very excited to hear because it’s just I don’t know. Everyone’s story with Lolita is so individual and so I don’t know. I spent the last six months working on a project called Lolita podcast that is kind of just a complete investigation of Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, analyzing the book, analyzing how the book came to be, and then choosing all these different branches of how it had such a profound effect on how we view young girls and also just stories about child sex abuse in general. Um, and so there is I mean, there’s ten different episodes, but we go into the movie adaptations, which are very vile in different ways. I think there’s an episode about the Broadway shows that are also really bad. There is episodes that are strictly focused on how survivors of child sexual abuse have received this book. And there are some survivors who have really gotten a lot of out of it and there’s others that really can’t stand it. And just sort of starting that conversation, speaking with experts who work in that field and in getting justice for survivors. And then there’s also kind of the online component where there’s been this online culture and also in like the music industry surrounding the esthetics of Lolita and what that is kind of evolved to mean and just how it became, you know, the word Lolita became this shorthand for a young girl who is somehow inviting abuse instead of it being inflicted upon her by an abuser. [00:50:29][107.5]

Jameela: [00:50:30] Indeed. And there are some people out there who may not have read the book or seen any of the films where you quickly summarize what the what the original book was intending to tell the story of. [00:50:39][9.7]

Jamie: [00:50:41] Yes. So Lolita is about, um, well, it’s a it’s narrated by a character named Humbert Humbert, who is a child sex abuser. Um, he is writing in the first person. So it is him presenting his abuse to you, trying to paint himself in the most charitable light possible. It follows his life, but it primarily follows him abusing a young girl named Dolores Haze, who is twelve years old. When he meets her, he pretty thoroughly grooms her and sexually abuses her for about two years. She escapes out of his clutches into the arms of another abuser, then eventually goes on to live independently for a few years and then they die at the end. And it’s the saddest book of all time. [00:51:31][50.6]

Jameela: [00:51:33] Indeed, indeed it is. And that book has really been artistically, uh, reinterpreted in film. Lots of it’s very disturbing the Jeremy Irons one even, and he’s great, but fuck me like they pick a guy. No, no, no. I mean, he’s a great actor, but, yeah, he’s not great and it’s not playing a great character. We don’t I don’t like it. I’m upset with it. And I don’t like the way that the girl is portrayed. And she looks a lot older than 12. And there’s scenes of her sort of like all wet and scantily clad. And she’s a very beautiful young girl. And she’s looking at him very, very knowingly and sexually in a quite quite a womanly and and deliberately provocative way in a way that, yeah, I’ve been 12, I’ve been 12. And I can fuckin tell you, I didn’t know how to look at someone like that. And maybe there are some girls who do. But regardless, like it’s very much so leading you to think that this was mutual and it can’t it can’t be mutual. In that age dynamic. [00:52:52][78.7]

Jamie: [00:52:53] It implies that this is a consensual, not just a consensual relationship, but a consensual loving relationship. [00:53:00][6.6]

Jameela: [00:53:00] Mutual, healthy. Yeah. [00:53:02][1.5]

Jamie: [00:53:03] Which, of course, it’s like and what I think is interesting is it’s made pretty clear to you in the text that that is not possible. But the way that the movie adaptations have gone, they really just I mean, for for my money, you know, you’re reading this book that is, you know, the narrator of this book has a vested interest in distancing themselves from the fact that they are committing a crime over and over and over. But the movie is just kind of translate this this, you know, lie of a narrative directly and don’t challenge it at all in the way that any of the characters are framed in any of the events. There’s just no indication that this protagonist might be a complete fucking liar. Which in the book it is pretty clear that. [00:53:53][50.1]

Jameela: [00:53:54] He’s a fantasist. [00:53:54][0.2]

Jamie: [00:53:56] Yeah. And that Lolita isn’t even a person who exists. She is. You know, Lolita is a construction of of this very sick person’s imagination. And Dolores Hayes is the child who is being abused. And the way that it’s been interpreted in on stage and in movies, there’s there’s no separation between the two. It’s just it’s just Lolita. There is Dolores is absent from the narrative entirely. And it’s just so, so, so, so, so harmful in how that plays out and how that affects, you know, young girls who see that movie, too. Because I remember I remember the first time I saw the Jeremy Irons version, it used to be like uploaded to YouTube in twelve parts and watching it and and and really like taking it to heart in a way that was like harmful. Um, yeah. [00:54:49][53.2]

Jameela: [00:54:50] Yeah. I feel as though I you know, I think I saw at an age where I was like, oh, this is how I’m supposed to behave. I’m supposed to behave like her I’m supposed to dress like her. And the reason I think it’s I don’t think this is I don’t think this is a profound revelation of mine. But the reason that I think that are hugely predatory, ageist, misogynist industry and society at large has taken to it in the way that they have. And they’ve loved the interpretation that she is consenting and she is seductive, like, you know, she wants it. I know you want it is because and the reason they love blurring those lines is because we have a societal global fixation with very, very young girls. And it is, I don’t think it’s created by pornography, but it’s massively exacerbated by it. And the way that pornography has poured out into the mainstream and the way that we really don’t put a lot of emphasis on how attractive a powerful woman or a strong woman or a woman who knows where the fuck she is or a woman who’s in control of everything. We don’t place a lot of emphasis of unless she’s a kind of an overbearing dominatrix, maybe that might be one of the only forms. But again, that still feels quite niche within the sexually desirable community. Please, no, I’m not shaming you or blaming you for the behavior of men. I’m just saying that it makes me sad that we kind of we kind of feel an obligation to act young because age and maturity and power and, you know, knowingness is considered, I don’t know, like you’re worn out or something, you know, [00:56:28][98.6]

Jamie: [00:56:29] I mean, just even the concept that agents that, oh, a woman like displaying agency is not an attractive quality. It’s just I mean, it’s it to me, like speaks to just the lack of viable alternatives and the fact that. And again, like like you’re saying, like not targeting any specific individual, but the fact that that acting younger and and, you know, presenting yourself that way is what has caught on in the mainstream, [00:57:00][31.2]

Jameela: [00:57:01] Younger and more naive and stupider, just to be clear, like than you are. [00:57:05][3.6]

Jamie: [00:57:06] Right. And it’s like and and the aesthetic that and other niche aesthetics don’t break through to the mainstream. And then it’s like, well, why don’t they why don’t you know niche communities where women are extremely dominant and powerful or just confidently displaying agency? Why is that kind of a rarer thing to to break through? I mean, the fashion element of Lolita is really complicated because there’s multiple corners of it. One, the largest corner of it is not even technically related to the book. Um, and then also the I mean, the fact that there’s there’s so many there’s just young girls that are kind of and women building their self-image around communities like like these. And there is an element of community and connection involved that I don’t want to invalidate. And then there’s also like things worth discussing there of like why is this you know, why is this predatory story, you know, the center of a movement? You know, it just. [00:58:14][67.8]

Jameela: [00:58:14] It’s a story about a pedophile like inherent inherently in and of itself. It’s a story about a pedophile. And that’s what it is. [00:58:21][7.0]

Jamie: [00:58:21] Yeah. [00:58:21][0.0]

Jameela: [00:58:22] And it’s a very well written story about a pedophile. And it is it is a name, Lolita, that is in our consciousness because of a story about pedophilia, an egregious story about it. And it’s just really important to hammer that home and that you don’t think that I’m on any kind of slut shaming or any kind of shaming. And also, yes, it is absolutely a woman’s right to use her power to to choose to disempower herself publicly. Or maybe she doesn’t consider it to be disempowering because it’s her decision to do it. I get that there are this is a nuanced subject and neither of us are the experts on how to dissect that. But I just want us to to also look at the vitriolic, like horror that that Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion, were met with, with WAP, where you have two very confident women whose bodies, you know, do not look childlike in any way. They’re very much they’re owning their woman womanhood and they are talking about, you know, they go down on me and then get out of my house. You know, it’s very forward and controlling and just sort of take the bins out, you know, suck my tits and then clean up my toilet. You know, it’s just very it’s wonderful. It’s so liberating and and joyous. And they were met with a lot of shock and horror, not just from men, but from women, because we’re kind of like some people were repelled by the idea of these very like like they found it. They find it domineering rather than sexy. So this woman knows what she wants. I’m not I’m going to have to guess and be bad at sex. She’s going to tell me if I’m being bad at sex and then she’ll tell me how to be better and then I’ll be better and then she’ll come and then we’ll all have a great time. She’ll call me back. So I’m going down. Going down in. [01:00:05][103.4]

Jamie: [01:00:06] No I mean, it’s like I just want women to be able to do whatever the fuck they want without fear of retribution. Like it’s like if you want to, you know, dress. I mean, if you want to get into dressing younger, go for it. I just I don’t like that there is a if when there are pressures to feel like you have to. Versus like that should be a decision you just make because it’s what you want to do, you know. And and I know that there’s a number of women who make that decision. Oh. I mean in getting into into any esthetic because it’s just what they’re drawn to, what they like and removing that element of societal pressure of like, oh, if I don’t do this, I will be thought of as X, you know, it’s just like I just I just want [01:00:54][48.0]

Jameela: [01:00:54] I want to understand [01:00:55][0.4]

Jamie: [01:00:55] to do whatever the fuck they want. [01:00:56][0.4]

Jameela: [01:00:56] I want to understand. And then having this conversation, it’s OK for us to have this conversation. Everyone is listening to this. Like, I totally get it if you feel differently. Not that we’ve even fully expressed how we feel because I think we don’t really fully understand it because it’s just so much bigger than us. And it’s this behemoth of almost like a movement online. It’s OK to just have conversations in which you just say how you feel, you figure out how you feel, and our opinions are transient and maybe we will attain more information and know and change our minds or feel more so the way that we do. But I just yeah, I want for women to be allowed to have these conversations where we do just question it, because [01:01:36][39.7]

Jamie: [01:01:38] Yeah and just like figure it out together, because I, the episode I worked on for Lolita podcast that is around online cultures that have been built around Lolita and Lolita esthetics, it was genuinely like the the most valuable conversations I was having was with people who exist inside of that world and just being like, hey, this is like new to me or I mean, this era of it, because I was involved in stuff like that. In the early 2010s, early 2000s, when Tumblr first became a thing, it was an esthetic I was really drawn to for reasons I couldn’t really explain, like it was just what was happening. And and talking to people who are who are in that community now was so incredibly just helpful. It’s like, oh, we just truly need to talk to each other and figure shit out together. And it is like in kind of this like not acquisitional space where it’s like, hey, I don’t get this, like, let’s talk what’s going on. And I left that episode feeling, you know, I just went out with a very different outcome than what I was expecting, um, because I feel like I went in with a little bit of judgment and then left with like, oh, I just needed to talk to them. You know, it’s definitely not for me and it’s not what I am drawn to anymore. But but there are elements of it that I hadn’t considered. And so it’s like that that ongoing conversation, I feel like is really, really valuable something that I wouldn’t have been ready to do even a couple of years ago, I think. [01:03:10][92.5]

Jameela: [01:03:11] Yeah. That there are a million angles of this. I’m and I’m just so glad that we can have this conversation. [01:03:16][5.2]

Jamie: [01:03:17] And yeah, I totally agree. [01:03:18][1.1]

Jameela: [01:03:18] And where can people hear the rest of this conversation before I lose you? [01:03:21][2.5]

Jamie: [01:03:23] You can find Lolita podcast is streaming anywhere there’s podcasts, so and it’s ten parts. It’s kind of heavy so if you have to listen to it in installments, that’s probably for the best. It can be kind of an intense experience, but you can find it anywhere. [01:03:41][17.4]

Jameela: [01:03:41] And I would love to learn more about the the kind of Lolita community that spawned from the book, away from the book that kind of exists more in the esthetic world. I’m really excited to learn more about them because I hate the fact that they think I’m ever attacking them when I’m calling out the, um, the glamorization of pedophilic culture. [01:04:02][21.1]

Jamie: [01:04:04] Mm hmm. I think I mean, it’s just. Yeah, I mean, I feel like there in my experience in that community is like they’re down to have the conversation. So it’s I’m glad that that, you know, kind of communication is kind of opening up and it doesn’t need to feel like we’re at each other’s throats about it. It’s like I don’t get it. Help me out. [01:04:24][20.0]

Jameela: [01:04:24] Yeah, for sure. Well, everyone go and check out everything that Jamie has ever made. And so, Jamie, before you go, will you please tell me, what do you weigh? [01:04:33][8.5]

Jamie: [01:04:36] I weigh. Well, I guess I think mostly it’s very specific curiosity, that’s what brings me the most joy in my life, whether it’s something really depressing or something really silly. And I what I what I value most about myself is that I like to be curious. I like to learn new shit and I like to feel wrong about stuff later because it means that that I’m learning shit. I like to just be. [01:05:10][34.5]

Jameela: [01:05:11] Yeah. [01:05:11][0.0]

Jamie: [01:05:12] Curious and wrong and learning a lot. That’s my that’s my what I what I want to the track I want to stay on. [01:05:19][7.2]

Jameela: [01:05:20] I love that. And if I’ve been wrong on this podcast tell me. Send me a DM just let me know. I want to know. This is how I learn. I have this podcast because I’m trying to figure it out and I love learning with and from you guys. And thank you so much for coming on this podcast. You are a delight. It feels like we’ve known each other for years. [01:05:37][17.2]

Jamie: [01:05:38] Thank you for having me. I know this was so much fun. It feels. It feels right. I so appreciate everything you do. [01:05:44][5.9]

Jameela: [01:05:45] Thank you. [01:05:45][0.4]

Jameela: [01:05:48] Thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode I Weigh with Jameela Jamil is produced and researched by myself, Jameela Jamil, Erin Finnegan and Kimmie Gregory. It is edited by Andrew Carson. And the beautiful music that you’re hearing now is made by my boyfriend, James Blake. If you haven’t already, please rate, review and subscribe to the show. It’s a great way to show your support. I really appreciate it. And it amps me up to bring on better and better guests. Lastly, at I Weigh we would love to hear from you and share what you weigh at the end of this podcast. You can leave us a voicemail at 1-818-660-5543. Or email us what you weigh at IWeighpodcast@gmail.com. It’s not pounds and kilos. Please don’t send that. It’s all about you just you know, you’ve been on the Instagram anyway, and now we would love to pass the mic to one of our listeners. [01:06:35][47.5]

Listener: [01:06:39] I weigh 49 years of emerging from poor kid from a broken home to a fabulous international nomad business owner, wife, mom and soon to be a therapist, I weigh the many continents I have lived in and the pieces of those places that I’ve taken with me. I weigh the blinding, bright futures of my beautiful, neuro diverse kids, the love of a pug and a career as a relationship therapy guru. And I just keep gaining with a big old kiss. [01:06:39][0.0]

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