April 20, 2025 • 38 mins
Jameela Jamil may as well be Aussie, she feels like one of us—funny, unfiltered, and refreshingly nonchalant.
You might know her as Tahani from The Good Place, but these days she’s just as well known for her fearless activism on body image, mental health, and gender equality.
What you'll hear in this conversation:
- Why she refuses to give men like Andrew Tate airtime
- Her call to rethink the way we talk about masculinity
- The link between friendship and mental health
- Why she’s counting down to turning 40
- And how she’s learnt to appreciate aging, change, and letting go of the pressure to please.
Jameela doesn’t hold back—and thank god. This episode is for anyone who’s ever felt like they didn’t quite fit the mold, who’s had a complicated relationship with their body or their mind, or who simply wants to hear a refreshingly honest take on what it means to be a woman right now
Jameela is currently touring the country, if you would like learn more and get tickets, follow the link here.
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CREDITS:
Host: Kate Langbroek
Guest: Jameela Jamil
Executive Producer: Naima Brown
Senior Producer: Grace Rouvray
Audio Producer: Jacob Round
Mamamia acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
You're listening to a Mama Mia podcast. Mamma Mia acknowledges
the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast
is recorded on.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
We can't be like men, a trash man, A trash man,
a trash We cannot keep going with this ship. There's
Miss Andrews shit that's going on that I've been against
from the very start that I don't think I participated
in too much, because then, of course, why the fuck
could teenage boys side with us?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Why would they think we're a welcoming space to go to?
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Jamila Jamil has never been to Australia, but she feels
like one of us. She loves to swear, carries a
nonchalant charm, and has a self assuredness that's genuinely refreshing
to be around. You might know Jamila as Tahani from
The Good Place, a role she landed without any formal
(01:08):
acting training, but in recent years she's become just as
well known for her activism, speaking out powerfully on issues
like body image, mental health, and gender equality. Given her
outspoken advocacy and what she describes as biting the hand
that feeds her, it's no surprise that Jamila and I
(01:29):
dove straight into the deep stuff. We talked body image,
the chaos of the online world, and her call to
rebrand toxic masculinity. When I asked about Andrew Tate, she
didn't miss a beat. Why give men like him airtime
when we should be championing the good ones instead?
Speaker 1 (01:49):
We also talked.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
About friendship and its role in our mental health, the
importance of lifting each other up, and something I really loved,
Jamilla's appreciation for aging. She's counting down to her fortieth
birthday just ten months away and says she couldn't be
happier to put her twenties behind her. A conversation with
(02:11):
Jamila Jamil feels like an off the cuff ted talk,
smart and funny and passionate and completely and filtered.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Here's Jamila Jamale. Hello, how welcome to No Filter. Well,
I'm great. You've come from a busy life.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
What was the nature of the whirl wind that blew
you into us today on No Filter? Oh?
Speaker 2 (02:38):
I mean, I'm recording a new podcast that comes out
on May seventh, which is called Wrong Turns, and it's
all about I'm just fucking sick of this inspirational, you know,
just poorn life that we're in where everything has to
have some sort of fucking silver lining. So I decided
to make a podcast about all the dumber shit we
ever did that There was no great pearl of wisdom
from there was no silver lining.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Sometimes we actually get dumber, you know, from that decision.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
And so it's it's all of our bad decisions and
mishaps that are just kind of anti inspiration pro commiseration.
So I'm currently recording that before I come over to
Australia to be with you, which is really exciting. And
then I'm just writing a lot, writing substat writing books,
and I've got a Pixel movie coming out in June
(03:23):
that's Oh.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Really, are you an animation? I am. I'm a bloody animation.
I'm a big orange squid thing. But I hope with
shiny hair.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Oh I don't think. I don't think i'll have hair,
But I am shiny. I'm definitely shiny. I'm shiny, I'm sparkly,
I'm some sort of like obscene ambassador.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
It's all going to be very extra Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Good, Well, this is what I expect from you, and
in fact, I think the world is coming to expect
that from you.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Oh God, it depends whether they read the daily mail
or not.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Well, here's the thing about you. Now, this is a
lot of people know you from the good place, right.
And when I first saw you, and it was in
a part in her life when we were I have
four children.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
We were living in Italy for a couple of years.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Madness, but so we weren't exposed to a lot of
that ancillary media that you see when you're in your
native country.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yeah, so I didn't.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Know you from some of the Yes, yeah I didn't know.
I saw you on that And this is what I
thought about you, like enough to do a deep dive
on you. You know how sometimes people just capture you.
You've captured a lot of people. I thought that you
were posh, right, I thought you were posh, and I
(04:43):
thought you had a posh must have had a posh background.
And so to have learnt about your upbringing and the
pain that you experienced as a child, that has led
you to somehow essue the privileges and all the beautiful things.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
That you say.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Is that has led me to annihilating my own career
by every time it feeds me, because I feel very
passionately about people.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Who don't have a lot.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
But yeah, yes, well it's an extraordinary thing because we
do know, those of us who work in any platform
really where you can you can make choices to pursue
certain goals, and they might be you could have been
a material girl.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Yeah, yeah, I could have.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
There are days where I think maybe I should have.
But generally I sleep better at night if at all,
knowing that I've taken the path I have because I
you know, my inner twelve year old follows me everywhere
and she's such a judgmental little bitch that I just
wouldn't be able to get anything past her.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
I have. I have to.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Do what I do otherwise she'll, you know, she'll give
me the stinkye and I can't bear it.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
So everything I do is for her. And a child
stinkite is the worst.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
The worst, because they really, like, you know, they're hard
to that.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Kids really get it. They can really see you.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
That's why there's nothing worse than when you pick up
a baby and it cries.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
You're like, fuck, you can see.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
I've got no soul shit, Or when a dog barks
at you.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
You know, yeah, it's embarrassing, you like feel as so.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yeah, and much rather an adult hates me than a baby.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Well, speaking of hating you, Yeah, but you are coming
to Australia, Yes.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
You're You're here next week, which is a rare trait.
Have you been here before? I've never been. I've always
wanted to go.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Oh really Yeah. I watched a movie called The Castle
when I was a child, and I became obsessed with
Australian culture after that. And then obviously it's like Muriel's
Wedding I think had come out just before then, which
I then started watching religiously and then consuming it.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Katherine Kim Yeah, yeah, I think him.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
And so like I've always like, you know, all the
stuff that I watch on like on social media is
all like Australian comedy that I've just been. I've had
a long running obsession with Australia and never managed to
get out there because it's such a long flight and
also I just didn't know if anyone would want to
see me out there. But then when I was invited
to come speak.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
I was like one hundred percent yes, get me there now.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Well, so, because you do have an Australian ness to
your energy, which is you're a massive swear, massive swear.
But there's a forthrightness to you. Yeah, and so when
you come out here and it's described as a as
a night of candid conversation and so hard chat and
(07:48):
silly discussion, the hard chat, I know you can go hard.
What will be the hard chat? Can I guess some
of it? I mean, I'm sure you can body stuff?
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Yeah, men.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Yeah, toxic masculinity, which which is I don't know what
term exists anymore, Like it's not masculinity, whatever the fuck
that is is not masculinity.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
I know what musculinity is. I love musculinity. Not only
do I have musculinity within myself, but my boyfriend is
a very masculine man. Whatever I'm seeing in that other
ship has got to have a new name.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Okay, So but yeah, sorry, it'll be a well no,
I was going to say in your your great since
renamed podcast, Iwagh, that was always very interesting. You had
a conversation with James Baldoni in which Jason and it
was justin Baldoni Sorry, I'm trying to invoke your boyfriend
as well, where he said he didn't like the term
(08:51):
toxic masculinity, which was the first.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Time really that I had thought about that.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Through that prism since then, because that was a couple
of years ago, things have escalated, Yeah, fast, What is it?
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Do you think it's a couple off and things?
Speaker 2 (09:10):
It's you know, I think part of it is the
fact that the Internet means that everything moves so fast
and snowballs. But I think ultimately it's the male loneliness epidemic.
And rather than them looking up the fact that the
patriarchy destroys men's lives, they look at us as the problem.
They see that women are getting ahead. We know, we're
doing better at school. We learn to read and write
(09:32):
faster than boys, and we generally tend to excel at
secondary school. We are buying houses faster than boys. We
are securing ourselves financially. The vibrators have become brilliant, and
women friendships are stronger than they've ever been, you know,
post media movement, women have become less divisive towards one another,
(09:52):
and we've started to really pair up and find that
got a lot of what I need from a relationship,
what're mctually getting from my mates? And so really now
our standard has become very high of that I don't
need you, I want to want someone. You know, I
was just talking about this recently on another podcast, that
I don't need my boyfriend.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
I make as much money as him.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
I can afford my house on my own, I have
a great circle of friends.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
He's in my life because I want him, not because
I need him.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
And and I think that men have no tools as
to rise to the occasion to be the emotionally intelligent
partners in crime that we need.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
So it's easier just to drag us down.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
It's easier to drag us back down to where we
were before rather than level up to where women are now.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
And we see that all the time. We've seen that
throughout history.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Anytime women start to excel, rather than men going fuck,
they're kind of keep catching up with us, or they're
getting ahead. We need to step up our game, they
just go, okay, let's just rip them back down, take
away their rights, distract them, make them feel ugly, make
them feel old, scare the shit out of them, and
then they'll feel like they need us again. And that
to me is just very sad because then men miss
(11:03):
out on evolding.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Well, that's the theories, you know, it's a if you
play a part in your own demise, that's kind of
what's happening with a lot of men because of the isolation,
the alienation from women, They denied the gifts that women
bring to life.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Yeah, but also they're not taught even how to talk
to each other.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
The amount of times I'll fucking i'll know so much
more about my male friends than my male friends know
about each other. And they've known each other for longer.
I'll know one of them is going through a divorce,
or one of them suicidal, or one of them struggling
with anxiety or a rectile fucking dysfunction, and they may
have no idea about any of this. They don't talk
to each other. Like how many times have you heard
a like a middle let Like you heard your dad
(11:46):
come home from seeing another dad who's going through a
divorce and asked him how he's doing? Is like, oh,
I never came up. It's just they don't talk to
each other, you know. Katlain Moran wrote this fucking brilliant
book called What About Boys, and she talks about the
fact that men don't even plan for their third act.
Women are continuously planning for their third act. We're gathering
our friendship, strengthening the ones that we want to really
(12:06):
grow old with. You know, we're plotting our lives for
when the children grow up and leave the home. Men don't.
Men just start to atrophy once they get married and
they stop keeping up with their friendships as much, and
then they kind of settle on the idea that well,
I guess I'll just become friends with whoever the husband
is of my wife's friends, and she'll organize our social calendar.
And that's fucking devastating for them. They're not taught to
(12:29):
build out their emotional skill sets, and it's hurting them
because look at how fast they're killing themselves. You know,
America's got all this gun death. Sixty percent of that
gun death is men turning the gun on themselves. There's
a reason more men kill themselves than women, and it's
because women have each other. Men don't have each other,
and they don't really have us.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Coming up after this short break, Jamila, she is the
mean we should be talking about. I mean, when I
say she shares them, we discuss them anyway.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
So when we're like having this discussion, Yeah, how do
we have the discussion without other ring meen from that process?
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Is it up to us?
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Is it up to women, which is such a mind
boggle to try and draw men in.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
I think you're not gonna like answer, well, I know,
I I tell me, I think it is. I think
it is.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
I think we You know, men are on the fucking
front lines, literally with their bodies. And maybe there aren't
that many wars in all of our countries, right, but
whenever there is any kind of shit that goes down,
it's men who were sent. To the point where when
we talk about who dies at war, we talk about
women and children. We never talk about how many men
died at war. We're like, and women and children were killed.
They're seen as completely fucking disposable, and they have built
(13:58):
these worlds for us. They have built much of this world,
and that has not necessarily been our choice. We would
have happily it was three hundred and fifty women who
built the Waterloo Bridge. Women are perfectly capable and could
have definitely participated in that. We're held back. But the
point is is that men put their bodies on the line.
That's where they are superior to ours is in their physicality.
Our superiority comes in our emotional intelligence. So therefore, let's
(14:21):
bring that to the table. Our bodies will never be
frontline on a war. Our bodies will never be used
for physical labor or down the minds and the same
numbers that men's are. So let us step up and
use the thing that we're fucking brilliant at, which is
showing people how to communicate with each other, how to build.
You know that women are so intelligent and powerful. We
have all these gifts, and by just keeping them amongst
(14:43):
ourselves and hoarding them and not going out there and
reaching out to and across two men, we're suffering because
then the more crazy they become, the more they hurt us.
So it's in our best interest to use this superpower
we have and share it and share the tools of
it with them.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
That's my opinion. And some people really don't like that.
I can imagine that people don't like it. But also
be any discussion about this is so people are so
binary in their opinions now, which is not working.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
No, But also, like listen, we're just so fucking emotional
about everything, and I don't think we ever step back
and are encouraged to be logical or to have critical thinking.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Right.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Logically, of course, if you have but the superiority in
a skill, you should go and teach the others if
you want the whole land to be.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Able to do that skill.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Right.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
But I understand why women.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
I have been one of those women, those loud, angry
feminist women who just thinks, well, fuck off, why should
we have to do this work for you? Figure out?
They literally can't. And instead of figuring out, because they're
so bad at this, they're just stripping our rights and
taking us back to the nineteen twenties. That's what's happening.
They have no idea, they don't have the manual of
(15:59):
how to rise up to our level. So we've got
to show them for our sake.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Yes, for everybody's sake.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
But you know how you say you have changed in
your approach, you know your thoughts about this. What is
the process that led you to the change?
Speaker 2 (16:17):
I think it was watching the way that everyone spoke
to each other during COVID. You know, everyone split off
into kind of two camps. And I was so dehumanizing
and hideous to each other so fast, and like mates
who've been friends for years, we're not talking to each.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Other anymore, and the language became so violent.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
I was looking at the way that people felt comfortable
to speak to each other everywhere. And I thought, oh,
I've got a little footprint in this, because I rose
to prominence as someone who's a you know, brash straight talker,
very like, fuck you and you can fuck off, and
you're an in cell and you're a twat, and you know,
just like I was very finger pointing, very rude, very judgmental,
(16:57):
very alienating. And I was congratulated for that. I was
rewarded for it. I was decorated for it. I was called,
you know, Harper's magazine called me.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Like the feminist hero we need.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
I was named as one of Time magazines twenty five
most influential women. I was put on the cover of
like five different vogues. I couldn't there couldn't have been
more of a message out there that behaving like me
is the right thing to do, and this will get
you ahead, and this is the right way to communicate
your feelings and your activism and your passion. So by
my being so decorated for what is objectively actually not
(17:29):
very helpful behavior, I helped.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
I helped.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
I don't think I was responsible for it. I think
Piers Morgan's got his own bigger footprint. But I helped
contribute to a world that speaks to each other in
a dehumanizing, impatient, and unempathetic way. And when I recognized
my contribution to that culture, I was like, right, I'm
going to fucking do something about this now. And so
I spent the last four years trying to atone for
(17:53):
it with a full mea culpa and trying to encourage
people to actually move forward with logic and empathy.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
And so because also your mastery of a pithy phrase
is you mean what.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
I call Lawrence Fox are freshly wranked col Yes, yes,
I yes, I do not my finest hour, but you know.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
No, there's something to be our very t shirt worthy.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
But what was the moment?
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Because for us to make progress now requires a shift
in thinking, yes, and it requires us to instead look externally,
because as you sort of alluded to, it's very easy
in this world to.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Go will you do this? And we need to look internally,
not externally. All we've been doing is looking externally. What
we need to be doing is going right. Why how
do I learn best?
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Do I learn best when I'm being shamed, labeled, screamed at,
or spoken down to or do I learn best when
someone's being a little bit patient with me but firm
and giving me the fact yes, and giving me a
bit of the benefit of the doubt and giving me
time to adjust. Obviously we all learn better with the latter.
(19:17):
So how the fuck did we think the way that
we were going about things was going to work for
anyone else when that's not how any of us learn
No one learns well under duress. And because we were
so angry, rightfully so, and we will be angry again
when the shit's over, when the pendulum swings back, which
it inevitably will, we have got to do a better
job at taking a breath and thinking, how am I
(19:39):
most like? My main objective is not to communicate how
angry I am or get revenge. My main objective is change.
How do I most effectively get change? And that's by
speaking to someone in a way that they're actually going
to hear you, they're actually.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Going to learn, and they're more likely going to emphathize
with you.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Interesting because I have four children, three of them are boys,
double well done, very like a fascinating a living experiment,
if you will, And the eldest is twenty one now
the youngest is fifteen, and in that time I have
seen the rise of I'm just going to say, the
(20:16):
Andrew Tates. Yeah, the eldest not so much, but the
youngest has been exposed to it and his mates, and
even though they keep it sort of quiet, you know
that it's just and they're not subscribers, but it's what's
in the background for them. The question I always have,
And when I was discussing it with my husband, I
(20:38):
said to him. Initially, oh God, I can't wait till
Andrew Tate falls in love with a woman and becomes humanized.
But now I think I don't think he can.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
I mean, I just don't know anything about him. I
have paid no attention to him. To be perfectly honest,
I don't really speak about him publicly.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
I don't think that's the way to go about shifting men.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Men ultimately at base level just want to get laid,
and if you tell them that the way to get
laid is by being.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
In this sort of way, they're more likely to try out.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
So rather than us spending all of our time and
attention on trying to bring down and talk about and
shit on the bad men in this world where we
only make them more powerful and richer and give them
more algorithmic attention, and then they make more money on
their YouTube views, and then they get nicer cars and
nicer stuff if we just collectively ignore them and start
like elevating the men who are really great, who are great,
(21:34):
who are great, and start like, you know, I was
just talking about this recently on another podcast, like look
at how the world reacted to Benny Blanco talking about
Selena Gomez and how wonderful and emotionally intelligence he was,
and all of these women who previously had said like,
I don't think he's good looking enough for her, was.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Suddenly like, I want a man like that. You know,
my boyfriend as girls you know who seem.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
To be frothing at the mouth at his shows, which
I'd like to see because he's a sensitive man, singing
beautiful songs. He's a very man, yeah, James like yeah,
but he's singing very emotionally intelligent songs, and he gives
emotionally intelligent interviews.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
And when I see women lusting.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
After him, it reassures me that, yes, that's what women want.
They want an emotionally available man. Look at Pedro Pascal,
look at Mark Ruffalo. Look at the men that Timothy Shalomy,
you know, like none of these men I like, these
toxic assholes on TikTok. We need to just stop even
(22:31):
mentioning their names and only bigging up and going nuts
for good men, kind men, secure men, like we have
to show men what's sexy rather than just always tell
them what's not sexy or what's not good or what
we don't like. Show them what you do, like that's
how they learn. I don't mean to sound patronizing, but
that's what I mean.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
No, no, I know exactly what you mean. A girlfriend
of mine sid recently because we have these anti gene
did violence ads in Australia and they're so terrible they're laughable.
We shouldn't be laughable that they're terrible. But a girlfriend
of mine and said, just in passing, and she's not
someone who devotes a lot of time or space to
(23:14):
thinking about stuff like that. You know, she's busy, she goes.
Why don't they do a series of ads showing men
doing great things, like young boys helping their mum carrying
the shopping in from the car or yeah, you know, like.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
That's what it was like in my day.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
You know, I grew up you know, watching like men
open doors for women and looking after women and being
you know, st kind and wonderful. Matthew McConaughey was the
thing that we were going after. And there's been a
kind of death of yeah, and now there's like a
death of the rom com you know, it feels timely.
It's like we don't see men be romantic or kind
(23:51):
to women, or in love with women like music used
to be about men being devastated over the loss of
women or so in love with a woman that he
was losing his fucking mind. And that's kind of going away.
Now we're not really seeing that in our art anymore,
in in our media anymore. And I think that that's
so sad and so detrimental to our society. There's no
(24:13):
model for what boys should be. There's just men who
are looking at who look very successful. Right. Testosterone makes
men want to go out and conquer and acquire. Right,
we cannot relate to that same level of urge because
it's biological. So they're watching these men go out and
they're technically conquering and acquiring. These men don't seem very
mentally stable or particularly happy or have very fulfilling lives.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
But they've got all the bits, all the stuff, you.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Know, the cars, the house, the money, the clothes. And
so what we need to do is create aspirational viewing
for men again, for men to see what we want.
All they're seeing is what we don't want. And I
think that that's a huge thing is create real role models,
really start to leverage role models.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Women can do it.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
That of course, is not all of my conversation with
Jamila Jamil, And after this shortbreak we talk about all
the good stuff friendship, don't go anywhere. And if I
think about what you were just saying before, about how
you've changed your tone, reflected on your tone and how
(25:20):
it was actually divisive instead of inclusive or less likely
to elicit change, Yes, I think a lot of us
particularly it was a generational thing as well. I think
where that we were consumed by the rage. We need
to be cognizant of our own language in that because
that's how you become love.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Yeah, we can't be like menu trash, meno trash, meno trash.
We cannot keep going with this ship. There's miss andres
shit that's going on that I've been against from the
very start that I don't think I participated in too much,
because then, of course, why the fuck would teenage boys
side with us, Why would they think we're a welcoming
(26:00):
space to go to. All we do is just say
all they're seeing is us having open season on them.
They're not really supposed to say anything bad about us.
They were around for when we were oppressed. So they've
just seen Taylor Swift and Beyonce dominating, you know, the
music industry, and you know Angelina Joli or Scarlett Hanson
or whoever, you know, like the Bella Hadid, like all
(26:22):
these girls on top, women doing well in business, Karmla Harris,
maybe didn't win, but you've got very far, and you've
got female prime ministers now. And so they're just like
they're looking around thinking, well, I don't have context for
all of this rage. I'm fifteen and I'm being told
I'm not shit and I'm trash and that the most
embarrassing thing a woman can be is attracted to men.
And so of course this psychopad, you know, who seem
(26:47):
to have lots of nice money and fun and you know,
good times. A most cigars are telling me that I'm
worth something and I'm welcome and I'm safe with him.
I'm going to go towards him. These boys just kids,
just want to be safe. They don't feel safe with us.
If I was a teenage boy, I wouldn't be like, oh,
I'm going to go find a group of women to
hang out with. I'd be fucking terrified.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
I mean I would be.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
I would gravitate to He's the one who tells me
that I'm worth something and that he sees potential in me,
and that I'm going to be something someday and I'm important,
that my life is valid. And listen, I know that
this sounds like a lot of like, you know, woe
is boys, but woe is boys man Like they're dying
and they're hurting us, and so to heal them is
to heal all of us. But but but we've we've
(27:33):
got to pull them back in on side, and we've
got to look at whatever. You know, we've got to
find another way to process our age about the men
before so that we don't alienate the boys who are
coming up now because we need them.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
They're our future.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Yes, And also it's that thing about them having to
pay the penalty for something that they really have no knowledge.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
No, we saw this with the race conversation.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
You know, it's just like, you know, we we mishandled
the race conversation, I think on the left, where it's like,
you know, we wanted people who currently exist with white
privilege to be you know, aware of the fact that
they benefit from the current system. But I think some
people took it too far and wanting to like punish
people whose ancestors, you know, were part of a much
(28:25):
more racially inequitable world. You know, it's like calling them
a virus, saying you know, you're inherently evil if you're
a white person. And it's like these fucking white kids
came up just being like, fuck, well, I haven't done
anything to anyone, and I'm I'm also poor, and I
don't know why I'm being held responsible for these actions
of people I never met and didn't know and I
(28:45):
don't share their politics, but I'm being blamed for it.
And so then they turned away from us because they
were like, fuck, I'm not safe with these people. They
think I'm a virus, they think I'm a disease, they
think I'm born inherently evil, and they went off. We
lost those boys. We can see it in all the
election results around the world. We lost all the people
that we labeled, and so we need to stop fucking
(29:05):
labeling each other and remember everyone is a product of
their fucking environment. We need to remember that ultimately, the
people who are true evil are at the very top
of all of these countries. It's corporations and it's some governments.
And we need to work together so that we all
have equity. Women, women and men working together in a
(29:26):
world always benefits the GDP, it benefits society. When we
take away women's rights, a company slides down its own
fucking asshole.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
You know, it looks like shit, it.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Smells, it's bad, but there's no money. Everyone's fucking broke.
Everyone's miserable. People are killing themselves, children are getting like,
people are marrying.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Children off to grown men.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Like.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
That's what happens to a society that takes away the
rights of women. They're thriving when women are in power.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
They're fucked.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
When women have are completely empowered, And so we need
to look at that and go, this isn't working for anyone.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
This doesn't work for anyone.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
For us to take away the liberties and rights and
the value entirely of women.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
It makes women miserable, but it'll all so ultimately make
men miserable.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
So we just need to find new ways of framing
things that actually make it appealing for men. You know, like, hey,
you don't want women to not be able to work
and then you have to go and do all the
work and then get to have no fun.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
That sounds shit for you.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Let her do half the work. She's got perfectly capable. Also,
happy wife, happy life totally. And also women are fantastic
and when you're in a great relationship women one, it'll
make you better. The reason that single men die sooner
than married men is because a woman will get your
ass to the fucking doctor. She will love you and
(30:44):
cuddle you, and all that affection will settle your hormones
and be good for your health. Loneliness is now considered
a bigger killer than drinking or smoking. You know, they
are not benefiting, and not just by the way, not
just that. One of the saddest things in our society
is that we place no emphasis or importance on the
friendship of men and women. There's no movies about friends
who are men and women who don't end up shagging
(31:06):
at the end. There's no literature about great friends. There's
no great stories on the cover of a magazine about
a man and a woman who had a great idea
together and they built a company. It's always two women
or a.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Bunch of men. Do you know what I mean? We
don't ever say anything's important.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
So part of the male insecurity that I think we're seeing,
And I talked about this in the speech I gave
in twenty eighteen called Tell Him, which is that they
think that all they're good for is their seed, because
there's no importance in this world in media of men
and women beyond romantic relationships, whereas actually some of my
most meaningful relationships are with men that have nothing to
do with sex. We have no romantic chemistry whatsoever. And
(31:44):
they're my collaborators, they're my best friends, they're my ride
or dies.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Hey do you still live in a shaer house? Only
just stopped. But we're planning a share commune, Oh, which
is exciting. Yeah yeah, yeah, and visit with the name Jamilville.
So it's a cult. It is a cult. But that
was great. This is the call you boys. Yeah, yeah,
that would be me. That would be obviously, I have
(32:10):
the hair of a cult leader. You sure do, I do?
Speaker 2 (32:13):
I do. I have the hair, and I have the confident,
speaking vibe of a cult leader. So come join anytime
you're invited.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
Cat White, I'm assuming this will be part of the
silly chat.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Serious, I'm so so serious right now? Good?
Speaker 2 (32:33):
But yeah, anyway, Look, this is These are some of
the things that I think is that I think that
media has something to answer for.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
I think those of us who are older have something
to answer for.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
I believe, I have hope that we can turn this
shit around. But if we don't do it now, we
are going to run out of an opportunity. The opportunity
is slipping through our fingers. Fascism is rising, Conservatism is rising.
Social media is extraordinary at dividing us. We have to
be having these conversations in person with each other. We
have to bring men and women together as allies and
(33:05):
recognize that we are all fucked right now and no
one doing well or happy, and the only way to
get out of this is with one another. We've all
got very different skills and we need to work together
to build a completely, a completely possible utopia. Remember that
One of the main reasons that women get targeted around
(33:26):
their looks all the time is not just a week
and then distract them, but it's also because women eighty
percent of the market, we're consumers, so so much of
the toxicity we're ingesting it is really just to make
us go out and buy stuff, because if we hate ourselves,
we're more likely to go out and buy things to
fix ourselves because we've been convinced we're broken. We're living
in a fucked system, and we have the power now
(33:51):
to stop it and to fix it. You know, you've
talked a lot about your mental health in the past.
Oh yeah, is it showing actually, but in a stunning way,
in a.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
In a great ways, as you've found your voice, and
it's really it's like someone sitting flame to an oxy
tort if.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
You know what I mean. It's just it's got it's
just so so strong and beautiful.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
Has the liberation of yourself made a difference to your
mental health and your recovery and you're navigating that.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Yes, yes, of course, speaking our minds can only lead
to freedom. And you know, so many of women's autoimmune
diseases have now been linked to the fact that we
repress so much of our emotions. So the less repressed
I am, the happier and healthier I am, of course,
and the more authentic I am, and the more authentic
I am, the more likely I am to meet people
that I actually really resonate with, and then I become
(34:55):
close friends with those people, and then that resolves my loneliness.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
And so it's a wonderful domino effect when you.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
Start to become yourself, and when you give yourself permission
to fuck up and say the wrong thing and rub
people out the wrong way sometimes and know that you're
not going to be every cup of tea. The biggest
lie that women are told is that you are expected
to or can ever be everyone's cup of tea. It's
not possible. We are human beings who have different tastes.
And it's so funny that I grew up my whole
life really not liking almost anyone, but hoping everyone would
(35:24):
like me.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Are ridiculous? Is that it's so true that.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
If you live in the public sphere and you know
that that one, you know, arrow can do more than
a thousand bouquets. Yeah, yeah, And why do we crave
the approval of people who will never approve of us,
very likely because they've already decided.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Women are told that that's the most important thing about
our existence on this earth is just to be palatable
in every way.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Don't take up too much space.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Just smile, be pretty, look skinny, make everyone else's lives
more comfortable, you know, and then die.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
But don't look old when you do. Well, you know what,
Jamila jimil Well you do look pretty. Oh that's very kind.
So do you look you've checked one of those buttes. Well,
that's good.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
I've been obedient to the patriarchy today.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
There's my hope.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
I get my.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Cookie.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
But yeah, I think I've just set myself free and
I've just learned gross self acceptance. And I'm sure part
of that is the fact that I'm you know, I'm
fourteen in like ten months, and the greatest gift of
getting older is realizing that, oh, it's all a scam.
Everything's a scam. Every beauty standard you were ever given
was a scam. It was part of an ever changing
loop that's just going to come back around again. It'll
(36:45):
be fat and thin, and fat and thin, then fat
and thin old than young, and you know, like, oh,
it's all become so exhausting and so silly to me.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
And so I love being older.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
I love every year I get further away from my
fucking twenties, so I can really actually.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Enjoy all of this and see that. Oh what was
I worried about all those years?
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Why was I trying to placate myself and mold myself
and shape myself and drain myself for a few and
secure men when actually the world is full of lots
of men who don't.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
Care about any of this shit. Jamila Jamil, cannot wait
for this and more. Thank you when we see you
on our shores.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Oh, I can't get that fast enough, honestly, thanks for
joining us on No Filter. I had such a great time.
Thank you, and thanks for showing yourself pleasure. It sounds
like I've got my tits out on the podcast.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Hello. What a titan she is.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
What a great mixture of humor and strength and savvy
and assiness. I'm talking about Jamila Jamil, by the way,
and lucky for us, she will be in Australia next
week touring the country. So if you want to go
and see her in the glorious flesh, there's a link
to where you can get tickets.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
In the show notes, the executive.
Speaker 3 (38:05):
Producer of No Filter is Naima Brown, Senior producer Grace Rouvre.
Sound design is by Jacob Brown and I am your host,
Kate lane Brook. Back with you next week.
You're listening to a Mama Mia podcast. Mamma Mia acknowledges
the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast
is recorded on.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
We can't be like men, a trash man, A trash man,
a trash We cannot keep going with this ship. There's
Miss Andrews shit that's going on that I've been against
from the very start that I don't think I participated
in too much, because then, of course, why the fuck
could teenage boys side with us?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Why would they think we're a welcoming space to go to?
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Jamila Jamil has never been to Australia, but she feels
like one of us. She loves to swear, carries a
nonchalant charm, and has a self assuredness that's genuinely refreshing
to be around. You might know Jamila as Tahani from
The Good Place, a role she landed without any formal
(01:08):
acting training, but in recent years she's become just as
well known for her activism, speaking out powerfully on issues
like body image, mental health, and gender equality. Given her
outspoken advocacy and what she describes as biting the hand
that feeds her, it's no surprise that Jamila and I
(01:29):
dove straight into the deep stuff. We talked body image,
the chaos of the online world, and her call to
rebrand toxic masculinity. When I asked about Andrew Tate, she
didn't miss a beat. Why give men like him airtime
when we should be championing the good ones instead?
Speaker 1 (01:49):
We also talked.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
About friendship and its role in our mental health, the
importance of lifting each other up, and something I really loved,
Jamilla's appreciation for aging. She's counting down to her fortieth
birthday just ten months away and says she couldn't be
happier to put her twenties behind her. A conversation with
(02:11):
Jamila Jamil feels like an off the cuff ted talk,
smart and funny and passionate and completely and filtered.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Here's Jamila Jamale. Hello, how welcome to No Filter. Well,
I'm great. You've come from a busy life.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
What was the nature of the whirl wind that blew
you into us today on No Filter? Oh?
Speaker 2 (02:38):
I mean, I'm recording a new podcast that comes out
on May seventh, which is called Wrong Turns, and it's
all about I'm just fucking sick of this inspirational, you know,
just poorn life that we're in where everything has to
have some sort of fucking silver lining. So I decided
to make a podcast about all the dumber shit we
ever did that There was no great pearl of wisdom
from there was no silver lining.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Sometimes we actually get dumber, you know, from that decision.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
And so it's it's all of our bad decisions and
mishaps that are just kind of anti inspiration pro commiseration.
So I'm currently recording that before I come over to
Australia to be with you, which is really exciting. And
then I'm just writing a lot, writing substat writing books,
and I've got a Pixel movie coming out in June
(03:23):
that's Oh.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Really, are you an animation? I am. I'm a bloody animation.
I'm a big orange squid thing. But I hope with
shiny hair.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Oh I don't think. I don't think i'll have hair,
But I am shiny. I'm definitely shiny. I'm shiny, I'm sparkly,
I'm some sort of like obscene ambassador.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
It's all going to be very extra Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Good, Well, this is what I expect from you, and
in fact, I think the world is coming to expect
that from you.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Oh God, it depends whether they read the daily mail
or not.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Well, here's the thing about you. Now, this is a
lot of people know you from the good place, right.
And when I first saw you, and it was in
a part in her life when we were I have
four children.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
We were living in Italy for a couple of years.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Madness, but so we weren't exposed to a lot of
that ancillary media that you see when you're in your
native country.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yeah, so I didn't.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Know you from some of the Yes, yeah I didn't know.
I saw you on that And this is what I
thought about you, like enough to do a deep dive
on you. You know how sometimes people just capture you.
You've captured a lot of people. I thought that you
were posh, right, I thought you were posh, and I
(04:43):
thought you had a posh must have had a posh background.
And so to have learnt about your upbringing and the
pain that you experienced as a child, that has led
you to somehow essue the privileges and all the beautiful things.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
That you say.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Is that has led me to annihilating my own career
by every time it feeds me, because I feel very
passionately about people.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Who don't have a lot.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
But yeah, yes, well it's an extraordinary thing because we
do know, those of us who work in any platform
really where you can you can make choices to pursue
certain goals, and they might be you could have been
a material girl.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Yeah, yeah, I could have.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
There are days where I think maybe I should have.
But generally I sleep better at night if at all,
knowing that I've taken the path I have because I
you know, my inner twelve year old follows me everywhere
and she's such a judgmental little bitch that I just
wouldn't be able to get anything past her.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
I have. I have to.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Do what I do otherwise she'll, you know, she'll give
me the stinkye and I can't bear it.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
So everything I do is for her. And a child
stinkite is the worst.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
The worst, because they really, like, you know, they're hard
to that.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Kids really get it. They can really see you.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
That's why there's nothing worse than when you pick up
a baby and it cries.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
You're like, fuck, you can see.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
I've got no soul shit, Or when a dog barks
at you.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
You know, yeah, it's embarrassing, you like feel as so.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yeah, and much rather an adult hates me than a baby.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Well, speaking of hating you, Yeah, but you are coming
to Australia, Yes.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
You're You're here next week, which is a rare trait.
Have you been here before? I've never been. I've always
wanted to go.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Oh really Yeah. I watched a movie called The Castle
when I was a child, and I became obsessed with
Australian culture after that. And then obviously it's like Muriel's
Wedding I think had come out just before then, which
I then started watching religiously and then consuming it.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Katherine Kim Yeah, yeah, I think him.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
And so like I've always like, you know, all the
stuff that I watch on like on social media is
all like Australian comedy that I've just been. I've had
a long running obsession with Australia and never managed to
get out there because it's such a long flight and
also I just didn't know if anyone would want to
see me out there. But then when I was invited
to come speak.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
I was like one hundred percent yes, get me there now.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Well, so, because you do have an Australian ness to
your energy, which is you're a massive swear, massive swear.
But there's a forthrightness to you. Yeah, and so when
you come out here and it's described as a as
a night of candid conversation and so hard chat and
(07:48):
silly discussion, the hard chat, I know you can go hard.
What will be the hard chat? Can I guess some
of it? I mean, I'm sure you can body stuff?
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Yeah, men.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Yeah, toxic masculinity, which which is I don't know what
term exists anymore, Like it's not masculinity, whatever the fuck
that is is not masculinity.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
I know what musculinity is. I love musculinity. Not only
do I have musculinity within myself, but my boyfriend is
a very masculine man. Whatever I'm seeing in that other
ship has got to have a new name.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Okay, So but yeah, sorry, it'll be a well no,
I was going to say in your your great since
renamed podcast, Iwagh, that was always very interesting. You had
a conversation with James Baldoni in which Jason and it
was justin Baldoni Sorry, I'm trying to invoke your boyfriend
as well, where he said he didn't like the term
(08:51):
toxic masculinity, which was the first.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Time really that I had thought about that.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Through that prism since then, because that was a couple
of years ago, things have escalated, Yeah, fast, What is it?
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Do you think it's a couple off and things?
Speaker 2 (09:10):
It's you know, I think part of it is the
fact that the Internet means that everything moves so fast
and snowballs. But I think ultimately it's the male loneliness epidemic.
And rather than them looking up the fact that the
patriarchy destroys men's lives, they look at us as the problem.
They see that women are getting ahead. We know, we're
doing better at school. We learn to read and write
(09:32):
faster than boys, and we generally tend to excel at
secondary school. We are buying houses faster than boys. We
are securing ourselves financially. The vibrators have become brilliant, and
women friendships are stronger than they've ever been, you know,
post media movement, women have become less divisive towards one another,
(09:52):
and we've started to really pair up and find that
got a lot of what I need from a relationship,
what're mctually getting from my mates? And so really now
our standard has become very high of that I don't
need you, I want to want someone. You know, I
was just talking about this recently on another podcast, that
I don't need my boyfriend.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
I make as much money as him.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
I can afford my house on my own, I have
a great circle of friends.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
He's in my life because I want him, not because
I need him.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
And and I think that men have no tools as
to rise to the occasion to be the emotionally intelligent
partners in crime that we need.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
So it's easier just to drag us down.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
It's easier to drag us back down to where we
were before rather than level up to where women are now.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
And we see that all the time. We've seen that
throughout history.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Anytime women start to excel, rather than men going fuck,
they're kind of keep catching up with us, or they're
getting ahead. We need to step up our game, they
just go, okay, let's just rip them back down, take
away their rights, distract them, make them feel ugly, make
them feel old, scare the shit out of them, and
then they'll feel like they need us again. And that
to me is just very sad because then men miss
(11:03):
out on evolding.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Well, that's the theories, you know, it's a if you
play a part in your own demise, that's kind of
what's happening with a lot of men because of the isolation,
the alienation from women, They denied the gifts that women
bring to life.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Yeah, but also they're not taught even how to talk
to each other.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
The amount of times I'll fucking i'll know so much
more about my male friends than my male friends know
about each other. And they've known each other for longer.
I'll know one of them is going through a divorce,
or one of them suicidal, or one of them struggling
with anxiety or a rectile fucking dysfunction, and they may
have no idea about any of this. They don't talk
to each other. Like how many times have you heard
a like a middle let Like you heard your dad
(11:46):
come home from seeing another dad who's going through a
divorce and asked him how he's doing? Is like, oh,
I never came up. It's just they don't talk to
each other, you know. Katlain Moran wrote this fucking brilliant
book called What About Boys, and she talks about the
fact that men don't even plan for their third act.
Women are continuously planning for their third act. We're gathering
our friendship, strengthening the ones that we want to really
(12:06):
grow old with. You know, we're plotting our lives for
when the children grow up and leave the home. Men don't.
Men just start to atrophy once they get married and
they stop keeping up with their friendships as much, and
then they kind of settle on the idea that well,
I guess I'll just become friends with whoever the husband
is of my wife's friends, and she'll organize our social calendar.
And that's fucking devastating for them. They're not taught to
(12:29):
build out their emotional skill sets, and it's hurting them
because look at how fast they're killing themselves. You know,
America's got all this gun death. Sixty percent of that
gun death is men turning the gun on themselves. There's
a reason more men kill themselves than women, and it's
because women have each other. Men don't have each other,
and they don't really have us.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Coming up after this short break, Jamila, she is the
mean we should be talking about. I mean, when I
say she shares them, we discuss them anyway.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
So when we're like having this discussion, Yeah, how do
we have the discussion without other ring meen from that process?
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Is it up to us?
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Is it up to women, which is such a mind
boggle to try and draw men in.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
I think you're not gonna like answer, well, I know,
I I tell me, I think it is. I think
it is.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
I think we You know, men are on the fucking
front lines, literally with their bodies. And maybe there aren't
that many wars in all of our countries, right, but
whenever there is any kind of shit that goes down,
it's men who were sent. To the point where when
we talk about who dies at war, we talk about
women and children. We never talk about how many men
died at war. We're like, and women and children were killed.
They're seen as completely fucking disposable, and they have built
(13:58):
these worlds for us. They have built much of this world,
and that has not necessarily been our choice. We would
have happily it was three hundred and fifty women who
built the Waterloo Bridge. Women are perfectly capable and could
have definitely participated in that. We're held back. But the
point is is that men put their bodies on the line.
That's where they are superior to ours is in their physicality.
Our superiority comes in our emotional intelligence. So therefore, let's
(14:21):
bring that to the table. Our bodies will never be
frontline on a war. Our bodies will never be used
for physical labor or down the minds and the same
numbers that men's are. So let us step up and
use the thing that we're fucking brilliant at, which is
showing people how to communicate with each other, how to build.
You know that women are so intelligent and powerful. We
have all these gifts, and by just keeping them amongst
(14:43):
ourselves and hoarding them and not going out there and
reaching out to and across two men, we're suffering because
then the more crazy they become, the more they hurt us.
So it's in our best interest to use this superpower
we have and share it and share the tools of
it with them.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
That's my opinion. And some people really don't like that.
I can imagine that people don't like it. But also
be any discussion about this is so people are so
binary in their opinions now, which is not working.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
No, But also, like listen, we're just so fucking emotional
about everything, and I don't think we ever step back
and are encouraged to be logical or to have critical thinking.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Right.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Logically, of course, if you have but the superiority in
a skill, you should go and teach the others if
you want the whole land to be.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Able to do that skill.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Right.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
But I understand why women.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
I have been one of those women, those loud, angry
feminist women who just thinks, well, fuck off, why should
we have to do this work for you? Figure out?
They literally can't. And instead of figuring out, because they're
so bad at this, they're just stripping our rights and
taking us back to the nineteen twenties. That's what's happening.
They have no idea, they don't have the manual of
(15:59):
how to rise up to our level. So we've got
to show them for our sake.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Yes, for everybody's sake.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
But you know how you say you have changed in
your approach, you know your thoughts about this. What is
the process that led you to the change?
Speaker 2 (16:17):
I think it was watching the way that everyone spoke
to each other during COVID. You know, everyone split off
into kind of two camps. And I was so dehumanizing
and hideous to each other so fast, and like mates
who've been friends for years, we're not talking to each.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Other anymore, and the language became so violent.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
I was looking at the way that people felt comfortable
to speak to each other everywhere. And I thought, oh,
I've got a little footprint in this, because I rose
to prominence as someone who's a you know, brash straight talker,
very like, fuck you and you can fuck off, and
you're an in cell and you're a twat, and you know,
just like I was very finger pointing, very rude, very judgmental,
(16:57):
very alienating. And I was congratulated for that. I was
rewarded for it. I was decorated for it. I was called,
you know, Harper's magazine called me.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Like the feminist hero we need.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
I was named as one of Time magazines twenty five
most influential women. I was put on the cover of
like five different vogues. I couldn't there couldn't have been
more of a message out there that behaving like me
is the right thing to do, and this will get
you ahead, and this is the right way to communicate
your feelings and your activism and your passion. So by
my being so decorated for what is objectively actually not
(17:29):
very helpful behavior, I helped.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
I helped.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
I don't think I was responsible for it. I think
Piers Morgan's got his own bigger footprint. But I helped
contribute to a world that speaks to each other in
a dehumanizing, impatient, and unempathetic way. And when I recognized
my contribution to that culture, I was like, right, I'm
going to fucking do something about this now. And so
I spent the last four years trying to atone for
(17:53):
it with a full mea culpa and trying to encourage
people to actually move forward with logic and empathy.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
And so because also your mastery of a pithy phrase
is you mean what.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
I call Lawrence Fox are freshly wranked col Yes, yes,
I yes, I do not my finest hour, but you know.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
No, there's something to be our very t shirt worthy.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
But what was the moment?
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Because for us to make progress now requires a shift
in thinking, yes, and it requires us to instead look externally,
because as you sort of alluded to, it's very easy
in this world to.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Go will you do this? And we need to look internally,
not externally. All we've been doing is looking externally. What
we need to be doing is going right. Why how
do I learn best?
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Do I learn best when I'm being shamed, labeled, screamed at,
or spoken down to or do I learn best when
someone's being a little bit patient with me but firm
and giving me the fact yes, and giving me a
bit of the benefit of the doubt and giving me
time to adjust. Obviously we all learn better with the latter.
(19:17):
So how the fuck did we think the way that
we were going about things was going to work for
anyone else when that's not how any of us learn
No one learns well under duress. And because we were
so angry, rightfully so, and we will be angry again
when the shit's over, when the pendulum swings back, which
it inevitably will, we have got to do a better
job at taking a breath and thinking, how am I
(19:39):
most like? My main objective is not to communicate how
angry I am or get revenge. My main objective is change.
How do I most effectively get change? And that's by
speaking to someone in a way that they're actually going
to hear you, they're actually.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Going to learn, and they're more likely going to emphathize
with you.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Interesting because I have four children, three of them are boys,
double well done, very like a fascinating a living experiment,
if you will, And the eldest is twenty one now
the youngest is fifteen, and in that time I have
seen the rise of I'm just going to say, the
(20:16):
Andrew Tates. Yeah, the eldest not so much, but the
youngest has been exposed to it and his mates, and
even though they keep it sort of quiet, you know
that it's just and they're not subscribers, but it's what's
in the background for them. The question I always have,
And when I was discussing it with my husband, I
(20:38):
said to him. Initially, oh God, I can't wait till
Andrew Tate falls in love with a woman and becomes humanized.
But now I think I don't think he can.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
I mean, I just don't know anything about him. I
have paid no attention to him. To be perfectly honest,
I don't really speak about him publicly.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
I don't think that's the way to go about shifting men.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Men ultimately at base level just want to get laid,
and if you tell them that the way to get
laid is by being.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
In this sort of way, they're more likely to try out.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
So rather than us spending all of our time and
attention on trying to bring down and talk about and
shit on the bad men in this world where we
only make them more powerful and richer and give them
more algorithmic attention, and then they make more money on
their YouTube views, and then they get nicer cars and
nicer stuff if we just collectively ignore them and start
like elevating the men who are really great, who are great,
(21:34):
who are great, and start like, you know, I was
just talking about this recently on another podcast, like look
at how the world reacted to Benny Blanco talking about
Selena Gomez and how wonderful and emotionally intelligence he was,
and all of these women who previously had said like,
I don't think he's good looking enough for her, was.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Suddenly like, I want a man like that. You know,
my boyfriend as girls you know who seem.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
To be frothing at the mouth at his shows, which
I'd like to see because he's a sensitive man, singing
beautiful songs. He's a very man, yeah, James like yeah,
but he's singing very emotionally intelligent songs, and he gives
emotionally intelligent interviews.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
And when I see women lusting.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
After him, it reassures me that, yes, that's what women want.
They want an emotionally available man. Look at Pedro Pascal,
look at Mark Ruffalo. Look at the men that Timothy Shalomy,
you know, like none of these men I like, these
toxic assholes on TikTok. We need to just stop even
(22:31):
mentioning their names and only bigging up and going nuts
for good men, kind men, secure men, like we have
to show men what's sexy rather than just always tell
them what's not sexy or what's not good or what
we don't like. Show them what you do, like that's
how they learn. I don't mean to sound patronizing, but
that's what I mean.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
No, no, I know exactly what you mean. A girlfriend
of mine sid recently because we have these anti gene
did violence ads in Australia and they're so terrible they're laughable.
We shouldn't be laughable that they're terrible. But a girlfriend
of mine and said, just in passing, and she's not
someone who devotes a lot of time or space to
(23:14):
thinking about stuff like that. You know, she's busy, she goes.
Why don't they do a series of ads showing men
doing great things, like young boys helping their mum carrying
the shopping in from the car or yeah, you know, like.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
That's what it was like in my day.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
You know, I grew up you know, watching like men
open doors for women and looking after women and being
you know, st kind and wonderful. Matthew McConaughey was the
thing that we were going after. And there's been a
kind of death of yeah, and now there's like a
death of the rom com you know, it feels timely.
It's like we don't see men be romantic or kind
(23:51):
to women, or in love with women like music used
to be about men being devastated over the loss of
women or so in love with a woman that he
was losing his fucking mind. And that's kind of going away.
Now we're not really seeing that in our art anymore,
in in our media anymore. And I think that that's
so sad and so detrimental to our society. There's no
(24:13):
model for what boys should be. There's just men who
are looking at who look very successful. Right. Testosterone makes
men want to go out and conquer and acquire. Right,
we cannot relate to that same level of urge because
it's biological. So they're watching these men go out and
they're technically conquering and acquiring. These men don't seem very
mentally stable or particularly happy or have very fulfilling lives.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
But they've got all the bits, all the stuff, you.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Know, the cars, the house, the money, the clothes. And
so what we need to do is create aspirational viewing
for men again, for men to see what we want.
All they're seeing is what we don't want. And I
think that that's a huge thing is create real role models,
really start to leverage role models.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Women can do it.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
That of course, is not all of my conversation with
Jamila Jamil, And after this shortbreak we talk about all
the good stuff friendship, don't go anywhere. And if I
think about what you were just saying before, about how
you've changed your tone, reflected on your tone and how
(25:20):
it was actually divisive instead of inclusive or less likely
to elicit change, Yes, I think a lot of us
particularly it was a generational thing as well. I think
where that we were consumed by the rage. We need
to be cognizant of our own language in that because
that's how you become love.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Yeah, we can't be like menu trash, meno trash, meno trash.
We cannot keep going with this ship. There's miss andres
shit that's going on that I've been against from the
very start that I don't think I participated in too much,
because then, of course, why the fuck would teenage boys
side with us, Why would they think we're a welcoming
(26:00):
space to go to. All we do is just say
all they're seeing is us having open season on them.
They're not really supposed to say anything bad about us.
They were around for when we were oppressed. So they've
just seen Taylor Swift and Beyonce dominating, you know, the
music industry, and you know Angelina Joli or Scarlett Hanson
or whoever, you know, like the Bella Hadid, like all
(26:22):
these girls on top, women doing well in business, Karmla Harris,
maybe didn't win, but you've got very far, and you've
got female prime ministers now. And so they're just like
they're looking around thinking, well, I don't have context for
all of this rage. I'm fifteen and I'm being told
I'm not shit and I'm trash and that the most
embarrassing thing a woman can be is attracted to men.
And so of course this psychopad, you know, who seem
(26:47):
to have lots of nice money and fun and you know,
good times. A most cigars are telling me that I'm
worth something and I'm welcome and I'm safe with him.
I'm going to go towards him. These boys just kids,
just want to be safe. They don't feel safe with us.
If I was a teenage boy, I wouldn't be like, oh,
I'm going to go find a group of women to
hang out with. I'd be fucking terrified.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
I mean I would be.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
I would gravitate to He's the one who tells me
that I'm worth something and that he sees potential in me,
and that I'm going to be something someday and I'm important,
that my life is valid. And listen, I know that
this sounds like a lot of like, you know, woe
is boys, but woe is boys man Like they're dying
and they're hurting us, and so to heal them is
to heal all of us. But but but we've we've
(27:33):
got to pull them back in on side, and we've
got to look at whatever. You know, we've got to
find another way to process our age about the men
before so that we don't alienate the boys who are
coming up now because we need them.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
They're our future.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Yes, And also it's that thing about them having to
pay the penalty for something that they really have no knowledge.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
No, we saw this with the race conversation.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
You know, it's just like, you know, we we mishandled
the race conversation, I think on the left, where it's like,
you know, we wanted people who currently exist with white
privilege to be you know, aware of the fact that
they benefit from the current system. But I think some
people took it too far and wanting to like punish
people whose ancestors, you know, were part of a much
(28:25):
more racially inequitable world. You know, it's like calling them
a virus, saying you know, you're inherently evil if you're
a white person. And it's like these fucking white kids
came up just being like, fuck, well, I haven't done
anything to anyone, and I'm I'm also poor, and I
don't know why I'm being held responsible for these actions
of people I never met and didn't know and I
(28:45):
don't share their politics, but I'm being blamed for it.
And so then they turned away from us because they
were like, fuck, I'm not safe with these people. They
think I'm a virus, they think I'm a disease, they
think I'm born inherently evil, and they went off. We
lost those boys. We can see it in all the
election results around the world. We lost all the people
that we labeled, and so we need to stop fucking
(29:05):
labeling each other and remember everyone is a product of
their fucking environment. We need to remember that ultimately, the
people who are true evil are at the very top
of all of these countries. It's corporations and it's some governments.
And we need to work together so that we all
have equity. Women, women and men working together in a
(29:26):
world always benefits the GDP, it benefits society. When we
take away women's rights, a company slides down its own
fucking asshole.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
You know, it looks like shit, it.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Smells, it's bad, but there's no money. Everyone's fucking broke.
Everyone's miserable. People are killing themselves, children are getting like,
people are marrying.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Children off to grown men.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Like.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
That's what happens to a society that takes away the
rights of women. They're thriving when women are in power.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
They're fucked.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
When women have are completely empowered, And so we need
to look at that and go, this isn't working for anyone.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
This doesn't work for anyone.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
For us to take away the liberties and rights and
the value entirely of women.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
It makes women miserable, but it'll all so ultimately make
men miserable.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
So we just need to find new ways of framing
things that actually make it appealing for men. You know, like, hey,
you don't want women to not be able to work
and then you have to go and do all the
work and then get to have no fun.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
That sounds shit for you.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Let her do half the work. She's got perfectly capable. Also,
happy wife, happy life totally. And also women are fantastic
and when you're in a great relationship women one, it'll
make you better. The reason that single men die sooner
than married men is because a woman will get your
ass to the fucking doctor. She will love you and
(30:44):
cuddle you, and all that affection will settle your hormones
and be good for your health. Loneliness is now considered
a bigger killer than drinking or smoking. You know, they
are not benefiting, and not just by the way, not
just that. One of the saddest things in our society
is that we place no emphasis or importance on the
friendship of men and women. There's no movies about friends
who are men and women who don't end up shagging
(31:06):
at the end. There's no literature about great friends. There's
no great stories on the cover of a magazine about
a man and a woman who had a great idea
together and they built a company. It's always two women
or a.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Bunch of men. Do you know what I mean? We
don't ever say anything's important.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
So part of the male insecurity that I think we're seeing,
And I talked about this in the speech I gave
in twenty eighteen called Tell Him, which is that they
think that all they're good for is their seed, because
there's no importance in this world in media of men
and women beyond romantic relationships, whereas actually some of my
most meaningful relationships are with men that have nothing to
do with sex. We have no romantic chemistry whatsoever. And
(31:44):
they're my collaborators, they're my best friends, they're my ride
or dies.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Hey do you still live in a shaer house? Only
just stopped. But we're planning a share commune, Oh, which
is exciting. Yeah yeah, yeah, and visit with the name Jamilville.
So it's a cult. It is a cult. But that
was great. This is the call you boys. Yeah, yeah,
that would be me. That would be obviously, I have
(32:10):
the hair of a cult leader. You sure do, I do?
Speaker 2 (32:13):
I do. I have the hair, and I have the confident,
speaking vibe of a cult leader. So come join anytime
you're invited.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
Cat White, I'm assuming this will be part of the
silly chat.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Serious, I'm so so serious right now? Good?
Speaker 2 (32:33):
But yeah, anyway, Look, this is These are some of
the things that I think is that I think that
media has something to answer for.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
I think those of us who are older have something
to answer for.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
I believe, I have hope that we can turn this
shit around. But if we don't do it now, we
are going to run out of an opportunity. The opportunity
is slipping through our fingers. Fascism is rising, Conservatism is rising.
Social media is extraordinary at dividing us. We have to
be having these conversations in person with each other. We
have to bring men and women together as allies and
(33:05):
recognize that we are all fucked right now and no
one doing well or happy, and the only way to
get out of this is with one another. We've all
got very different skills and we need to work together
to build a completely, a completely possible utopia. Remember that
One of the main reasons that women get targeted around
(33:26):
their looks all the time is not just a week
and then distract them, but it's also because women eighty
percent of the market, we're consumers, so so much of
the toxicity we're ingesting it is really just to make
us go out and buy stuff, because if we hate ourselves,
we're more likely to go out and buy things to
fix ourselves because we've been convinced we're broken. We're living
in a fucked system, and we have the power now
(33:51):
to stop it and to fix it. You know, you've
talked a lot about your mental health in the past.
Oh yeah, is it showing actually, but in a stunning way,
in a.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
In a great ways, as you've found your voice, and
it's really it's like someone sitting flame to an oxy
tort if.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
You know what I mean. It's just it's got it's
just so so strong and beautiful.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
Has the liberation of yourself made a difference to your
mental health and your recovery and you're navigating that.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Yes, yes, of course, speaking our minds can only lead
to freedom. And you know, so many of women's autoimmune
diseases have now been linked to the fact that we
repress so much of our emotions. So the less repressed
I am, the happier and healthier I am, of course,
and the more authentic I am, and the more authentic
I am, the more likely I am to meet people
that I actually really resonate with, and then I become
(34:55):
close friends with those people, and then that resolves my loneliness.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
And so it's a wonderful domino effect when you.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
Start to become yourself, and when you give yourself permission
to fuck up and say the wrong thing and rub
people out the wrong way sometimes and know that you're
not going to be every cup of tea. The biggest
lie that women are told is that you are expected
to or can ever be everyone's cup of tea. It's
not possible. We are human beings who have different tastes.
And it's so funny that I grew up my whole
life really not liking almost anyone, but hoping everyone would
(35:24):
like me.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Are ridiculous? Is that it's so true that.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
If you live in the public sphere and you know
that that one, you know, arrow can do more than
a thousand bouquets. Yeah, yeah, And why do we crave
the approval of people who will never approve of us,
very likely because they've already decided.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Women are told that that's the most important thing about
our existence on this earth is just to be palatable
in every way.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Don't take up too much space.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Just smile, be pretty, look skinny, make everyone else's lives
more comfortable, you know, and then die.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
But don't look old when you do. Well, you know what,
Jamila jimil Well you do look pretty. Oh that's very kind.
So do you look you've checked one of those buttes. Well,
that's good.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
I've been obedient to the patriarchy today.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
There's my hope.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
I get my.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Cookie.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
But yeah, I think I've just set myself free and
I've just learned gross self acceptance. And I'm sure part
of that is the fact that I'm you know, I'm
fourteen in like ten months, and the greatest gift of
getting older is realizing that, oh, it's all a scam.
Everything's a scam. Every beauty standard you were ever given
was a scam. It was part of an ever changing
loop that's just going to come back around again. It'll
(36:45):
be fat and thin, and fat and thin, then fat
and thin old than young, and you know, like, oh,
it's all become so exhausting and so silly to me.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
And so I love being older.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
I love every year I get further away from my
fucking twenties, so I can really actually.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Enjoy all of this and see that. Oh what was
I worried about all those years?
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Why was I trying to placate myself and mold myself
and shape myself and drain myself for a few and
secure men when actually the world is full of lots
of men who don't.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
Care about any of this shit. Jamila Jamil, cannot wait
for this and more. Thank you when we see you
on our shores.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Oh, I can't get that fast enough, honestly, thanks for
joining us on No Filter. I had such a great time.
Thank you, and thanks for showing yourself pleasure. It sounds
like I've got my tits out on the podcast.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Hello. What a titan she is.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
What a great mixture of humor and strength and savvy
and assiness. I'm talking about Jamila Jamil, by the way,
and lucky for us, she will be in Australia next
week touring the country. So if you want to go
and see her in the glorious flesh, there's a link
to where you can get tickets.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
In the show notes, the executive.
Speaker 3 (38:05):
Producer of No Filter is Naima Brown, Senior producer Grace Rouvre.
Sound design is by Jacob Brown and I am your host,
Kate lane Brook. Back with you next week.
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