July 2, 2025 • 48 mins
The story you’ve seen everywhere today and the question it raises about childcare.
Plus, the new radical era of celebrity surgery transparency. But, is this good or bad for the myriad of body standards we are already swimming in?
And, the latest workplace test that's incredibly divisive and has Mia, Jessie and Em Vernem slightly sweating.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Muma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Welcome to mummea out loud where women come to debrief.
I am Jesse Stevens, I'm MEA Friedman, and I'm m Burnham.
And here's what's on our agenda for today, Wednesday, the
second of July. The story you've seen everywhere today and
the question it raises about childcare.
Speaker 4 (00:37):
What happens when glow up culture meets girl boss culture.
We have a wave of Kardashian's detailing exactly what plastic
surgery they've had, and we don't know if this is
a good or a bad thing for the beauty standards
that we all swim in.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
And a highly divisive management approach that is centered around
one single question.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
News out of this morning, US President Donald Trump announced
that Israel has agreed to conditions to finalize the sixty
day Gaza ceasefire. Trump posted on social media he wrote,
I hope for the good of the Middle East that
her mass takes the deal, because it will not get better,
it will only get worse. And this comes before Trump
hosts Prime Minister Benjamin netnah Who at the White House
(01:21):
to discuss Iran and Gaza. Israeli newspaper Haaretz has described
netnia Who as the only person in the world who
wants this war to continue, with former Israeli Prime Minister
Ayud Almayer saying he can no longer defend Israel against
accusations of war crimes. What is happening in Palestine. The
(01:41):
Uennas described Gaza as the hungriest place on Earth. The
killing of civilians, parents losing children, The health system is
at breaking point. Ninety four percent of hospitals have been
damaged or destroyed.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
It is so distressing, and just on this topic more broadly,
out louders, we want to be completely transparent with you.
As many of you know, I am a proud Jewish
woman and I have family in Israel, but that does not,
for a single moment, interfere with my capacity, like so
many Jewish people, to feel deep grief and horror at
the plight of the Palestinian people and the plight of
(02:16):
civilians who've suffered and continue to suffer in that region
over the last twenty one months. Since the horrific massacre
on October the seventh and the unfolding horror of the
war that's followed has meant that we've had many, many
conversations about this. Many of the conversations have been off Mike,
(02:37):
some have been on Mike. We've spoken about Gaza, We've
spoken about the massacre, We've spoken about the hostages, about
net and Yahoo. This is the stuff of absolute nightmares,
and they're nightmares that have deeply divided you, our audience,
and at many times have really seemed to us and
to you to be beyond civil discourse, because every time
(03:01):
we've covered this topic, we've hurt and angered listeners without
meaning to. We know that of more than fifty six
thousand Palestinians killed, the United Nations has verified that nearly
seventy percent of these deaths have been of women and children,
and they've also reported that one in five people in
Gaza are facing starvation. Currently, we are looking at a
(03:24):
humanitarian crisis that feels so deeply distressing, no matter what
country you live in, or what religion you are, or
how often you post about it on social media. And
on the days that we haven't spoken about it on
Mike and on the show, it is not because we're
not thinking about it. It's not because we don't care.
We do care, and we just want peace. We are
(03:45):
praying for a ceasefire and for there to be peace,
and we know that you are too.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
We have links in the show notes to aid organizations
which we have donated to. If you are feeling as
helpless as we are, then please contribute. But we also
acknowledge the danger for a lot of Palestinians of even
accessing aid.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
Right now.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Out loud as We'll be back in a moment with
the rest of the show. So if you were to
tell your manager right now, say a producer Ruth, that
you are leaving the company to go work for someone else,
do you think she will fight to keep you?
Speaker 4 (04:23):
She better?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
She better. So it's a question at the center of
this really highly divisive management strategy called the keeper test.
And this was actually launched by one of Netflix co founders,
and it's still a management practice that Netflix does till
this day.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
It's really interesting I've read about this before because it's
not just something that you apply when someone says they're leaving,
because often by the time someone says they're leaving, it's
kind of too late, and there are other things in play.
It's more when you're working out whether you want to
promote someone or making any decisions about their career as
their manager, you ask yourself, if they left, would I
(05:00):
fight to keep them?
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Right?
Speaker 5 (05:01):
Yeh?
Speaker 4 (05:02):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
But I think it's also something that you can use
as the employees. As the employee to get feedback and
kind of put your manager on this, but like just
telling them like, hey, if I was going to go
to a competitor right now, how hard would you fight
to keep me?
Speaker 3 (05:16):
So the question is how much my valued? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (05:18):
How much am I valued? And the idea is that
you want your company to have high, high performers, so
you know how so many companies are like, we're not
a company, We're a family. The keeper's tests are saying, no,
shouldn't be a family. It should be a high performing
sports team. So like sports team, you want the best
of the best. You want athletes, you want top of
their game. That should be the same in companies.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
I have so much to say about this.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
This segments also brought to you by capitalism.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Okay, companies should not be like families. Companies should not
be like professional sports teams. Companies should be like a workplace.
And we should stop trying to make them other things workplaces.
The thing about a sports team or an athlete is that,
as someone who is now an expert in Formula one,
I'm stealing a spot spot the amount of investment that
(06:06):
goes into an athlete from Like in Australia, I went
to the Australian Institute of Sport. On the taxpayer dollar.
You were trained, you probably got given a performance psychologist.
You are being given the big bucks to perform, right,
That's an enormous amount of investment to treat your junior
admin assistant who's been here for two and a half
weeks the same as a sportsperson. Is so ludicrous to
(06:30):
me because we cannot invest.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
Though, because I think for both the employee and the employer,
you want people who are going to thrive in whatever
role they're in, right, and so to thrive in a
role you have to be able to do it well.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Yes, but don't you think that you have to give
them time. You have to let them attempt that role
in an atmosphere that isn't filled with fear and pressure.
Like I know that as an employee, if I feel watched,
that's when I'll start making lots and lots of mistakes,
right Like, I look at this and I think I
(07:07):
almost get defensive because I think if this was why
I would.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
Someone be watching you in that way if you're doing
a good.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Job well, because if you're constantly going, let's rank people,
let's go who's a performer, who's a regrettable loss, who
can we afford to lose, blah blah blah, and treating
it like a professional sports team, then we're going, you
know what, Jesse made two mistakes today, and then we
become almost like hyper vigilant at the surveillance on Jesse.
That makes me make a moose.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
Yes, I get that, but I've never been in a
management meeting where it's like this person made one mistake
or two mistakes. If this person is making mistakes every day,
then they're not suited for that role, and it's not
good for them or the business or their coworkers to
keep them in that role.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Just for vibes, I kind of say both of your points.
I actually think it should be kind of a sports
environment because I think, similar to as you said, like
with the F one drivers, that company does invest a
lot into the drivers, and I think companies should invest
a lot into their employees. Like if you have a
high performer employee that you don't want to lose, you
need to show them that you need to invest in
(08:11):
that person. You need to give them promotions when they
deserve a promotion. You need to give them pay rising
when you to deserve pay rises. And that's how you
can keep your best performing athletes in the company, like
you have a bigger retention for them.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
I also reckon, though.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
But that's management when I want that's not.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Like I reckon though. What I was reading between the
lines when I was reading about the keeper test is
I went, this cannot be untangled from an American context,
And by that I mean in the US you can
fire and employee tomorrow, like their employment laws are very
different to Australia. So the idea of a keeper test
where you can kind of look at everyone as a
team and go, yeah, m isn't performing, let's get rid
(08:47):
of them, and let's get this person in that right
there isn't want to be culture.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
So what you're pushing back on is the culture of
it being cutthroat.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Yes, yeah, I get that, but if you.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
Talk about the team analogy, when you think about a team,
let's say a netball team. If your goal attack isn't
performing well, you have an obligation to the rest of
the team to replace her or help her to improve.
You can't just go, oh, well, she's trying, because, like
in a business, if you've got someone who's not thriving
(09:20):
in their role, that impacts on everybody in the team.
So as an employer, you have an obligation to your customers,
to your staff, to your shareholders, whoever, but definitely to
your other staff to either find a role that's better
suited to them or replace them with someone who can
do that role better.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
I think what Netflix did wrong with the keeper test
is that they made it public knowledge that they're doing
a keeper test. And I think when you're an employee
and you know that there's this huge management strategy that
if you don't perform, you're going to be kicked out.
You're just living in fear every single day, and you would,
I don't know, not contribute to brainstorms because you're scared
you'll have the wrong idea.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
You might not own up to mistakes because you're sched
you'll be fired.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
I think it can do real damage to the actual
overall of the company, and you'll just have these three
people at the top who are just the high performance
work succeeding in that one type of environment.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Is it like so controversial to want people to be
good at their job.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
I don't think it's about that. I think it's about
the culture that you create, right, because if you want
a culture where people can take risks, where people can
make mistakes.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
Depends on the industry. If you're an air traffic controller,
that's not the culture you want where people can make
mistakes and take risks. So I think it's incredibly dependent
on the type of job you're talking about and the
industry that you're talking about.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
But the sense that your employment could be terminated at
any point.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
Which it can't industrate, which you can't.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
In Australia, but it can in sort of the Netflix example,
there's all these studies about what it does to employee
satisfaction and like from absenteeism to reduce productivity, to anxiety
stress related health issues.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Yeah, there have been some reviews of people who have
worked on Netflix. So a former Netflix executive assistant said
terrifying with anxiety twenty four to seven.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Also, the cost of turnover can be like turnover may
or you all know this. You know something about business
isn't turnover like expense even time consuming, Like you don't
constantly want staff turnover. You just want to keep the
good people right.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Yeah, that's what the keeper tooth do.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
The keeper test encourages turnover, but.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
Don't ever start a business. I think what you're talking
about is a charity. No.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
I think because this was saying that the turnover becomes
too high, so you would look around and you would redundancy,
being like you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out,
And it's like the cost of retraining people is.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
That's why I think that you want to do that
at the point of employment, yes, not once they're in.
So the trick is to really refine and we've learned
a lot about this over the last sort of twenty
years of running Mama Maa. You want to spend a
lot of time making sure the fit's right, because just
because if it's not right at one place doesn't mean
(11:59):
there's anything wrong with that person or anything wrong with
that company. It just means it fit's not right. It's
like any relationship. You can have two great people, but
they're just not right together. So for the benefit of
the business, for the benefit of the employee, you always
want to spend time making sure that fits as right
as possible. Now, sometimes you just can't tell until it happens,
(12:20):
and it's it's never easy when when the fit's not right,
but usually people know they can feel it. I know
I've felt it when I've been in that situation.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
I think that what you would want to do is
create a workplace, not a sports team, that kind of
invests in everyone and gives people time. I think that's
the other thing to learn how to do their roles right.
And as you say, Maya, sometimes it's just not kind
to leave people in a job that they're incapable of
doing it.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
It's never kind.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
And so I completely understand, you know, freeing up that.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
Person's future, freeing up their future.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Yeah, but I am like allergic to the cutthroat sports
team analogy. I do not play professional sport and stop
reading very reason for a very good reason, and it
is my needs the.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Quick heads up. This next segment discusses distressing content. Please
take care.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
On Yesterday, the name and face of an alleged male
sex offender charged with seventy sex offenses against toddlers and
babies at a childcare center in Point Cook in Melbourne
Southwest was published. The police and the Victorian state government,
including the Premier, called a joint press conference and here's
some of what Acting Commander Janet Stevenson said.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
This is unique. It's very important to ensure that every
parent out there that has a child in childcare knows
who he is and where he worked.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
More than one thousand children are being asked to undergo
health screenings for infectious diseases. The alleged defender had worked
at about twenty facilities since twenty seventeen and he had
a valid working with Children check and no formal complaints
against him, according to police. And it's difficult to put
words around how distressing it is to see headlines like this.
With approximately one million Australian families having a child or
(14:04):
children currently looked after by childcare services.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
There's no one who hasn't had a chill just go
through them. Yeah, you know there's a million children in
care now, but it would be hard to find someone
in Australia who either was not in childcare themselves or
hasn't put their child or a family member into childcare
at some stage.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
I think the added distress of headlines like this is
that it is referring to toddlers and babies who can't
speak yet, and there's something about the vulnerability of those
alleged victims that I think is particularly distressing to people.
It is given way to a predictable conversation highlighted by
the Age this morning in an article headlined innocent male
childcare workers likely to be driven from sector. Among those
(14:48):
interviewed was my brother Nick Stevens, who has worked in
early childhood for about twelve years. He sent us a
voice note this morning after reading these headlines about the
impact on male educators in the sector.
Speaker 6 (15:03):
The recent news is going to have, I would say,
a pretty significant impact on men working with children. Before
this case even came out, I spoke to a few
different men who weren't allowed to even enter the bathrooms
at some early childhood services. So after this news that
(15:26):
will probably become more common. I think particularly there'll be
issues with men working with babies and doing any kind
of nappy changing with babies, and also other men in
early childhood have been speaking about generally, what happens after
(15:47):
these cases is there's a pretty significant exodus of men
who just quit the profession altogether.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
Look, this response and fear by parents is totally understandable.
Parents are horrified and scared. Maya, do you think it
will lead to a broader distrust of my educators.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
I think it will takes me really sad because I've
seen firsthand the impact that your brothers have and my
children all went to a day care that was run
by the most extraordinary director of that center, and he
was one of the most impactful teachers of their whole
you know, school experience or the preschool experience. I feel
(16:31):
for everybody. I feel for all child care workers because
it's interesting. You know that my understanding was that there
are rules and laws. I haven't had a child in
day care for about thirteen or fourteen years, but my
understanding is that there were certainly in the one that
I sent my kids to, there were rules about open areas.
(16:52):
There were no like cubby houses. There was nowhere that
a child could be either with another child or with
an adult that couldn't be seen, that wasn't sort of transparent.
It was quite strict. But I also know it's interesting
because parents are going to want all these reassurances, and
people have said things like no phones, there shouldn't be
phones allowed. But the other thing that I've noticed is
(17:14):
over the last sort of five or ten years is
the demand by parents for this sort of constant communication.
Now some may say that's because they're anxious and they
want to know that their child's okay, but it's more
just like they want a constant update and narrations. And
this goes all the way through school. How the kids
are doing, and what do they do that day, and
where are the photos? And can I see a video,
(17:35):
which is a huge burden on childcare workers who should
have to just be with the kids. And of course
all of that has to happen on phones. So it's
really hard to know. When there are stories like this,
people want to go, well, here's what we should do,
and here's what should stop, and here's what should start.
And there's definitely a time and a point for doing that,
(17:58):
but I think we should also just have a moment
to just express how incredibly awful it is for everybody involved.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Because I'm not in the parenting world. So what Nick
said about how people before the case like approached men
who work in these actors that was quite surprising to
me because when I talk about men who work in
these sorts of roles with my friends, it's seen us
like quite an endearing quality. Like for us, it's like
they're caring, high emotional intelligence. We have probably similar values.
(18:26):
So is there some sort of I guess, unconscious gender
bias when it comes to choosing who looks after your child.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
I don't think it's unconscious, right.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
It's really interesting that you say that, because over the
years covering on mum Mayor as well, we've had people
write in. It's been kind of a very lively discussion
of people saying I do not want my child going
to a center where there are even male educators. And
I want to give a little bit of grace to
the people asking for that, because in some instances they
were victims themselves of abuse and they have very valid
(18:58):
and understandable fear about men. And then you have other
male educators who are told not to change nappies. There
was a story SBS covered last year of a man
who went for an interview and was told by the
center the parents don't want male educators, We're not going
to take you, which looks like gender discrimination, right, And
especially at a time when we're trying to get more
(19:18):
women in STEM and in engineering and in construction and
in these really male dominated industries. In order for that
to happen, we've got to also address the gender imbalance
in childcare. It's a bit hard to know the numbers
for sure, but about four percent they think men, so
it's really really small, and a lot of childcare workers,
female childcare workers will say the male presence is really important,
(19:42):
especially for kids who don't have a male role model.
There's a lot of talk about toxic masculinity in raising boys,
and having a male presence, who might play differently, who
might talk differently, who might take them outdoors more or whatever,
makes a real difference to a center. So it's such
a shame. And we should acknowledge as well that the
(20:04):
alleged victims here are the children and of course the parents.
And this is another discuss about what we do going forward.
And I think no one acknowledges that more than male educators.
Speaker 4 (20:15):
If this is weaponized by people who don't believe children
should be in daycare, I will lose it.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yeah, because is that a thing.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
I feel like that's going to happen in about three seconds.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
I also saw something going around which I bristled at,
which was about signs that something may have happened to
your child, and I just thought, can we take a
breath before we put any hint, anything, bit of blame
on parents.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
I didn't read that as blame. I read that as
advice and things that you might not realize are signs.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
I read that as helpful interesting. I just I feel so,
you know, there are out louders from Melbourne who will
be especially impacted by this news. I think this opens
a conversation about how we keep kids safe, which is
something that everyone agrees on, and I think that male
educators will be it forefront of that because they really care.
(21:12):
And that's a conversation for the whole community.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
If you or someone you know needs to speak to
someone off the back of this segment, you can contact
the National Sexual Abuse and Readness Support Service on one
eight hundred two double one zero two eight or one
eight hundred respect the National Domestic Family and Sexual Violence
Counseling Service on one eight hundred seven three seven seven
three to two. There'll be links in the show notes
(21:35):
to all of those resources.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
We're going to take a little break and then we're
going to change gears and talk about the new radical
era of celebrity surgery transparency.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
One unlimited out loud access. We drop episodes every Tuesday
and Thursday exclusively for Muma MEA subscribers. Follow the link
in the show notes to get us in your ears
five days a week. And a huge thank you to
all our current subscribers.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
In case you missed it. There's good news for people
and bad news for scammers because the Commonwealth Bank has
announced this week that they're deploying an army of aibots
that sound like humans and their job is to scam
the scammers.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Okay, explain to me you lost me at army AI bots.
How does this actually.
Speaker 4 (22:29):
Help scaring a lot of people have just completely disassociated
at this point.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Well, let me.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
Give you a bit of context. Three zero point one
percent of Australian's age fifteen and over, so about almost
seven hundred thousand people were victims of scams last year.
The most common types of scams that were reported, and
only fifty four percent of people actually report scams. A
lot of people feel too ashamed, they don't realize they're confused.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
I spoke on the podcast about my grandfather who were
scammed out of tens of thousands of dollars and when
he went to the bank that telecried because she saw
what had happened.
Speaker 4 (23:04):
It's so devastating. The most common types of scams that
were reported were investments, romance scams, payment redirection, remote access,
and phishing scam.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
So a lot of them are like I think for him,
it was this text message about tax. Often you'll get
a text message just like it's tax time. Do this,
do that, and then you click on the link. They
get your bank details and next thing you know, money's
disappearing from your account exactly.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
So more than one hundred and forty million dollars was
transferred to scammers, oh my god, in the last financial year,
just from Australia. And as you say, Jesse, they're often
really vulnerable people, so elderly, lonely, people who aren't tech savvy,
or for whom English is not their first language.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
But they're getting really good now Like I've fallen for
a scam.
Speaker 6 (23:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
I intinued a woman on No Filter and she was
actually like a money writer for New York magazine and
she'd beaten a journalist who worked at the Wall Street Journal,
because there's all these preconceptions about who will get taken
by a scam. And I know I mentioned vulnerable people,
but she was highly educated, went to an amazing you know,
Ivy League unversity, worked in finance essentially, and she found
(24:14):
herself putting all this money in a bag, her life savings.
I think it was like fifty thousand dollars and handing
it to a stranger in the back of a car
within about ten hours of getting her the first call
that from this scamm So what these bots are going
to do? They sound like humans, and they're going to
make themselves sort of non human targets for scammers and
(24:35):
really waste their time on the phone. So here's an
example of one of these AI bots that the combank
is going to be deploying, wasting a scammer's time.
Speaker 5 (24:45):
Yeah, okay, you're not going to ask me for my
credit card or something, right, I mean, I've seen stories
in the news about people losing money, and frankly, I
don't want to be making the news anytime soon. If
I want to be honest with you, I have enough
things going on. Okay, I don't remember ordering anything.
Speaker 6 (25:06):
Our inspection have found undeclared electronic device and prohibited medicine
inside and this might be abolican of Australian customs laws.
Speaker 5 (25:15):
Well that wait, exactly what exactly I mean? This is
not like I have.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Ordered these things?
Speaker 4 (25:21):
Right?
Speaker 5 (25:22):
Is this some sort of joke?
Speaker 6 (25:23):
Mate?
Speaker 4 (25:24):
So you can hear that the victims that aren't real
sound really real. And not only are they going to
waste time and divert these scammers from actually contacting human people,
but they're also going to be gathering a lot of
intelligence about the methods that they use and the phrases
that they use to help protect people in future spam calls.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
For me is something that makes me so genuinely angry,
like I actually scream at them on the phone, to
the point where I now hear my phone settings that
I silence all unsaved numbers like your phone can automatically
do that in the settings, and I miss so many,
Like my grandma. We don't know what's wrong with her landline,
but it's always sad on private, so I never get
a call from her ever because my phone is automatic
(26:05):
silence that it's really annoying.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
Have you ever shouted at someone thinking that they were
a scammer, but they are actually worn't I've done that.
That's why I don't shout. I'm always just like I'll
hang up for I won't answer, but I'm like, please,
don't ever call me again. And it called back and
it was like a doctor's reception trying to deliver something
to me.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
I remember speaking to an AI expert and like a
chief scientist, right I was. I was speaking to them
at this event and they were both telling me that
if banks tomorrow wanted to stop scammers, they could. It's
about will and it's about the investment, like it's going
to cost money, but they have the technology to stop it.
And look, I go on TikTok and see AI videos
(26:46):
of a yetti doing a day in the life. I
would much prefer us to use AI to stop the
scammers the some of the shit I'm seeing on TikTok
at the moment.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
I really want to show a video.
Speaker 5 (26:56):
Now.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
I actually learned this trick. I mean, the thing that's
so bad about this is that you have to do
the work to stop getting these calls or these emails.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
What do you do?
Speaker 1 (27:06):
There's a lot of work.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
And I actually learned this from our tech department at
Mama Mia, Like, if you're constantly getting spam calls, like
there was a time where I was getting probably four
spam calls.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
A day, I'm on every date.
Speaker 4 (27:17):
I agree, Yeah, it seems to come in way.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
There are these massive, like database lists that have so
much information on you. It might have your name, your number,
your email. So what I did was I just googled
my name, my phone number, and my email and a
website popped up that was just like kind of like
a Yellow Pages but on a website. And they can
sell all your information to other websites. So can you
get your number off that You just email them or
(27:40):
you like tick a box, and they make it really
easy because they obviously don't want to get in trouble
and immediately they'll remove your data. But you can also
do it through the government, like the Communications branch of
the government has a do not Call register that you
can put your number in.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
Do you know what I also learned is that the
leading indicator of whether you'll get scammed is not about
your education level. It's not about any of those things.
It's about whether you've been scammed before that makes you
in these lists that are sold on the dark web
of potential targets. That makes you more valuable than those lists,
(28:14):
because you would think if you've been scammed before, you know,
you'd be really suspicious. But it basically means that.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
You're going to get targeted by smarter and smarter text.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
The leading indicator of someone who doesn't get scammed is
that they've read or heard about a similar scam, which
is why the woman who I spoke to, even though
she said, look, I'm so embarrassed, I'm mortified to be
saying this. I thought it was going to be bad
for my career, all of these things, but because of
that reason, I want to help other people avoid it.
And people contacted me afterwards and said I had a
(28:46):
similar call because this was someone pretending to be from Amazon,
and most people have an Amazon account, so you engage
and once they've got you hooked. Some of these scams
are really elaborate, and a number of people said I
was in the middle of being scammed when I heard
this interview, and it saved me four hundred and forty
five CC moderate profile half under the muscles. Hope this
(29:10):
helps lol.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Do either of you know it that understand a single
word except for Lol.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
I'm embarrassed to say that. If you'd read that to me,
I could have said exactly what that is. It's a
comment left by Kylie Jenner on a social media video
by a woman on TikTok asking her to share where
her boobs were from. Oh wow, and she did. She
turned up in the comments and she gave a lot
of details. And the noise that you can hear is
(29:37):
the impact of glow up culture crashing into hustle culture.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Because at that.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
Intersection, Kylie seems to have officially declared that the age
of radical surgery transparencies here among women, certainly among celebrities.
And we know that it's not just a one off
because within a few days, her mother, Chris, confirmed that
her new face that everybody had been talking about was
thanks to the same surgeon. He's been fielding hundreds of
calls of day, as you can imagine, and his whole
(30:03):
email server has crashed. And then yesterday Chloe Kardashian commented
about her own cosmetic pres sieges. Now, I don't know
if you've seen these videos. Some of them are done
by civilians, and the ones that I tend to watch
are done by plastic surgeons, and they show before and
after photos of particular celebrities and all the different procedures
that they've had along the way. We can talk about
(30:24):
why I like them, perhaps with a therapist. But on
this post by one of these surgeons who makes these videos,
he did one on Chloe and showed all these before
and after photos, and she replied in the comments listing
all the procedures that she'd had. She was basically like, Oh,
I'm really flattered that you've done this. Some of it's right,
some of it isn't quite right, and here are the
(30:44):
actual details. And she listed everything from a nose job, laser,
hair removal, anti wrinkle injections.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Something about it injective and soft.
Speaker 4 (30:53):
Wave laser, all these different things, filler threads, all these
different procedures. And what's interesting about all of this is
that it seems to be this new trend of a
group of women, because it's always been that people were like, oh, no,
I haven't had anything done. I mean, showan who's also
looking very different. She just says, it's just sunshine and
water share and lots of hydration. So that used to
(31:17):
be seen as you have to pretend that you just woke.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Up that way.
Speaker 4 (31:21):
But now there's this group of women, the Kardashians, leading
the way, who want to be acknowledged for all the work,
all the money, or the pain that they endured. You know,
there's a reason basically that they call it work because
they want to be acknowledged for their work ethic in
the business of beauty and the work of beauty. Is
this a good thing? Is this a bad thing?
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Em So, back in my day, I was always like.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
It is your day.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Back in my day, I mean like when I was eighteen,
Like I think Kylie Jenna was the person I kind
of grew up with, and that was where lip fillers
became a whole thing. Like lip fillers were my generation.
About your age, Yeah, she's a year younger.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
She denied it.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
So I was there in high school overlining my lips
like crazy, looking like a clown. She had lip filler
the whole time. She didn't tell me. Her best friend
and Vernon was one of the big followers before she
hit the big one millions. And I always thought that
I'd be the type of person to be like, do
whatever you want to your face, to your body, just
tell me about it and it'll be fine, and now
(32:22):
they're telling me about it and I don't like.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
It, and you're deeply uncomfortable with.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
It and uncomfortable with it because I think I was
living in this world where some people are beautiful and
some people just are, and I was happy being the
just are because we will all just ah and I
accepted that the Kardashians were the beautiful. And now it's
the sentiment that here's how I got beautiful, and now
you can too, And I'm.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Like, I don't want to do that.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
That is a hill I have no desire to climb.
It's like I want to check out of that race.
And it's consistent with the Kardashian ethos. That's sort of like,
get your f ing rs up and work. Yeah, like
that idea, be prettier, be prettier, and it's labor and
I want to be respected for it. But what it's
(33:08):
also doing is normalizing expensive and often very invasive cosmetic procedures.
And let's not forget that Kim Kardashian with her, there
was all that speculation about her bum and whether it
was real, and it kind of suddenly got bigger. And
then when she didn't tell us exactly what it was.
We kind of claimed that we're being gas lit, like
(33:28):
it was all very strange. But what it did do
was lead to this proliferation of Brazilian butt lifts, which
literally killed people, Like people died in that surgery because
it was so dangerous. So I'm always going to be
resistant when I see and hear a celebrity who has
access to the best surgeons, who has every resource available
(33:50):
to them, and then they're like, you can do it too, Like, no,
people are going to go to some unregulated go to
the other side of the world and get something that
can cause a lot of damage.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
But will you be resistant if everyone else in your life?
Because the Kylie Jenner video is a good example because
she was replying to a comment on a video by
just a girl who was just like, please just tell
me what you've done, Like I love your boobs, I
just want a recipe.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
And she's just a normal girl.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
And I feel like it is slowly seeping into normalization.
And I do think cosmedic procedures is gonna eventually be
another life stage where like we'll all get to a
life stage where we'll all suddenly be in that moment
where you're getting work done. So that doesn't mean I
have to get work done.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
Yeah, but the problem is that that life stage is
getting younger and younger. You're in your mid to late
twenties and so is Kylie, and you're already at that stage.
So it's not that having work done is something that
you used to be. You had a facelift if you
were rich and famous and you were over sixty or seventy.
I thought I wanted this, like I've always been, like,
stop gas lighting us. And I would fight with Holly
(34:53):
about this all the time, like, stop pretending you woke
up that way. Stop pretending it your body got like
that by just running after your toddler, and that you
just get eight hours of sleep and do meditation. That
drives me crazy because I do feel like I'm being
gas lip because you look in the mirror and you go, well,
she's twenty years older than me, and she says she
(35:13):
just wears sunscreen. How come I look twenty years older
than her? And now that I've seen it, I'm like, oh,
maybe I don't want this.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
It's almost considered now if you do not list the procedures,
because again, the Kardashians have done a one to eighty
from pretending they didn't get the work done to go
and you know what, we're going to own it. And
it's like, if the Kardashians don't tell us, then it's
seen as gatekeeping, like you're gatekeeping what work you've got.
Speaker 4 (35:38):
And so Kylie got a lot of praise. Oh, you're
for the girlies, which is kind of like you're not gatekeeping.
You're a girl's girl because you're sharing and you're being
honest and you're not making other women feel inadequate when
they look in the mirror because they don't look like you.
You're saying, yeah, I didn't wake up this way. I
actually think I do prefer it to the alternative. I mean,
the alternative would be that there'd be more diversity of
(35:59):
beauty everywhere we look, including on our phones, like there
is in the real world. Like when you walk down
the street, or you go to the beach, or you
look around your workplace or your your dinner table. People
look all different ways, right.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
Jessica Dfino, who is one of my favorite voices on beauty,
she has a substack and she has some really interesting
things to say about this. To your point, m She
says that opting out of this what she terms aesthetic
labor will have financial and social consequences. So when that
becomes the norm, if you're the person who says I'm
gonna let my grades grow out, I'm gonna angles, yeah, exactly,
(36:34):
then there starts to be whether it well a cultural
punishment for that sort of thing. So that's I think
our resistance to it. And she also has this quote
that says, if beauty is work, who's the boss? Which
I think, thank you, Mia.
Speaker 4 (36:51):
You in I think it is one of the first
times I've said that in the show, like I know
the answer.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
The other thing she says is that today's standard of
beauty is cyborgian, robotic, and inhuman, and I think that's
very true. That and homogeneous, yeah, which is the Kindashians
have popularized that that it's a face without excression.
Speaker 4 (37:10):
Sometimes you'll be scrolling or you know, you'll see pictures
of celebrities on a red carpet, or someone will post
something and you'll go, wait, is that Mago Robbie or
is that a Kardashian Or is that Emma Stone or
is that means Loewan? Or is that Chris Jenner and
the women that you're trying to work out who it is.
Are ranged in age between like twenty five and sixty five.
(37:31):
And they've also got this Instagram phase.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
And the Kardashians still have a lot to do with that.
So cosmetic surgeons will say that for the last ten years,
the most popular pictures they have been brought into their
offices are Kardashians, Like that is a look and if
you go to your local shopping center, I'm sorry, but
I think you can see it. I think it's been
starting to infiltrate everyone's worlds. And how do we feel
(37:53):
about that? I mean, they're popularizing cosmetic surgery. I think
that any surgery that isn't necessary has some element of risk.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
There's been speculation that the Kardashians don't do anything by accident, right,
and so this is three of them within the space
of a month. So are they launching a range of clinics?
Are they launching a range of post surgery products? Are
they launching a course? Like Chris Jenner, is the Devil
works hard? Chris Jenner, it's harder what's actually behind this
(38:22):
because everything they do is very business minded.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
I reckon it's a clinic. So the reason I think
that is because Kim Kudashan came out with Skincare got
a lot of criticism that they were like, mate, it's
not your ninety dollars oil, we can see what you're
getting done.
Speaker 4 (38:36):
Clinic with a K.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Yeah, I reckon that it's clinic with a K. And
I reckon that they're just going hard. They're owning it,
and they're saying, here, come to this surgeon in our
Kutashian clinic with a K and come get your work done.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
You'd be on board, like I think. I just think
it's going to be one of those things like when
we had to start waxing our eyebrows and we had
to get like laser hair and moval. I think will
just be another one.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
And if all my friends are doing it and I'm
the only one who's like the UGO, I can't.
Speaker 4 (39:05):
I'm not.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
I refuse to talk about yourself that way. You're beautif.
Speaker 4 (39:09):
Do you know when I was torturate about anti wrinkle injections.
I was talking to one of my friends about it
and she's like, you know, you don't have to tell anyone,
you can actually just get it done.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
I feel like that isn't the ads, and I was like,
have you met me?
Speaker 4 (39:22):
I actually could not do that. But also I should
just say that sometimes when we talk about surgery or
tweatments or things like that on the show, we get
some comments from people who say, no one in my
world is getting surgery. This has nothing to do with me.
I don't know anyone who even has botox. Totally hear you.
But the reason that we do talk about it is
(39:45):
because these women, for better and worse, are the standard
bearers of beauty standards in our culture. So when everybody
is doing a certain thing and you're seeing it on billboards,
in movies, on TV shows, on your phone, on every
social platform, whether they're celebrities or you know, regular influencers, whatever,
(40:05):
that is how beauty standards change. That is how you
start to look in the mirror and go, oh, my
eyelashes are a little bit sparse without even realizing it.
It's because we're swimming in this sea of beauty standards,
which is how women. You know, in my day, it
used to be about having a flat bottom and about
having no bottom and does my bum look big? In
(40:25):
this The answer that every man over the age of
forteen knew to give was no, it doesn't look big
in this because the beauty standard was for a tiny, flat,
little bottom. But now the right answer, because beauty standards
have changed, is does my bum look big in this? Hell? Yeah,
my god, that's what women want to hear, because a
big bombers now become the beauty standards. And that's what's
(40:46):
so fucked about women's faces and bodies being subject to
trends in ways that men just aren't.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
Please don't take advice regarding skin and plastic surgery from celebrities.
We can all agree on that. For us or US
or US. Even Maya thinks she's a doctor, she's simply not.
Always speak with a trusted health professional.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Before we go.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Mia and Jessie, I have some feedback for you because
I've seen both of you in the kitchen. Sometimes we
have a lot of younger employees here at Mama Mea,
and I've seen you try to start conversations with them,
not know where.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
To take it.
Speaker 4 (41:20):
Rainy day, rain, very windy, and.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Then you're just standing there awkwardly, and neither of you
know how to leave the conversation.
Speaker 4 (41:27):
So I often compliment someone on something they're wearing, or
ask where they got it.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
I like sometimes what you do, which is a really
good strategy, is that you start a conversation and then
already start walking backwards.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
It's a really good strategy.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
She's always booked and busy. So I've got a little
tip for you. And it's like a new way to
make small talk actually interesting. So you go up to
a younger person in your life and you just ask
them one question, And the question is what's on your
for you page? Because we all have TikTok Now everyone
has a TikTok for you page and Instagram for you page.
Speaker 4 (42:03):
Yeah, I haven't thought about doing this at work. I
advise people to do this when they're talking to teenagers teenagers.
It can be terrible fine to talk to, particularly girl teenagers.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
They are very very you.
Speaker 4 (42:14):
Kids friends or your nieces or whoever, and your nephews,
and it can also get be really hard to get
teenage boys to talk.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
Yeah, but explain to people.
Speaker 4 (42:23):
Who don't know what a for you page is. M
So the foot that means.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
The for you page on TikTok or Instagram or Facebook.
It's kind of the algorithm that even if you're not
following someone or a page your algorithm just knows that
this is the video or the type of content that
you will engage in, and it only comes from when
you've been spent hours and hours just scrolling on TikTok.
Your for you page is basically your homepage, like your feed.
(42:47):
It's like your feed, so you have the option to
just scroll through your homepage, or you can just scroll
through your following. It's automatically set to your homepage, so
you will get videos from people that you don't necessarily follow.
On Instagram, it's your explore page. So when you click
that little magnifying glass icon at the bottom and you
can just see account after account of just videos and photos,
(43:08):
don't feel a bit more exposing. I feel like Instagram
hasn't nailed it as much as TikTok has.
Speaker 4 (43:12):
I quite like Instagram, my feeds are very different. But
on TikTok also, what if people aren't on it, they
might not realize you don't have to follow anyone on TikTok.
It's not like Facebook or Instagram. It's not about who
you follow. It starts feeding you and you go on you.
You don't even have to join to go and look
at it. You can just go and look at it,
and it'll start serving you videos to try and work
out what you're interested in, and then it'll serve you
(43:35):
lots more of whatever it is that you're interested in.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
So my TikTok for you page right now, and I'm
a bit embarrassed to admit, is that it's a lot
of hot muscling men looking at in marrors at themselves.
Oh okay, all right, because I engage in a few
and now I'm like, that's all you care about.
Speaker 4 (43:51):
What's so great about this question is that it's just
so different to news and popular culture, you know, because
that's all pretty much the same. You know, everyone consumes
the same kind of media. But when you look at
your social feed, particularly TikTok, which has an incredible algorithm
that is frighteningly scary, it's very tailored for you. So
your for you page will be completely different to mine,
(44:13):
and also mine will probably be completely different next week, right, yeah, Jesse,
what's on yours at the moment?
Speaker 3 (44:18):
I get almost exclusively parenting advice. Oh, this is what
it started to feed me is oldest child meeting newborn,
meeting new sibling life stages, and it's going we think
you should have another baby, and so it gives me
meeting the new sibling, Like I constantly get that, and
then I cried that too.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
So what's it telling me is telling me, look how
sad your life is, and look what it could be.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
Have one so you can have two.
Speaker 4 (44:42):
Do you know? During COVID, the for you page is
responsible for a lot of women discovering their sexuality and
coming out as later in life lesbians. And the reason
for that is that people were obviously spending more time
on their phones and it was sort of around the
time that TikTok was happening and it started to, you know,
go very mainstream. And TikTok's algorithm is so effective that
(45:05):
if you were looking at a piece of content, say
a gay couple or hot woman, and you watched it,
what TikTok does then is just feed you more and
more and more and more and more of that. So
it's interesting whether it's suggestive or revealing of behavior. And
then sometimes it's just random, like last night, I was
scrolling and I don't know how it happened, but I'm
(45:26):
a sucker for a reunion video of any kind. I'm
just like going to airports and just watching people have
reunions is my crack. But I don't have to go
to the actual airport anymore. I can just look at
it on my phone. And the ones that I find
most moving of the military reunion ones, yeah, particularly I've
got a very subniche here soldiers returning and being reunited
(45:48):
with their mothers, surprising their mothers. Usually that just makes
me cry, but I've found a new one last night,
which I've become an expert on tap out videos. So
there's this tradition. I started watching the videos of all
these soldiers standing information and then their loved one will
come and tap them on the shoulder, and then they'll
just go from being very upright to just like collapsing
(46:10):
in tears and hugging, and the contrast is just incredibly moving, and.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
So you have to tap them. So they have to be.
Speaker 4 (46:18):
Tapped right of civilian, and that kind of unlocks them
from their service state into they can then just be
humans showing emotion. And some of them were like meeting
their babies for the first time, or their little children,
or their again their mothers.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Lost and mothers.
Speaker 4 (46:32):
But then so I assumed they've been on like active
service tour of duty, you know, been away for years.
It turns out because I went deep and started researching
what tap out videos actually are because I watched so
many of them, they've just been at military training, so
they've essentially been in the boot camp. I was slightly
disappointed and cried less when I found this out, but
you know, push ups are hard, though, up to six
(46:53):
months of push ups, i'd probably cry.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
There's this running joke where this person tweeted, my dad
just showed me video on Instagram, reels that I saw
six months ago on TikTok.
Speaker 4 (47:03):
That's what my kids say I watch, I send them
like my thing to do at night is doom scroll
and amuse myself. And then I put all these reels
and whatever in the group chat and they're always like, yeah,
we saw that, that's what That's what Instagram is.
Speaker 3 (47:17):
Gen X's a big thank you to all of you
the out louders for listening to today's show and our
fabulous team for putting this show together. We will be
back in your ears tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
And if you're looking for something else to listen to.
On yesterday's episode, Jesse, Amelia, my Nemesis, and I spoke
about the leaderboard of Cool. If you came to Ama
Mia out loud live show, you kind of know where
I'm going with this, but we went into way more
detail on who is the who of cool, what the
different levels of cools are. We took it quite seriously.
Speaker 3 (47:49):
The lead and trained like she got like really detailed
about what Amelia and I can do to become more.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
Yeah, it was really really fun. We will put a
link in our show notes.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
Bye bye.
Speaker 3 (48:01):
Shout out to any Mum and mea subscribers listening. If
you love the show and you want to support us,
subscribing to Mom and Mia is the very best way
to do so. There's a link in the episode description.
You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Muma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Welcome to mummea out loud where women come to debrief.
I am Jesse Stevens, I'm MEA Friedman, and I'm m Burnham.
And here's what's on our agenda for today, Wednesday, the
second of July. The story you've seen everywhere today and
the question it raises about childcare.
Speaker 4 (00:37):
What happens when glow up culture meets girl boss culture.
We have a wave of Kardashian's detailing exactly what plastic
surgery they've had, and we don't know if this is
a good or a bad thing for the beauty standards
that we all swim in.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
And a highly divisive management approach that is centered around
one single question.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
News out of this morning, US President Donald Trump announced
that Israel has agreed to conditions to finalize the sixty
day Gaza ceasefire. Trump posted on social media he wrote,
I hope for the good of the Middle East that
her mass takes the deal, because it will not get better,
it will only get worse. And this comes before Trump
hosts Prime Minister Benjamin netnah Who at the White House
(01:21):
to discuss Iran and Gaza. Israeli newspaper Haaretz has described
netnia Who as the only person in the world who
wants this war to continue, with former Israeli Prime Minister
Ayud Almayer saying he can no longer defend Israel against
accusations of war crimes. What is happening in Palestine. The
(01:41):
Uennas described Gaza as the hungriest place on Earth. The
killing of civilians, parents losing children, The health system is
at breaking point. Ninety four percent of hospitals have been
damaged or destroyed.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
It is so distressing, and just on this topic more broadly,
out louders, we want to be completely transparent with you.
As many of you know, I am a proud Jewish
woman and I have family in Israel, but that does not,
for a single moment, interfere with my capacity, like so
many Jewish people, to feel deep grief and horror at
the plight of the Palestinian people and the plight of
(02:16):
civilians who've suffered and continue to suffer in that region
over the last twenty one months. Since the horrific massacre
on October the seventh and the unfolding horror of the
war that's followed has meant that we've had many, many
conversations about this. Many of the conversations have been off Mike,
(02:37):
some have been on Mike. We've spoken about Gaza, We've
spoken about the massacre, We've spoken about the hostages, about
net and Yahoo. This is the stuff of absolute nightmares,
and they're nightmares that have deeply divided you, our audience,
and at many times have really seemed to us and
to you to be beyond civil discourse, because every time
(03:01):
we've covered this topic, we've hurt and angered listeners without
meaning to. We know that of more than fifty six
thousand Palestinians killed, the United Nations has verified that nearly
seventy percent of these deaths have been of women and children,
and they've also reported that one in five people in
Gaza are facing starvation. Currently, we are looking at a
(03:24):
humanitarian crisis that feels so deeply distressing, no matter what
country you live in, or what religion you are, or
how often you post about it on social media. And
on the days that we haven't spoken about it on
Mike and on the show, it is not because we're
not thinking about it. It's not because we don't care.
We do care, and we just want peace. We are
(03:45):
praying for a ceasefire and for there to be peace,
and we know that you are too.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
We have links in the show notes to aid organizations
which we have donated to. If you are feeling as
helpless as we are, then please contribute. But we also
acknowledge the danger for a lot of Palestinians of even
accessing aid.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
Right now.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Out loud as We'll be back in a moment with
the rest of the show. So if you were to
tell your manager right now, say a producer Ruth, that
you are leaving the company to go work for someone else,
do you think she will fight to keep you?
Speaker 4 (04:23):
She better?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
She better. So it's a question at the center of
this really highly divisive management strategy called the keeper test.
And this was actually launched by one of Netflix co founders,
and it's still a management practice that Netflix does till
this day.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
It's really interesting I've read about this before because it's
not just something that you apply when someone says they're leaving,
because often by the time someone says they're leaving, it's
kind of too late, and there are other things in play.
It's more when you're working out whether you want to
promote someone or making any decisions about their career as
their manager, you ask yourself, if they left, would I
(05:00):
fight to keep them?
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Right?
Speaker 5 (05:01):
Yeh?
Speaker 4 (05:02):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
But I think it's also something that you can use
as the employees. As the employee to get feedback and
kind of put your manager on this, but like just
telling them like, hey, if I was going to go
to a competitor right now, how hard would you fight
to keep me?
Speaker 3 (05:16):
So the question is how much my valued? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (05:18):
How much am I valued? And the idea is that
you want your company to have high, high performers, so
you know how so many companies are like, we're not
a company, We're a family. The keeper's tests are saying, no,
shouldn't be a family. It should be a high performing
sports team. So like sports team, you want the best
of the best. You want athletes, you want top of
their game. That should be the same in companies.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
I have so much to say about this.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
This segments also brought to you by capitalism.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Okay, companies should not be like families. Companies should not
be like professional sports teams. Companies should be like a workplace.
And we should stop trying to make them other things workplaces.
The thing about a sports team or an athlete is that,
as someone who is now an expert in Formula one,
I'm stealing a spot spot the amount of investment that
(06:06):
goes into an athlete from Like in Australia, I went
to the Australian Institute of Sport. On the taxpayer dollar.
You were trained, you probably got given a performance psychologist.
You are being given the big bucks to perform, right,
That's an enormous amount of investment to treat your junior
admin assistant who's been here for two and a half
weeks the same as a sportsperson. Is so ludicrous to
(06:30):
me because we cannot invest.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
Though, because I think for both the employee and the employer,
you want people who are going to thrive in whatever
role they're in, right, and so to thrive in a
role you have to be able to do it well.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Yes, but don't you think that you have to give
them time. You have to let them attempt that role
in an atmosphere that isn't filled with fear and pressure.
Like I know that as an employee, if I feel watched,
that's when I'll start making lots and lots of mistakes,
right Like, I look at this and I think I
(07:07):
almost get defensive because I think if this was why
I would.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
Someone be watching you in that way if you're doing
a good.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Job well, because if you're constantly going, let's rank people,
let's go who's a performer, who's a regrettable loss, who
can we afford to lose, blah blah blah, and treating
it like a professional sports team, then we're going, you
know what, Jesse made two mistakes today, and then we
become almost like hyper vigilant at the surveillance on Jesse.
That makes me make a moose.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
Yes, I get that, but I've never been in a
management meeting where it's like this person made one mistake
or two mistakes. If this person is making mistakes every day,
then they're not suited for that role, and it's not
good for them or the business or their coworkers to
keep them in that role.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Just for vibes, I kind of say both of your points.
I actually think it should be kind of a sports
environment because I think, similar to as you said, like
with the F one drivers, that company does invest a
lot into the drivers, and I think companies should invest
a lot into their employees. Like if you have a
high performer employee that you don't want to lose, you
need to show them that you need to invest in
(08:11):
that person. You need to give them promotions when they
deserve a promotion. You need to give them pay rising
when you to deserve pay rises. And that's how you
can keep your best performing athletes in the company, like
you have a bigger retention for them.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
I also reckon, though.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
But that's management when I want that's not.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Like I reckon though. What I was reading between the
lines when I was reading about the keeper test is
I went, this cannot be untangled from an American context,
And by that I mean in the US you can
fire and employee tomorrow, like their employment laws are very
different to Australia. So the idea of a keeper test
where you can kind of look at everyone as a
team and go, yeah, m isn't performing, let's get rid
(08:47):
of them, and let's get this person in that right
there isn't want to be culture.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
So what you're pushing back on is the culture of
it being cutthroat.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Yes, yeah, I get that, but if you.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
Talk about the team analogy, when you think about a team,
let's say a netball team. If your goal attack isn't
performing well, you have an obligation to the rest of
the team to replace her or help her to improve.
You can't just go, oh, well, she's trying, because, like
in a business, if you've got someone who's not thriving
(09:20):
in their role, that impacts on everybody in the team.
So as an employer, you have an obligation to your customers,
to your staff, to your shareholders, whoever, but definitely to
your other staff to either find a role that's better
suited to them or replace them with someone who can
do that role better.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
I think what Netflix did wrong with the keeper test
is that they made it public knowledge that they're doing
a keeper test. And I think when you're an employee
and you know that there's this huge management strategy that
if you don't perform, you're going to be kicked out.
You're just living in fear every single day, and you would,
I don't know, not contribute to brainstorms because you're scared
you'll have the wrong idea.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
You might not own up to mistakes because you're sched
you'll be fired.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
I think it can do real damage to the actual
overall of the company, and you'll just have these three
people at the top who are just the high performance
work succeeding in that one type of environment.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Is it like so controversial to want people to be
good at their job.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
I don't think it's about that. I think it's about
the culture that you create, right, because if you want
a culture where people can take risks, where people can
make mistakes.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
Depends on the industry. If you're an air traffic controller,
that's not the culture you want where people can make
mistakes and take risks. So I think it's incredibly dependent
on the type of job you're talking about and the
industry that you're talking about.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
But the sense that your employment could be terminated at
any point.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
Which it can't industrate, which you can't.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
In Australia, but it can in sort of the Netflix example,
there's all these studies about what it does to employee
satisfaction and like from absenteeism to reduce productivity, to anxiety
stress related health issues.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Yeah, there have been some reviews of people who have
worked on Netflix. So a former Netflix executive assistant said
terrifying with anxiety twenty four to seven.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Also, the cost of turnover can be like turnover may
or you all know this. You know something about business
isn't turnover like expense even time consuming, Like you don't
constantly want staff turnover. You just want to keep the
good people right.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Yeah, that's what the keeper tooth do.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
The keeper test encourages turnover, but.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
Don't ever start a business. I think what you're talking
about is a charity. No.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
I think because this was saying that the turnover becomes
too high, so you would look around and you would redundancy,
being like you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out,
And it's like the cost of retraining people is.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
That's why I think that you want to do that
at the point of employment, yes, not once they're in.
So the trick is to really refine and we've learned
a lot about this over the last sort of twenty
years of running Mama Maa. You want to spend a
lot of time making sure the fit's right, because just
because if it's not right at one place doesn't mean
(11:59):
there's anything wrong with that person or anything wrong with
that company. It just means it fit's not right. It's
like any relationship. You can have two great people, but
they're just not right together. So for the benefit of
the business, for the benefit of the employee, you always
want to spend time making sure that fits as right
as possible. Now, sometimes you just can't tell until it happens,
(12:20):
and it's it's never easy when when the fit's not right,
but usually people know they can feel it. I know
I've felt it when I've been in that situation.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
I think that what you would want to do is
create a workplace, not a sports team, that kind of
invests in everyone and gives people time. I think that's
the other thing to learn how to do their roles right.
And as you say, Maya, sometimes it's just not kind
to leave people in a job that they're incapable of
doing it.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
It's never kind.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
And so I completely understand, you know, freeing up that.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
Person's future, freeing up their future.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Yeah, but I am like allergic to the cutthroat sports
team analogy. I do not play professional sport and stop
reading very reason for a very good reason, and it
is my needs the.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Quick heads up. This next segment discusses distressing content. Please
take care.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
On Yesterday, the name and face of an alleged male
sex offender charged with seventy sex offenses against toddlers and
babies at a childcare center in Point Cook in Melbourne
Southwest was published. The police and the Victorian state government,
including the Premier, called a joint press conference and here's
some of what Acting Commander Janet Stevenson said.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
This is unique. It's very important to ensure that every
parent out there that has a child in childcare knows
who he is and where he worked.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
More than one thousand children are being asked to undergo
health screenings for infectious diseases. The alleged defender had worked
at about twenty facilities since twenty seventeen and he had
a valid working with Children check and no formal complaints
against him, according to police. And it's difficult to put
words around how distressing it is to see headlines like this.
With approximately one million Australian families having a child or
(14:04):
children currently looked after by childcare services.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
There's no one who hasn't had a chill just go
through them. Yeah, you know there's a million children in
care now, but it would be hard to find someone
in Australia who either was not in childcare themselves or
hasn't put their child or a family member into childcare
at some stage.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
I think the added distress of headlines like this is
that it is referring to toddlers and babies who can't
speak yet, and there's something about the vulnerability of those
alleged victims that I think is particularly distressing to people.
It is given way to a predictable conversation highlighted by
the Age this morning in an article headlined innocent male
childcare workers likely to be driven from sector. Among those
(14:48):
interviewed was my brother Nick Stevens, who has worked in
early childhood for about twelve years. He sent us a
voice note this morning after reading these headlines about the
impact on male educators in the sector.
Speaker 6 (15:03):
The recent news is going to have, I would say,
a pretty significant impact on men working with children. Before
this case even came out, I spoke to a few
different men who weren't allowed to even enter the bathrooms
at some early childhood services. So after this news that
(15:26):
will probably become more common. I think particularly there'll be
issues with men working with babies and doing any kind
of nappy changing with babies, and also other men in
early childhood have been speaking about generally, what happens after
(15:47):
these cases is there's a pretty significant exodus of men
who just quit the profession altogether.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
Look, this response and fear by parents is totally understandable.
Parents are horrified and scared. Maya, do you think it
will lead to a broader distrust of my educators.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
I think it will takes me really sad because I've
seen firsthand the impact that your brothers have and my
children all went to a day care that was run
by the most extraordinary director of that center, and he
was one of the most impactful teachers of their whole
you know, school experience or the preschool experience. I feel
(16:31):
for everybody. I feel for all child care workers because
it's interesting. You know that my understanding was that there
are rules and laws. I haven't had a child in
day care for about thirteen or fourteen years, but my
understanding is that there were certainly in the one that
I sent my kids to, there were rules about open areas.
(16:52):
There were no like cubby houses. There was nowhere that
a child could be either with another child or with
an adult that couldn't be seen, that wasn't sort of transparent.
It was quite strict. But I also know it's interesting
because parents are going to want all these reassurances, and
people have said things like no phones, there shouldn't be
phones allowed. But the other thing that I've noticed is
(17:14):
over the last sort of five or ten years is
the demand by parents for this sort of constant communication.
Now some may say that's because they're anxious and they
want to know that their child's okay, but it's more
just like they want a constant update and narrations. And
this goes all the way through school. How the kids
are doing, and what do they do that day, and
where are the photos? And can I see a video,
(17:35):
which is a huge burden on childcare workers who should
have to just be with the kids. And of course
all of that has to happen on phones. So it's
really hard to know. When there are stories like this,
people want to go, well, here's what we should do,
and here's what should stop, and here's what should start.
And there's definitely a time and a point for doing that,
(17:58):
but I think we should also just have a moment
to just express how incredibly awful it is for everybody involved.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Because I'm not in the parenting world. So what Nick
said about how people before the case like approached men
who work in these actors that was quite surprising to
me because when I talk about men who work in
these sorts of roles with my friends, it's seen us
like quite an endearing quality. Like for us, it's like
they're caring, high emotional intelligence. We have probably similar values.
(18:26):
So is there some sort of I guess, unconscious gender
bias when it comes to choosing who looks after your child.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
I don't think it's unconscious, right.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
It's really interesting that you say that, because over the
years covering on mum Mayor as well, we've had people
write in. It's been kind of a very lively discussion
of people saying I do not want my child going
to a center where there are even male educators. And
I want to give a little bit of grace to
the people asking for that, because in some instances they
were victims themselves of abuse and they have very valid
(18:58):
and understandable fear about men. And then you have other
male educators who are told not to change nappies. There
was a story SBS covered last year of a man
who went for an interview and was told by the
center the parents don't want male educators, We're not going
to take you, which looks like gender discrimination, right, And
especially at a time when we're trying to get more
(19:18):
women in STEM and in engineering and in construction and
in these really male dominated industries. In order for that
to happen, we've got to also address the gender imbalance
in childcare. It's a bit hard to know the numbers
for sure, but about four percent they think men, so
it's really really small, and a lot of childcare workers,
female childcare workers will say the male presence is really important,
(19:42):
especially for kids who don't have a male role model.
There's a lot of talk about toxic masculinity in raising boys,
and having a male presence, who might play differently, who
might talk differently, who might take them outdoors more or whatever,
makes a real difference to a center. So it's such
a shame. And we should acknowledge as well that the
(20:04):
alleged victims here are the children and of course the parents.
And this is another discuss about what we do going forward.
And I think no one acknowledges that more than male educators.
Speaker 4 (20:15):
If this is weaponized by people who don't believe children
should be in daycare, I will lose it.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yeah, because is that a thing.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
I feel like that's going to happen in about three seconds.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
I also saw something going around which I bristled at,
which was about signs that something may have happened to
your child, and I just thought, can we take a
breath before we put any hint, anything, bit of blame
on parents.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
I didn't read that as blame. I read that as
advice and things that you might not realize are signs.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
I read that as helpful interesting. I just I feel so,
you know, there are out louders from Melbourne who will
be especially impacted by this news. I think this opens
a conversation about how we keep kids safe, which is
something that everyone agrees on, and I think that male
educators will be it forefront of that because they really care.
(21:12):
And that's a conversation for the whole community.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
If you or someone you know needs to speak to
someone off the back of this segment, you can contact
the National Sexual Abuse and Readness Support Service on one
eight hundred two double one zero two eight or one
eight hundred respect the National Domestic Family and Sexual Violence
Counseling Service on one eight hundred seven three seven seven
three to two. There'll be links in the show notes
(21:35):
to all of those resources.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
We're going to take a little break and then we're
going to change gears and talk about the new radical
era of celebrity surgery transparency.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
One unlimited out loud access. We drop episodes every Tuesday
and Thursday exclusively for Muma MEA subscribers. Follow the link
in the show notes to get us in your ears
five days a week. And a huge thank you to
all our current subscribers.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
In case you missed it. There's good news for people
and bad news for scammers because the Commonwealth Bank has
announced this week that they're deploying an army of aibots
that sound like humans and their job is to scam
the scammers.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Okay, explain to me you lost me at army AI bots.
How does this actually.
Speaker 4 (22:29):
Help scaring a lot of people have just completely disassociated
at this point.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Well, let me.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
Give you a bit of context. Three zero point one
percent of Australian's age fifteen and over, so about almost
seven hundred thousand people were victims of scams last year.
The most common types of scams that were reported, and
only fifty four percent of people actually report scams. A
lot of people feel too ashamed, they don't realize they're confused.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
I spoke on the podcast about my grandfather who were
scammed out of tens of thousands of dollars and when
he went to the bank that telecried because she saw
what had happened.
Speaker 4 (23:04):
It's so devastating. The most common types of scams that
were reported were investments, romance scams, payment redirection, remote access,
and phishing scam.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
So a lot of them are like I think for him,
it was this text message about tax. Often you'll get
a text message just like it's tax time. Do this,
do that, and then you click on the link. They
get your bank details and next thing you know, money's
disappearing from your account exactly.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
So more than one hundred and forty million dollars was
transferred to scammers, oh my god, in the last financial year,
just from Australia. And as you say, Jesse, they're often
really vulnerable people, so elderly, lonely, people who aren't tech savvy,
or for whom English is not their first language.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
But they're getting really good now Like I've fallen for
a scam.
Speaker 6 (23:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
I intinued a woman on No Filter and she was
actually like a money writer for New York magazine and
she'd beaten a journalist who worked at the Wall Street Journal,
because there's all these preconceptions about who will get taken
by a scam. And I know I mentioned vulnerable people,
but she was highly educated, went to an amazing you know,
Ivy League unversity, worked in finance essentially, and she found
(24:14):
herself putting all this money in a bag, her life savings.
I think it was like fifty thousand dollars and handing
it to a stranger in the back of a car
within about ten hours of getting her the first call
that from this scamm So what these bots are going
to do? They sound like humans, and they're going to
make themselves sort of non human targets for scammers and
(24:35):
really waste their time on the phone. So here's an
example of one of these AI bots that the combank
is going to be deploying, wasting a scammer's time.
Speaker 5 (24:45):
Yeah, okay, you're not going to ask me for my
credit card or something, right, I mean, I've seen stories
in the news about people losing money, and frankly, I
don't want to be making the news anytime soon. If
I want to be honest with you, I have enough
things going on. Okay, I don't remember ordering anything.
Speaker 6 (25:06):
Our inspection have found undeclared electronic device and prohibited medicine
inside and this might be abolican of Australian customs laws.
Speaker 5 (25:15):
Well that wait, exactly what exactly I mean? This is
not like I have.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Ordered these things?
Speaker 4 (25:21):
Right?
Speaker 5 (25:22):
Is this some sort of joke?
Speaker 6 (25:23):
Mate?
Speaker 4 (25:24):
So you can hear that the victims that aren't real
sound really real. And not only are they going to
waste time and divert these scammers from actually contacting human people,
but they're also going to be gathering a lot of
intelligence about the methods that they use and the phrases
that they use to help protect people in future spam calls.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
For me is something that makes me so genuinely angry,
like I actually scream at them on the phone, to
the point where I now hear my phone settings that
I silence all unsaved numbers like your phone can automatically
do that in the settings, and I miss so many,
Like my grandma. We don't know what's wrong with her landline,
but it's always sad on private, so I never get
a call from her ever because my phone is automatic
(26:05):
silence that it's really annoying.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
Have you ever shouted at someone thinking that they were
a scammer, but they are actually worn't I've done that.
That's why I don't shout. I'm always just like I'll
hang up for I won't answer, but I'm like, please,
don't ever call me again. And it called back and
it was like a doctor's reception trying to deliver something
to me.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
I remember speaking to an AI expert and like a
chief scientist, right I was. I was speaking to them
at this event and they were both telling me that
if banks tomorrow wanted to stop scammers, they could. It's
about will and it's about the investment, like it's going
to cost money, but they have the technology to stop it.
And look, I go on TikTok and see AI videos
(26:46):
of a yetti doing a day in the life. I
would much prefer us to use AI to stop the
scammers the some of the shit I'm seeing on TikTok
at the moment.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
I really want to show a video.
Speaker 5 (26:56):
Now.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
I actually learned this trick. I mean, the thing that's
so bad about this is that you have to do
the work to stop getting these calls or these emails.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
What do you do?
Speaker 1 (27:06):
There's a lot of work.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
And I actually learned this from our tech department at
Mama Mia, Like, if you're constantly getting spam calls, like
there was a time where I was getting probably four
spam calls.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
A day, I'm on every date.
Speaker 4 (27:17):
I agree, Yeah, it seems to come in way.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
There are these massive, like database lists that have so
much information on you. It might have your name, your number,
your email. So what I did was I just googled
my name, my phone number, and my email and a
website popped up that was just like kind of like
a Yellow Pages but on a website. And they can
sell all your information to other websites. So can you
get your number off that You just email them or
(27:40):
you like tick a box, and they make it really
easy because they obviously don't want to get in trouble
and immediately they'll remove your data. But you can also
do it through the government, like the Communications branch of
the government has a do not Call register that you
can put your number in.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
Do you know what I also learned is that the
leading indicator of whether you'll get scammed is not about
your education level. It's not about any of those things.
It's about whether you've been scammed before that makes you
in these lists that are sold on the dark web
of potential targets. That makes you more valuable than those lists,
(28:14):
because you would think if you've been scammed before, you know,
you'd be really suspicious. But it basically means that.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
You're going to get targeted by smarter and smarter text.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
The leading indicator of someone who doesn't get scammed is
that they've read or heard about a similar scam, which
is why the woman who I spoke to, even though
she said, look, I'm so embarrassed, I'm mortified to be
saying this. I thought it was going to be bad
for my career, all of these things, but because of
that reason, I want to help other people avoid it.
And people contacted me afterwards and said I had a
(28:46):
similar call because this was someone pretending to be from Amazon,
and most people have an Amazon account, so you engage
and once they've got you hooked. Some of these scams
are really elaborate, and a number of people said I
was in the middle of being scammed when I heard
this interview, and it saved me four hundred and forty
five CC moderate profile half under the muscles. Hope this
(29:10):
helps lol.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Do either of you know it that understand a single
word except for Lol.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
I'm embarrassed to say that. If you'd read that to me,
I could have said exactly what that is. It's a
comment left by Kylie Jenner on a social media video
by a woman on TikTok asking her to share where
her boobs were from. Oh wow, and she did. She
turned up in the comments and she gave a lot
of details. And the noise that you can hear is
(29:37):
the impact of glow up culture crashing into hustle culture.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Because at that.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
Intersection, Kylie seems to have officially declared that the age
of radical surgery transparencies here among women, certainly among celebrities.
And we know that it's not just a one off
because within a few days, her mother, Chris, confirmed that
her new face that everybody had been talking about was
thanks to the same surgeon. He's been fielding hundreds of
calls of day, as you can imagine, and his whole
(30:03):
email server has crashed. And then yesterday Chloe Kardashian commented
about her own cosmetic pres sieges. Now, I don't know
if you've seen these videos. Some of them are done
by civilians, and the ones that I tend to watch
are done by plastic surgeons, and they show before and
after photos of particular celebrities and all the different procedures
that they've had along the way. We can talk about
(30:24):
why I like them, perhaps with a therapist. But on
this post by one of these surgeons who makes these videos,
he did one on Chloe and showed all these before
and after photos, and she replied in the comments listing
all the procedures that she'd had. She was basically like, Oh,
I'm really flattered that you've done this. Some of it's right,
some of it isn't quite right, and here are the
(30:44):
actual details. And she listed everything from a nose job, laser,
hair removal, anti wrinkle injections.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Something about it injective and soft.
Speaker 4 (30:53):
Wave laser, all these different things, filler threads, all these
different procedures. And what's interesting about all of this is
that it seems to be this new trend of a
group of women, because it's always been that people were like, oh, no,
I haven't had anything done. I mean, showan who's also
looking very different. She just says, it's just sunshine and
water share and lots of hydration. So that used to
(31:17):
be seen as you have to pretend that you just woke.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Up that way.
Speaker 4 (31:21):
But now there's this group of women, the Kardashians, leading
the way, who want to be acknowledged for all the work,
all the money, or the pain that they endured. You know,
there's a reason basically that they call it work because
they want to be acknowledged for their work ethic in
the business of beauty and the work of beauty. Is
this a good thing? Is this a bad thing?
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Em So, back in my day, I was always like.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
It is your day.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Back in my day, I mean like when I was eighteen,
Like I think Kylie Jenna was the person I kind
of grew up with, and that was where lip fillers
became a whole thing. Like lip fillers were my generation.
About your age, Yeah, she's a year younger.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
She denied it.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
So I was there in high school overlining my lips
like crazy, looking like a clown. She had lip filler
the whole time. She didn't tell me. Her best friend
and Vernon was one of the big followers before she
hit the big one millions. And I always thought that
I'd be the type of person to be like, do
whatever you want to your face, to your body, just
tell me about it and it'll be fine, and now
(32:22):
they're telling me about it and I don't like.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
It, and you're deeply uncomfortable with.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
It and uncomfortable with it because I think I was
living in this world where some people are beautiful and
some people just are, and I was happy being the
just are because we will all just ah and I
accepted that the Kardashians were the beautiful. And now it's
the sentiment that here's how I got beautiful, and now
you can too, And I'm.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Like, I don't want to do that.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
That is a hill I have no desire to climb.
It's like I want to check out of that race.
And it's consistent with the Kardashian ethos. That's sort of like,
get your f ing rs up and work. Yeah, like
that idea, be prettier, be prettier, and it's labor and
I want to be respected for it. But what it's
(33:08):
also doing is normalizing expensive and often very invasive cosmetic procedures.
And let's not forget that Kim Kardashian with her, there
was all that speculation about her bum and whether it
was real, and it kind of suddenly got bigger. And
then when she didn't tell us exactly what it was.
We kind of claimed that we're being gas lit, like
(33:28):
it was all very strange. But what it did do
was lead to this proliferation of Brazilian butt lifts, which
literally killed people, Like people died in that surgery because
it was so dangerous. So I'm always going to be
resistant when I see and hear a celebrity who has
access to the best surgeons, who has every resource available
(33:50):
to them, and then they're like, you can do it too, Like, no,
people are going to go to some unregulated go to
the other side of the world and get something that
can cause a lot of damage.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
But will you be resistant if everyone else in your life?
Because the Kylie Jenner video is a good example because
she was replying to a comment on a video by
just a girl who was just like, please just tell
me what you've done, Like I love your boobs, I
just want a recipe.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
And she's just a normal girl.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
And I feel like it is slowly seeping into normalization.
And I do think cosmedic procedures is gonna eventually be
another life stage where like we'll all get to a
life stage where we'll all suddenly be in that moment
where you're getting work done. So that doesn't mean I
have to get work done.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
Yeah, but the problem is that that life stage is
getting younger and younger. You're in your mid to late
twenties and so is Kylie, and you're already at that stage.
So it's not that having work done is something that
you used to be. You had a facelift if you
were rich and famous and you were over sixty or seventy.
I thought I wanted this, like I've always been, like,
stop gas lighting us. And I would fight with Holly
(34:53):
about this all the time, like, stop pretending you woke
up that way. Stop pretending it your body got like
that by just running after your toddler, and that you
just get eight hours of sleep and do meditation. That
drives me crazy because I do feel like I'm being
gas lip because you look in the mirror and you go, well,
she's twenty years older than me, and she says she
(35:13):
just wears sunscreen. How come I look twenty years older
than her? And now that I've seen it, I'm like, oh,
maybe I don't want this.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
It's almost considered now if you do not list the procedures,
because again, the Kardashians have done a one to eighty
from pretending they didn't get the work done to go
and you know what, we're going to own it. And
it's like, if the Kardashians don't tell us, then it's
seen as gatekeeping, like you're gatekeeping what work you've got.
Speaker 4 (35:38):
And so Kylie got a lot of praise. Oh, you're
for the girlies, which is kind of like you're not gatekeeping.
You're a girl's girl because you're sharing and you're being
honest and you're not making other women feel inadequate when
they look in the mirror because they don't look like you.
You're saying, yeah, I didn't wake up this way. I
actually think I do prefer it to the alternative. I mean,
the alternative would be that there'd be more diversity of
(35:59):
beauty everywhere we look, including on our phones, like there
is in the real world. Like when you walk down
the street, or you go to the beach, or you
look around your workplace or your your dinner table. People
look all different ways, right.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
Jessica Dfino, who is one of my favorite voices on beauty,
she has a substack and she has some really interesting
things to say about this. To your point, m She
says that opting out of this what she terms aesthetic
labor will have financial and social consequences. So when that
becomes the norm, if you're the person who says I'm
gonna let my grades grow out, I'm gonna angles, yeah, exactly,
(36:34):
then there starts to be whether it well a cultural
punishment for that sort of thing. So that's I think
our resistance to it. And she also has this quote
that says, if beauty is work, who's the boss? Which
I think, thank you, Mia.
Speaker 4 (36:51):
You in I think it is one of the first
times I've said that in the show, like I know
the answer.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
The other thing she says is that today's standard of
beauty is cyborgian, robotic, and inhuman, and I think that's
very true. That and homogeneous, yeah, which is the Kindashians
have popularized that that it's a face without excression.
Speaker 4 (37:10):
Sometimes you'll be scrolling or you know, you'll see pictures
of celebrities on a red carpet, or someone will post
something and you'll go, wait, is that Mago Robbie or
is that a Kardashian Or is that Emma Stone or
is that means Loewan? Or is that Chris Jenner and
the women that you're trying to work out who it is.
Are ranged in age between like twenty five and sixty five.
(37:31):
And they've also got this Instagram phase.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
And the Kardashians still have a lot to do with that.
So cosmetic surgeons will say that for the last ten years,
the most popular pictures they have been brought into their
offices are Kardashians, Like that is a look and if
you go to your local shopping center, I'm sorry, but
I think you can see it. I think it's been
starting to infiltrate everyone's worlds. And how do we feel
(37:53):
about that? I mean, they're popularizing cosmetic surgery. I think
that any surgery that isn't necessary has some element of risk.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
There's been speculation that the Kardashians don't do anything by accident, right,
and so this is three of them within the space
of a month. So are they launching a range of clinics?
Are they launching a range of post surgery products? Are
they launching a course? Like Chris Jenner, is the Devil
works hard? Chris Jenner, it's harder what's actually behind this
(38:22):
because everything they do is very business minded.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
I reckon it's a clinic. So the reason I think
that is because Kim Kudashan came out with Skincare got
a lot of criticism that they were like, mate, it's
not your ninety dollars oil, we can see what you're
getting done.
Speaker 4 (38:36):
Clinic with a K.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Yeah, I reckon that it's clinic with a K. And
I reckon that they're just going hard. They're owning it,
and they're saying, here, come to this surgeon in our
Kutashian clinic with a K and come get your work done.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
You'd be on board, like I think. I just think
it's going to be one of those things like when
we had to start waxing our eyebrows and we had
to get like laser hair and moval. I think will
just be another one.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
And if all my friends are doing it and I'm
the only one who's like the UGO, I can't.
Speaker 4 (39:05):
I'm not.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
I refuse to talk about yourself that way. You're beautif.
Speaker 4 (39:09):
Do you know when I was torturate about anti wrinkle injections.
I was talking to one of my friends about it
and she's like, you know, you don't have to tell anyone,
you can actually just get it done.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
I feel like that isn't the ads, and I was like,
have you met me?
Speaker 4 (39:22):
I actually could not do that. But also I should
just say that sometimes when we talk about surgery or
tweatments or things like that on the show, we get
some comments from people who say, no one in my
world is getting surgery. This has nothing to do with me.
I don't know anyone who even has botox. Totally hear you.
But the reason that we do talk about it is
(39:45):
because these women, for better and worse, are the standard
bearers of beauty standards in our culture. So when everybody
is doing a certain thing and you're seeing it on billboards,
in movies, on TV shows, on your phone, on every
social platform, whether they're celebrities or you know, regular influencers, whatever,
(40:05):
that is how beauty standards change. That is how you
start to look in the mirror and go, oh, my
eyelashes are a little bit sparse without even realizing it.
It's because we're swimming in this sea of beauty standards,
which is how women. You know, in my day, it
used to be about having a flat bottom and about
having no bottom and does my bum look big? In
(40:25):
this The answer that every man over the age of
forteen knew to give was no, it doesn't look big
in this because the beauty standard was for a tiny, flat,
little bottom. But now the right answer, because beauty standards
have changed, is does my bum look big in this? Hell? Yeah,
my god, that's what women want to hear, because a
big bombers now become the beauty standards. And that's what's
(40:46):
so fucked about women's faces and bodies being subject to
trends in ways that men just aren't.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
Please don't take advice regarding skin and plastic surgery from celebrities.
We can all agree on that. For us or US
or US. Even Maya thinks she's a doctor, she's simply not.
Always speak with a trusted health professional.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Before we go.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Mia and Jessie, I have some feedback for you because
I've seen both of you in the kitchen. Sometimes we
have a lot of younger employees here at Mama Mea,
and I've seen you try to start conversations with them,
not know where.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
To take it.
Speaker 4 (41:20):
Rainy day, rain, very windy, and.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Then you're just standing there awkwardly, and neither of you
know how to leave the conversation.
Speaker 4 (41:27):
So I often compliment someone on something they're wearing, or
ask where they got it.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
I like sometimes what you do, which is a really
good strategy, is that you start a conversation and then
already start walking backwards.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
It's a really good strategy.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
She's always booked and busy. So I've got a little
tip for you. And it's like a new way to
make small talk actually interesting. So you go up to
a younger person in your life and you just ask
them one question, And the question is what's on your
for you page? Because we all have TikTok Now everyone
has a TikTok for you page and Instagram for you page.
Speaker 4 (42:03):
Yeah, I haven't thought about doing this at work. I
advise people to do this when they're talking to teenagers teenagers.
It can be terrible fine to talk to, particularly girl teenagers.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
They are very very you.
Speaker 4 (42:14):
Kids friends or your nieces or whoever, and your nephews,
and it can also get be really hard to get
teenage boys to talk.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
Yeah, but explain to people.
Speaker 4 (42:23):
Who don't know what a for you page is. M
So the foot that means.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
The for you page on TikTok or Instagram or Facebook.
It's kind of the algorithm that even if you're not
following someone or a page your algorithm just knows that
this is the video or the type of content that
you will engage in, and it only comes from when
you've been spent hours and hours just scrolling on TikTok.
Your for you page is basically your homepage, like your feed.
(42:47):
It's like your feed, so you have the option to
just scroll through your homepage, or you can just scroll
through your following. It's automatically set to your homepage, so
you will get videos from people that you don't necessarily follow.
On Instagram, it's your explore page. So when you click
that little magnifying glass icon at the bottom and you
can just see account after account of just videos and photos,
(43:08):
don't feel a bit more exposing. I feel like Instagram
hasn't nailed it as much as TikTok has.
Speaker 4 (43:12):
I quite like Instagram, my feeds are very different. But
on TikTok also, what if people aren't on it, they
might not realize you don't have to follow anyone on TikTok.
It's not like Facebook or Instagram. It's not about who
you follow. It starts feeding you and you go on you.
You don't even have to join to go and look
at it. You can just go and look at it,
and it'll start serving you videos to try and work
out what you're interested in, and then it'll serve you
(43:35):
lots more of whatever it is that you're interested in.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
So my TikTok for you page right now, and I'm
a bit embarrassed to admit, is that it's a lot
of hot muscling men looking at in marrors at themselves.
Oh okay, all right, because I engage in a few
and now I'm like, that's all you care about.
Speaker 4 (43:51):
What's so great about this question is that it's just
so different to news and popular culture, you know, because
that's all pretty much the same. You know, everyone consumes
the same kind of media. But when you look at
your social feed, particularly TikTok, which has an incredible algorithm
that is frighteningly scary, it's very tailored for you. So
your for you page will be completely different to mine,
(44:13):
and also mine will probably be completely different next week, right, yeah, Jesse,
what's on yours at the moment?
Speaker 3 (44:18):
I get almost exclusively parenting advice. Oh, this is what
it started to feed me is oldest child meeting newborn,
meeting new sibling life stages, and it's going we think
you should have another baby, and so it gives me
meeting the new sibling, Like I constantly get that, and
then I cried that too.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
So what's it telling me is telling me, look how
sad your life is, and look what it could be.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
Have one so you can have two.
Speaker 4 (44:42):
Do you know? During COVID, the for you page is
responsible for a lot of women discovering their sexuality and
coming out as later in life lesbians. And the reason
for that is that people were obviously spending more time
on their phones and it was sort of around the
time that TikTok was happening and it started to, you know,
go very mainstream. And TikTok's algorithm is so effective that
(45:05):
if you were looking at a piece of content, say
a gay couple or hot woman, and you watched it,
what TikTok does then is just feed you more and
more and more and more and more of that. So
it's interesting whether it's suggestive or revealing of behavior. And
then sometimes it's just random, like last night, I was
scrolling and I don't know how it happened, but I'm
(45:26):
a sucker for a reunion video of any kind. I'm
just like going to airports and just watching people have
reunions is my crack. But I don't have to go
to the actual airport anymore. I can just look at
it on my phone. And the ones that I find
most moving of the military reunion ones, yeah, particularly I've
got a very subniche here soldiers returning and being reunited
(45:48):
with their mothers, surprising their mothers. Usually that just makes
me cry, but I've found a new one last night,
which I've become an expert on tap out videos. So
there's this tradition. I started watching the videos of all
these soldiers standing information and then their loved one will
come and tap them on the shoulder, and then they'll
just go from being very upright to just like collapsing
(46:10):
in tears and hugging, and the contrast is just incredibly moving, and.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
So you have to tap them. So they have to be.
Speaker 4 (46:18):
Tapped right of civilian, and that kind of unlocks them
from their service state into they can then just be
humans showing emotion. And some of them were like meeting
their babies for the first time, or their little children,
or their again their mothers.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Lost and mothers.
Speaker 4 (46:32):
But then so I assumed they've been on like active
service tour of duty, you know, been away for years.
It turns out because I went deep and started researching
what tap out videos actually are because I watched so
many of them, they've just been at military training, so
they've essentially been in the boot camp. I was slightly
disappointed and cried less when I found this out, but
you know, push ups are hard, though, up to six
(46:53):
months of push ups, i'd probably cry.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
There's this running joke where this person tweeted, my dad
just showed me video on Instagram, reels that I saw
six months ago on TikTok.
Speaker 4 (47:03):
That's what my kids say I watch, I send them
like my thing to do at night is doom scroll
and amuse myself. And then I put all these reels
and whatever in the group chat and they're always like, yeah,
we saw that, that's what That's what Instagram is.
Speaker 3 (47:17):
Gen X's a big thank you to all of you
the out louders for listening to today's show and our
fabulous team for putting this show together. We will be
back in your ears tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
And if you're looking for something else to listen to.
On yesterday's episode, Jesse, Amelia, my Nemesis, and I spoke
about the leaderboard of Cool. If you came to Ama
Mia out loud live show, you kind of know where
I'm going with this, but we went into way more
detail on who is the who of cool, what the
different levels of cools are. We took it quite seriously.
Speaker 3 (47:49):
The lead and trained like she got like really detailed
about what Amelia and I can do to become more.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
Yeah, it was really really fun. We will put a
link in our show notes.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
Bye bye.
Speaker 3 (48:01):
Shout out to any Mum and mea subscribers listening. If
you love the show and you want to support us,
subscribing to Mom and Mia is the very best way
to do so. There's a link in the episode description.
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