I’d like to think that all women want to be treated equally to men. But then what comes with this can be the fear of losing any of those things we enjoy as females – the right to wear make-up, enjoying a flirty text, going to the gym, wearing pretty clothes, having a white wine spritzer rather than a pint, and, dammit, taking maternity leave to have children. If we call ourselves feminists, there’s a certain guilt which comes with these things sometimes.
Danish comedian Sofie Hagen and Australian Deborah Frances-White know this. They’ve been there. They are there. Their hilarious new podcast The Guilty Feminist explores the ‘feminist ideals we hold and the insecurities and hypocrisies that undermine them.’ And does so with wit, sarcasm and at times riotously funny yet utterly real (or at the very least realistic) stories. Starting each episode with confessions such as ‘I’m a feminist, and I passionately believe in the body positive movement, but I also really, really want to look good sitting down naked’ or ‘I’m a feminist, but when I’m eating a banana in front of a cute boy, I work that piece of fruit’ they’ve had me in that weird contorted face of laughter, crying and recognition.
They talk about food, sex, apologies, advertising, periods, social media, eating out, and in this recording at the Canal Café Theatre in Warwick Avenue, exercise.
For each episode the duo have to do a challenge related to the show’s theme. For Sofie exercise is something she tends to shy away from, purely due to its overt link to weight loss and society’s difficulty of breaking away from that. Going to a gym and saying you ‘just want to move your body’ as she does, is pretty weird. Deborah Frances-White says she goes through phases. She loves it as a replacement to any other high for a few weeks, until she stops, and the endorphins leave her body and that’s it – sloth time. So their challenge was to do a yoga class with body advocate, yoga guru, and this month’s guest, the brilliant Jessamyn Stanley.
Jessamyn would be the first to say she doesn’t look like the standard yogi making waves across Instagram – but that’s because those people aren’t standard. They’re airbrushed, doing yoga as part of a fitness regime and diet lifestyle, rather than the pure joy of moving the body. Her story is passionate and funny, but also sad – how someone so charismatic and filled with love could be trodden over in a fucked up world.
As they regale their stories of downward dog and ‘frontward giraffe,’ their worries about farting in Lycra, the embarrassment of running in public, and their frustrations at society’s demands for perfect bodies it’s clear that these women are one of us; just funnier. Everyone has frustrations and feelings of inauthenticity, and that’s what makes us human. There’s nothing to feel guilty about.
