You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on Hello and welcome to Mama Mia out Loud. It's what women are actually talking about on Monday, the twenty sixth of August, and I'm Holly Wainwright, I'm.
Mea Friedman, and I'm Jesse Stevens.
On the show today, how a seventeen year old boy and some down shifting alpha blokes started a conversation about good men on the world stage. Also, as of today, you are legally allowed to ignore your boss after hours, or are you? That sound you can hear is me leaving all my group chats with Mia and she's going to steal herself for that. For that conversation.
Hollywayen Wrights left the chat and the trick to solving all your clothes problems comes down apparently to a three word system.
But first, Jesse Stevens.
In case you missed it, Ben Affleck has been pictured with another woman amid his separation from Jennifer Lopez, and that woman is Kick Kennedy, the daughter of Robert F. Kennedy. Just a note on the Kennedy's there's a lot of them. Can someone I tried to google? But Kick Kennedy was a sister and a niece and a nephew and blah blah blah. So is my Kick. Yes, the niece of the JFK.
One, Robert Kennedy Junior. His father was Robert Kennedy, who was the brother.
Of I've missed a generation here. See there's a lot.
He was assassinated as well as JFK being assassinated.
But Kick's dad, as Maya says, is the one who was running for president until five minutes.
It was a very big weekend for the that part of the Kennedy family.
The backup, back up, Ben has moved on so quickly.
This is correct, it's this scoreless gossip. Yes it is. Kick Kennedy is thirty six years old. She's been pictured with fifty two year old Ben at the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel, as well as at other hotspots hotspots. Holly discuss it's probably not.
True, but I'm here for it's it's very random because I read it.
Well, that's true, And often the more random the story, the more real it is. And again, out loud as we know this is scurrilous gossip, but we also know you're invested in the benefit divorce, so we want to keep you up to date because you wouldn't want to miss anything.
Yeah, exactly, wouldn't want to.
Miss anthy you mean us.
But also it maybe explains the timing of the divorce filing because, as we discussed last week, they've been separated for a while. They've been working out whether or not to push the button, pull the trigger, whatever you want to call it. And maybe the fact that Ben is hanging around with someone new it seems like a push the trigger.
No, incorrect, You've got the timing wrong. What's happened is that Jlo has filed for divorce, which we all said was a bit of a power move. He kind of played her cards when she filed for the separation. Now it was Ben's move, and this is Ben's move. It was ball in his court and he went, I've got kick, who is even though I don't fully understand the family tree an American institution, I'm hanging out with thirty six year old.
Kick Another American institution, Jennifer Lopezi, the American institution. So you think divorce filing. Wednesday, Ben got out his little black book and went who could I go on a high profile date with? To the poet last tonight?
And the reason I want to talk about this is because of how relatable it is because I once broke up with someone. Well I think he broke up with me, but anyway, that doesn't matter. And then I went on Instagram and he posted a picture of him with some woman Where did she come from? At the end of a run which was very passag because I can't run, so it was like a very I went for a run with this beautiful who can woman who's got rosy
cheeks from exerting herself. And when I saw that, I went I know how Ja Loo feels because I have also had to have a look at the new woman.
Had they gone for rhinal had they just had.
Sex, Maybe they'd had sex, but they made it look like they were doing very something, very wholesome on a Saturday, and it made me feel bad. And I think that j Loo is annoyed today. Help Gosh and Gwen.
You are my empire world and I love you.
Last week in America was all about Kamala Harris in the minds of delusional small el liberals like me everywhere. We have a new queen and she wears a navy pantsuit with a pussy bow shirt.
It's a pussy bow shirt back.
Yes, I know this isn't important louds for her big speech on Friday.
It's important.
She wore a very like, understated but very classy. I wouldn't you agree me, Chloe suit, which is fancy A class designer pantsuit fitted pussy bow shirt. Excellent. Anyway, It was the DNC, the Democratic National Convention, as we discussed briefly last week, and it dominated did the global news cycle for a week, as it was designed to do. There were quite a few storylines. There were impassioned talks about abortion from survivors of sexual abuse, about gun violence
from survivors of shootings. There were anti war protesters outside. There was the much admired speeches from Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey,
Hillary Clinton, and of course Kamala Harris herself. But I want to talk about blokes, not about all those amazing women, because of course I do, because whether or not you give U stuff about American politics, and I know quite a lot of you listening do not there is something very interesting bubbling along here about masculinity and celebrations of a different kind of masculinity that was on big display last week, and it's in very stark opposition to Trump's
very basic man strong, big, strong man, face down, scary of the strong men act.
Right.
Obviously, there's the subtext here that every powerful man who took the stage over those four days was in support of a powerful woman. But also those men showing a human, emotional and family side seemed to be very high on the priority scale of what they were there to do. There was Kamala's husband, Doug em Hoff, who was beautifully
introduced by a very emotional video by his son. Now Doug is a hyper successful lawyer entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles who quit his regular job to support Kamala as VP and now to get her elected. And her talk he gave, and the pride and the strength he shows at being the man behind the woman is a vibe he will be, obviously if she is elected, the first first gentleman and the last time a woman ran. Obviously, her first gentleman had been the president. So this is an entirely new vibe that was.
Currently the second gentleman, because she's the vice president.
And that's the job. Apparently it is a job, not a paid one. And then there was of course Tim Waltz, who's Harris's nice guy running mate, and his excellent mind your own goddamn business speech, which is what he's very good at doing. Is like where I'm from in the Midwest, we stay out of each other's bedrooms. Like he's really good at that stuff. But his speech was almost overshadowed by the attendants of his young son Gus. Now Gus was in the stands watching his dad speak, along with
his mum, Gwen and his sister Hope. Gus Waltz, according to his parents, has a non verbal learning disorder in addition to an anxiety disorder and ADHD. In this case, a non verbal disorder is not the same as non speaking. It's a disorder that impacts the way that kids absorb and utilize information. But there are lots of interventions you can have and it doesn't mean that Gus can't talk
and Gus drives and all of those things. Tim and Gwen have spoken about it several times, and they definitely refer to him as neurodivergent and his very enthusiastic response to his dad led some people to mock him. Imagine being that awful, But anyway.
Are you serious, because all I've seen is love for him. He became quite iconic quite quickly because when I saw it, I saw this young man getting very emotional tears in his eyes, getting up and saying, that's my dad, that's my dad, and this is awful. But I thought at the time, Oh no, that kid's going to cop it at school and he's just been caught up in the moment. That's before I learned that he was neurodivergent and had some challenges in his life, and then it made more
sense to me. But have some people been horrible to him?
So I'm going to play you a tiny bit of a TikTok for an example. So there's a famous conservative commentator called Ann Coulter. She has written book about Donald Trump and all the rest of it, and she immediately shared a shot of Gus Waltz along with the line talk about weird, which was obviously in response to the fact that Tim Waltz has coined the term weird for the religious conservatives on the Republican side. Anyway, here's a little TikTok by somebody responding to that.
Y'all.
I'm recording on the very last day of the Democratic National Convention here in Chicago, Illinois, and I feel like the entire week I've been very demure, very mindful, very cutesy. But ever since I saw Ian Coulter say this about Tim Walls's son who was disabled, I'm gonna say, fuck that shit, it's all out of the window.
And then she went on to drag hard culture into the coach and say, never mind, we go Hi, We're dragging everybody down into hell with us now. So it pissed a lot of people off, but equally, as you say, Mia Gos kind of became iconic, and Tim Waltz drew an enormous amount of praise, which is also weird when you think about it, for actively loving his family, which kind of shows you how low the bar is here.
Well, compare and contrast it with the other model of masculinity and family that we're seeing, which is the big difference between the Republican National Convention and the Democratic National Convention. It's so clear, like when you see the Trump family on stage, like Milania has got a contract. She won't even look at him, will barely touch his hand, like
there's not a lot of love in that family. Donald Trump never speaks about his kids in any way except to say his daughter's got good tits and his youngest son's really tall.
Are you maligning what he said. I don't think he said that she had good tits. I think he said he would not mind sleeping with her. Oh sorry, I have also misrepresented Trump.
So I think it's interesting these contrasting because Tim Walls, he didn't expect to be vice president, right, He's not like I've been waiting for this. He got the call from the bench pretty unexpectedly two weeks after he came out and had this amazing cut through by the weird comment, And so he's been visibly moved by the big crowds, by the reception, by the people chanting coach, coach, coach.
We've seen I think a degree of emotional intelligence, not just from Gus Walls, who I think has been emblematic of something, but this idea that men can not just get emotional, but also that they can respect women, that they can fight for the rights of women, and that the be able to have control over their own bodies, and that idea of contrasted with Donald Trump, which is this cruel, what I would call toxic masculinity, which is about mocking people, being cruel to people, being very sort
of thrusting and aggressive, and then JD Vance, which is about oppressing women and being really malevolent and wanting to wind the clock back for women. That type of masculinity.
I've heard Tim Waltz's masculinity described as tonic masculinity as sort of the opposite to toxic. And what's so refreshing about it is that it is still a vision of masculinity. It's not effeminate. And this is what I think the Republicans have set it up, that it's like we are losing what it is to be a man. Tim Wiltz is a man.
He's still who introduced Tim Wells at the convention, a whole bunch of football players who he'd coached. And what's so interesting about his time as a football coach is that the kids at the school where he was working, some of the queer kids, had been bullied and harassed. He enlisted all the young men on his football team to protect them and to stand between bullies and these guys, and I mean that is a new model.
It's sort of the definition of inspiring. And the other thing that's refreshing is that all of us have Tim Wlson's in our life, and it's been really difficult to describe this healthy masculinity that exists. And maybe Tim walsall fix your car and dougs and yeah, exactly right. They do see themselves as fathers and husbands and all of those things, but it doesn't rely on the oppression of women.
They're protective without being controlling. Controlling.
Yeah, they seem to like all the people on all the very long list of impressive men who stood up and spoke at that that none of them were threatened by the powerful females in their lives, or at least it seemed that way. But Jesse, I want to ask you, is the fact that everybody's so excited about the fact that Tim Waltz appears to it like his family. It's like a little bit table steakes.
Most people like their families.
And also hasn't family values always belong to the right right, So what we're seeing is it being reclaimed by the left. But also it's kind of hilarious that people might be surprised by that.
The irony I think is that the Republican convention talked a lot about families, but at the Democratic Convention, we saw a lot of families. And that's the difference. It's like, show don't Tell. In all the yelling about abortion and contraception and all of that that's been done, and the JD vance and the trump of it all, I keep thinking.
I think in that same Republican image of masculinity is the elon Musks who have a thousand children that they don't spend any time with, and it's because they believe that the world needs more children or whatever. White children, yes, exactly, but with tim to actually see a family that loved each other and to see that express I think the neurodivergent element of this is really important. And everyone had
someone in their lives who is neurodivergent. Everyone that is not represented in the mainstream with politics, with conventions, with elections, it is so contrived, it is so performative. So to see a the word authentic is overused, but there was nothing preempted about that response. It was so pure that that's why everyone leaned into it.
You know what, I loved about it. I can't understand the attacks, Like I just don't understand having a mind that closed that you would not think that a Gus Waltz is not like a wonderful gift to have in your family. But also it would have been a big decision for Gwen and Tim to have Gos at that event, not that he has been in any way sheltered or like Tim Wells has spoken about Gus before, he's very proud of his family, He's relatively po but that is a level of attention that is hard for any of
us to comprehend. And what I particularly liked about it is they would have known that Gus was going to react in an excited way in the way that he did. To an extent, no one was trying to like shush him, make him sit down, like be smaller, be quiet, be less, like Hope and Gwen were barely looking at him, you know what I mean. They were looking at Tim on the stage, support him for his big moment, like it
was just a very natural family moment. But it would have taken some balls to do, because nothing happens on that kind of stage without the nth degree of stage management. Do you know what I mean, And it was really I just loved that that that was there.
I agree, and that was one element they couldn't control, and to watch that none of them were trying to suggest that he sit down, and it would have just
been in a sense of protection for him. But I also think that we're used to a narrative, even though we we think we've moved past it, that to have a child with any sort of disability or any sort of difference is a tragedy, is something that we're fed and that it makes your life harder, and that I don't know, the love is different, but and that it's
something to be hidden, and that it's embarrassed. Yes, But for him, the sentence that tim Oltz said before his son said that's my dad is you are my entire world and I love you. About his family, there was no whiffs, there was no butts, there was no reference to the fact that his son was neurodivergent. That was a representation you don't see very often, just untridled.
I see it in your family, you know. It reminded me so much of the way your family are, with your cousin Simon and your aunt Michelle. This sounds so obvious, but by treating people without kid gloves and just being around them publicly and not making a big deal, you give them such dignity to just be themselves. What you said whole is so true. They weren't trying to make him smaller. They weren't trying to make him conform. They weren't trying to make him be in a box of
what you should be. And to me, this idea of freedom which the Democratic Party is trying to harness, the word freedom, it's a very beautiful thing and it's being shown in all these different ways. And back to family, I think that the other thing that was really notable is Kamala Harris is in a blended family. She has two step kids who are adults, and they were there.
And the other person who just looked incredibly moved and happy, who I couldn't take my eyes off in her speech, she's her stepdaughter, Ella, who was in the glasses and was wearing that amazing ball gown. She's very cool and she was next to her dad, and they all came on the stage afterwards. And I don't know if you saw many of the images from the Republican Convention, but when you said at the beginning, hohole, I don't know
why we're talking about what they're wearing. It is actually really important what politicians wear because they do send messages. Whether we like it or not. We live in a visual world. People do send messages with their clothes in the same way that royals do, right, particularly people who
might not speak freely. And if you looked at the esthetics of the Republican Convention, it was all women who looked like I'm going to say fembots, a highly surgery, had this big hair, tight dresses, sky high heels, and there's nothing wrong with that look. But when every woman on the stage looks the same like a Fox News
female newsreader, that makes me feel nervous. That has power in saying, this is what we believe women should be and what women should look like, and this idea of our idea about women is that they are a threash. They need to be an ornament, and they need to be controlled by taking away their rights.
The best commentary I've been hearing about the US election has been from Ezra Kleine. I recommend listening to Ezra Klein at the moment. He's just on fire. But he said that every election, if you look back, it's about one issue, and that this election is about gender. You look at abortion, and that's obvious on the agenda. But for him, he was like, no, no, no, this is about masculinity and different ways in which it's manifesting. So he was saying that you've got the Tim Waltz, and he
actually dissected the differences in the masculinity between Trump and JD. Vance.
In Donald Trump and in Tim Walls, you have two very different but very explicit archetypes visions of what it means to be a man. Trump's pitch is built on I would call it an almost cartoonish overperformance of masculinity, which is aimed at alienated young men. I mean, having Hulk Hogan and the head of the UFC on your night at the convention really puts a sharp point on that. But in Tim Walls, Democrats have found their own version
of a male archetype. A football coach, a soldier, a guy who will fix your car, but also an ally, a man comfortable being in the role of supporting women, a man unthreatened by social change, a man even excited by it.
Because they're both responses to this underground rejection of feminism that the Andrew tates that the younger generations are going feminism has threatened us.
It's a real clap back to the or a pushback against the way Hillary Clinton ran and her idea of I'm with her glass ceiling. I agree. I loved what Ezra Klin said.
I love it. But again, I'm just gonna throw it in there. Low bar man has to think woman should be allowed to have a job and seem to be interested in his children and know their names.
But I love guys. But that's what's been so crazy about the last ten years, if for anyone who's been following American politics, and how can you not, because you've got a man who says I'm going to grab her by the pussy and he is elected.
I agree, and I loved like Doug's speech made me so happy, And I love the confidence and joy that he carries with him in the role of being like second gentleman and possibly the first gentleman. Apparently he has like second gentleman on his mugs, like he fully embraces it, and apparently he's right there with Kamala like making the calls, getting it like They are clearly a very tight unit,
and I love to see it. But I'm also always just a little bit like, gosh, we really don't expect much from the chaps, do we look?
I agree, and looking at the Trump example, he had Hulk Hogan at the Republican convention, like, there's a representation, and you were talking about a caulter. But there was another tweet by a guy named Mike Crispy, who is like a reporter, TV host, maga person, and he said Tim Waltz's stupid crying son. Isn't the flex the left think it is? You raised your kid to be a puffy, beta male congrat. Does Baron Trump cry? Nope? Does he love his father? Of course? That's the types of values
I want leading the country. What's telling about that is the use of the word beta, because I think that the Republicans have thought that the only model of masculinity is alpha, and the Democrats are saying the opposite to that. Isn't beta. It's just this diverse representation and the.
World isn't that simple? Guys? And ohso Baron Trump probably barely those who his days. Does he cry every night himself to sleep?
You are my Empire World and I love you. As of today, there are new rules for work and they affect anyone who has a boss or is a boss. From today, you will be legally able to clock off
from work without having to be available after hours. It's called the right to disconnect law, and you may have seen people freaking out about it, bosses complaining that they can't send an email at five point fifteen PM, or employees complaining that one time their boss rang them while they were giving birth to ask if they'd mark the
exams for their class. So what's going on, really? I think we can all agree that's a bit unreasonable, unless, of course the boss didn't know that she was giving birth at that time.
You messaged me a lot during my labor, but in your defense, you were emotionally invested.
I wanted to know what you thought of my fringe. From today, in businesses with more than fifteen employees, workers will have the right to refuse contact outside their working hours, including calls and emails, unless that refusal is unreasonable. Now. Brent Ferguson, who is the head of an employer group called AI Group, explained that these new laws won't bring
an end to late night calls. He said, it's a new right for an employee to refuse that contact, to refuse to monitor their emails, or to refuse to take a telephone call from their employer if it's outside their working hours. So emails and calls, it's got to be reasonable, but you have got the right not to respond.
Did you know that it also doesn't apply to you if you earn over one hundred and seventy five thousand dollars a year.
I did.
I found that in the fine Brint.
What's going to happen though, is in August next year this will apply to all businesses, including small businesses where there's less than fifteen employees, unless the Coalition win the election in May, because Peter Dutton has said they will repeal this law. Why because he says it's very bad for employers. Now more than twenty countries have similar laws in place, and research has found that it improved well being and work satisfaction in any companies with these right
to disconnect policies. Holly doesn't seem reasonable when I text you at six am to tell you that Jalo has filed for divorce and will you be blocking me from the grip chat.
You've just horrified me by telling me there's an election in May. I'm not ready for that now. Anyway, back to your question, is it unreasonable, No, it's not unreasonable. I think these laws are great. I do. I think that it's a correction because basically what's happened over the past ten years is there's been a creep, right, there's been a creep into all kinds of workplaces where it's not essential or urgent that you answer the boss's message
in that very moment that they send it. But they can, and very often you feel pressure to. And when I say you, I don't mean me, I mean people in the world. So it's kind of normal and expected now that if you're we'll sends you an email or a group taxst or whatever your mode of communication is that it's a sign of how invested in how much you like your job, whether or not you answer it at
nine o'clock at night. But what this is saying is if your boss is messaging you at nine o'clock at night, you don't have to answer it, and you can't be punished for not answering it. But if it's urgent, they can't. Right, So we work in the media. It's very different. It's hard to switch it off. So the queen dies at.
She didn't do it during business. She didn't do it during business, Now sign with Matthew Perry. The queen dies in the middle of the night. Is it reasonable that the owner of a business or your superior in a media business gets online and says, hey, hey, hey, who's up. We've got to do the queen or whatever.
Yes it is. I don't think that this would apply that it wouldn't be reasonable. But should you have to answer your message from your boss who's just going at ten o'clock at night because they've caught up on their emails and they're going, hey, you know that thing we talked about for that thing next week? You know we should do blah blah blah. That's the message you're allowed to ignore, right.
I agree with the Holy completely and I really like these laws. And it's probably worth noting that there are a lot of details that haven't been ironed out. They're actually going to wait to see what happens and what discussions take place in workplaces to get all the regulations perfected.
Because the first thing you said, Holly, when we talked about this this morning was what's the definition of reasonable Because the employer and the employee might have very different definitions. This feels a little bit unhelpful. The Fair Work Commission is going to provide guidelines around this, but it's so far said it's not going to do so until people start complaining, and then they're going to use real world examples to help form those guidelines. So it's a bit wild West at the moment.
The issue that I foresee is that if you are someone who's earning over one hundred and seventy five thousand dollars, it's not applied to you this right to disconnect thing. It's often that person who's reaching out to the twenty two year old who is on a way less salary. In that way, it takes someone very boundaried and someone
with a bit willpower to ignore it. My dream is that I could walk into my house and have a box that I could lock, and my phone would go in there, and I would ignore it until I put my baby to sleep, so two or three hours that would be.
I could do that.
I could, I could.
I don't know if I like no offense, Jesse, but you're not saving lives.
I'm not on your own.
Your role is no longer a news breaking covering role on the website. Yeah, it's unlikely there would be an out loud emergency that wouldn't need to be addressed in that moment between the hours of five and seven pm.
But the problem is, and this is why laws like this are relevant, the place where we get our work communication is also the place where we get communication from our families, our friends about our social life, where we do a million things. So it's not like you can say, okay, the work parts of my phone I want to put in a locked box.
Yes, I was listening to a podcast over the weekend that said, we even know this with food, right. You know how you unpack your grocery and you put your dessert food and your sweet food in a different place you put your bread because you know that when you go to get your breakfast food, you only want to see what's for breakfast, and like you know, you've got your bread plates and then you've got your milk places and blah blah blah, like you sought. That's how the
human brain works. A fine doesn't allow you to sort, it's just bombarded.
It all comes at you at once.
But I want to play devil's advocate of it. Because there was an article that came out in the Sydney Morning Herald by Paul o'haleran. The headline was lazy workers are licking their lips as the right to disconnect laws loom and I hated that headline, but then he made some valid points. Let me explain, he's an employment lawyer, so he would know, and he said, lazy workers exist in every workplace. Can we agree? Of course, of course there are lots of lazy workers, and he had a
bunch of quite funny examples. But he said the concern is that it will often new protections to the workers who were already idle. And he actually said that laziness is becoming in his line of work and increasing trend in the case that he's taken on, so things like forging time sheets for fabricated hours, fake medical certificates, and watching Netflix while claiming to be working from home, sleeping
on the job. Do we think that if you're a lazy worker, you're jumping up and down today, you're pretty excited.
Well, the thing is that it actually goes both ways. So in terms of what fair work can do, if you feel that your boss is making unreasonable requests, you can go to fair work and get them to adjudicate it. If you're a boss who you feel like your worker is not replying to reasonable requests, like say if I run a cafe and someone's called in sick, and so I message everybody to say can anyone work this shift? Again,
this is not just about once, this is repeatedly. If you never respond, then I can say, well, I'm going to have to let you go or I'm going to go to fair work because you do need to reply. Sometimes. It's interesting to read some of the responses from out louders when we've asked about this in the past, and they say, if you're, for example, a shift worker, if you're a nurse or something, you're working casual work, your phone can be going twenty four to seven with can
anyone do this shift? Can anyone do this shift? Can anyone do this shift?
Now?
Let's also give the benefit of the doubt to the person who needs to cover the shift, right And so what I've learned, and I learned this lesson early on. I've said it on the show before. When you're working in an industry that's twenty four seven, and it's really hard. And when you're the owner of the business, obviously you never get to rest. But then there's also potentially upside for you that there aren't for people who work for you.
But I once got told I can't keep me of Friedman's hours anymore, and I can't be in the shower worried that she's messaged me. And I've never forgotten that. It was quite early in Mamma Maya. The work hours work crazy because the internet was crazy. So now I'm always very clear because I as a manager and a boss, I can't get all my work done in my hours, so I will often be working on weekends and after work. Now I always make it very clear you do not
need to respond until it's work out. If it's really important, I will text you. But what I don't want to be told I can't do is even send the emails. Yeah, like if I give you permission to ignore them, if the fact that I've sent them is causing you stress and you can complain about it, that's tricky. Different if it's on your phone, like if I was texting people all ours, that would be different. But I only do that to you too.
I think it's interesting because obviously I've managed teams too, and you do like the person who will respond to you out of ours? You do. If I'm the Queen's dead who's around, first person who jumps on and goes yep, no problem getting then I'm like, good, nice pattern head, like I do, you know. But the thing is is that that prejudice to responders to that kind of thing. I don't know if that means that you're back to the lazy thing. Is our definition of lazy, that you're
not constantly prioritizing work. No, because I think, like the example that you were giving about somebody who is not really doing their job, that's another issue that doesn't really have anything to do with out of ours or not like they should be dealing with that anyway, not because of is. Whereas the thing is is that I think we've got a culture now, and I certainly have internalized
this culture, and it's you know for many years. Is that if my phone beeps with work and I'm out for dinner with friends, if I'm putting the kids to bed, if I'm cooking dinner at work, is more important. That's the message that the twenty four to seven. Culture gives right, and this is trying to redress that a bit, to give you permission to go. And I think that you know gen Z much better at this yaound Jes boundaries is that they're and they.
Ought to be, because gen Z on average are also being paid less because they're less experience.
But then you'd argue from the other side, you'd go, but don't you want to be the one who had the advantage.
The argument about jumping on and the Queen, for example, is that and these laws cover this, is that you've got to be compensated. So if I jump on and do the queen, which we do, and I then work two hours, I get two hours off on Monday, and that should be the way.
And also what they're trying to do is say, compensate people if you want them to work outside of hours. And the idea about the wage cap as in that this doesn't apply to you if you earn really good money is that that's what you're getting paid good money for exactly. So I think that that's all very reasonable. But I agree with you Maya that you shouldn't not be able to send messages.
I think what work means has just changed so much because I think that everybody's expectations around work, they've been so many changes. As you said at the start in what work looks like, I mean, now you can potentially work from home a lot of people, some people can't, the idea of working part time, the idea of working flexible hours, the idea of coworking, all of these things, and now the right to disconnect and boundaries technology. Work
has changed so much. You used to go to work at a certain time and then you would finish work at a certain time and that would be the end. You couldn't take work playing with you.
Really, the element of this that the out loud has told us, which I thought was something I hadn't considered, is that we're talking about availability, creep and bosses and employees. Actually, what a lot about louders are having issues with are clients parents. If you're a real estate agent, then the people who are contacting you out of hours and expecting an immediate response isn't your boss, it's your client or
teachers are getting cents parents or students. There were out louders who said, hang on, my daughter is emailing her teacher at eight thirty pm. That teacher should be offline. That's true, which I think is it's actually a symptom of an entire culture that now expects you to respect a.
Meeting I do. I mean it used to be that working hours were widely understood to be nine to five. Right now that everybody like we like flexibility. Some people want to work part time, some people want to work different hours. Some people want to you know, look after their kids in the day and work at night. So how do we manage that? Because let's give everybody the
benefit of the doubt. How am I meant to know that you don't work on a Wednesday, and Holly doesn't work on a Thursday afternoon, and someone else works at night, but not on every second Friday. I think that's what's difficult.
Yes, but this is an issue with our sense of immediacy about things that actually aren't urgent. I realized that I start every email with sorry for my delay. Your email wasn't actually urgent, and I'm responding two days later. I think I need to delete that sentence and just go I'll give you the responsible.
Yeah, well, what fair work are saying too. It's about setting up the expectation between the employer and the employee, right is that I mean, again, media business different, but anytime we've ever hired anybody, you sort of make it obvious that not to say you will be working around the clock, not that at all, but that sometimes things will happen and we will expect, you know, xyz. And I think there's room in this legislation. It seems that way for that kind of give and take and that
kind of flexibility. But it is interesting because you know, we were saying before that it's not that the boss shouldn't send the email, but I guess this is giving permission to the person who's taken their work email notifications
off their phone, you know what I mean. But the tricky part is is that if you're in a team and you've taken your work email notifications off your phone and your colleague has not, that's tricky because and I guess that's what this legislation is trying to sort of on pick right, is that the person who has not doesn't get the advantage. It's hard.
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The three word method is essentially distilling your style to three adjectives. So the three word method not only helps people identify their style, but also helps them cultivate it into something that is exciting and expressive and fun.
Apparently all you need to transform your wardrobe is three words. In Sydney, at least, it feels like we're on the cusp of a new season. It's warming up, springers around the corner, and I am yet again in a wardrobe crisis. Then I came across Alison Bornstein's dialist and a wardrobe consultant big on TikTok. She has a three word method that is meant to change how you dress. And here's
how it works. You choose three adjectives. For those who are already stuck, that's three describing words, one practical, one aspirational, and one emotional to encapsulate the way you want to show up in the world. Now to help, I actually went to her TikTok and I found out how she would describe Carrie Bradshaw's style. I thought this would help everyone three words she had for Carrie were daring, elaborate, and mismatched.
So that's how she's done it in the wrong order. Mismatched is practical because it's just a description.
Yeah, I agree, what aspirational would be daring?
Yes?
And emotional, Well, elaborate doesn't really work anyway. She broke her roles and we're not going to break them. We're not going to break them.
I've got again.
I want to hear me? Is three?
My practical word is comfortable?
Ye.
My aspirational word is cool, which is so try hard, you try hard. And my emotional word is joy.
That's perfect for you.
What's really troubling me about those three words is it two out of the three were the same as my words, and that's my worst nightmare.
What's your practical word?
My practical word is obviously comfort, which is why I always have my camel too leggings on my aspirational And this is what she says is that words mean different things to different people.
That's true. What's your aspirational word cool? Oh no, that's not right for you.
What do you mean temperature wise?
But you don't seem like you're trying to be cool like I'm the biggest try hard in the world. I'm always trying so hard. You're not.
I don't mean coolers in trendy, I mean temperature. I mean coolers in I want it to look like I haven't tried, which I do do disheveled, disheveled, effortless.
I think you're a effortless whereas I don't want to look effortless.
Now you want to look like and what's your last word? What's your emotional word?
From emotional? I really thought about it and I went, I want to look self assured. I want to look like I know who I am. When I wear my clothes, It's like, say what you like. It might not be on trend. It's certainly not feminine or sexy. But is that something that you'd look at and go, Jessee, I wear that kind of you know what I mean? I don't want to look generic. No, I do want to look I.
Want to look Who's going to say unassuming? But that's not an emotion.
No, Like I don't want to be wearing the latest. I have no desire to be wearing the shoes everyone's wearing, or to have the latest like I don't know thinging in Zara. That's really and it's not not classic.
Your word isn't classic. I mean that would be a practical word, but it's not classic. It's what did you say? The word was plain?
Simple, like just simple.
Basically that's not an emotion, Holly.
I think it's confident. I think that I just want to feel like myself.
Yeah, yeah, emotional.
I don't want to feel like I'm dressing. I get that comfort cool, yeah, which we've changed to effortless.
Effortless and confident. I like that. That sounds good. Okay. My practical word is easy. Has to be easy, like I get dressed. Don't want to have a fucking clock in the morning. It has to be easy, put it on, throw it on, yeah done.
Yeah, because yours wouldn't be comfortable because you're always in heels, whereas mine wouldn't be easy because I find that's so sad.
Yeah, it has to be for me easy and my aspirational world is classy.
Yeah, that's why she was Jean's am.
I am I allowed that one. I want to look classy.
She never looks slutty.
I'd like to.
I wish you could see my face that I'm not dissing you in any way.
I don't know that you're my stylist.
I don't know if that's it's interesting that that's what you're aspiring to.
Aspiring to mean classic, I mean like the kind of clothes that I look at and I go, I love that is people who wear very classic, maybe classic, but like an effort less good word, like a silk shirt and a well. I like classy, like sophisticated.
I'm going to say modern classy, because classy to me might feel.
A bit like a pencil skirt.
Yeah.
Like fancy you're rich, like you're not that, Like you don't want that book?
I don't want.
You're not fancy you're rich? What about elevated?
Elevated? I think that could elevated, I do.
I always think I would like quiet luxury if I could afford. What's your my emotional word? I don't know. You have to help me with that. What's my emotional word? The things I like wearing the most, that I feel the most mean emotional, blue.
Exactly.
Emotional. I don't know, I do not really, I do really like it. I actually, yes, I went to her thing because I couldn't think of any words. So playful. I'm just gonna throw words.
But these emotional words are just words.
These are just all the words, okay, soft, romantic, sensual, not holly, demure, no, no floral, no hard, edgy, sexy, tough, minimal, sculptural, neutral, polished, graphic, elaborate what I need some emotional.
This is the thing about people who can speak fashion and people who can't write, is that most of us know I'm not obviously a fashion person.
Like me is.
But there's like when you look at a pair of genes, you instinctively know I would wear those, or I wouldn't wear those. You know what I mean and like, but it's hard to put the words around.
I actually think that for you, the word is classy, even though you know that idea of classy isn't really an emotion, but I think for you it is. It's like they say fat isn't a feeling, but every woman knows that it is, and so I think for you, the emotional word is classy because you want to feel classy. I'm going to look at the aspirational word is classic for you, but modern classic, And the practical word is
easy easy Jesse. Where did we get stuck with you, we couldn't find your third word, which is your emotional word.
Yeah, I have self assured.
Yeah, confident, I think is good.
The days I feel the best are when I think I have something on. This sounds weird because I don't really care about clothes, but I like going to the office and being like, I know no one else is going to have this on. I feel really like myself in this.
Yeah, what about distinctive isn't right because you do. It's not like you want to look different to everybody else. You just want to look like yourself.
But I don't know who I am. Oh, this is so deep problem.
It's getting hard. Yeah, because confident, as it would also probably be one of my aspirational words. It's like I want to look like I know what I'm doing. And sometimes you know when you see yourself on a video and like you're sitting across from somebody who's really polished and stuff, and you go, oh my god, I look like the world's oldest work experience kid.
Yeah. The days I feel the worst are when I come in and I feel messy, I feel crinkled. I feel like I threw this together at the last minute and it doesn't work. Yeah, it's just not consistent with who I want to be today. I don't feel like I look elevated and not.
What's interesting about your fashion is that, like I think I know it, and then you'll come in like you did last week wearing an amazing two piece from Witchery that looks stunning. You never look bad like you had on like this brown skirt with a matching sort of cropped shirt and a belt, and it was unlike anything I'd ever seen before, and it was unlike anything I'd ever think of you wearing. But you seemed kind of comfortable in it and confident.
And I suppose this is actually this is what she says, that these words are ever changing, and I'm finding that in this period of my life it's very different. Like definitely, in my early twenties, feminine or something would have come out right. There would have been something where I felt more sculpted, or I had to have a particular neckline or whatever. I feel very diff I.
Know what the word is for you, possibly emotionally independent, because you're not trendy. You don't want to be trendy. You just want to look like yourself and how you feel on any day might change. It might be one day leggings and another day it might be this two piece with a belt. But that's you, Holly and I are much more. I mean, I'm obviously the biggest trendslot. Yeah, Holly likes a version of a trend, but she's always very late to it, and you are willfully. It's not
like I'm going to wear something really crazy. You're just independent. You won't be told. And if I ever because I'm like, I think Jesse should wear this. And when I've ever tried to like give your clothes or whatever, you won't have a bar of it because it's someone else's idea of you.
Do you think that your words have changed over time?
No? Really, Like in my magazine days, I don't think I would have.
Remember when you were trying to dress like a boss, like a little while ago.
Oh god, I had a very weird thing that happened for about a year. It's actually Katy's fault. I started dressing like her character Evelyn on Strife in suits.
You know what it was. You were trying to dress like someone who took themselves seriously for a minute, and then you were like, wait, I don't.
I wanted to do a full version of me, but it just wasn't me.
But also that was true to your I think your words are spot on, and it's not the surprise that you're the person who's most clothes focused about that because those things were bringing your joy at the time, but then they stopped. And when things stopped giving you joy, cond dead, which I very much respect. Whereas I'll be like, oh, I used to like wearing that thing. Better.
Still, my practical word, apart from comfort would probably be wetex or sponge because I'm just so suggestible. I'm so suggestible, Like I'll see Asher wearing something and I go, oh, I'm going to dress like Asher. And then I'll see Copenhagen fashion Week and I'm like, oh, I'm going to dress like those scandy girls. I'm very porous.
So what's the useful part of this conversation. You're supposed to find you three words, and then it's supposed to help you what decide what you're going to buy. So a bit of advice which I quite liked. The first was that she said, if you're having trouble with your words, have a chat to some friends or some family or your partner, which made me laugh because Luca would be like, I don't want to talk about this, and she said, don't get offended, which I felt like was for me
because I would say how do I dress? And me would be like ugly stupid.
It might be like, they're not criticals. I'm looking for today. So you meant to do that, and then you're meant to write what that word means to you because our definitions are different, as mey or and I said, cool, they mean different things to us. So we've got to really flesh it out. And the third thing is if you've got Pinterest or something, they say, make a board. You'll see consistent things come through, Like I'm not big on color, like I quite like a monochromatic. Blacks and
whites and bright things just don't work for me. And so she said to do that, and that will help you with your wardrobe, and like going out and deciding.
Another way to get those first two words. The practical word is pull out all the things that you wear the most. Yes, stay in your wardrobe, the ten percent of your wardrobe that you wear ninety percent of the time, and look at what it all has in common. Maybe that word is black. Maybe that word is jenes. Maybe that word is comfort, maybe that word is sexy. You've got to find what the things that you wear all the time have in common. The aspirational word is who
do you want to dress? Like? Like who would you love to be? Who do you like? Follow on Pinterest and whatever? And then for the emotion is thinking about when you're wearing something, and we all know that feeling where you just go, I feel.
Right, I feel like myself today. Do you have a style like on like one person You've always said, carry Bradshaw? But like, is there anyone else, like a real person who you look to?
It's the suggestible thing because I'm always looking for different people, so I'll like carries Bradshaw style. For a while, I reminded myself of her style when I started going too far down the suit route and I got a bit sad. And then I was like, oh, I remember wearing prints and miss things actually gives me a lot of joy. So the suits weren't giving me joy. I'd sort of moved back. But now there's no particular designer, there's no particular celebrity that I'm always like, I want to dress
how about you? Holly?
My complete style crush. And the only reason why I watched this terrible show is Sylvie and Emily in Paris.
Have you ever seen that?
But I can't dress like her because she's like a teeny little stick person, but like she is the older person in Emily woman. She's a mid life French woman and she's very sexy, very sexy, got lots of like silk shirts and lots of very like. I love and admire people who can wear very simple things and make them look amazing.
Rich women would be rich women slightly.
Undone like hair, which is easy for me.
Your feeling is French.
No, your aspirational word is French.
French. There you go.
And I wish I was.
I wish I was that, but I'm not. But like vibes of that. I remember when it was the last season was on. I became obsessed with this gold silk shirt she wore, and I was messaging our fashion editor all the time, going and she's like, Babe, it's Gucci.
Well that's not gonna.
Happen, or she can't buy Gucci, but we should buy Hollya beret, oh yeah, and a bagette out louders. We did a subscriber episode about whether or not it's appropriate to buy your friend a sex toy, and look, I got very personal because spoiler that dilemma was written in by Maya, and yeah it was me that thought it was inappropriate. There were a bunch of responses by the out louders. Some said best gift ever, those things are
bloody expensive. Others said it's a hard note from me, and another said, as long as it isn't pre loved, which I feel like Mayor.
I imagine if I'm giving people use vibrated, I would put it.
It's not beyond you.
There was another dilemma in the episode two, so go and listen. The link is in our show notes for you to follow it. A big thank you to all of you out louders for listening to us on today's show. Please send us your three words about your fashion, and actually send us the three words you think that we should have because we're probably delusional and we will be back in your ears tomorrow. Thank you to our fabulous team for helping us put this show together.
Bye bye, bye bye.
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