You're listening to a mother and mea podcast.
Hello and welcome to momam are out loud. It's what women are actually talking about. On Wednesday, the nineteenth of I was going to say October nov my.
Name is Hollywayen Right, I'm Amelia Luster and.
I'm Jesse Stevens. I've been in New Zealand for a few days.
Claire is back.
She's going to be back for Friday's episode because I have a very very big week just on New Zealand.
Have either of you seen Lord of the Rings?
I watched it every single year around New Year's Eve.
Really like all of them, love it. Have you seen the Hobbit Yeah?
Not as good.
The out loud as are horrified that I've never seen Lord of the Rings? Very really mad.
How have you managed to live your life and avoid that?
I've had people try and force me, sit me down, and I just I can't watch more than about.
Six minutes of it.
So did you go to Hobbiton?
I went to Hobbiton, which I love.
Did you understand Hobbiton? If you haven't in any.
Of these totally did?
What's this strange little place?
Why is it all so little?
I actually really really rated it. I thought it was awesome and was there with the two year old who just went it's the city made for me. Yeah, you get to go into one of the houses and play with things and stuff, which was awesome.
But I would love to do that. And you haven't even watched.
I know, I know it's sick.
It's incredible, and I just appreciated the movie set element. That's like the biggest movie set in the world. But yet, nah, I haven't read it.
Have you read it?
I read it when I was a kid. My dad read it to me.
I know.
Brent's obsessed. He's one of those well he's a key way of course, he's completely obsessed. He's got all the director's cuts. He tries to make the kids watch it all the time. Billy has been reading it and he kind of got yeah, it's the whole thing. You got to get into order the rings.
Do I have to watch it?
Actually, yes, in it and he's like, really really hot. Actually, Orlando is probably more your thing, young Orlando Blue is the elf king hotness.
Okay, all right, I'll give it. Yeah, he lost me at elf King, but I like the hotness.
Dear anyway, here's what's made our agenda today. Eyelids are over and there's an essay that everybody has to read about surgery. These are just a couple of the silly things around about women's faces this week.
And millennials aren't having affairs anymore. I want to talk about whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.
And state funerals.
Two prominent Australians have been offered and accepted them in the last few weeks, and we discuss what that means and why a lot of people are very, very mad.
Well, first, in case you missed it, Michelle Obama, which he's been saying a lot of good stuff lately. We remember we talked about her last week with her parenting advice. But I have one question from Melia lest after you hear this little bit about Michelle Obama talking about women running for president.
As we saw in this past election, sadly we ain't ready. That's why I'm like, don't even look at me about running, because you all are lying you're not ready for a woman. You are not, so don't waste my time. You know, we had a lot of growing up to do, and theyre's still I'm sadly, a lot of men who do not feel like they can be led by a woman, and we saw it.
Is that true, Amelia Lester.
It is a bit of a split screen, isn't it? Because I saw this everywhere this weekend, And then just before we came into record, I saw that President Trump was on Air Force one this morning and he called a female reporter a piggy. He said, stop talking, piggy. So, you know, on the one hand, I can see why she says that Americans are not ready. On the other hand, I feel a little bit more optimistic than Michelle on this.
I mean, what we had to remember is Americans gave Hillary Clinton the popular vote, and seventy five million Americans voted for Kamila Harris. There were a lot of things going on in that election that were weird and unusual. She had one hundred and six days to run. I just wonder if things might have just gone a little bit differently, we would be living in a completely different timeline talking about how evolved Americans are for voting in
an American woman to be president. So I feel just a little bit more optimistic than her and the people who.
Are saying to her, run run run, are.
Not the same people who wouldn't vote for her, Like, I don't think they're lying. I think whether the US is ready is a really valid question, and I totally appreciate and respect her position of like, don't waste my time. I'm not going to do this to be racially villified, to be the subject of sexism, all of the things we know it would happen, Like all power to her. I completely understand her position. But as you say, seventy five million people vote for Kamala Harris, that means a
lot of Americans are ready. As we record this episode, the doors of Saint Andrew's Cathedral are opening, just literally a few steps from we are sitting right now, hundreds and hundreds of Australians will gather for the state funeral of John Laws. He passed away at the age of ninety ten days ago, and he was a broadcaster, a sort of.
The first shock jock.
I suppose for more than seven decades he was known as the Golden Tonsils was his nickname, and Chris Mins, the New South Wales Premier, says he left a lasting mark on Australian media. For those reasons, they've decided that he should you receive this honor. But Holly, there's more to Laws's story. What is sort of the controversial aspects of what he's known for.
So obviously he's a very famous man, and every prime minister that we've ever had has had to go and bend the knee, and indeed they'll be doing it again today. But the people who argue that Laws's reputation was not really unsolid enough to have warranted this would point to things like in nineteen ninety nine, he was part of a ski that was broadly called the cash for Comment scandal, where it was clear that he was promoting brands and
things without disclosing them. In some ways that seems almost quaint in these days, but at the time that was a really big deal on talkback radio, and he knew that that was going to follow him when he did this interview with Lee Sales a few years ago, which was iconic. He sat there with his bourbon do you remember, and his sunglasses on, and one of the things he said was, remember the alleged cash for comment garbage that went on.
I'm going to die with that.
Even though all I was accused of was being excessively loyal to my sponsors that he also in two thousand and four, he and his colleague Steve Price were found guilty of homosexual vilification. Again cashed your mind back to a time when the bloc started and there was a male gay couple on it which was like ooh radical on TV, and both Laws and Price, in talking about it, used all kinds of slurs that you would never use now and should never have used them, and they both
got really hefty fines for it. Other things he did, he made some really dismissive comments about mental health and some inappropriate talkback segments about sexual abuse. And he also was very well known for having very conservative workplace policies when it came to women. He called his producers handmaidens, and he insisted on skirts or dresses at.
Work at all times.
So these are some of the things that obviously follow the laws legacy that are not quite so illustrious.
Yeah, So that's why some have expressed there's been kind of a loud chorus of discomfort about him being afforded a state funeral, which, to be clear, that means that it is funded by the state government, often in partnership with the federal government. In shot we're paying for it, taxpayer dollars paying for it.
And how much are we talking?
Okay, so it's not clear and it varies from person to person. But the big one that I remember a lot of discussion about was Shane warn He was afforded a state funeral. It was about one point six million dollars day. I think it cost tax pays.
Now, another point.
Of this that makes people annoyed is that John Laws made a lot of money. He was one of the most well paid radio broadcasters of his time. Estimates say, you know, in the millions every year. So could his family have afforded it? Absolutely? And so I guess the question is given his wealth. Given also the controversy do we think he should be afforded this state funeral or should it be private something that the family pays for like the rest of us.
What do you reckon, Amelia?
Yeah, I'm in a bit of two minds about it, because look, he obviously was really widely loved by millions of Australians and that was one of the reasons given by the state government for holding this funeral by a particular demographic segment of Australians. But nonetheless, millions of Australians. And also what I really appreciate about his legacy is that no one ever knew what his actual politics were.
He kept them very much away from the microphone. He supported some Labor prime ministers, he supported some Liberal prime ministers. So I don't think that in any way he could be accused of being a partisan figure. That said, for me, the crux of this, and the reason I feel uncomfortable with it is because of the money element, not because his family could have afforded the state funeral. It's more because why do we put on a state funeral? Arguably it's to say thank you to someone who has served
our nation in some meaningful way. And you can certainly make an argument that Laws has done that. But as you point out Jesse, he was rewarded handsomely for that. In he got millions of dollars in compensation every year for what he did. He was very professionally successful. I want to contrast that with someone like, for instance, Arthur Leggett, who I wasn't aware of, but a state funeral was held for him in Western Australia earlier this year. He was Australia's last World War Two prisoner.
Of war.
He was held by the Japanese for four years. He was captured when he was twenty two, and that seems to me to be a service to the nation that he was not particularly financially enriched for after that. Or another example is Charles Perkins Charlie Perkins, again serving his nation, but not really receiving financial rewards for that. So in the case of both those men, it's really a way of saying thank you in a way that they didn't get money for.
Yeah, I like what you say about service, And I guess that the confusion or the complication here is that the other state funeral that has been afforded and will be happening in the coming days or weeks is Graham Richardson, who is a former Labor senator and instrumental in labor politics. But Kate McClymont, the Sinney Morning Herald's journalist, has come out and said this is a story I could never write like she had so much to say about Richardson.
The article was jaw dropping.
It was it was incredible, from corruption to stories of how.
Swiss bank accounts demanding sex worker services as a form of payment from dodgy business to yours exactly.
Like a lot of people have said, whatever is good deeds, he's bad deeds outweighed them, Holly. I mean, you could say richardson life of service labor politician, like, is this what we do now? If you get a state funeral, does that mean that everyone gets to prosecute everything you ever did and whether you're a good enough person to be allowed to have our tax paid dollars.
I just think that's an inevitability of having even a thing that is a state funeral, Like, it's kind of a strange tradition. I agree with Amelia that I guess my particular leanings would be to people who of great acts of great service to the nation, who couldn't afford a decent sendoff, and who need to be rewarded and remembered in a fitting way. I think, great chip in for their funeral.
But do you think about former pms.
I think, well, even that, I mean, that's an active service to the nation. But again, you get paid for it, you know, I don't. I think it's a strange. What fascinates me the most about state funerals is that you get offered them, right, so you get offered them by the government, state government, federal government, and the family are the ones who decide. And so that tells you I think that the people who get them, they really wanted one, you know what I mean. Like Lawsy, he would have
really wanted a state funeral. He wants everybody lined up there today, all the former pms, all his like rivals in radio or forced to wear a suit and be there for the TV cameras. Whereas famously Steve Irwin, very famous Australian of a very different kind, was offered one and his family were like, nah, he wouldn't like that. And Betty Cuffbert, she was an Olympic legend, female Olympic legend from you know, the olden days as it were.
She died this year and she was offered one too, and her family were like, nah, she would have hated that. We want a quiet, private service that just remembers her as she would have liked to be remembered. So I'm kind of fascinated by the idea of if you were offered one, if you'd take it.
There is some like pomp and ceremony, it will be a real spectacle, the John Laws thing, and some people do deserve that. Fred Hollows had a state funeral and his contribution to Australia, you know, he was someone who restored the eyesight of so many Australians and people overseas, enormous legacy, Like yes, about down.
It's going to be televised too. So I was on I was watching seven this morning and they were very
heavily promoting it. And it's interesting because it wasn't a state funeral, I don't think, but one of the most memorable televised Australian funerals I can remember, and it happened in the same place was Michael Hutchins's funeral and that was across the road here, and the optics of all these glamorous women like Kylie Minogue, Helena Christian Coates and in their like little veils and it was like Nick Cave was playing into your arms. It was like a
royal event and it seemed very fitting. I don't know who paid for that, but it seemed very fitting. And I watched it on television and was very moved. And it's kind of I don't know, it's really interesting in that status in death and who turns up and all that. We're very interested in it.
I feel like I want to ask you, Jesse, because you know Fred Hollows. We can all agree former prisoner of war. Yes, but you raise a really interesting edge case, which is prime ministers because on the one hand service, on the other hand, enrichment for that service in many ways, either because they receive a generous salary while they're in office, but also after they've been in office, there are all
sorts of business opportunities for former prime ministers. So what do you think do you think prime ministers should get a state funeral?
I understand why they do, and because their legacy is so tied up with the lives of Australians and what they did, and I guess that they do say it as a role of service. I mean, there are a lot of people who have roles of service that don't receive that monetary reward.
But I guess it.
Comes down to who chooses who has a state funeral, and if it's politicians, if it's often the Prime Minister or the Premier.
They know these people personally.
Right, and like they see this as and even I'm thinking of like Queen Elizabeth right, So many people wanted to go and show their support to the family and have this kind of collective moment of mourning for that loss, which I kind of appreciate as well. But I remember feeling really uncomfortable around the time of George Pell's death because state funeral a few years before totally would have
been on the cards. But it was Daniel Andrews, I think, who came out the Victorian premier and said that would be so distressing to his victims. And it was a private ceremony. There were still people who showed up and protested. But whether or not you accept it is interesting because there's not a person. You go through John Laws's life, you even go through Fred Hollows's life, right, and there are moments where you go probably didn't age too well
those comments that they made twenty thirty years ago. And when it does become everyone's business, then everyone discussing whether that person was a morally pure person is something I don't think anyone wants to do in the days after someone dies, like I'd feel for John Laws's family, I feel for Graham Richardson's family. Death is a is something that affects those closest to them, and I kind of hate the way that we all go.
But if you're going to accept it. It's the opposite of private morning, It's the opposite. Yeah. So I'm sure that very many people who have big public memorials like this probably also have a private family one. And I kind of think that if you're going to accept a state funeral and taxpayers dollars and have it on the television, then you've got to expect a little bit of analysis.
I was actually a bit surprised. I have to admit that Albow, who's normally so good at reading the national mood, did immediately jump in and say there was going to be a state funeral for Richardson, because, look, John Laws, no arguing with the fact that that guy was beloved by so many people, and I'm sure all grahe Richardson's passing is mourned by a lot of people within the labor parties, certainly by his family, by people who loved him and cared for him. But is he beloved in
the same way as John Laws. I think that's a much more debatable question, and in.
Fact, in terms of labor politics, you'd argue it's a bad look. Like you almost it's on the nose to even associate yourself with someone who the history of corruption and all that kind of stuff. You just go, this isn't what labor politics represents.
And so then that gets really uncomfortable.
And I know I'm arguing against myself a little bit, because Richardson did a lot of things that were really ahead of their time and which helped Australia move forward as a nation. For instance, his work on environmental regulations in the eighties was really groundbreaking and helped us to protect our natural environment at a time when people weren't
even really thinking about that. But I do feel uncomfortable about someone who's so clearly sought personal financial enrichment from the service that he gave to this country getting his funeral paid for or by the state. I do feel uncomfortable about it, and I'm surprised that Albanezi went out on that limb that way. In a moment, I want to know why millennials aren't having affairs speak for yourself, Familia. Look, I regret to inform you that millennials have killed the affair.
And Holly, I know that as a cool genexa you're rolling your eyes our puritanical, boring way. But let me get into why I should be French. I should be French. Where is your cigarette right now? That was a joke. According to an article in the Atlantic by Olga Kazan, Americans over fifty five are much more likely to have
an affair than Americans under fifty five. And before you come at me with why you citing American statistics, it's because Australians are not replying to a stranger who calls them on the phone asking them if they are having an affair.
Americans are offering that.
I think I could not find a similar survey of Australia. Sorry, are you my wife? Now? It might be that people over fifty five have simply been married for longer, yes, and getting a bit bored in the relationship. But there is some other evidence that millennials are kind of remaking marriage into their own image. And here are some of them and Jodally Millennials report to Kauz, aren't that they don't know people having affairs? And that's true in my life,
I don't know people having affairs at all. No comment now again, because I am young in holy okay, I'm just going to throw to you.
That isn't what I think. It's just I was just no comment on the whole Do I know anyone is having an affair like?
I can't answer that, But do you think that this is just because millennials haven't been married for long enough, or is there something new here?
I think it's really interesting because in lots of ways, it's never been easier to cheat, right, like dating apps, technology has made it incredibly easy to cheat, it's also made it easy to get caught. So though that's kind of two sides of the same coin, but one of the reasons I think everybody's obsessed with this new Lili Allen album. I know I am, but people are saying
it paints a very modern picture of marriage. She's just about to be forty in you know, there's a certain element of we're trying to be cool and we're trying to be open, and everybody understands that there's now infinite choice in our phones. But it's really hard when you're in love and trying to live a dream to also pretend that you're so fine with all that. So I think in some ways it's surprising if this is true,
because the opportunity seems to be so much bigger. But then in another way, it's not surprising because millennials have been getting married later, so they've been living together first. I think women have a lot more power and choice in terms of who they decide to settle down with, and so maybe some of the red flags of cheating.
And I'm not suggesting for a second that only men cheat, That is certainly not true both sides, but particularly women have never probably had as much choice about who they're going to partner with, and so you could argue that there's a place here for well, these marriages maybe will better thought out than previous marriages perhaps, And I do think, having just said that about dating apps and things, anecdotally,
I feel like millennials are quite puritanical. They're not quite as puritanical as jen Zi's, but very into traditions, very inter rings and marriages. And maybe that is a reaction to, you know, being a generation many of whom are children of divorce and marriages that didn't last and maybe saw
the effects of infidelity. So I think there's like a big soupy pot here that probably in a positive way, ends up with taking marriage more seriously, thinking about it more before you're doing it, understanding the consequences, more of messing around, or you're just boring.
It's true that millennials much more likely to have grown up as children of divorce than their children will be if these trans continue. The divorce rate peaked in nineteen seventy nine, so millennials really were that first generation to experience having divorced parents on mass. So, Jesse, are we more puritanical or are we in fact just better than Gen X because we, yeah, we actually take things like commitments seriously.
I know, I do wonder that, and then I wonder, this isn't a totally unfounded theory based on anecdotal evidence, which is that I wonder if some millennials their fear is the affair, right, they might have seen it in their family or their friends' parents, the lies, the way it was corrosive.
To the family unit, that kind of thing, right.
My theory is that millennials don't necessarily sort of as a generation, don't necessarily expect that they will have sex with one person until the day they die. And I have seen, in fact, a lot of the millennials I know who have chosen not to get married are just sort of like, we're together, we love each other.
It's great.
If there was boredom in our sex lives, or if they're pretty open to going, whether it's an open relationship, whether it's non monogamy, whether it's a break whatever they call it. I wonder if the extra marital affair, that terminology of something that's like a full on relationship outside your marriage, is being reinvented as something that can Maybe sex isn't the be all and end all, and you can explore it outside your relationship, Like I wonder if that's part of it.
I don't think that's part of it. I think like I would like to think that was part of it, because I genuinely think that the longer you're in a relationship, and the more foundations you have around that relationship, whether they're children, whether that is shared history, whether it's blended families, whether it's financial merging, you realize that the sexual fidelity
part of it is not really it, Like it's small. Yeah, And so I'd like to think that millennials are understanding that, But that feels more like a gen Z thing the whole, like thropple open pot.
I know I have seen images like like even you know, pictures from a wedding on Instagram and I've gone that so interesting that I know and everyone, all the friends of the people at that wedding know that they sleep with other people and that they're both comfortable with that, and.
It's just interesting. Still a massive outlier, Like whenever we were on the stories Mama Mia about open marriages and open relationships, there's still an enormous sort of curiosity because it's still seen as quite odd.
I think it's talk about odd.
Yeah, I'm saying that it's seen as quite odd, and even.
In this is Why We Fight.
I've been listening to that Mum Mayer podcast and it's come up a few times of I would say millennial sort of elder millennials talking about going through a rough patch of their marriage and opening it up and going, all right, you sleep with this person, I'll sleep with this person, especially with like little kids or whatever.
I wonder a question that that is less hurtful.
Yes, yes, I am hearing about that. I anctotally Jesse, particularly in a US context. So it's interesting that you're also about it here. But I think you're onto something with this idea that for millennial's marriage means something a little bit different to what it used to mean. And Holly, I want you to reserve judgment on this. I have a theory that I want to bring to you, which is that there's this new idea of the aloof wife, and that means that women are not thinking of marriage
as their whole identity anymore. As I know you do, Holly. I know that's very important to you. Oh wait. The New New York mayor Zoran Mandani's wife is a twenty eight year old animator. Her name is Ramaduagi. She was called aloof by The New York Post in the lead up to his successful mayoral campaign because she basically didn't post about him on social media. Two days before he was elected, she posted on Instagram, I want to get
this exactly right. Things I saw in October that made me want to make art, which I just love that like nothing about her husband making global headline.
She's not just standing next to him in a sheef dress like smiling and waving.
No sheef dresses, no kissing baby, no cheesy photo ops. He's doing his thing professionally. She's doing her thing professionally. There was some reporting that she'd been really instrumental in creating the look and feel of his social campaign, which was a huge part of why people thought he was successful. So clearly she had some input professionally speaking, but her identity was not tied up in the idea of the marriage.
And this seems to speak to your idea that millennials are finding a new way of approaching marriage that works for them, whether that means an open marriage or being an aloof wife.
Yeah, even the like first lady model of politics, I feel like the millennials are going to have none of that. It's like, I'm not here for your photo op. I'm here, Hasslin on my own accord.
I hope.
So you have a very different view of millennials of me, and that I after gen X's sort of messy cynicism, I see millennials as being pretty uptight generally speaking, and very inter traditions and quite conservative, and that gen Z had then been the pushback on that. But the other theory that's out there is just that all the stats say that people are having less sex full.
Stop, the sex recession.
Yeah, so particularly younger people are having less sex full stop, and so that follows on that there's less extra marital sex because and this is also a little bit depressing they're probably just watching a lot of Porner. Oh maybe they've got AI boss like we talked about on Monday. Does that classify if you've designed your perfect serena girlfriend? Is that cheating?
Something you said before has really stuck with me, Holly about this idea that it's never been easier to cheat, But it's also, in a way, never been harder to cheat because we are so used to higher levels of surveillance, both from our partner and from the tech companies. It's the tracking, it's the tracking cracking. I think millennials are.
Just too scared to cheat, They're too savvy to cheat.
Because you've got your what's the app that Maya's got to fall on?
Glabe sixty, You're like.
Where are you?
I can see where you are. It's true, it's like easier and harder at the same time. It's technology. Technology has done something good.
Perhaps I came across this great post, which I think is actually about jen Z, But I came across this great post this week that said I have a theory that if you ask basically anybody alive today how their parents met, the story would violate at least one arbitrary zoomer dating rule and that's why nobody's having kids now. And it says age gap asked out at work, asked out multiple times, co workers, boss slash employee, and basically you need to break really serious social rules in order
to find love. And I loved this because I was at a funeral recently and it's like he decided he loved Patty, but Patty said he was too short and too poor. But he decided to corner Patty and force Patty into marriage, and they had eleven children and it was a love story for the ages.
And it's like and everyone cried.
It is like, hold, they're together again, and Patty's probably been dead for ten years, going, Thank the fuck, I get some time on my earn from this creepy guy who stalks me my whole life.
That's true.
It's so good.
After the break the essay about cosmetic surgery, I have not stopped thinking about. From Emma Stone to Miley Cyrus, why the Hugo girl approach is actually a massive.
Problem One Unlimited out Loud access. We drop episodes every Tuesday and Thursday exclusively for Mamma Mia subscribers. Follow the link at the show notes to get us in your ears five days a week, and a huge thank you to all our current.
Subscribers Black Fridays around the corner.
It's only next week now, But what if I told you that you don't need that fancy goo Holly, no fancy.
Sorry, we're talking about all the skincare products are waving for Black Friday to kick in.
I think is gonna she's gonna fill.
Up on its comment here, exactly right.
That also, I don't want cash to comment.
I want comment.
You could telling me we don't need that expensive stuff.
We don't need we don't need a face mask or because the most effective beauty trend is entirely free.
Ladies have we.
Say good night's sleep, I'm going to I'm not.
Gonna dare say water. I'm not gonna say water. Menstrel mask, Oh hear me out? Putting menstrual blood on your face as a form of skin care has exploded.
Explode exploded, It's exploded.
It's clotted all over the.
Damn it, Jesse, there goes your.
Okay, so it contains stem cells something called Sieto themselves are good.
I see them on expense a lot of money.
I didn't see peptides but I did see proteins, and Holly loves proteins.
Cottage is like.
Cottage sheets, and it rejuvenates the skin. Apparently. Apparently it's also healing and empowering, But so is thatcher.
So scientists say it can help with wound healing, but otherwise they will step back from saying conclusively it makes you hot. That's scientist is like, we're not going to say that Holly is menstrual masking the answer to everything. But capitalism is getting defensive because it wants.
To buy just more proof of elitist ages around here. Blood is very hard to combine. Try and steal it from my young I guess.
Now, who needs the millennials?
Am I into this idea? No, I'm sure it is probably true.
Yes, you think it reminds me of you know, Jermaine Greer in The Female Unit. She says that should be fully empowered as a woman, you need to taste your own menstrual blood. Now, this was before sheep masks were invented. I'm sure she would have said make a face mask of your menstrual blood if that was something in the culture at the time.
I like the idea of trying it.
I like the idea that we've always had all the goo we need, but we've just never used it.
Look inside yourself.
You'll and you'll find it. It's just lots ago different times of the month that we can try. Look, don't try this at home, or do you guys, it's absolutely fine. I think your daughter Matilda would be horrified if you showed up with your menstrual masking on.
But you know what you do, you friends. I'm bringing two face topics to the table. Actually, we've just talked about faces three, so I'm already breaking some taboos that we're going to be exploring in a minute. One of them is about the fact that nobody appears to have eyelids anymore. Eyelids are over. I'm talking, of course, about the bleth or the blepheroplasty.
Okay, can you explain what this is because it's something that women around me of a certain age are talking about. But I didn't know what a bleff was.
So a blef is the short social media friendly term for a blethheroplasty, which is basically.
An eyelid lift.
And you know it's surgery. It's surgery that requires suitures and recovery time. And all the rest of it. And it's something that older women have sometimes been medically prescribed this because drooping eyelids can become a real problem. But it's really entered the mainstream just in the past even i'd say like six to twelve months as this thing the blef, I'm getting a bleath, I'm getting a bleth. It's more a cosmetic choice and a medical And also the age of those women seems to be dropping and
dropping and dropping. We're seeing all over social media before us and afters of my bleth and my bleff recover left left left like it's it feels like suddenly it's everywhere, And it's also being very widely diagnosed as the reason why a lot of young ish celebrity women in their thirties who are being their faces are being talked about about why they suddenly look fresher, more snatched, younger, all that stuff, right, So this has led to a lot
of articles about like I thought it was the menstrual blood, but probably now we know that. This has led to lots of articles about, like, your eyelids are making you look cold, eyelids are done, Like I'm.
Like I feel bad about to help like not get particles into your eyes?
Is that not sore thing have a purpose? But there's no question that. I mean, and some people have heavy eyelids and hooded eyelids always, and obviously people from different cultures and different backgrounds have different kind of eyelids, but there is no question that broadly speaking, as you age, they droop, and that lifting them a bit is generally considered to make a lot younger. So suddenly it's left, left, left.
My question is for you, Jesse, because if you have been talking NonStop about an essay that you read about surgery and cosmetic procedures this week that encompasses this, why suddenly we would all be pointing at one particular part of a woman's face and saying that's the problem.
Fix that?
And why suddenly if you type bleff into TikTok, there are hundreds of thousands of things that suddenly have appeared from nowhere. Tell me about that essay.
So there's this essay doing the rounds on substack, and I think it's something like a half hour read right, The title is the anti Cosmetic Surgery Essay Every Woman should Read.
Have you both read it?
Yes? Yes? Okay, so only because you told me, only because you kept posting it and saying.
Read it did make me realize that all my newsletters from now on should just be like the gardening tip Henry woman should, every woman should read.
The rhyme should.
And I just loved as I kept going out, I didn't hit a pay wall. I think I was just really satisfied.
Can we just say that the reason why I caught my eye initially is because it's accompanied by two pictures of Miley Cyrus that are very confronting. It looks like she has very gaunt cheeks, and I guess this is connected with this buckle fat removal procedure that she's rumened to have had.
She's looking almost unrecognizable.
She's one of the ones that is like almost like the face is an extension of style and you can get a bunch of surgery that might make you reinvent entirely how.
You look in fashion for the moment too.
Yes, exactly.
And Emma Stone's face has been getting a lot of analysis lately. Jennifer Lawrence has come out and talked about some of the work that she's had done and Miley.
Cyrus and basically this writer she writes.
Under a pseudonym, which I think she's said too yeah, which I thought was really telling. I don't think she could write this under her name. Her pseudonym is father Karen. She said that as women and within kind of traditional feminist discourse, we now all have to hold hands and go, oh, I yes, I feel sad that everyone has the same face. Now, oh, well you do you you go, girl.
I'm miss Emma Stone's face. Yes, sad face emoji.
And you're allowed to kind of have that, but you are not allowed to judge a woman's choices.
And I actually subscribe to that entirely.
I feel like we're all in this burning building, and to judge a woman who goes down the cosmetic surgery route is to judge her for jumping out of the burning building, like I understand why you did it. But what we're not allowed to do is then criticize or analyze the trends, and in so doing, we're all kind of holding up this beauty industrial complex that makes us all sad.
And that's how point I saw that our eyelids need.
Fixing, exactly. And this is not making women happier. It's not making women feel more beautiful studies and evidence that this self objectifying that we're all doing, especially as the world gets more and more scary and bleak, we're all just going back into our bodies and going what can I control?
What can I do?
And that what might start with a little bit of anti wrinkle injections, it might become.
The bleff or the lips or the buckle fat removal or whatever.
Do you blame facelift?
Yeap is just like this refocusing on ourselves that makes us feel uglier and uglier and need more and more and more work because a happy consumer is a bad consumer. You're not going to go and just pay for things that they need you to do. And the amount of work now involved in the maintenance of the female form is out of control. And can we all agree that it's like from the micro needling to the facials, to the heir, to the laser to the masks that we wear it like it, it is totally out of control.
So I guess my question is do we feel like we can have an honest conversation? And me has been saying this for ages. May has been saying, you know, it's the mprison new clothes. None of us are allowed to say, what the hell is happening to everyone's faces because we don't want to judge them? But do you guys feel the same that it's come to a point where it's like, we can't criticize the culture that is, let's be real, it's ninety five percent women or something
like that that are going and getting these procedures. Are we all comfortable with that? She calls it self mutilation. I don't know if I'd go that far, but are we comfortable with that?
I don't buy the idea that we're not talking about women's faces. It's all the culture does all day, every day. Like I agree with this woman's points on almost all of it, but the starting point of we're not allowed to talk about women's faces is just nonsense. Like Jennifer Lawrence is a great example of this by all accounts. That movie that she's in at the moment, that is
the reason that she's everywhere with Robert Pattinson. She turns in the most astonishing performance in a really interesting role about motherhood and mental health and all this craziness, and she's wild in it. And the only headlines I have seen about Jennifer Lawrence the last month have been about her face, her boobs, that's it.
But don't you think they're all you go girl, they're all like cheering.
I don't I think we all agree. Well, I don't know that we all agree, but I'm certainly in agreement. And I always have been with me A's point about like what is happening here? And it's sick to a point, not sick this is a strong word, but there's no question we're all being led down a pass that is a no win game, right, And I personally try and resist it as much as I can within the realms of serum buying. But I think that always wanting to bring it back and hang it on We're not allowed
to talk about Emma Stone's face is disingenuous. All we do is talk about Emma Stone's face. All we want to do is prosecute this enormous issue through the prism of one or two or three women that we want to pick apart call monstrous. Basically, go look at her. She must be insecure, look at her, she must be vain, look at her like I think that's all all we do.
So I just don't really buy the idea that we're not because I think that if we really felt we couldn't talk about women's faces, we'd be talking about Jennifer Lawrence's movie.
What do You Reckon? Amelia?
Look, I think it's clear that we can talk about their faces. I agree with you, Holly, and we do on this show as well. Let's not be disingenuous about it. But why I found this piece really refreshing is because it made me feel like I'm not a freak for not buying into this. And I know that sounds funny because it's becoming like unusual in my impression to not opt into this game. So I appreciated that she was like, oh, the writer said, this is not normal. You don't have
to do this. And in fact, it's an arms race that women will never win because the only beauty standard that remains the same from generation to generation is youth, actual youth, not simulated youth, and beauty standards other than youth change all the time. For instance, we started this by talking about droopy eyelids. Phrase droopy island seems insane, but it is out there. I want to point out that Sydney Sweeney, Marilyn Monroe, Charlotte Rampling, all these women
have famously quote unquote droopy islands bed droomise. In another era this was beddroomies, but now they're droopy. So the point is you can't win, and I found that really refreshing.
Here's something though, that I want to ask you as you go to the next point, Jesse, is that the
thing is and this is the point of the woman's article. Really, So Australia has one of the biggest updates of cosmetic procedures per capita in the world, big in the US, so the most recent stats, and they do come from a medical and cosmetic surgical institute, but the most recent stats suggest that twenty two percent of Australians have had a cosmetic procedure, and that twenty five percent of millennials have, and that something like thirty eight percent would like to
or planning to in the next ten years. She's just so internalized agism for all the reasons you just said, Amelia, that she looks in the mirror, goes, I don't really recognize that person. I know how we all feel and mock women who are looking older. So She's right, we are all being led down this road is the cure for it, though, to point out and mock the women I were doing that, And that's where I think we are always led back to.
Yeah, and that's what I hate. And I also hate when we get to and they look ugly anyway, or they look ugly in a new way, which.
Is what's implied by the author's choice of these really startling images of Miley Cyrus to go with the piece. The photos are not what you would call conventionally attractive. They stop you in your tracks, they stop you scrolling. She looks really undernourished in them in a way that is alarming. So the author knew what she was doing by drawing us in with those photos.
Yes, And she says it explicitly about some people in the public eye, and it's like, you did all of this and you still don't look good, which is almost the inevitable treadmill of like you'll get a little bit and then you'll get so taken down this and then guess what, the filler's going to be out of date and there's going to be a new trend in and you're not going to be beautiful by those standards. But Holly, you said something about like women doing those procedures to
kind of keep their status. And one thing I found. I talked about this at the live show, and I haven't been comfortable talking about it on this show for a.
Myriad of reasons.
But I after I had Luna and I was feeling you know, haggard and doing TV and doing this and video and blah blah blah, I had anti wrinkle injections. And before I go into it is like to speak to your doctor, I'm not recommending this procedure. This was just my experience and that, like it sounds like a big thing to say, to say betrayed my values. But I kind of always went I'm not going to do it, and.
Then one day I just went, screw it. I want to have more kids.
There's a moment in my life where I can get anti wrinkle injections.
And I went and did it.
I didn't do it for status. What I did it for was to turn the voice off, was to.
Turn the inner monologue.
That every day it's going look at the lines on your feat, look at the lines on your froat. And I thought, if I could quieten that, maybe my brain could think about other, bigger, more important things and it would be freeing.
And I thought that getting that would turn it off. It didn't.
In fact, it made me more obsessed with my appearance. I've never looked in the mirror so much. I didn't think it looked right. I thought it looked all uneven. I felt claustrophobic in my own face. I didn't feel like myself. I couldn't emote all of these things, and I went, I hate it. I'm not doing it again. Maybe it does turn off the monologue, but it's like the issue is that in a monologue.
And of course individual women's experiences with these procedures may vary. But one thing that I really wanted to highlight from the essay is that it points to empirical evidence that shows that cosmetic work does not improve your long term happiness, and it actually increases Obviously, again, this is population wide increases symptoms of depression and anxiety. So we really are in a treadmill.
And even things like sexual dysfunction or eating disorders, because it's like you're not in touch with how you feel or what you want. It's it's this kind of perpetuating the self objectifying narrative.
I get all that so much, and I am al so you know, because of our jobs, we're looking at our face is probably more than the average person because we're on camera as the gen xer at the table. I do struggle all the time in that I'm like, look at my neckline, look at my look. Yeah, so
the noise I so relate to it, Jesse. But the problem that I have is still because I also genuinely do not judge women who are doing whatever they're doing, because I just think we are all in this game that we're talking.
About, and we're all playing it to a different degree.
And I think that the problem with as I said, the problem with this essay and this kind of narrative is it wants us to go back to picking women's faces, our own and others, without shame, without fear or favor like which I think. I don't think that's the answer. I actually think the answer is less attention less talk
about it. Less. The fact that any woman steps into the public arena, whether it's on a TV show or in politics or whatever, that the first thing we all talk about is her face and what she's done to it. I think that would actually be real progress.
Yeah, I think I'm with you. I think we talk about it too much.
A massive thank you to you out louders for listening to today's show and to our fabulous team for putting it together. Remember you can always watch us on YouTube. But we're going to be back in your ears tomorrow, Jesse.
Before we go, Yeah, you know how out Loud sets you up for the week. Well that's what our listeners tell us. Yeah, well now they have something to get them through the weekend too, and it's parenting.
I love my parenting out Loud.
You Stacey Hicks, Monic Bully, But I hear that there's a special guest.
Special guest this week one Luca Levine, dad of one, father to be of twins. Was he very nervous.
He was, and he asked me how to pitch. He had no idea, like where to start. But I love this idea. I'm encouraging him to.
Become a parent. I would love that because I feel like it's something I could outsource. And I'm like, maybe you could like be like.
The primary parent.
Let's just go with it.
But look, he's a great dad and he has lots of wisdom and lots of insights.
I also just love it's very parenting out Loud to say you know what. We need to get a guy's perspective on things too, exactly. It's not meant to be like your everyday regular parenting show.
It's meant to be a little bit more out of the box. And quotas are important. We believe in quotas, so we did need to.
So look, I'll just tell you quickly what's on the show because it sounds like a great lineup. You taught him well on pitching.
I don't know what that you guys talk about yet though, but what is it?
Well, apparently Kinetic sand has been canceled. Oh yes, yes, there's a trend that's fighting against Black Friday sales and apparently it's very delightful, which is good because I'm so not into Black Friday sales now I need an antidote. And also, are you doing nappy changes mindfully? Is this something that Luca makes you do like mindful nappy changes? Anyway, he's going to tell us all about it on the shows.
Okay, I love it here.
So if you love out Loud, this is your weekend fixed search parenting out Loud and hit follow.
Is it ten years today?
Shut up.
Is to you, hippy, that's astir of my line.
Ten years, A lot's happened, A lot's.
Happened, A lot happen happened, Jesse ste.
Oh, my goodness, who would.
Have thought as a listener to out Loud who you also were a listener to out Loud?
Walk and you were the boss ab out Loud walking in the door that day with no shoes.
No, exactly right. I had shoes on, but I wasn't dressed appropriately. You were.
Yeah.
And I had a meeting with you and and her and she was good cop, Hollywood, good cop. You were just chaos.
Yeah, No one knew and so much changed. And I just knew that one day you'd be pushing some of my DNA.
Yeah, I knew that efficiently.
No, who would have known you?
Just that's the most ever that I would have no idea?
What it's two?
And everyone's kept saying to me, what shoud we get Jesse for a present? What should we get it for a ten year president? I'm I don't know. She doesn't like stuff.
That's true.
It's true.
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