Chapter Nineteen
It’s possible the joy I feel – the big, heavy weight that’s been lifted from my shoulders – is just temporary, but I’ve felt like a new Liv over the last few days.
Sure, I’m still opening my phone every few minutes to automatically check Instagram, but I have – at least for now – somehow managed to not re-download it.
And sure, I know deleting social media is not the whole answer to all of this.
It’s not even a big part of it. I also know that once I’m back on Morning Tea, I’ll have to start interacting with viewers online again, but with everything that’s happened in the last few weeks, there’s no point denying it’s become a bad place for me.
A big fat cesspool of messy toxicity, encased inside an asbestos shed painted with extra layers of lead paint.
And I think it might be a big step that I’m taking any steps at all. Maybe a tiny bit of me is realising that these therapy sessions can’t hurt. They might even help.
Before me, Jools picks up her large sandwich, taking a bite and speaking through crumbs.
‘… and it’s obvious nobody even likes him much and the viewers keep messaging the show to say they really miss you.
’ Jools grins at me from across the table and I tune back into what she’s saying.
‘And Spencer is the same little creep as always, so you’re not missing much of anything. Same old, same old.’
‘Thank you,’ I tell her, smiling gratefully. I pick up my own sandwich, inhaling the smell of tuna mayo.
‘But never mind the show, how have you been?’ she asks pointedly, peering over sparkly frames. I cock my head.
‘Better, I reckon,’ I tell her, thinking again about my last meeting with Edward.
She eyes me sternly. ‘No more following your ex and his new girlfriend around, I hope?’
My face gets hot, thinking about that face-to-face confrontation with Orla. And how much the impulse is still there to find out more. Yes, I’ve been resisting the horrible little urge, but only just.
Jools clocks my reaction and sighs. ‘It’s really bad for you, sweetheart. It’s like an addiction. You get that momentary boost, then the massive low afterwards. Then you have to go even further to get the same high. You have to stop, completely.’
‘I know, I know!’ I tell her, staring at the perfect flicks of her eyeliner behind her glasses. How much practice does that take? ‘And I’m working on it, I swear. I’ve unfollowed them both on social media.’ I say this so proudly, but she looks a little nonplussed.
‘That’s a good start, I suppose,’ she says, nodding.
Then she makes a face. ‘God, I hate being so boring. Why am I always the voice of reason?! I used to be such a shit-stirrer when I was young.’ She giggles, running a hand through her short hair.
‘But there’s something about being in your fifties…
you realise how painful it all was and how sad it is that so many young people – young women – put themselves through hell.
For no reason!’ I try not to focus on the joy of being called young, and instead zero in on her words.
She sighs. ‘I don’t want to see you go through more pain than you have to. ’
‘You’re not boring, Jools, you’re so wise!’ I tell her fiercely. She’s right, I need to hear this. She can be the super ego to my id. The angel to my devil. The Dec to my Ant. The Jools to my Sam.
She nods, taking the compliment. ‘I think every woman should have an older female friend.’ She takes a sip of her water.
‘I’ve got one – Sophia, she’s in her seventies and she’s effin’ brilliant.
Having her around has always done me the world of good.
It’s important, I think, to understand where women have come from and what they’ve been through.
To have the perspective of a different generation. ’
‘What is your perspective?’ I ask curiously. ‘Were things so different for you?’
‘Oh god, the nineties and noughties were a rough time to be young and working.’ She breathes deeply.
‘You had all that ladette culture telling you the only way to be a feminist was to be like a bloke – a top bloke! You had to be front of the queue to laugh at the sexist jokes, or go, “Hoi, look at the bazookas on her!” That felt like your only option as a woman,’ she snorts, ‘oh, apart from being a glamour model, Jordan wannabe, who got your tits out for the ladz and shagged everyone in the name of female empowerment.’ She widens her eyes at me.
‘You wouldn’t believe what went on in my first TV job.
Everyone getting drunk together at lunchtimes, then heading back to the office to carry on drinking.
Managers snogging the female interns, bosses getting blowjobs in the dressing rooms, celebrity sex tapes casually emailed around the whole team for everyone to laugh at, female staff members objectified or treated like a joke.
’ She shakes her head. ‘Of course, they would select the odd, token woman to be promoted every now and again, but then she’d have her contributions completely ignored or stolen, while the men mocked her efforts behind her back.
Meanwhile, she’d have to make sure she told everyone she was different from other girls and sabotage any other women, in the vain hope men might accept her. ’
I deep breathe through this, the horror of it all travelling through my veins. It wasn’t even that long ago. At last I speak. ‘Did you really call them bazookas?’
She grins, looking amused. ‘Yep. Norks, knockers, rack, jugs, melons. You got double points as a woman if you were willing to be disrespectful about your own body.’ She pauses.
‘Although, at least we didn’t have iPhones or social media when we were kids.
I thank god for that every day. Never mind the rest of it, I hate how synchronised we all are now – our watches are all linked to the bloody internet, you know?
No one ever knew the real, proper time back then and everyone’s mum kept the kitchen clock at least five minutes fast. It was nice. ’
I laugh. ‘I’m not sure I could cope with that. I’m terrified of being late for anything as it is.’
She raises an eyebrow. ‘Oh, mate, you couldn’t be late back then. If you were late, everyone would’ve already left Woolworths without you. You’d have missed all the shoplifting from the sweets’ section.’
I laugh again, then take a moment. ‘Do you think things have gotten any better?’ I ask seriously. ‘For women, I mean.’
She considers this. ‘No, not really.’ She shakes her head. ‘I think things are different for women now, but it seems sadly clear the likes of Trump and Tate have proved things aren’t any better for us.’
I nod sadly.
She goes on, ‘I think there was a small window of time, maybe ten years ago, where feminism got too powerful for them.’ She rests her head on a hand.
‘The patriarchy, I mean. We seemed like we were turning a corner. We had proper feminist icons to look up to. We were acknowledging the complicated feelings of being a woman. We had #MeToo, and we were starting to have proper conversations about intersectional feminism.’ She winces.
‘To me, it seems pretty obvious that men were feeling embattled and inconvenienced by having to examine something in detail that they’d never thought much about.
Even the decent ones didn’t like the movement because it made them feel embarrassed and ashamed to be reminded of their power and their privilege.
Not to mention that the status quo had suited them all for so long.
And we all know what powerful people do when they want to destroy a movement: they divide us up.
’ She shakes her head. ‘And they’ve done it so successfully since.
They convinced a whole subsection of feminists that their real enemy were trans women – how miserable is that?
That the real problem lay with who was using what loo, and whether a tiny minority of already vulnerable and suffering women had the correct genitalia.
And then the patriarchy told young women that every older woman was an awful TERF.
Then young women were labelled basic or pick me girls.
Then conservatives convinced another subsection of silly young women to reject feminism altogether and embrace being trad wives.
As if they ever could’ve even made that choice without feminism!
Oh, and then they piled in on women who speak up, calling them “Karens”.
’ She shakes her head again. ‘That whole Karen thing started out as a genuinely important conversation about white women misusing their power – it was a race issue – and now Karen has turned into something we label any woman who dares to be angry or moan.’ She shrugs.
‘I have a couple of friends who are actually called Karen, and you should see them bending over backwards to be nice and polite, and repress themselves, out of fear that their online namesake will hold true.’ She sighs.
‘It’s been very effective. We’ve been divided and conquered.
Feminism feels quite broken and confused again lately. ’
I listen to her impassioned speech with awe.
She’s right, of course she is. The patriarchy has somehow persuaded women to turn on each other.
It’s the same thing the rich and powerful right wing has done – told us to blame each other instead of them.
Blame immigrants, blame the even poorer than you, blame the vaccines, blame the conspiracy theorists, blame anyone except the billionaires.
‘Women have to be in this together,’ she continues with steel in her voice.
‘We can talk to men about allyship and being feminists all we like, but they’re not invested.
They can’t be trusted to really care, it’s not in their interest.’ She pauses.
‘Did you know, after Sarah Everard was murdered in 2021, thousands – thousands! – of men signed up for a feminist course called “Exploring Masculinities and Allyship Training for Men”. About ninety per cent then just… didn’t show up.
They signed up, took the credit, felt good about themselves, then went right back to pretending there is no problem.
They just don’t feel it in the same way.
They see us in their workplaces, they see us in government and speaking out in public – and they think we’re just being greedy asking for more.
They don’t know how insidious and sinister sexism still is. ’
I nod vigorously, feeling furious and self-righteous and powerful. I reach over to take her hand, and I squeeze it.
No wonder we’re all so fucking angry.