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Passion in Hulu's Rivals, Peril in True Crime & Periods in the Workplace (plus Persephone Books!)
26 Plays1 month ago
Boy, do we have a bumper bank holiday episode for you this week!!! We stay a little bit longer on the mic to discuss:
- Rivals - the Hulu adaptation of Jilly Cooper's bonkbusting Rutshire Chronicles
- Netflix's Should I Marry a Murderer and the gendered nature of true crime consumption
- A forgotten literary gothic horror gem, restored by Persephone Books in Bath, and method writing (like method acting but for creative writing!)
- And the Financial Times article published this week about cycle syncing in the workplace. You won't believe the comments section...
If you enjoy the show, please rate, review, subscribe and share - as it helps others find the pod :-)
Recommended
Transcript
Sunnybank holiday excitement
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to Notes App Correspondence, a podcast by two journalists who take on culture and current affairs. Hi Charlie! We're back and it's a Sunnybank holiday! It's so beautiful outside! It's stunning, it's gorgeous.
00:00:16
Speaker
It's you, if you were the weather. diva! Gosh! Oh my gosh, my head is going to explode. Thank you so much. How is your sunny, sunny morning going?
00:00:27
Speaker
It's going really, really well. um I'm recording from a very warm room and I do have one window open, so if you hear... um the alluring sounds of a cityscape. Just know that it's all part of the ambience. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, how is yours going?
00:00:45
Speaker
It's lovely, thank you. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, the flat is boiling, but that's okay.
Listener shoutouts
00:00:52
Speaker
we This is what what we were waiting for, so I shan't complain. It is.
00:00:57
Speaker
Well, do you have any people to shout out this week? I do I have a couple of shout outs for some of our friends. We have our wonderful friend Nikhil, who is not only the most loyal friend, but also a very loyal listener. And he said, I've just finished the third one. When is the fourth one out? I loved it. which is very sweet. Say thank you, Nikhil. Nikhil, thank you, Nikhil. You are, seriously, you are the best and we love you so much. Thank you for listening and thank you for always being by our side. And we couldn't get through, we couldn't get through life without you at this point. Let's be frank. That's not an exaggeration.
00:01:41
Speaker
but is there anyone else so i have a couple more actually we've had a good we've had a good week for feedback right comments um i have to give a shout out to katie nice hi katie who um said she said that she loved listening to the pod she loved the name and she found our voices very satisfying Katie, I knew I liked the sound of you for a
00:02:08
Speaker
Which is very, very sweet. And my third and final one is to our dear friend, Elena Damien. i don't, I'm so sorry if I'm butchering that surname, by the way. But um she said that she loved the pod. She has just started from the beginning, but she said it was very good. So we love her.
00:02:26
Speaker
Elena, you are one fabulous diva. Thank you for listening. And I can't wait to see you with the pub next. exactly Do you have any?
Influencer vs journalist content discussion
00:02:34
Speaker
So I actually have an anonymous message that came to us this week.
00:02:41
Speaker
And it said, have you watched Pandora Sykes's Rivals podcast thing? First one has Aidan Turner and Victoria Smurfett. I just think you two would have done a better job.
00:02:52
Speaker
Hell yeah. What a compliment. but What a lovely message. It's it's interesting because because that was our original raison d'etre. I mean, all tea no shade to Pandora Sykes, but we originally set out to do this podcast to redress the balance between celebrity influencer content trying to be journalistic adjacent versus actual journalist-led content. And I use content in want of a better word. Exactly. I thought that was really nice but it also leads on to our first topic which is Rivals on the television.
Rivals TV show analysis
00:03:29
Speaker
The second series is out, we're so back. Charlie are you watching it? So I actually haven't seen it but I i fear that I now simply must after hearing hoing you in your reviews of it so tell me more.
00:03:44
Speaker
Well, you don't just have to take my word for it. Here's what Air Mail have to say. They said, I don't really associate Disney, the children's streamer, with naked thrusting buttocks or orgies or nude tennis or dinner parties where the hosts stop rowing only to slope, quote, upstairs for a shag between courses, end quote.
00:04:05
Speaker
But let's just say having the first three screaming episodes of Rivals adapted from Jilly Cooper's novel, I bloody do now. This is an absolute bra off, knickers down production. Wonderful in its recreation of 80s detail. Oh my goodness.
00:04:24
Speaker
That is quite a review. I am, consider me convinced. Right? That's incredible. Bra off, knickers down. It's a hot girl summer.
00:04:38
Speaker
um so So I've been watching the first few episodes, at the time of recording, we're four episodes into the new series now. And I've just been reflecting this week on why it just feels so intoxicating and it's become so successful at this point in time.
00:04:55
Speaker
And I think it's down to a few reasons. Firstly, the cast is absolutely fantastic. We have David Tennant, our generation's favourite doctor, Aidan Turner, who, yeah, Aidan Turner, who was, of course, Poldark. Yes. Very, very popular with a certain female demographic, shall we say. I don't know what you mean. don't know what you mean. And also Danny Dyer, bizarrely, who plays a great character. i didn't really have him down as as ah a true great actor. Yes, a a great performer, absolutely. But this has really, i think, boosted his credibility as far as acting goes. so there's that.
00:05:40
Speaker
You also have the fact that the script is genuinely hilarious. I'm laughing all the way through. characterisation is so sharp. it's set in the Cotswolds and and of course for Americans in particular that feels like peak fantasy England you know you have the the rolling hills and the stately homes and the horses and the tweed and the inherited dysfunction and like beautiful English people behaving terribly um and so I think it kind of taps into their
00:06:16
Speaker
the American fetishisation of England and and what they feel like England is, which of course it's, I mean, that's one very small aspect of England and and admittedly, a very yes. And a very telegenic depiction of England.
Cultural shifts in Rivals
00:06:32
Speaker
But I think that's you know part of the reason why it works.
00:06:35
Speaker
Also, also think it's working for another reason because it's landed a decade after we as a society have spent optimizing the joy out of culture and I know that sounds a little dramatic but stay with me because I was thinking so much of life has been streamlined and muted both visually and socially you know fashion itself has become more neutral homes have gone through phases of Well, at first it was the millennial grey and now we're the millennial grey. It's disgusting. Put it away. Put it a grey. And now we're going through what's been what's been dubbed as the great beigeification and grey has been giving giving way to others, other kind of muted colours that aren't very vibrant. Yeah. And so I think a bit of the excess and the chaos feels very much like a welcome rebellion through this this sea of the clean girl lifestyle. goodness And I think we've seen examples of this being done really well over the last few years. For example, we've spoken about Zara Larson, who is total colour wow extravaganza. And then you had Brat Summer a few years ago, which was a moment that came out of
00:07:57
Speaker
you know it was totally hedonistic and decadent in amongst this sea of clean girls yeah and this quiet luxury obsession yeah exactly and it felt like a true redirection of where things were going but only for a moment but it worked well and rivals i mean nothing in this show is restrained whatsoever the colors um the saturation is so rich the show is so campy The emotions are very melodramatic and and the people are irrational and it's just so expressive.
Rivals' sexual content and cultural context
00:08:30
Speaker
What's also impossible to ignore is the extent to which this is just one unapologetic bonk buster, as as I think The Telegraph dubbed it. It's truly bonk busting. It's filled to the brim with sex scenes and people are sleeping with each other constantly. There are affairs, there's...
00:08:51
Speaker
Deep, deep yearning. Excellent. Flirtation. Like I said before, naked tennis. Yeah. um And yeah, nobody in Rivals seems capable of sitting in a room together without wanting to tear each other's clothes off. Okay.
00:09:06
Speaker
Which is not usually my thing. um so I have to say. um and it did take me back a bit because I think if you, well, if you think about contemporary television, especially since the Me Too era,
00:09:21
Speaker
sex on TV has become strangely complicated. And actually sex in real life has become strangely complicated complicated too because there's been a ah broader conversation over the past few years about how culture has become more sexually cautious and sanitised and thus sexless. yeah you know yeah We do have evidence that people themselves are having less sex. and yeah And studies across multiple countries have found declines in sexual frequency, particularly amongst younger people. So that would be Gen Z, Gen Z and millennials. um
00:10:01
Speaker
And that has accelerated since the pandemic. And so when I was thinking about this episode, i kept I kept coming back to the theory that in real life, everybody is hot and nobody is sexy anymore. Everybody's trying to be totally beautifully optimized to be hot, which kind of is taking the sex out of things and I know that sounds horribly judgmental but I actually do think that there is something in it because people are paying for fillers and other aesthetic treatments and surgeries more than ever before and I think the whole industry that whole industry just seems to keep pushing
00:10:39
Speaker
surgery to the absolute extremes and everybody knows their angles everybody's thinking about how they're going to look in photos all the time yeah you know we we've we've digested the concept
The allure of Rivals and its authenticity
00:10:52
Speaker
of aesthetic beauty in a way previous generations probably didn't because people are just taking pictures of themselves all day constantly and we're and we're seeing celebrities more than we have more access to how they look more than ever before too yeah um but But sexiness in its purest form is, of course, very different from that. You know, it's chemistry.
00:11:17
Speaker
It's messy. It's awkward. It's, you know, it's clunky. It's wanting something and letting that visible. And letting it be known that you want something. Yeah. And that's okay.
00:11:29
Speaker
That is one thing that Rivals absolutely understands. It's the messiness of desire and people wanting things often inadvisably. And the show... the show just lets them at it and Jilly Cooper's novels just let them at it. And these people, these characters make fools of themselves and they lust after one another in deeply messy ways. And I just think it's it's really interesting to see how people seem to love it I mean that's yeah people are loving the show yeah um and then when I was researching for this episode I came across um something that Gia Tolentino wrote uh she's one of my favorites I love her I think she's so cool but I haven't really stopped thinking about this she said I think sex is a sort of natural barometer of how welcome we feel in the world and okay if we think this is the anxious generation
00:12:24
Speaker
self-esteem feels like it's at an all-time low because of all the the reasons that I mentioned people are optimizing for self-beauty and we're constantly comparing ourselves to to flattened images of others in their best optimized form so maybe part of what feels so intoxicating about rivals is that we're imagining a world where desire just feels socially alive again and we can partake no matter who we are So yeah that's yeah, that's what I was thinking. That's what I've been thinking
Heatwave's impact on desirability
00:12:56
Speaker
today. love that.
00:12:58
Speaker
I love that. It's refreshing. It's so refreshing. It's a nice reminder that you can be messy and you can be sexy and you can be a little bit promiscuous. And we need to bring back promiscuity, I think, and a little bit of flirtiness. Where has it gone? Bring it back. Bring it back. Yeah, don't be afraid to make a fool of yourself because that is sexy. That's what it's about.
00:13:22
Speaker
do you know what? It got me thinking when you were saying that, how you can find kind of sexiness in in so many aspects of life. And even just before we were talking about this ridiculous heat wave that we're facing right now, and it it's the hottest day on record for May ever, but there's something very sexy about this like sticky, sultry heat that we're in that feels like, you know, you can't possibly...
00:13:48
Speaker
look perfect because you're struggling, you're literally battling the elements and it's just this sticky sexiness. I love it. That reminds me of, did you ever read Ian McEwan's Atonement? Yes. And the summer is just so hot and I think he perfectly captures why...
00:14:10
Speaker
the events that unfolded happened because of the heat. The English summer heat played so much of a role in that um in that presentation of the story. yeah Gosh, i need to read that book again. That was great.
00:14:23
Speaker
now this is Yeah, I need to reread this. Our next Foils Friday, let's look for a new edition. So true. For listeners, on the payday Friday of every month, We go to Foils in Waterloo Station. Because we know how to party.
00:14:37
Speaker
Because we know how to party and we treat ourselves to one book. We get a nice lunch. We talk about why we picked that book. It's lovely. You should all start doing this. Yeah, come with us. Last time we brought our friend ed yeah and he bought Slaughterhouse-Five. He did. And I think he was thrilled to be invited.
00:14:55
Speaker
He was feeling delirious that day, I think. Yeah. Listeners, ah you can you can interpret invited as dragged along if you would like. That's rather what it was. but It's like the meme of Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler. that's like that me and that one guy I forced to be my friend that's Ed is our Adam yeah
Introduction to Caroline Muirhead true crime series
00:15:19
Speaker
and Ed you're welcome ah you're so welcome Ed i know you're probably not like listening but you're so welcome it okay on to segment two what have you been thinking about this week Charlie so in a similar vein in the sense that it's
00:15:34
Speaker
television consumption and that is where the similarity ends great i have been watching something rather different and in fact was put onto this show by our dear friend nikil who you mentioned this um the show is should i marry a murderer should you well evidently is the age-old question no we've been we've been we've always said this we've always asked this exactly I'm so glad they finally addressed it. Yeah. Um, so
00:16:07
Speaker
while um so I must admit, i was rather, um, reluctant to watch this, but just based off of the, um, the very little imagery that I'd seen of it on, on Netflix. When you go on, um, I had presumed that this was a U S true crime show. and No shade to US true crime shows, actually perhaps a little bit, but I find them quite, to be quite slow in their pacing and to be very dramatic in their editing, which is fine and sometimes works well for certain things, but I do find that they, they can just be a little bit slow for my liking.
00:16:50
Speaker
Anyway, turns out this is a UK true crime. So this case took place in Scotland a few years ago. It's only three parts. which is lovely because I hate when they drag these things out. So this is British true crime documentary mini series. It was released last month. So I am a little bit late to the party. But as I said, I was a bit reluctant to watch it. And it follows the story of Caroline Muirhead. Now that's a Scottish surname. So I don't know if I've pronounced that right, but stay with me. We need to get our Scottish fact checker and Mags Taylor, if you're listening.
00:17:24
Speaker
Get on in here. Mags, please help us. So this woman is a pathologist. She's very well accomplished in her own life. But she, in her personal life, goes through a kind of, I think it's about nine-year-long, very traumatic relationship. And that ends. And she's feeling very traumatized by how that ended. And she very quickly thereafter enters into an engagement with a Scottish farmer. His name's Alexander McKellar.
00:17:54
Speaker
They referred him as Sandy. He confesses to her after a couple of months of dating in 2020 that he and his twin brother had killed a cyclist in a hit and run and then they had panicked and buried the body.
00:18:09
Speaker
Also, I must apologize if you heard that background noise of a car rumbling. um Although it was rather apt for me to mention it mention a hit and run and have that in the back. Yeah. The car was a paid actor.
00:18:22
Speaker
But no cyclists were harmed in the making of this
Muirhead's moral dilemma and police criticism
00:18:25
Speaker
podcast. We must put that out there. But, you know, the budget for the show has gone up, guys. We have... That's so funny. But not to trivialise the subject matter, but that is hilarious. um So, yes, as we're safe,
00:18:40
Speaker
They panic and they bury the body on their estate, on their farm farmland. He tells his newfound fiancé this and the rest of her kind of story, I suppose, is her grappling with what to do and how to deal with this. She's absolutely head over heels for this man and he's about to give her everything that she wanted in her last relationship and didn't get. um But now she has this awful secret of his that she has to, I suppose, choose to either keep with him and live with that
00:19:13
Speaker
guilt um despite not having partaken in any of it, or turn him in and say goodbye to this life that she has been searching for. She, thankfully, does what I think we can all agree is the right thing, and does inform the police. Phew. Girl, you've got to get out of there.
00:19:33
Speaker
yeah yeah. I think, you know, that everyone loves a bad boy, but you know. you're not a fucking terrorist though, Chris. No, Chris. That is the epitome of that That's the summary of this case, really. That goggle that one goggle box meme that's still funny.
00:19:50
Speaker
Lives on forever. But yeah, so she does tell the police. And I think what happens, it turns into this really interesting kind of questioning of her morality and her character. The police...
00:20:05
Speaker
obviously tell her to stay away from him. That doesn't really happen. um and I won't you know spoil the ins and outs of it but she she does still stay in contact with him and it becomes this questioning of of her morality and her judgment um and also this questioning of what makes a vulnerable witness there's a lot of discussion from the police in this case around how accomplished she is and how clever she is she's a doctor herself you know and there's a lot of
00:20:37
Speaker
she should have known better. And she's not a vulnerable witness because she's a very smart, intelligent woman and she has a good life and she has her own home, et cetera, et cetera. So it's this questioning of, you know, what, I suppose, what creates that vulnerability? And is there's a lot of debate around, you know, her actions, many of which I personally don't agree with. But I think there is something to be said around the kind of complete lack of protection from the police in this instance. It's almost like we know them to be crap. Exactly. i know. I mean, this is just... Did we need any more proof?
00:21:18
Speaker
I don't know. If the cops have no haters, I'm dead. I'm gone. I want that stance to be known. this is i want that stance to be to be known yeahp So they they, of course, they don't do anything to help her. Her fiance knows where she lives, but he also knows where her parents live.
00:21:38
Speaker
um She does repeatedly ask for help. That, of course, gets ignored. um In fact, at one point, which i I do think was the most egregious part of this, they she's staying with her fiance.
00:21:52
Speaker
they The police burst in at night and um out her as their key witness in front of him. And then they leave and they don't arrest him. So he is now in this house with her in the knowledge that she did this. And he's obviously an incredibly dangerous man. So it's just, I mean, it's just absolutely ridiculous. The head of homicide and major crime for Scotland at that time, his name's David Green. I'm a big hater. ah um
00:22:23
Speaker
I am the opposite of a fan of your work. ah And he kind of, he makes comments the whole time being saying he would have run a mile, kind of regarding her return to to her fiance.
00:22:36
Speaker
And he stands by the decision not to provide any protection. He says that their relationship hadn't been a long one. He explains that she was a highly intelligent, fully qualified doctor. um You know, personally, I wasn't aware that the Hippocratic Oath protects you from the wrath of a murderous fiancé, but, you know. Gosh, why didn't we know that, Charlie?
00:22:56
Speaker
whi are we the clowns? Are we the idiots? LAUGHTER I don't know, would we be vulnerable? And there's been a lot of talk online about both sides of this case. And interestingly, a lot of people seem to be taking the side that she should have known better and should have acted differently. And yes, there are times where you, where you of course, hugely question her decisions, but...
00:23:23
Speaker
We're not the ones in this situation and we're not the ones receiving no support. And I just think the dialogue around it is really quite concerning.
True crime entertainment discomfort
00:23:32
Speaker
Yeah, so i would I would recommend if you are interested in true crime, I don't know if you do enjoy that as a genre.
00:23:38
Speaker
Do you? you know what? i i don't. Historically, I don't. Just because have found it very uncomfortable to see primarily women, actually, Treat yeah people's horror stories and and really difficult moments in their life and, yeah you know, sometimes disgusting, always horrifying as entertainment. And yeah morally, that just never really did sit right with me. But of course, there there are always exceptions to the rule. yeah I loved the Theranos case. And I guess you could say that was true crime. I loved what i loved keeping up with it, I should say. it's not It's not great what happened, and I'm really sorry to the victims. Loved that case. but
00:24:20
Speaker
Yeah, loved that case. Brilliant. Great value. Great entertainment value. Brilliant, yes. Run it, run it. Run the story. i think it's... um No, that is a really... It's a really interesting point, isn't it? Because I think...
00:24:34
Speaker
it's easy to, it's a little bit easier to feel more comfortable when it is the person telling their own story. Obviously, yes naturally, there is still this huge power dynamic of, oh, okay, well, it's a fucking Netflix production. So, you know, who really is profiting off of it? I doubt it's her. ah um I think it's really interesting. And I,
00:25:00
Speaker
it's a really difficult moral question to grapple with. I think, especially in the context of true crime being like hugely female in terms of its audience, which I think is is a difficult one to reconcile why. i often think like, I'm not sure why it skews so heavily towards women. I think the stats are like something about eight like 80% of kind of shows and podcasts are female in their audience composition. 80%! That's so high!
00:25:31
Speaker
I know, it's ridiculous. I read a really, um a kind of study of this in in preparation for for our chat and I really disliked a lot of the kind of qualitative research around this kind of tried to explain away that percentage by saying that it feels redemptive empathetic nature and I just absolutely despise that explanation yeah It's like, that can't be 80%. Yeah,
00:26:03
Speaker
yeah I feel like pinpointing anything on women being more empathetic is a slippery slope into women taking more responsibility for these kinds of things and and more responsibility for the fallout. um So I really don't love that, which is quite popular narrative online. When I was trying to interrogate this myself and think like, okay, well, why...
00:26:25
Speaker
Why is it so ridiculously high? Part of me wonders if it has to do with a kind of subconscious safety, research, desire. Because I think that's when I interrogated my own kind of interest in it. I think that's, for me, where it comes from. Obviously, we know women are much more likely to experience violent crime.
00:26:44
Speaker
the number of homicides in the UK. Homicides skew largely towards men, it must be said. About 72% of homicide victims are male. But any other violent crime has a huge kind of skew towards female victims. So, you know, they're much more likely to experience domestic abuse, um stalking, sexual assault and harassment. So I do wonder if there's a kind of subconscious strive for preparation or, you know, awareness around how these things happen.
00:27:12
Speaker
But yeah. I thought that was an interesting take for for these various reviews to to purely purely lean on their empathy nature. Yeah, that's really, well, that's just stupid. Yeah.
00:27:25
Speaker
But really interesting, really, really interesting. Yeah, I thought so. I thought so. a little bit dark, but that's okay.
Victorian Chase Long book discussion
00:27:33
Speaker
There are light and dark in all of us. Exactly. This is why we're such big fans of horror, so, you know. Yes! And how how is your... How is the Victorian Chase Long coming along?
00:27:44
Speaker
Oh my goodness, I have just finished it. Really? I loved that book. um For context, listeners, this was an absolutely incredible, very, very thoughtful birthday gift from one of my absolute best friends. um He's in the room as we speak. Oh, is spoiler alert, it's me. What a boon. It was so incredibly thoughtful. And unfortunately, um I had only just gotten around to reading this, given that my...
00:28:14
Speaker
reading stack grows ever longer which is the best possible complaint exactly which i must preface is is such an incredible problem to have so um but i absolutely loved that book the premise yeah the this book follows it's gothic horror-esque i I can say, i think. It follows the main character, Melanie, who is suffering from tuberculosis, has just given birth. She's on bed rest and she gets very excited when the doctor eventually tells her she can move away from the bed and into the day room. This is very exciting news for ah for our heroine of the story. So she moves from the bed and she is relocated to the Victorian Chase Long that she purchased in a kind of
00:29:03
Speaker
vintage store with her fiancé. Unfortunately for her, this is this is rather where the excitement ends. For as soon as she does move to this, the issue that we have with the chaise longue is she's transported back to various points of the chaise longue's life and history and its its previous... um What do you call someone who sits on a chaise longue?
00:29:30
Speaker
It's previous sitters. It's previous sitters, exactly.
00:29:35
Speaker
And she becomes stuck in their lives and doesn't know how to find her way back. So it's very... um It's really interesting. And I think it's very ominous in the way that it's written. um It's very Daphne du Maurier-esque, who, you know, huge fan of your work. Legend a lot. And...
00:30:02
Speaker
and The background as to the writing of this book is so interesting. In order to get into this headspace, the author really felt that she needed to scare herself. So she hires out this like incredibly remote house. um I think it's in the countryside near Bath. It has virtually no amenities. It has no electricity. It has no light. There's no safety. There's and she's very isolated. Spooky. And it's very spooky. And she writes the whole thing there, which I think is amazing because it really translates into this, into the feeling of the book and into the kind of um dread that you feel in the writing. That's so cool. That's, yeah it's kind of like method acting, but for writing. Method writing. Method and writing. If only I could just hire out a little house. Yeah, let's go.
00:30:59
Speaker
decide we could um use the excuse that we're writing a summer rom-com to book a nice holiday and we have to do it it's for our work it's for what it is we are writers after all and i mean it's we could we could get a tax write oh yes hmrc cover your ears
00:31:20
Speaker
um That's really cool though. That sounds amazing. What a gripping what a gripping read that sounds like. I will say as well, for anyone who is interested in reading this book, I bought it on a trip to Bath City Centre and it's from Persephone Books who are an independent publisher who find forgotten female authors of the past and they resurrect
Persephone Books recommendation
00:31:46
Speaker
the writer's works and replenish our canon with these forgotten women who should never have been forgotten in the first place. And they really, they publish some really quirky and interesting stuff. So I would really recommend if you're looking for a present for a friend or yourself.
00:32:05
Speaker
And they're presented so beautifully as well. Every book comes with its own pattern and you get a matching bookmark in that individual pattern. So shout out to Persephone Books.
00:32:16
Speaker
love your work big fan of your work i think well i think we simply must go we'll go back we'll pick a trip yes and maybe that's our maybe that can be our our tax rate hell yes but we've also been reading something else this week that came up in office very relevant to the office environment and or to any working environment. This is true.
00:32:42
Speaker
There was an article in the Financial Times this week and the headline was the women quote, cycle syncing their workflows. This has caused a lot of controversy.
Cycle syncing controversy
00:32:53
Speaker
Essentially, this is the cycle syncing is the idea that women align certain kinds of work to different phases of their menstrual cycle. As we know, hormones fluctuate across the month,
00:33:07
Speaker
And for many women, those fluctuations can be very painful and they can affect things like concentration and sleep and energy and sociability and confidence and mood and mental clarity and and the list goes on. So on and so forth. The list goes on. um And I think that bit of biology is not controversial. We know that is a fact. We know this to be true. And for those, actually, it might be worth saying for those who aren't totally fait with the intricacies of the menstrual cycle, we have the menstrual phase, firstly, which begins on the first day of your period. And at this point, estrogen and progesterone are at their lowest. And for a lot of women, this can feel very physically draining.
00:33:52
Speaker
After that comes the follicular phase where estrogen begins to rise. And many women describe feeling more energized and more motivated, more mentally switched on and sharper socially, et cetera, et cetera.
00:34:07
Speaker
Then you have ovulation, which is when the hormones are at their peak. Energy often peaks here too. Your confidence can feel higher. and And there are some that say that they look their hottest because biologically your body wants to optimize your looks to increase your chance of a...
00:34:25
Speaker
um Mating, I guess. see Mating. um It's bodily looks maxing. It's biological looks maxing. I don't know how how much truth there is to to actual...
00:34:40
Speaker
you look hotter, you look physically more attractive, but I think you'd certainly feel it. yeah I looked in the mirror and I was like, there is something different. But I think if you feel hotter, then you do look hotter because you're acting more confident. God, you're so right.
00:34:56
Speaker
And that is always hot. Confidence is always hot. Confidence is always hot and sexy. That's why Rivals are so hot hot and sexy. Those characters are confident as hell. But then comes the luteal phase. Pride really does come before a fall um because this this can really be hell.
00:35:15
Speaker
um And this hell yeah this particular hell has been and is totally memeable. um And so you can you can find um esoteric women's Instagram meme pages which talk about the luteal phase and...
00:35:28
Speaker
This is where progesterone rises and then eventually crashes if pregnancy doesn't happen. a Speaking from experience, but this is also backed by scientific evidence. You know, this causes mood swings, bloating, irritability, fatigue, anxiety, sadness, which is kind of heartbreaking, um and insomnia and rage and all of the above. And and i I think if you're susceptible to this, there is a feeling looming over you during that phase that...
Backlash against cycle syncing article
00:35:57
Speaker
everything just feels like an uphill battle and everything feels impossible. And before anyone listening thinks this does sound suspiciously like astrology for so women with period tracker calendars, this I need to reiterate, and I think it's important context, that this has been backed by science and also personal experience from women across the board, women in general.
00:36:23
Speaker
Now, I think to you and i Charlie, That's totally ordinary yeah and and easy to accept. yeah But the backlash on the comments section of this article from Financial Times readers, no less, and and not Daily Mail natives, has been truly mind-boggling and also disconcerting. It's just disgusting, isn't it? I mean, and these are just people that clearly have no...
00:36:48
Speaker
Intermux. I'm sorry, i have to hear it. I'm ashamed. picked out some of the standout comments. The first was, a what believable twaddle. So women are equal to men. So why would you not have women in the army, et cetera, et cetera. Just imagine, Sergeant, the enemy is attacking.
00:37:06
Speaker
Oh dear, that is so inconvenient. I'm ovulating right now. Can you please ask them to come back in a couple of days? I mean, the vast majority of historical and contemporary conflicts have been started by men and not women. um so and also if you are ovulating i'm ready to go to war i'm ready to fight so you didn't read the article that well sir so i must say i do remember that comment as well and i believe the username had some had guru in it oh i must say i don't think you're a guru of anything name and shame guru idiot guru
00:37:42
Speaker
And here was another one. It's rather funny how feminists appeal to equality when it suits them, but resort to this type of shamelessness when the cultural environment offers little pushback to their delusions.
00:37:53
Speaker
We all know how these types would respond if male workers justified any of their actions with references with reference to their hormones. and this is from someone they yeah they do all the time And this is from someone calling themselves king of the universe. That was that was their user handle.
00:38:08
Speaker
um Which... apologies for the cackle there, listeners, but come on, let's be serious. Idiot sandwich. I mean, these comments are just so strange. And and firstly, I think a lot of the time they've men have confused the fight for equality, for gender equality.
00:38:26
Speaker
And they take that to mean that we think men and women should be treated as biologically interchangeable. yeah um Which thus gives them an excuse to say vile things on a good day on a bad day, it gives them the excuse to do worse. Yeah. um I mean, I remember when I was younger and I haven't heard this in a while to be fair, but the the juvenile response is, well, I should be able to hit a woman then if that's... You're right. I haven't heard that in a long time, but in the school playground, it used to be...
00:38:57
Speaker
and It used to be their their whole mantra. You heard it so much. But there were also some comments from women that I think are important. There was one. I used to hope like hell that our six-hour executive committee meetings would not coincide with my early 50s very heavy periods because jumping up every hour to visit the bathroom would not have been acceptable. Miraculously, it only happened once. It's just so sad. That is really sad. And it's it's just...
00:39:25
Speaker
a reminder that these things are never, or I should say very rarely, factored in to any kind of corporate environment. god um it's too inconvenient it's too inconvenient yeah back to the men's comments though I think you know if we accept that sleep affects productivity the burnout affects productivity nutrition affects productivity exercise affects productivity like why is it suddenly so absurd to suggest that hormonal fluctuations might affect how people feel at work It just screams ignorance, doesn't it? And I think such deliberate, willful ignorance as well, because you just read a whole researched article about this topic. And we're still arguing that you know better.
00:40:10
Speaker
Of course they do. Of course they do. They're men. Of course they know better. Of course. Of course they do. But it's ah it's like you were saying that we've created professional environments where women are except expected to be biologically invisible. And then we seem surprised...
00:40:27
Speaker
when women start trying to engineer solutions for themselves. And of course, women's health, women's reproductive health yeah has been so disproportionately under-researched, underfunded, and we have medical misogyny to thank for that. yeah But I guess medical misogyny itself stems from patriarchy, yeah the Black Heart of which is all about flattening and subjugating women.
00:40:51
Speaker
And we know the patriarchy is alive and well, so perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that these comments on this article exist.
Patriarchy and skepticism of cycle syncing
00:40:57
Speaker
But it's like, it feels like if they see us start fighting back, it's like whack-a-mole. Like they've got to get they've gotta to get us every single time. and and And the goalposts are tirelessly changing the women at all points.
00:41:12
Speaker
I also must just question, I think, why in the first place, these commenters, you know, the kings of the universe and the gurus and whatnot, have any type of issue with this because it it actually, it so clearly doesn't affect you. i know. And that's fine.
00:41:30
Speaker
But why do you have a problem with it? I think we need to ask, it if it doesn't affect you and your life, why on earth do you care if women start doing this? It's because they, their heart is full of hatred for women.
00:41:44
Speaker
And yeah I forget this sometimes because I surround myself with really, really lovely men. Hi, Ed. Hi, Nikhil. But then you go on online and you just you remember just how insidiously present misogyny is still to this day. And it's it's easy to forget when you log off and you... Admittedly, I'm in a bit of an echo chamber. But i think, you know, it you're absolutely right because it is...
00:42:16
Speaker
It's hard to imagine views like that still still persist and are so strongly felt and so kind of self-righteous that they think that they can comment that online in the first place. It's really hard to remember that those people exist when you do surround yourself with people who are full of love and are full of light and don't feel the need to punish women for... For existing. Yeah, for insert your reason of the day here. but Yeah. Yeah, honestly. Yeah.
00:42:45
Speaker
But I think it's it's really what we can take away from this in a positive light is it's really encouraging to see this article in the first place. I think it's a really great thing that this conversation is being had. And hopefully this article, you know, it's in the FT. So the people that read it are the people that are in these corporate environments often where this conversation is important and needed. So one can only hope that this has led to discussions in offices around the world um around how to be better. This is something that i I mean, I personally have been doing for a really long time when it comes to things like exercise or the gym or other facets of your life that can be planned around
00:43:26
Speaker
how you're feeling at different stages. For example, if you if few lift weights, they're going to feel heavier. If you're, you know, one one week to the next, they're going to feel completely different and that's okay. um And you just have to kind of know how to plan for that. And I think, I know of a lot of women that do that in the gym as well and will kind of cycle sync their workout schedule in accordance, but it's really encouraging to see it being discussed in in a corporate environment too.
00:43:57
Speaker
Obviously, the only downside is I'm sure for many people it won't be possible. I'm sure many environment like work environments won't allow for that. We're fortunate enough that ours probably would to a degree and our schedules are quite self-planned.
00:44:12
Speaker
anyway so that's quite a good thing but actually from kind of a journalist perspective it would be really interesting to kind of self-research when you feel better at cold calling or when you feel better at doing news and more confident i think that would be really interesting maybe we can do a little self-project yeah that's really that would be really interesting yeah And then we can just keep pissing off those men, which frankly is a fringe benefit. Yeah, king king of the universe and guri man. We're coming for you. Yeah, stay tuned because you're going to want to hear this.
00:44:47
Speaker
The conversation isn't over. the conversation isn't over. It's also been interesting. I should say cycle thinking as a concept hasn't just cropped out of nowhere in the in the modern age, hasn't just cropped out of this world.
00:45:01
Speaker
um FT article. I've been seeing this kind of TikTok content for a while, but there has been, on the flip side, arguments from feminist women saying that this kind of thinking is actually a pipeline to becoming a trad wife. So for those who aren't aware, trad... whiffery?
00:45:22
Speaker
Trad whiffery is an internet subculture and it's a far-right ideology where women subscribe to and promote gender roles from the mid 20th century and and how we understood gender back then. So, you know, women should be homemakers.
00:45:39
Speaker
And they should defer to their husbands as the head of the household and and as the primary breadwinner. So people have identified that this is is becoming a slippery slope to that
Cycle syncing in women's sports
00:45:51
Speaker
pipeline. At first, you're talking about hormones, and then you're in an ideology of leaning into femininity and yeah expand to meaning retreating into supposedly, quote, natural roles of biological human behaviour and I guess you know feminism as a as a movement has been fighting for decades around the definitions or around men trying to define what a woman should be what a woman is and I understand why people are suspicious of that but I also think personally dismissing cycle thinking because of those accusations
00:46:33
Speaker
misses the point, you know, as someone who has suffered very badly with PMDD, which is premenstrual dysphoric disorder, which is a severe and i guess negative form of PMS. And I did find it genuinely decimating, you know, I can tell you from experience, it was totally bleak. My whole body was totally at the mercy of my luteal phase in really, really horrible ways. And when I sought medical advice, I was told my only options were going back on the pill or have a hysterectomy. I'm i'm not, I wish I was exaggerating. um So what what are we supposed to do?
00:47:12
Speaker
you know medicine does remain under-researched if the support is still patchy and if people are struggling to function i think it seems fairly inevitable that women would start paying attention to their own patterns like you've just suggested and trying to build their lives around what they notice and that doesn't feel anti-feminist to me and if anything it does feel deeply feminist but I guess like with anything you have to come at things through a critical lens and you have to be totally wary because when you don't if you if you don't stay conscious of that that's when patriarchy festers and patriarchy is a constant battle neutrality rewards it and you
00:47:56
Speaker
you have to constantly be thinking about these things all the time. And feminism has to, equality and feminism has to be an active process. Operative word being active.
00:48:07
Speaker
Absolutely. i I can't believe that's the medical advice that you would give. And i'm I'm just so taken aback by that. It was horrifying. it was horrifying. My mum's reaction was... Is that even legal? That reminds me of, which is not at all the same thing, but when I was about 14, I could not stop crying. And I just didn't cry all the time, which was absolutely bloody mortifying. just, for whatever reason, any emotion, my body just...
00:48:41
Speaker
any emotion my body just process that through the medium of tears such a pricey and I mean that in the best way i know similarly looking for help went to the doctors and I explained this and i was like I don't sorry I don't know what the hell is happening like whatever kind of yeah like hormonal stage I'm going through and you know As an adolescent, obviously, that's, you know, in fluctuation all the time as well. So that didn't help, certainly. But I don't know what solution I was looking for. But the solution I was offered was the pill, which is so incredibly frustrating because was bloody 14 years old. like think but that's the It's like a plaster. It's like when you were in early years at school and you could have broken your leg and they would have said, put a wet paper towel on it. Yeah.
00:49:30
Speaker
The pill is the equivalent of that. Yeah. Have you tried putting ice on it? Yeah. And there are incredibly successful people, it must be said, who already cycle sync.
00:49:41
Speaker
I'm going to shout out Lioness Lucy Bronze. She famously cycle syncs her training schedule. Oh, cool. has given several interviews about this throughout the years, to the extent now where the Chelsea women's football team, they tailor every player's training schedule to each player's individual menstrual cycle which is amazing yeah so that's really cool and i will now be petitioning for Arsenal to do the same yes and if you're listening to this and you have loads of disposable cash and you're feeling philanthropic why don't you put it towards research into women's health women's reproductive health because lord knows we need it And I actually should say i'm in credit to the FT because they did kind of address this was, you know, it did have a caveat at the end. And that said, we have to be careful not to imply there are days of the month when women aren't capable, says Claire Knox, founder of consultancy See Her Thrive, which offers hormone smart workshops for workplaces. She also said, it's not poor little weak women who have all these problems. It's let me work in alignment with my body.
00:50:49
Speaker
Yeah, well done, FT. You did your thing with that one.
00:50:57
Speaker
I think, okay. You've been listening to Notes App Correspondence.