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Transcript

Who’s Carrying the Mental Load? | Ash BG | F*ck, I’m Nearly 50! · F*ck, I’m Nearly 50!

0:00
Dom Hind: Hi, I'm Dom Hind, and fuck, I'm nearly 50.
0:02
Dom Hind: And lately I found myself thinking a lot about women, men, our kids, and the culture we're creating around them.
0:10
Dom Hind: Because some of the stories coming out of Sydney recently involving young people and sexual violence have been incredibly confronting.
0:19
Dom Hind: And underneath all the headlines is a much bigger question.
0:23
Dom Hind: Where does this actually start?
0:26
Dom Hind: Because surely we can't wait until something terrible happens before we start talking about respect, misogyny, entitlement, and equality.
0:34
Dom Hind: Maybe it starts much, much earlier.
0:37
Dom Hind: In our homes, in our relationships, in who carries the mental load, who compromises their career, who remembers everything, who gets listened to, and what our sons and daughters absorb from watching it all.
0:52
Dom Hind: Today's guest, Ash BG, is the writer and founder behind You Wanted This, where she talks honestly about motherhood, relationships, misogyny, the mental load, and the things women are often thinking but not saying out loud.
1:08
Dom Hind: She's also the creator of Tether, an app designed to make the invisible labour visible and help couples understand who is actually carrying what.
1:17
Dom Hind: And recently she's been using her platform to speak very directly about sectional violence and what's happening amongst young people in Sydney.
1:26
Dom Hind: Because if we want to raise boys who respect women, perhaps we also need to ask, what are they seeing happen to women every day?
1:35
Dom Hind: And what are we modelling for them at home?
1:38
Dom Hind: Because fuck, I'm nearly 50, and isn't it amazing.
1:42
Dom Hind: Ash B G writes about things women are apparently not supposed to say out loud.
2:00
Dom Hind: That motherhood can be wonderful, but also infuriating, that you can love your partner and sometimes wonder whether life would actually be easier without them.
2:11
Dom Hind: That the mental load is real, that unpaid labor matters, that misogyny has hasn't disappeared just because we talk about equality.
2:22
Dom Hind: And that when another story about sexual violence involving young people emerges, we need to stop treating it as an isolated incident and start talking or and asking much harder questions about the culture surrounding our kids.
2:38
Dom Hind: What I really like about Ash is what she does is she doesn't just talk about these things.
2:45
Dom Hind: She's trying to do something about them.
2:48
Dom Hind: She's created Tether to take one of the most emotionally loaded arguments inside relationships, who actually does more, and replaces perception with data.
2:59
Dom Hind: I love data.
3:00
Dom Hind: Or the let me just redo that one again.
3:04
Dom Hind: And lately she has been using her platform to talk very directly about women, boys, men, misogyny, and sexual violence.
3:12
Dom Hind: Some people will agree with everything she says, some definitely won't, which is exactly why I wanted to talk to her.
3:20
Dom Hind: Ash Bijou.
3:21
Dom Hind: Welcome to Fuck I'm Nearly 50.
3:24
Ash BG: Thank you for having me.
3:25
Dom Hind: Great that you're here.
3:26
Dom Hind: Um, you've written about everything from mental load to misogyny to sexual violence.
3:32
Dom Hind: What do you think all of those conversations actually have in common?
3:38
Ash BG: Men.
3:38
Ash BG: Yeah.
3:39
Ash BG: Okay.
3:40
Ash BG: So in all of my writing and my research and all the conversations that I have with the people around me, whether that's friends or colleagues or peers, or whether it's interviews, or whether it's academics that I've interviewed for pieces that I'm writing, the same theme is popping up in all of them.
4:03
Ash BG: Yeah.
4:04
Ash BG: And it's men.
4:06
Ash BG: It's that men need to do better.
4:08
Ash BG: Okay.
4:08
Ash BG: And I think that all men?
4:10
Ash BG: All men.
4:10
Ash BG: And I feel like that's probably what this conversation we have today is going to keep coming back to.
4:16
Ash BG: Yeah.
4:17
Ash BG: But what are our expectations of men in 2026 and beyond?
4:22
Dom Hind: Yeah.
4:23
Ash BG: What are men doing now?
4:24
Ash BG: And what do we need to see them do in the future?
4:28
Dom Hind: Do you also think that is, you know, and and I even just listening to you, I go, okay, yep.
4:34
Dom Hind: The we let people or men get away with things where we hold ourselves or women, like it's so interesting how ruthless women are against other women.
4:48
Dom Hind: Absolutely.
4:49
Dom Hind: And the expectations and the standards that we hold for other women.
4:54
Dom Hind: Do you think we hold those same expectations and standards for men?
4:57
Ash BG: Absolutely not.
4:58
Ash BG: Do you know that every time, well, so I post a lot of divisive contents.
5:02
Ash BG: It shouldn't be divisive.
5:03
Ash BG: Because what I'm saying is that men and women deserve to be equal.
5:06
Ash BG: Women deserve to feel safe in their own home.
5:09
Ash BG: I don't think that should be divisive.
5:11
Ash BG: Um, but it gets some people really riled up.
5:15
Ash BG: And so many of the comments, when I'm talking about things like, you know, domestic violence in a relationship, or even a woman carrying more at home and feeling that resentment build in her marriage.
5:27
Ash BG: Yeah.
5:27
Ash BG: The answer is so often through the commentary, like through comments that I get, well, she should have picked better.
5:34
Ash BG: Or even when we're talking about dangerous men, do you know that so many of the comments that come through about like how his mother treated him?
5:43
Ash BG: We are putting so much of the blame on women.
5:47
Ash BG: Yeah.
5:47
Ash BG: And we're not holding men accountable enough.
5:50
Ash BG: That's what I believe.
5:51
Dom Hind: It's interesting, and I know we will get to it, but you're right.
5:53
Dom Hind: Even in the incident that happened last week with the the boys, the three 14, 13-year-old boys and the 13-year-old girl, I I heard an older man say to me, wait until you hear what comes out about the girl.
6:09
Dom Hind: And I was like, that's not okay.
6:11
Dom Hind: Like it's actually just not okay.
6:14
Ash BG: Oh my god.
6:15
Ash BG: Anyway, but so yes, let's fury any starting this with an appropriate amount of rage.
6:21
Ash BG: Yeah, but that's that's exactly, and this again, we're talking about blaming women, that's blaming a child.
6:28
Dom Hind: Yeah, a thir a 14-year-old.
6:30
Ash BG: Like a teenage girl, but let's also call them what they are, children.
6:34
Dom Hind: Children.
6:34
Dom Hind: Yeah, they are children.
6:36
Dom Hind: Yes.
6:36
Dom Hind: Okay, so the anger.
6:38
Dom Hind: Um so um there is a lot of anger running through your work, uh, not performative outrage.
6:47
Dom Hind: Um, it feels more like frustration.
6:50
Dom Hind: What are women angry and frustrated about?
6:55
Ash BG: Do you know what's so funny?
6:56
Ash BG: When I started this, you know, journey of being uh well, I've always been a writer, but becoming a content creator and sharing on social media and starting with Substark, I started with a TikTok account and I was gonna create some baby-led weaning content.
7:12
Ash BG: They had a baby at the time, and I was gonna post some recipes and just share, like, you know, the ups and downs of motherhood.
7:20
Ash BG: And it got dark really quickly.
7:22
Ash BG: Oh, really?
7:23
Ash BG: But I don't know what I was thinking, like I'm a pretty serious person.
7:28
Ash BG: Yeah.
7:28
Ash BG: I'm like that person that you don't want to bring to a dinner party where everybody will be having fun and I'll like bring down the mood.
7:34
Ash BG: So I don't know what I was thinking.
7:36
Ash BG: But I guess ultimately what happened was the more that I wrote about motherhood, the more this sense of inequality within my own relationship just continued to pop up.
7:48
Ash BG: You know, and there was so much resentment there.
7:50
Ash BG: There's something called the traditionalizing effect on motherhood, which is that it's it's basically explaining how you can be in the most progressive relationship and all of a sudden you have a baby.
8:04
Ash BG: And this happens specifically for first-time mums.
8:06
Ash BG: All of a sudden you have a baby, and immediately those gender norms are at play in your relationship.
8:13
Ash BG: And all of a sudden you turn around and think, How did I get here?
8:16
Ash BG: Yeah.
8:16
Ash BG: And I think so many women find themselves in that.
8:18
Ash BG: So that was the starting point for me.
8:20
Ash BG: Yeah.
8:21
Ash BG: To turn around and be like, hang on, what's going on?
8:23
Ash BG: And then you can't, you know, we don't live in a vacuum.
8:26
Ash BG: Then you just see the headlines over and over and over again.
8:31
Ash BG: More and more and more violence against women.
8:35
Ash BG: We talk about domestic abuse being so prevalent across our country.
8:41
Ash BG: We talk about sexual assault.
8:43
Ash BG: We talk about the manosphere.
8:44
Ash BG: You know, we have a son.
8:46
Ash BG: All of a sudden, my content started revolving around this much heavier content because I couldn't look away.
8:54
Dom Hind: Yeah.
8:54
Ash BG: You know, and I really refused to dig my head into the sand.
8:58
Ash BG: The more I started writing about the mental load, that led into the prevalence of misogyny in relationships, the prevalence of misogyny in society.
9:08
Ash BG: And almost once I started writing, I couldn't stop.
9:11
Ash BG: That was it.
9:12
Dom Hind: You were on a roll.
9:13
Dom Hind: Yeah, but yeah.
9:14
Dom Hind: But it is it's true.
9:15
Dom Hind: And I think it's interesting you found that earlier on in your motherhood journey.
9:22
Dom Hind: Whereas for me, it took me 10, 11 years.
9:27
Dom Hind: Like it was three years ago where I lost my shit and just was like, I'm not doing this anymore.
9:32
Dom Hind: I'm not doing all of it and being okay with it.
9:37
Ash BG: And I think that that is maybe the prevalence of social media.
9:40
Ash BG: So I think it is a lot of women standing up and saying, oh, this isn't okay anymore.
9:44
Ash BG: There are some incredible creators out there, like your Paige O'Connell, like your Abby Eccle, they're both US-based.
9:51
Ash BG: But they share incredible content, really showing women what is acceptable and what isn't within a relationship.
9:56
Ash BG: So a lot of that hasn't been shared.
9:59
Ash BG: And women will get so much shit for oversharing on the internet, of course.
10:03
Ash BG: We'll be told, you know, leave him or leave us out of it.
10:07
Ash BG: We'll be told, if you're not going to do anything about it, stop complaining.
10:10
Ash BG: Like this is just the narrative that, you know, every woman content creator gets, I feel.
10:15
Ash BG: But what that what that's actually doing is normalizing women standing up and saying this isn't okay, which maybe wasn't as prevalent 10 years ago.
10:24
Ash BG: Yeah.
10:25
Ash BG: But now it is.
10:26
Ash BG: Yeah, it is.
10:26
Ash BG: So I think more people are questioning it, which is a good thing.
10:29
Ash BG: But at the same time, how sad is it that I would say in 10 years things have gotten worse?
10:34
Ash BG: Especially in terms of the normalization of domestic abuse.
10:40
Ash BG: Yeah.
10:41
Ash BG: The rise of the manosphere.
10:43
Dom Hind: The rise of the manosphere just scares me.
10:46
Ash BG: Absolutely.
10:46
Ash BG: I think one of the most terrifying things.
10:48
Dom Hind: Yes.
10:48
Dom Hind: But I also think the thing with the manosphere is that because it's such an extreme, there's no content for men.
10:57
Dom Hind: Like the there's no good content or not much good content out there that actually is showing men or modeling it for men.
11:06
Dom Hind: Exactly.
11:07
Ash BG: And also that needs to start at home.
11:08
Ash BG: Yes.
11:08
Ash BG: You know, like I was talking to a um content creator who has chosen not to be named, but who went down the red pill, the manosphere um road, came out of it.
11:23
Ash BG: And one of the things that he said was that he was looking for advice about girls that he wasn't getting from his father.
11:31
Ash BG: You know, he wasn't getting that from home.
11:33
Ash BG: He didn't have those older siblings or, you know, those role models in his life.
11:39
Ash BG: So when I say that men need to step up, that's what I mean.
11:43
Ash BG: It starts at home.
11:44
Ash BG: Yeah.
11:44
Ash BG: It starts with cousins, you know, any role models, any family friends.
11:49
Ash BG: It starts with parents, obviously, definitely fathers.
11:52
Dom Hind: Yes.
11:53
Ash BG: You know, think about the fact that Dr.
11:56
Ash BG: Billy Garvey said this on a podcast recently, and it really stuck with me.
11:59
Ash BG: And he was essentially saying, are you affectionate with your partner at home?
12:05
Ash BG: And for a lot of us, we're probably not making out in front of our kids, right?
12:08
Dom Hind: Yeah, yeah.
12:08
Ash BG: Yeah.
12:09
Ash BG: Because that's a little sneaky.
12:10
Dom Hind: Yeah, yeah.
12:11
Dom Hind: Or the kids go, okay, that's enough.
12:13
Dom Hind: Please stop.
12:14
Ash BG: Yeah.
12:15
Ash BG: But why aren't we doing that?
12:16
Ash BG: Yeah.
12:17
Ash BG: Because if the only instance of physical intimacy that they see is on the internet and it's pornography, how is that going to end?
12:29
Ash BG: So we almost need to be modeling these behaviors at home, showing them what a healthy relationship looks like, speaking about it openly, even when it's uncomfortable.
12:37
Dom Hind: Yeah, yeah.
12:38
Ash BG: Yep.
12:38
Ash BG: And then that extends to what I was saying before about men need to step up.
12:42
Ash BG: Well, then we need male content creators, which we have some.
12:44
Ash BG: Yeah, yeah.
12:45
Ash BG: Probably a handful.
12:46
Dom Hind: There's not as many.
12:47
Dom Hind: Bateman comes to mind.
12:48
Ash BG: Yeah.
12:49
Ash BG: What he's doing is excellent.
12:50
Ash BG: I'm a huge fan.
12:51
Ash BG: He just followed me on Instagram and I just like had such a fangirl moment.
12:55
Ash BG: Um, but we need more.
12:57
Dom Hind: Yeah, there needs more.
12:59
Ash BG: We need to outweigh the negative content.
13:02
Dom Hind: I couldn't agree more.
13:03
Ash BG: But do you think we're ready for that?
13:06
Ash BG: I don't think so, no.
13:07
Ash BG: I think that it will be heavily, heavily, heavily resisted.
13:11
Dom Hind: Yeah.
13:12
Ash BG: I think that the men, I know as a woman I get so much criticism online.
13:15
Ash BG: And I know I saw, I wish I remembered his name.
13:19
Ash BG: It was one of the sports commentators who came out and roasted the Tigers players when they were.
13:26
Ash BG: So the Tigers players were recently filmed mocking what happened with the Sydney Swans and making jokes about it and laughing about it.
13:34
Ash BG: And this sports commentator came out and roasted them.
13:37
Ash BG: And I thought to myself, oh my god, standing ovation.
13:40
Ash BG: Yeah.
13:40
Ash BG: Like, excellent.
13:41
Ash BG: How great to see a man calling out this behavior on mainstream news.
13:47
Ash BG: And then I read the comments.
13:49
Ash BG: And I thought they were all going to be, yes, yeah.
13:52
Ash BG: Yeah, yeah.
13:53
Ash BG: But they weren't hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of comments from men, some young men, some older, so many with children.
14:00
Ash BG: I was going into their profiles and looking at who is this person, you know, in their profile photo with their daughters, their young daughters, saying, Oh mate, give them a break.
14:12
Dom Hind: Yeah.
14:12
Ash BG: They were just having a joke.
14:14
Dom Hind: Yeah.
14:15
Ash BG: That I find that terrifying that that voice of the everyman is apologizing, making light of this situation.
14:22
Dom Hind: Yeah.
14:23
Ash BG: Like, if how how do we not turn around and say, hey, this is at a point where we no longer make light of this.
14:31
Ash BG: Yeah.
14:31
Ash BG: This is really fucking serious.
14:33
Dom Hind: Yeah, it is.
14:33
Dom Hind: Well, it's the treatment of women.
14:35
Dom Hind: Yeah.
14:36
Dom Hind: And there needs to be a line.
14:37
Dom Hind: Yeah.
14:38
Dom Hind: It is actually held.
14:39
Ash BG: I mean, at best, that woman, whoever she is, in a situation like this, her life is altered.
14:46
Dom Hind: Oh, absolutely.
14:47
Dom Hind: For good.
14:48
Ash BG: And at worst, she dies.
14:50
Dom Hind: Yeah.
14:51
Dom Hind: Yeah.
14:52
Ash BG: Like that is serious.
14:52
Ash BG: Yeah.
14:53
Ash BG: That is the most serious.
14:54
Ash BG: Yet men still think it's okay to joke about it.
14:58
Dom Hind: Well, it's like, uh, what was the Epstein survivor?
15:01
Dom Hind: Um Du Bray.
15:02
Dom Hind: Um Virginia De Bray.
15:04
Dom Hind: Yes.
15:05
Dom Hind: Like just horrific.
15:09
Dom Hind: What actually happened to her in the air.
15:10
Dom Hind: Absolutely horrific.
15:11
Dom Hind: Just outrageous.
15:12
Dom Hind: Um, I want to talk to you about what has been happening in Sydney lately.
15:18
Dom Hind: And I am going to say that I am a Scots mum.
15:22
Dom Hind: My son is in year seven.
15:24
Dom Hind: And Scots has made my son a great boy, but I also do think that I have made my son a great boy, or helped him, and his father has as well.
15:37
Dom Hind: Um, so I did just want to put that out there to disclaimer that yes, I am, you know, part of the institution that is in the news at the moment.
15:48
Dom Hind: Um and there have been some really confronting allegations involving young people and sexual violence.
15:58
Dom Hind: And whenever something like this happens, there's outrage.
16:02
Dom Hind: What do you think we are still refusing to confront the culture that has created this?
16:11
Ash BG: I believe that culture is prevalent in boys' schools.
16:15
Ash BG: Yeah.
16:15
Ash BG: And I I think you're the exact right person to have this conversation with.
16:18
Ash BG: Yeah.
16:19
Ash BG: But I want to talk to you and I want to learn from you as a mother of a boy who is in a high school, specifically the high school that has been implicated in this horrendous situation that has left a girl, you know, completely changed for life.
16:34
Ash BG: I think that the schools need to be held accountable at an absolute base starting point.
16:43
Ash BG: Yeah.
16:44
Ash BG: I am terrified about sending my son to high school.
16:50
Ash BG: He's only two.
16:52
Ash BG: Yeah.
16:53
Ash BG: But I think about it every day.
16:55
Ash BG: Yeah.
16:56
Ash BG: And we've had to put him down for schools.
16:58
Ash BG: Yeah.
16:59
Ash BG: Oh, absolutely.
17:00
Ash BG: And some of the schools I now want to remove him from.
17:05
Ash BG: Not because they've been implicated in anything, but just because of what you've heard.
17:09
Dom Hind: Yeah.
17:09
Dom Hind: Yeah.
17:10
Ash BG: And it has been, you know, when I talk about men who just continue to apologize for this behavior.
17:17
Ash BG: We there were signs of this for a really long time.
17:20
Dom Hind: Like absolutely.
17:23
Ash BG: Like the chance that boys have been heard um chanting on school buses and in public places that are derogatory to women.
17:32
Ash BG: It starts there.
17:33
Ash BG: Yeah.
17:33
Ash BG: You know, what did the schools do about it then?
17:36
Dom Hind: Well, even last week, I was picking my son up, and there was a boy who was, you know, his behavior wasn't great towards me, and I'm not scared.
17:47
Dom Hind: So I got out of the car and confronted him, and he was shit scared of me because I'd confronted him.
17:54
Dom Hind: But I wasn't going to accept that behavior.
17:56
Dom Hind: It's not acceptable.
17:57
Dom Hind: Do you think that he wasn't expecting it?
17:59
Dom Hind: A hundred percent.
18:00
Dom Hind: How interesting.
18:01
Dom Hind: It will he was, he cowered.
18:06
Ash BG: But we have to start calling it out.
18:08
Ash BG: Is this not exactly the situation we have to start calling them out?
18:11
Ash BG: Absolutely.
18:12
Ash BG: And almost removing that sense of entitlement that they have.
18:16
Dom Hind: But I also think that, and I was having this conversation with a friend of mine on the way here, where it is the entitlement, but it's also that so many parents are stopping parenting their kids.
18:29
Dom Hind: And, you know, the but as you said, it starts at home, it starts with every man.
18:33
Dom Hind: The conversations that the dads and the men need to have with their sons, I still think that they're too embarrassed to have them.
18:43
Ash BG: Do you know why that is?
18:44
Ash BG: Because men have not been raised to be good communicators.
18:48
Dom Hind: Yeah.
18:48
Ash BG: To share their emotions, to let down their guard.
18:51
Ash BG: They are the first people who will admit, oh, you know, I got smacked when I was a child.
18:57
Ash BG: It didn't do anything to me.
18:58
Ash BG: I'm like, I've never seen you express a normal emotion apart from anger in your entire life.
19:02
Ash BG: So how can you say it didn't have an impact on you?
19:06
Ash BG: And again, holding men accountable, this is where we need to break cycles.
19:10
Ash BG: I think that one of the so speaking to you, I find actually really inspiring.
19:14
Ash BG: Hearing you say something like, I'm the parent, and it starts at home and you know, my son is a good kid because of me.
19:22
Ash BG: That's my biggest fear that I will do all the right things, and still my son will go to school and they will somehow people listening to this might sound absolutely bat shit crazy, but that is my fear.
19:34
Dom Hind: Yeah.
19:34
Ash BG: That I'll do all the right things and he'll go to school and the school will and his peers will turn and the internet and the mother sphere will turn him into you, you know, somebody that you don't is capable of doing bad things.
19:47
Ash BG: Yeah, yeah.
19:48
Ash BG: So hearing you talk about this, I find really inspiring.
19:51
Ash BG: I think that it, I think that, you know, being able to stand up and say he is a good person because of the values that I've instilled in him is actually really empowering.
20:01
Dom Hind: Yes.
20:02
Ash BG: And I think maybe parents have checked out a little bit.
20:05
Dom Hind: Yeah.
20:05
Dom Hind: Well, it gets hard.
20:06
Dom Hind: Yeah.
20:07
Dom Hind: And you know what?
20:08
Dom Hind: The the social pressures, like he does not have social, he does not have WhatsApp, he has, he only just got a phone this year.
20:14
Dom Hind: And I don't care that I'm tight on the controls because I as soon as he sees something, yeah, he can't unsee that.
20:25
Dom Hind: Yeah.
20:25
Dom Hind: And I would prefer to be the one to talk to him or his dad to talk to him about stuff than for him to see it without an explanation.
20:34
Ash BG: Absolutely.
20:35
Ash BG: And if he knows in advance before he sees it as well, I think a conversation that parents are really afraid to have, and they are kind of digging their heads in the sand a little bit about this, is they're afraid that they will expose their kids to the manosphere before they do it themselves.
20:52
Ash BG: And what I would say to that is actually that's probably the best thing that you can do because then they're not going to go into it with blinkers on.
20:59
Dom Hind: Yeah.
20:59
Dom Hind: But I would also say that for porn as well.
21:01
Dom Hind: Absolutely.
21:02
Dom Hind: And I was talking to um a couple of the ladies from Consent Labs, or the couple of people from Consent Labs this week.
21:08
Dom Hind: And even I didn't realize that they differentiate sex ed from consent ed.
21:13
Dom Hind: Yeah.
21:14
Dom Hind: And I was like, wow, that's actually something that, you know, even parents can get onto the consent.
21:19
Dom Hind: Yeah.
21:19
Dom Hind: If you're too embarrassed to talk about sex, you know, talk about consent.
21:23
Dom Hind: Because consent is an e well, it's it's yes or no.
21:29
Ash BG: And consent starts really young.
21:30
Ash BG: It does.
21:31
Ash BG: You know, consent starts with my son who is two years old, and I know that there will be people listening to this who think that's absolutely crazy.
21:38
Ash BG: But who goes and um, he was sitting on one of his friends the other day, um, and his friend was saying, No, get off me.
21:46
Dom Hind: Yeah.
21:47
Ash BG: We had a conversation about, you know, a very small conversation because he's two.
21:50
Ash BG: But about when somebody says something that they they don't want to do this anymore, you listen.
21:55
Ash BG: And little things like that.
21:57
Dom Hind: Yes.
21:57
Ash BG: Like all of these little tiny conversations.
21:59
Ash BG: That over time, you know, by the time he's 12, we've been having these conversations for 10 years.
22:03
Ash BG: So he he gets it.
22:05
Ash BG: He gets it.
22:06
Dom Hind: Yeah.
22:06
Dom Hind: And understands.
22:06
Dom Hind: No means no.
22:08
Ash BG: But then the other thing is, I actually wrote a piece on Substack recently about how ultimately the manosphere, what we've got wrong about it, is that ultimately it's child exploitation.
22:19
Ash BG: It's a money-making gap.
22:20
Ash BG: Oh, absolutely.
22:21
Ash BG: It's a scam.
22:22
Ash BG: Yeah.
22:22
Ash BG: Firstly.
22:23
Ash BG: And they don't believe a lot of the things that they're saying.
22:25
Ash BG: It's a scam.
22:26
Ash BG: It's a pyramid scheme.
22:27
Ash BG: Yeah.
22:27
Ash BG: But they're making shitloads of money out of it.
22:30
Ash BG: I think that's what we need to tell boys.
22:33
Dom Hind: Yeah.
22:34
Ash BG: I think we need to tell boys that actually what these people are doing is preying on young boys who are a little bit lonely and confused and unsure, as many young boys are at that age.
22:44
Dom Hind: But then we also need to say the exactly the same for Instagram and for Snap and all of them.
22:49
Dom Hind: Like social is not.
22:51
Dom Hind: I had Dr.
22:52
Dom Hind: Mark Williams on the podcast and he talked about the impact of social on kids.
22:57
Dom Hind: And we talk about social being social.
22:59
Dom Hind: It's so not social.
23:00
Dom Hind: It is just media and advertising.
23:03
Dom Hind: And it's not about connection.
23:05
Dom Hind: It actually is not about connection.
23:07
Dom Hind: It has such a negative impact on people.
23:11
Ash BG: I agree.
23:11
Ash BG: And isn't Mark Zuckerberg in court right now?
23:14
Ash BG: Trying to argue that he didn't purposely create addictive algorithms.
23:19
Dom Hind: Yeah.
23:20
Ash BG: Like this is the problem.
23:21
Ash BG: And this is the other thing.
23:21
Ash BG: Like a lot of pressure is put on parents, which I believe is fair.
23:24
Ash BG: I think that is, you know, our job as parents is to protect our children, but also to make sure that, you know, our children don't cause harm to anybody else either.
23:34
Ash BG: Yeah.
23:35
Ash BG: Um, but we also need to look at these tech giants.
23:38
Ash BG: Oh, absolutely.
23:39
Ash BG: What are you doing?
23:40
Dom Hind: What are you doing?
23:41
Dom Hind: What are you doing?
23:42
Ash BG: Is it enough?
23:42
Ash BG: They're talking about putting certain bans on Meta.
23:45
Ash BG: Okay, but what would happen then?
23:47
Ash BG: They would go to TikTok or they would go to YouTube.
23:49
Ash BG: Yeah.
23:50
Ash BG: Like this needs to be done collectively across the board.
23:53
Dom Hind: Agree.
23:53
Dom Hind: And even the 16 years social media ban.
23:56
Dom Hind: I don't know how many people have actually been banned or how many parents have actually said no, you can't be on it.
24:05
Ash BG: Yeah.
24:05
Dom Hind: Um, because they just get peer-pressured by their kids.
24:08
Ash BG: I know it's like 12 and 10-year-olds on social media.
24:11
Ash BG: It's it's crazy.
24:13
Ash BG: What you were saying before, I would love to.
24:15
Ash BG: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
24:16
Ash BG: Ask me, yes.
24:18
Ash BG: Um, because I because I think about this a lot.
24:22
Ash BG: Yeah.
24:22
Ash BG: You know, especially in the work that I do it.
24:23
Ash BG: I'm very close to it.
24:24
Ash BG: But I think to myself, how could I ever willingly give my child a phone and let him access social media, knowing what I know?
24:30
Ash BG: But then he goes to school and he's the only person without access.
24:34
Ash BG: Yeah.
24:35
Ash BG: What does that look like?
24:36
Ash BG: How do his peers treat him?
24:37
Ash BG: How have you navigated that?
24:40
Dom Hind: It is hard, but my son is like, he's he just it's interesting.
24:46
Dom Hind: He just knows what's right.
24:49
Dom Hind: Um, he's always had a really soft strong sense of what's right and wrong.
24:54
Dom Hind: Um, a great moral compass.
24:56
Dom Hind: But he also he will play a game online with his friends and talk to his friends audibly rather than chat.
25:07
Dom Hind: Yeah.
25:08
Dom Hind: But there's restrictions and time around it.
25:10
Dom Hind: And this morning we were talking, saying in our at our school, there are so there's such a major minority of parents who parent.
25:21
Dom Hind: And there's so many who do just let their kids do whatever.
25:27
Dom Hind: And yeah, it's hard, but what's worse?
25:31
Dom Hind: A damaged 18-year-old or someone who has a little bit of hardship now and has to have real life connections with people, then have them on their phone.
25:43
Ash BG: So ultimately do the hard work now.
25:45
Dom Hind: It is do the hard work now so that you don't have like the repercussions.
25:49
Dom Hind: The repercussions.
25:51
Ash BG: And the repercussions that we're talking about, again, are heavy.
25:53
Ash BG: They're heavy.
25:54
Ash BG: Like I was telling you today about um the Northern Beaches girl who died yesterday after being strangled or choked on the weekend during sex.
26:03
Ash BG: She was fine unresponsive and she died.
26:05
Dom Hind: Unbelievable.
26:06
Ash BG: So these repercussions are But that that will impact his life forever.
26:14
Ash BG: Absolutely.
26:14
Ash BG: Forever.
26:15
Ash BG: Yeah.
26:15
Ash BG: As a 16-year-old, he killed somebody.
26:17
Ash BG: Yeah.
26:18
Ash BG: But that is as heavy as it gets.
26:21
Ash BG: Yep.
26:21
Ash BG: We don't know enough about this case to predict and be talking about it.
26:26
Ash BG: But I of course when you hear something like that, my first instinct is where did he see this?
26:29
Ash BG: Yeah.
26:30
Ash BG: Where did he learn this?
26:31
Ash BG: And how did he take it so far that it was fatal?
26:35
Dom Hind: Yeah.
26:36
Ash BG: I I feel like as parents, if we're not having these conversations, then But see, and that is it.
26:44
Dom Hind: People are scared or they're embarrassed to have the conversation.
26:49
Dom Hind: Yeah.
26:49
Dom Hind: So they just ignore it.
26:52
Dom Hind: But I do think you do have to have the conversations.
26:54
Dom Hind: You know what?
26:55
Dom Hind: One of the best things that we bought, um, we have dinner together every night as a family, which is like one of our mandatories, always together.
27:04
Dom Hind: Um, and we bought these cards, which were talking cards, and they're great because they actually have questions that you do find out more about your kids.
27:13
Dom Hind: But I'm now thinking there should actually be consent chart uh cards or like sex ed cards or something like that, so that you can talk about those rather than just how you're feeling, but to open that communication.
27:27
Ash BG: Maybe that's something that you can do.
27:28
Ash BG: Maybe you've got plans to, yeah, I know, right?
27:30
Ash BG: But I know you've got plans, and I think that you know, we're both here having this conversation because we want to be part of solution.
27:36
Ash BG: That's it.
27:36
Ash BG: Like talking about it absolutely is important, is the right like first step.
27:40
Ash BG: Yeah.
27:41
Ash BG: It's a necessary first step, that's for sure.
27:43
Ash BG: But I think we're both sitting here going, okay, what now?
27:46
Ash BG: Yeah.
27:46
Ash BG: What do we do now?
27:47
Ash BG: What are the next steps?
27:48
Ash BG: How do we actually change that?
27:49
Ash BG: Yeah, well, and that was my next question.
27:50
Dom Hind: There we go.
27:51
Dom Hind: How, where does this end and how do you change it?
27:53
Dom Hind: Because, you know, even going back to the conversation we had before about, you know, it took me a long time to go, I've had enough, but it took you, you know, not even your son's two years old, and you've said you've had enough.
28:07
Dom Hind: Is it like, how do we get people to start talking about it and to look at the modeling and the behavior and the patterns that they're seeing at home and that aren't right?
28:22
Ash BG: Yeah.
28:22
Ash BG: I feel like that we're definitely at a tipping point.
28:24
Ash BG: Yeah.
28:24
Ash BG: That's what it feels like to me.
28:26
Ash BG: And I mean, especially in my DMs, for example.
28:29
Ash BG: Yeah, yeah.
28:29
Ash BG: I just have fed up women sliding into my DMs constantly saying, we're done.
28:38
Ash BG: You need to strike.
28:40
Ash BG: And I would say I think there is a strike coming.
28:43
Ash BG: I think women are gonna walk out.
28:45
Dom Hind: Yeah.
28:45
Dom Hind: Well, it's funny.
28:46
Dom Hind: I tell my family that I quit all the time.
28:48
Dom Hind: That's it, I quit.
28:49
Dom Hind: I quit.
28:49
Dom Hind: I'm done.
28:50
Dom Hind: You guys do everything and then come back to me.
28:54
Dom Hind: And then I might hire you back as my family.
28:57
Ash BG: I think that's a great idea.
28:59
Ash BG: I think actually more women need to quit.
29:01
Ash BG: Yeah.
29:02
Ash BG: They did this.
29:03
Ash BG: So the whole idea of the strike is based on something that happened in Iceland in 1975.
29:07
Ash BG: So all women stopped for an entire day.
29:08
Ash BG: What?
29:09
Ash BG: And they did nothing.
29:10
Ash BG: Yeah.
29:10
Ash BG: And it woke society up to what was happening.
29:14
Ash BG: In 1975.
29:15
Ash BG: Yeah.
29:16
Ash BG: Okay.
29:18
Ash BG: Yeah.
29:19
Ash BG: But in Iceland, that had huge repercussions.
29:23
Dom Hind: Yeah, right.
29:24
Ash BG: And actually resulted in change.
29:26
Ash BG: Not necessarily far.
29:27
Ash BG: Yeah.
29:28
Ash BG: But eventually.
29:30
Ash BG: I mean, and we know that the Nordic countries are so much further ahead.
29:34
Ash BG: Do you know what I will say though, in terms of like an action point, something that I always come back to every single day?
29:39
Ash BG: Um, and probably every conversation that I have, I bring this up because I I believe it so strongly.
29:46
Ash BG: I think that one of the most important starting points, there's somebody in the room here who's who's going to this is particularly relevant to.
29:55
Ash BG: Um, one of the most important starting points is men taking parental leave.
30:00
Ash BG: Yeah.
30:00
Ash BG: Yeah.
30:01
Ash BG: And I genuin and I know that that probably sounds far-fetched with what we're talking about, but if a man is present in the beginning in those early days, when a child is in need of so much care, so many things happen.
30:14
Ash BG: That that creates a ripple effect compared to a man who walks out a couple of days, a couple of weeks later, goes to work, and then is never really as involved ever again, potentially.
30:27
Ash BG: If a man is present in those early months, so say we did what a lot of countries do, like the Nordic countries, for example, like Sweden, where it's a and and what um like Georgie Dent at the parenthood is pushing for, it's a year of maternity leave, of parental leave, sorry, a year of parental leave taken between both parents freely.
30:47
Ash BG: Yes.
30:47
Ash BG: So say it was six months and six months, or whatever that looks like.
30:51
Ash BG: So that a man can be there in those early days and really understand the weight of looking after small children.
30:59
Ash BG: He's doing night wakes, he is caring for the child in the same way that she would.
31:04
Ash BG: All of the domestic responsibility is on him or the two of them together.
31:09
Ash BG: It is shared.
31:10
Ash BG: Yes.
31:11
Ash BG: Now, what would happen if that was mandatory in society?
31:15
Ash BG: And not only that, we know that the more parental leave that a father takes, so when a father takes paternity leave, maternal well-being improves.
31:24
Ash BG: Yeah.
31:25
Ash BG: We know that he is better able to bond with his child.
31:28
Ash BG: We know that it's better for child development as well to spend that time with both parents.
31:34
Ash BG: Yes.
31:35
Ash BG: I see no negatives.
31:36
Ash BG: Yeah, no.
31:37
Ash BG: In this situation.
31:38
Ash BG: No.
31:39
Ash BG: And then you're starting on, you know, I wouldn't even say equal.
31:44
Ash BG: And I don't want to say that equality is the goal, but a more even, yeah.
31:48
Dom Hind: Even footing.
31:49
Dom Hind: I I yeah, I think it is a more even footing.
31:51
Dom Hind: Yeah.
31:52
Dom Hind: But it's also a more even footing in not only raising the child, but also what goes on at the house in the house.
31:57
Dom Hind: That's exactly like it's just, and I know that you have recognized the mental load, but the mental load is enormous.
32:05
Dom Hind: Like I looked in the fridge this morning and went, there's no milk.
32:08
Dom Hind: I've got to go do the order.
32:10
Dom Hind: Like, you know, like it is just those constant things that no one thinks about.
32:14
Ash BG: And then, you know, a lot of men will say, Oh, okay, whatever.
32:17
Ash BG: It's just like remembering or like writing lists.
32:19
Ash BG: Oh, that's it.
32:20
Ash BG: It's absolutely not that simple.
32:22
Ash BG: And also, I'm sure that your train of thought didn't stop at the milk.
32:26
Dom Hind: Yeah.
32:26
Dom Hind: My train, no, it didn't.
32:27
Dom Hind: It was like, oh God, what else do I need?
32:29
Dom Hind: Okay, let's get it in.
32:30
Dom Hind: Uh yeah, make sure that it's a good thing.
32:31
Dom Hind: And then you're thinking about your greatest.
32:32
Dom Hind: The everything.
32:34
Ash BG: You're probably thinking about, okay, what have my children eaten this week?
32:38
Ash BG: What does my family eat in this week?
32:39
Ash BG: Okay, has that been balanced enough?
32:41
Ash BG: Yeah.
32:41
Ash BG: We probably need more red meat.
32:42
Ash BG: We probably, oh, I've got to buy those supplements.
32:44
Ash BG: And oh, I heard that this was going to be good.
32:45
Ash BG: And oh, I've got to make that doctor's appointment.
32:47
Dom Hind: And oh yeah, oh, my protein is run out.
32:49
Dom Hind: And now that, yeah, it is.
32:50
Dom Hind: It's all of it.
32:51
Dom Hind: One one thing of milk leads to about 75 different things.
32:55
Ash BG: That's exactly right.
32:55
Ash BG: So when we talk about the mental load, that's all we're talking about.
32:58
Ash BG: Yeah.
32:59
Ash BG: It's it's almost like this cascade.
33:01
Ash BG: And it might just be a couple of minutes, but several times a day, you know, maybe a hundred times a day, and then compound that over a week and then over a month and then over a year.
33:13
Ash BG: No wonder we are exhausted.
33:15
Ash BG: Seriously.
33:15
Ash BG: Seriously.
33:16
Ash BG: Need time off.
33:17
Ash BG: Quit.
33:17
Ash BG: Quicker than harder back.
33:19
Ash BG: One thing that I've been talking about recently is we need to stop letting men use our brains.
33:24
Ash BG: Oh, yeah, yeah.
33:24
Ash BG: So every time somebody, it could be my brother, could be a male colleague, could be my husband.
33:29
Ash BG: It's often my husband.
33:30
Ash BG: Yeah, yeah.
33:31
Ash BG: Says something like, Oh, you know, what do you think we should do for Father's Day, for example?
33:36
Ash BG: I don't know.
33:38
Dom Hind: Yeah, I I'm I'm big on that at the moment.
33:40
Ash BG: I'm like, You don't get to use my brain.
33:43
Dom Hind: I'm not making a decision.
33:44
Dom Hind: You make the decision.
33:45
Dom Hind: Like I've made too many decisions today.
33:48
Dom Hind: It's on you.
33:49
Ash BG: So do you know that the one area of domestic life where it is somewhat even is decision making.
33:57
Ash BG: Oh, really?
33:58
Ash BG: And you know, I think that the reason for that is because we are so tired.
34:01
Ash BG: Oh, it's just like just make a decision.
34:03
Ash BG: Make a decision.
34:04
Dom Hind: The one thing that we just go outdoors.
34:06
Dom Hind: Yeah.
34:07
Ash BG: Just you decide.
34:07
Ash BG: I don't want to think about it.
34:08
Ash BG: I don't want to have to decide.
34:10
Dom Hind: Wow.
34:10
Dom Hind: Um, what do you uh when you think about boys and what they're learning at home or even in the world at the moment, what do you think they're learning about women right now?
34:27
Ash BG: I think that they feel an entitlement over women.
34:30
Ash BG: I think they're being told that women are inferior to them.
34:34
Ash BG: I think they are being told that women need to be put in their place.
34:41
Dom Hind: Do you think that's all of them do?
34:43
Dom Hind: Or I think having Trump as uh president doesn't help.
34:50
Ash BG: And it's not just Trump.
34:52
Dom Hind: Yeah.
34:53
Ash BG: Closer to home.
34:53
Ash BG: Look at the sponsors.
34:54
Dom Hind: Yeah, oh yeah, look at our students.
34:56
Dom Hind: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
34:56
Dom Hind: Yeah.
34:58
Ash BG: Look at the people that are idolized in our society who clearly don't care about women.
35:04
Ash BG: I was gonna say something else, and it was completely disappointed.
35:08
Ash BG: Completely lost.
35:09
Ash BG: Learning about women.
35:10
Ash BG: How how are they learning about women?
35:12
Ash BG: Or what are they learning?
35:13
Ash BG: And what they're learning is that well, they've got they they've got it wrong.
35:18
Ash BG: So there's a misperception here.
35:20
Ash BG: They're being told that what we think of as equality, they think of as oppression.
35:27
Ash BG: Because it things haven't been equal for so long.
35:30
Ash BG: You know, women have been oppressed for so long.
35:33
Ash BG: But we're not there yet, but we're edging closer towards equality.
35:37
Dom Hind: Do you think it's interesting?
35:38
Dom Hind: I I think this is really interesting.
35:39
Dom Hind: When women do have a voice, we're often called difficult.
35:43
Dom Hind: Yeah.
35:44
Dom Hind: And it does my head in.
35:46
Dom Hind: Whenever I get called difficult, I'm just like, it says more about that person calling you difficult.
35:53
Ash BG: And it does about you being difficult, doesn't it?
35:55
Dom Hind: Yeah, because I mean I'm I'm measured in what I will say.
35:59
Dom Hind: Yeah.
35:59
Dom Hind: I mean, I do fight for what I believe, but it's not difficult.
36:04
Dom Hind: That's what I I think.
36:06
Dom Hind: Yeah.
36:06
Dom Hind: Just because I'm just conforming to what you want.
36:10
Ash BG: Yeah.
36:10
Ash BG: And because you're not making yourself smaller.
36:12
Ash BG: We are so used to women being forced to make themselves smaller, especially around men.
36:17
Ash BG: You know, something that I wrote about recently was I basically wrote fiction about this dystopian society where men and women are equal.
36:27
Ash BG: Oh, yeah.
36:28
Ash BG: And I think a lot of like the home stuff really resonated with people.
36:33
Ash BG: But where people stopped and like where this piece really stopped people in their tracks was the fact that our lives revolve around men as women.
36:43
Ash BG: And if we have a catch-up with girlfriends, what are we talking about?
36:46
Ash BG: We're talking about the creepy text that she got from, you know, or we're complaining about our partners, or we're talking about an abusive ex.
36:54
Ash BG: How do you change?
36:55
Ash BG: Sexual harassment in the workplace.
36:57
Dom Hind: How do you change it then?
36:58
Ash BG: We de-centrement.
36:59
Ash BG: Have you heard about this?
37:00
Dom Hind: No.
37:00
Dom Hind: Talk to me about it.
37:03
Ash BG: I think you'll like it.
37:04
Ash BG: There's a movement now.
37:05
Ash BG: Yeah.
37:06
Ash BG: But there's two movements.
37:06
Ash BG: The first movement is the 4B movement.
37:08
Ash BG: Have you heard about the 4B movement?
37:09
Ash BG: So the 4B movement um started in South Korea.
37:13
Dom Hind: Yes.
37:14
Ash BG: So some people might be wondering like, where does the mental load come into this?
37:17
Ash BG: You know, how does this all sort of tie together?
37:20
Ash BG: This will probably be a good example.
37:21
Ash BG: So in Korea, in South Korea, women have decided that they are no longer interested in men, that they're not going to date men, they're not going to marry men, and they're not going to reproduce with men.
37:34
Dom Hind: Wow.
37:35
Ash BG: So it's called the 4B movement.
37:37
Ash BG: And it started because South Korea has the worst level of domestic equality.
37:44
Dom Hind: Yes.
37:44
Ash BG: So women are doing so much more that they have decided we're done.
37:49
Ash BG: Yeah.
37:49
Ash BG: So that's called the 4B movement.
37:50
Ash BG: There is another movement that is a little bit more mild.
37:54
Ash BG: Yeah.
37:56
Dom Hind: That's it.
37:56
Dom Hind: No wonder South Korea's reproduction.
37:59
Dom Hind: I read yesterday, was it Singapore or South Korea?
38:03
Dom Hind: Someone is paying $77,000 for people to reproduce.
38:08
Ash BG: Yeah.
38:08
Ash BG: It's probably South Korea.
38:09
Ash BG: They have the lowest fertility rate of any country in the world right now.
38:12
Dom Hind: Unbelievable.
38:13
Ash BG: So I want everybody to think about that really, really, really clearly.
38:18
Ash BG: The country with the lowest fertility rate has the highest rate of inequality at home.
38:24
Ash BG: Yeah.
38:26
Ash BG: So there's a professor called Claudia Golden.
38:29
Ash BG: She's a Nobel Prize winner.
38:31
Ash BG: So she has directly made this link between the birth rate and the fact that men are not doing enough.
38:38
Ash BG: So women are checking out.
38:39
Ash BG: And women are deciding that they don't want to reproduce.
38:42
Ash BG: Women are being treated so badly.
38:44
Ash BG: Under yeah, understandable if it is.
38:46
Ash BG: So the step down from that is decentering men.
38:50
Ash BG: Yeah.
38:51
Ash BG: Which I think is only going to become more and more prevalent.
38:54
Ash BG: And it's this idea of, you know, a a very simple starting place is as I we were just saying, stop letting men use your brain.
39:02
Ash BG: You know, and our worlds don't need to revolve around men anymore.
39:05
Ash BG: Yeah.
39:06
Ash BG: But when you start to realize what that looks like in practice, it feels so extreme, which is the realization that for so long our lives have revolved around men.
39:17
Ash BG: Every decision we make, everything that we do at home and at work.
39:21
Dom Hind: It's interesting.
39:22
Dom Hind: Even I think about not only at home with my husband, but also thinking about my dad.
39:27
Dom Hind: Yeah.
39:28
Dom Hind: You know, even with my dad, it was all, you know, how do we make his day better?
39:33
Dom Hind: He's been working, you know, all of that.
39:36
Dom Hind: Yeah.
39:36
Dom Hind: It starts young.
39:37
Ash BG: Yep.
39:38
Ash BG: And, you know, a lot of our families, where did you live?
39:41
Ash BG: Somewhere close to where your dad was working.
39:44
Ash BG: And, you know, our lives revolved around their careers.
39:47
Ash BG: And as you said, like they've had a long day at work.
39:49
Ash BG: Long day of work.
39:50
Ash BG: Don't be noisy.
39:52
Ash BG: And now this generation of women are saying, Oh, you've had a long day of work.
39:56
Ash BG: Here's the baby.
39:57
Dom Hind: Yeah.
39:57
Dom Hind: Yeah.
39:58
Dom Hind: And sort of changed.
39:59
Dom Hind: It's funny.
40:00
Dom Hind: When um, whenever anyone says, Oh, what are you doing for Father's Day?
40:02
Dom Hind: I'm saying, I'm letting Justin spend time with the kids.
40:06
Dom Hind: I'm having the day off.
40:08
Dom Hind: He can go and be a father on Father's Day.
40:11
Dom Hind: And then what do I want from Mother's Day?
40:13
Dom Hind: A day off.
40:13
Dom Hind: Yeah.
40:14
Dom Hind: Like, I'm out of here, guys.
40:16
Dom Hind: See ya.
40:17
Dom Hind: You and every every other mother.
40:19
Dom Hind: But it is that thing.
40:20
Dom Hind: It's like, you know, I think it is really interesting.
40:23
Dom Hind: I think the the stop making the decisions and pushing back.
40:28
Ash BG: Yeah.
40:29
Dom Hind: I think that is like that's an easy first step.
40:32
Ash BG: Yeah.
40:32
Ash BG: It's a really good starting point.
40:34
Ash BG: It's a necessary starting point.
40:36
Ash BG: Yeah.
40:37
Ash BG: And again, when we start to then talk about the ramifications, like we started this conversation because we were talking about young boys.
40:42
Dom Hind: Yeah.
40:43
Ash BG: You know, and how will they learn?
40:44
Ash BG: Well, they need to learn that the world doesn't revolve around them.
40:47
Dom Hind: Oh, absolutely.
40:47
Dom Hind: And I do think that we have made the world revolve around our kids.
40:53
Dom Hind: Right now, we do everything.
40:54
Dom Hind: Like even this week, my son left his locker key at home and sent me a message.
40:59
Dom Hind: And I was like, So I did because I knew that he would get in trouble.
41:04
Dom Hind: But my husband came with me.
41:06
Dom Hind: He dropped it off to the school.
41:08
Dom Hind: Yeah.
41:08
Dom Hind: And on the back of the envelope, I said last time, bud.
41:11
Dom Hind: And that was it.
41:13
Dom Hind: Like that would be the last.
41:14
Dom Hind: You know, for little things.
41:15
Dom Hind: Yeah, for the little things.
41:16
Dom Hind: Because it's those little things that they need to own.
41:20
Ash BG: Yeah.
41:20
Dom Hind: I don't need to own it.
41:21
Ash BG: That's not on you.
41:22
Dom Hind: Yeah.
41:23
Ash BG: And we can't keep picking up the pieces for everybody.
41:25
Dom Hind: That's it.
41:25
Ash BG: That is how we end up in a mental idol institution.
41:28
Ash BG: Which used to happen to women.
41:31
Ash BG: Like that was an entire period of history where women were just told that they had hysteria and off they went to a mental asylum.
41:38
Ash BG: I think the one thing with the yeah, exactly.
41:41
Dom Hind: One thing women's careers have always been considered flexible.
41:45
Dom Hind: Yeah.
41:46
Dom Hind: It's always the mum that gets the call when the kids are sick.
41:49
Dom Hind: It's the mum who's on pickup duty.
41:52
Dom Hind: Or how do we change that?
41:55
Ash BG: Do you know that there was a study done in 2012?
41:57
Ash BG: Um, it was done by Eve Rodsky, who was the author of Fair Play.
42:01
Ash BG: Yes.
42:01
Ash BG: And she created Fair Play card system.
42:04
Dom Hind: Yeah.
42:05
Ash BG: Um, hugely influential in this space.
42:07
Ash BG: And she interviewed couples where the man was the doctor and the woman was the lawyer, and asked whose work is more flexible.
42:16
Ash BG: And they all said hers.
42:18
Ash BG: And then she interviewed couples where the woman was the doctor and the man was the lawyer.
42:23
Ash BG: Whose work is more flexible?
42:24
Ash BG: Hers.
42:25
Ash BG: Oh, wow.
42:27
Ash BG: We have always assumed that women's work is more flexible so that they can do the majority of the caregiving responsibilities.
42:36
Ash BG: We have made this up.
42:38
Ash BG: These are the exact same careers.
42:40
Ash BG: Yeah, exactly.
42:41
Dom Hind: So how do we stop it then?
42:43
Ash BG: Ah, that's a great question.
42:45
Ash BG: Come on, Ash, what are we doing?
42:46
Ash BG: My husband's got a really, really busy week at work.
42:50
Dom Hind: That's it.
42:51
Ash BG: I'm gonna leave work early today to pick up my child.
42:53
Ash BG: Yeah, but it is like you do, and this is we're laughing about this so that we don't cry about it.
42:57
Dom Hind: I know, that's but it is, it's the accommodation.
43:00
Dom Hind: Like there is, there has to be flex, but I think the flex also has to be both ways.
43:06
Ash BG: And I think both workplaces need to come in and stop discriminating against women because we see them as caretakers.
43:14
Ash BG: So there've also been studies that show that in an interview process, as soon as you get a whiff of somebody having caretaking responsibilities, you're less likely to hire or promote them.
43:24
Ash BG: We assume this is our bias, we assume that women have more caretaking responsibilities than men.
43:31
Ash BG: Yeah.
43:32
Ash BG: So even when we know that a man has a little one at home, we're not assuming that he is caretaking in the same way that a woman is.
43:39
Ash BG: So I am very, very passionate about the fact that we should be hiring mums, that we should be giving them flexibility.
43:48
Ash BG: Yes, like huge, huge important first step.
43:52
Ash BG: We need to normalize flexibility for men.
43:54
Ash BG: Again, let's go back to what I was saying before about paternity leave.
43:56
Ash BG: Let's force all men to take paternity leave, then let's force the To have flexible work.
44:01
Ash BG: You know, I feel like you know, my husband works in an industry where he him leaving early at the end of the day to pick up a child would be very frowned upon.
44:09
Ash BG: Yeah.
44:09
Ash BG: And that's the reality.
44:11
Ash BG: And okay, maybe, maybe we're not changing that today in this moment.
44:15
Ash BG: But what I would expect from him is in 10 years, when he's leading a team and he has a young dad on his team, I would expect him to say, no, mate, you go.
44:24
Ash BG: Yeah, you go.
44:24
Ash BG: You go.
44:25
Ash BG: You go.
44:25
Ash BG: You should.
44:26
Dom Hind: Yeah.
44:26
Dom Hind: Yeah.
44:26
Ash BG: You go, you be there for your child.
44:28
Ash BG: That is what we need to start seeing.
44:30
Ash BG: And we need to stop associating presenteism with being a good worker.
44:35
Ash BG: Yeah.
44:35
Ash BG: Because I don't know about you, but I have worked with incredible mothers who can do both.
44:42
Dom Hind: Well, yeah, that's it.
44:43
Dom Hind: And it's also like I it's funny.
44:46
Dom Hind: My career, I've had a long career in advertising, mainly in digital.
44:51
Dom Hind: When before I had kids, I didn't understand it.
44:54
Dom Hind: I didn't understand mothers.
44:56
Dom Hind: I thought, you know, even raising a kid, just put it like it's easy.
44:59
Dom Hind: Like, I don't know why, why are they whinging?
45:01
Dom Hind: Yeah.
45:01
Dom Hind: But when you go through it, you realize that it is actually really tough.
45:05
Dom Hind: Yeah.
45:05
Dom Hind: And you can be more efficient and to the point because you know you've got time pressure.
45:13
Dom Hind: Umbody's more productive than a mother.
45:17
Dom Hind: Nobody is more productive than a mother.
45:18
Ash BG: Nobody has got their eyes on the prize as much as a mother does as well.
45:21
Ash BG: Because since I had a child going back to work, I'm like, this doesn't matter.
45:25
Ash BG: No, exactly.
45:26
Ash BG: Well, that's it.
45:26
Ash BG: It's like stop wasting our time on this.
45:28
Ash BG: I don't have time.
45:29
Dom Hind: Yeah.
45:29
Dom Hind: Let's move on to something else.
45:30
Dom Hind: Why do we need another meeting?
45:31
Dom Hind: Exactly.
45:32
Dom Hind: Or we actually don't.
45:32
Dom Hind: Exactly.
45:33
Dom Hind: Let's just get where we need to go in five minutes.
45:35
Dom Hind: Just get it done.
45:36
Dom Hind: Yeah.
45:37
Dom Hind: Yeah.
45:37
Dom Hind: I think it is even that, normalizing that and getting even because it's not going to change.
45:43
Dom Hind: You're right.
45:44
Dom Hind: It's not going to change now because it's too ingrained.
45:46
Dom Hind: But if the dads who are coming through today can make sure that they do, even if they speak up for the other people around them as well.
45:57
Dom Hind: I think that's a big step.
45:59
Ash BG: Yeah.
45:59
Ash BG: And then, you know, men taking, again, everything for me comes back to parental leave, but men taking the parental leave that is offered to them.
46:08
Ash BG: But then the workplaces letting them do that.
46:11
Ash BG: You know, there was this case in in the UK recently with a big bank, Goldman Sachs.
46:16
Ash BG: Yeah.
46:16
Ash BG: They had an employee who took the parental leave that was promoted to all parents, and then he was fired because of it.
46:24
Ash BG: And they said that he wasn't committed.
46:26
Dom Hind: It's so ridiculous.
46:27
Dom Hind: It's so ridiculous.
46:28
Dom Hind: It is a fine balance, though, with, you know, Australia and our productivity crisis at the moment.
46:35
Dom Hind: And I mean, I know in some of the work that I do, um, there are people who do take the piss.
46:43
Dom Hind: Like there are people who do take the piss.
46:45
Dom Hind: And it's hard because by pushing for flexibility for other people, you can see how others are just absolutely roarding the system.
46:54
Dom Hind: We have ruined it.
46:56
Ash BG: Those people have ruined it for everybody.
46:57
Ash BG: We all have ruined it for everyone else.
46:59
Ash BG: What I would say is those those people would be roarding the system, whatever the system was.
47:02
Ash BG: True, true.
47:02
Ash BG: You know, like it's an even playing field.
47:05
Ash BG: Yeah.
47:05
Ash BG: And, you know, a mum is going to be a good worker.
47:09
Dom Hind: Yeah, yeah.
47:10
Ash BG: Whether or not she's in, you know, whether or not she's given the benefits or not.
47:13
Ash BG: Like that's ingrained in her.
47:15
Ash BG: Yes.
47:15
Ash BG: And her dad would be the same.
47:17
Ash BG: And there are always going to be people who are lazy and who are not productive and who are potentially just not even very very good at their job.
47:24
Ash BG: That's it.
47:25
Ash BG: They're just whatevering and getting through life.
47:28
Ash BG: Know that a lot of people have, especially if you're employed.
47:31
Ash BG: Like, how do you trust your team, you know, to be working productively when they're working remotely?
47:36
Ash BG: And again, we're not talking about everybody working 100% remotely all the time and having no contact.
47:41
Ash BG: That's not what we're saying.
47:42
Ash BG: No.
47:42
Ash BG: What we're saying is if a man gets a call at 4 p.m., his child is sick, he needs to go and pick his child up.
47:49
Ash BG: We just don't give him a hard time about it.
47:50
Ash BG: Yeah.
47:51
Ash BG: It's just done.
47:52
Ash BG: It's that simple.
47:53
Dom Hind: And I'm sure he'll then jump online or pick up what he needs to do later.
47:58
Dom Hind: Yeah, exactly.
47:58
Dom Hind: Um, it is just making sure that it's okay to do it.
48:02
Ash BG: Exactly.
48:03
Dom Hind: Um, so why is it so hard for couples to agree on who is carrying more?
48:11
Ash BG: Oh, such a great question.
48:12
Ash BG: I think I think the one thing that I hear most from everybody that I speak to.
48:16
Ash BG: Yeah.
48:17
Ash BG: Every couple.
48:18
Ash BG: Firstly, actually, the one thing that I hear most from women is that, oh, like he does so much.
48:25
Ash BG: You know, I'm really so lucky.
48:27
Ash BG: He's one of the good ones.
48:28
Ash BG: You know, he you know, I should be grateful.
48:30
Ash BG: Yeah.
48:31
Ash BG: But I'm so tired.
48:33
Ash BG: Like, why why am I still carrying so much?
48:35
Ash BG: You know, he does a lot.
48:36
Ash BG: He does a lot, and they always try and tell him he does so much.
48:38
Ash BG: And I think it's because men think that they're doing a lot more than they are.
48:42
Ash BG: Oh, yeah.
48:42
Ash BG: And because they're not carrying the mental load that women are to the same extent.
48:47
Ash BG: Everybody has a mental load.
48:48
Ash BG: Everybody has their own kind of mental load.
48:50
Ash BG: Uh a lot of men and women have a mental load associated with work.
48:54
Ash BG: What I'm saying is that the majority of women carry the mental load of the household.
48:58
Dom Hind: Yes.
49:00
Ash BG: Um, and until you actually break down what each person is doing, you're never going to know.
49:05
Dom Hind: No.
49:05
Dom Hind: And even interesting to that point, when I cracked it three years ago, I wrote a list of everything I'd done by 7.30 a.m.
49:14
Dom Hind: Yeah versus everything my husband had done by 7.30 a.m.
49:17
Dom Hind: Yeah.
49:17
Dom Hind: His was went to the gym.
49:19
Dom Hind: Mine was like get the kids ready, breakfast, beds made, house cleaned, get ready for work.
49:25
Dom Hind: Like mine was so long in comparison to go to the gym.
49:30
Ash BG: Can you imagine waking up and all you have to do is grab a bottle of water, go in the car, go to the gym.
49:39
Dom Hind: Yeah.
49:39
Dom Hind: And I think as soon as I showed that, there was an understanding of the inequality in the workload.
49:49
Ash BG: So I'm a huge believer in that.
49:50
Ash BG: Like say I built an app.
49:51
Ash BG: Data.
49:52
Ash BG: And the whole, like, because it you need a starting point.
49:56
Dom Hind: You do.
49:56
Ash BG: Otherwise, you just keep having the same conversation over and over and over again.
49:59
Ash BG: And you can literally just make a list.
50:01
Ash BG: Yeah.
50:01
Ash BG: You know, you can put it into an Excel spreadsheet if you want.
50:04
Dom Hind: Talk.
50:05
Dom Hind: Okay, Tether is your app.
50:07
Ash BG: Yes.
50:07
Dom Hind: Talk about it.
50:08
Dom Hind: What what why?
50:09
Dom Hind: So this was obviously the reason why to try and balance the mental load.
50:12
Dom Hind: Yeah.
50:13
Dom Hind: But what are you saying?
50:15
Dom Hind: After people are using it, is it actually having an impact on who's doing what?
50:21
Ash BG: The conversations that I have with the users.
50:23
Dom Hind: Yeah.
50:23
Ash BG: It's obviously mainly women.
50:26
Ash BG: Yes.
50:26
Ash BG: Who are sending me messages being like, thank you so much.
50:30
Ash BG: Most of them say this was exactly what we needed as a starting point for this conversation.
50:35
Dom Hind: Yeah.
50:35
Ash BG: But so many of them say, I didn't even realize how much I was doing until I put it all in.
50:42
Ash BG: And then of course, in most situations, he realizes how little he is doing in comparison.
50:48
Ash BG: Again, because we're we're adding in the mental load as well.
50:53
Ash BG: So we're adding in all of the cognitive labor, all of the emotional labor as well.
50:58
Ash BG: Absolutely.
50:59
Ash BG: Women shoulder most of the emotional labor too.
51:01
Ash BG: So if you just compare tasks, and we need to look at, you know, like how much time somebody spends in the house, again, why flexibility should be important for men too.
51:10
Ash BG: But we'll leave that there for now and talk about that all.
51:14
Ash BG: Coming, coming, it's coming.
51:16
Dom Hind: Um or normalizing flexibility for men.
51:18
Dom Hind: I think that is that's the big thing that we need to work towards.
51:21
Ash BG: It's we need to change that whole workplace culture to be able to normalize men to have a more flexible role.
51:28
Dom Hind: Yeah.
51:28
Dom Hind: And that's not saying don't be productive, it's just allowing the men to take part.
51:33
Ash BG: When we talk about productivity, like I look at you, thinking about my days, I've never been more productive in my life.
51:39
Dom Hind: Like seriously.
51:40
Dom Hind: It literally, it feels like I have got five full-time jobs.
51:44
Dom Hind: Like AI is the best and the worst thing in the world because I am so much more effective, but I then take on so much more stuff.
51:54
Ash BG: Like it's the most relatable thing I've ever heard.
51:56
Ash BG: It's just ridiculous.
51:58
Ash BG: This false sense of it is much false sense.
52:00
Dom Hind: Yeah, exactly.
52:01
Dom Hind: It is a total false sense.
52:02
Dom Hind: Um, before we move on, I do just want to come back to the shocking behaviour over the last couple of weeks where there have been three instances and now four with the death of a 16-year-old.
52:18
Dom Hind: What uh how and what do we do?
52:22
Ash BG: Also, in that time, there's been two other women who have died that we haven't spoken about.
52:26
Ash BG: Yeah.
52:26
Ash BG: This is a and this is just two weeks.
52:29
Ash BG: This is just two weeks.
52:30
Ash BG: What do we do?
52:32
Ash BG: And the two weeks before that weren't much better either.
52:35
Ash BG: We keep talking about it.
52:37
Ash BG: Well, okay.
52:37
Ash BG: Keep men accountable.
52:39
Ash BG: And we need to help men step up and be part of this conversation.
52:43
Ash BG: That's not going to change otherwise.
52:45
Dom Hind: Do you think that they and it's it is interesting.
52:47
Dom Hind: So I look at, you know, men over 50s in corporate world.
52:52
Dom Hind: Yeah.
52:53
Dom Hind: They are having a hard time.
52:56
Dom Hind: Like they are the questions and the spotlight is being put back on them.
52:59
Dom Hind: Yep.
53:00
Dom Hind: Do you think that they are resentful for that?
53:03
Dom Hind: And how can we actually get rid of the resent and show them that this is the way forward?
53:09
Ash BG: Why would they be resentful that they would have to take some accountability?
53:13
Dom Hind: I think it's more resentful that like I, and it's probably not the best um description, uh, in some instances, call them old white bread.
53:23
Dom Hind: Um, where you know they're a bit stale, um not the best thing to eat, uh, not the most nutritious.
53:35
Dom Hind: Um and they are being questioned about their role in society now and in corporate world where they're questioning themselves a lot.
53:47
Dom Hind: But I think it's a good point for them to question themselves, but then look at what we can change.
53:53
Ash BG: Absolutely.
53:53
Ash BG: I mean, I think this the people who are feeling that resentment, yeah, I think that tells you a lot about who they are as a person.
54:01
Ash BG: Yeah.
54:01
Ash BG: Because somebody could see this.
54:03
Ash BG: Yeah.
54:04
Ash BG: You know, you could be a man in your 50s and see this as a real opportunity for change.
54:08
Ash BG: And you could see this as a real opportunity to be part of that change.
54:11
Dom Hind: Yes.
54:12
Ash BG: Or you can put the blame on somebody else.
54:15
Dom Hind: Or dig your feet in.
54:16
Ash BG: Or dig your feet in.
54:16
Ash BG: Yeah.
54:16
Ash BG: Exactly.
54:17
Ash BG: And that's what a lot of people are doing.
54:18
Ash BG: A lot of people are doubling down.
54:20
Ash BG: Yeah.
54:20
Ash BG: Because they feel attacked.
54:21
Ash BG: And again, that's what happens when you have been the oppressor for so long and the tipping point starts to tip the other way.
54:29
Dom Hind: Do you also think that people can't take feedback?
54:31
Ash BG: I think men can't take feedback.
54:33
Dom Hind: Yeah.
54:34
Ash BG: Yeah.
54:35
Ash BG: Okay.
54:36
Dom Hind: But that yeah, I think can take feedback.
54:38
Dom Hind: Yeah, yeah.
54:39
Dom Hind: I'm more than happy to take feedback.
54:40
Dom Hind: I know.
54:41
Dom Hind: But you know what?
54:41
Dom Hind: I'm more aware of what my strengths and weaknesses are than if I look at, like, I know when I stuff up.
54:48
Dom Hind: Like I can, and I'm happy to have a mirror put back on me to say you stuffed up.
54:54
Dom Hind: Yeah.
54:54
Dom Hind: Like you held, like that wasn't the right thing to do.
54:56
Dom Hind: And I'll go.
54:57
Ash BG: Completely agree.
54:58
Dom Hind: Yeah, I 100% agree.
55:00
Ash BG: And then what do you do?
55:00
Ash BG: You go, I want to learn from this.
55:01
Ash BG: Yeah, absolutely.
55:02
Ash BG: We're going to do this again.
55:03
Ash BG: Then, you know, okay, how can I change?
55:05
Ash BG: How can I change?
55:06
Ash BG: What can I do better?
55:07
Ash BG: And so those 50-year-old men, are they doing that?
55:11
Dom Hind: I don't know whether they are.
55:12
Dom Hind: Yeah.
55:12
Dom Hind: I think they're stuck in a pity party where they're rather than going, This is a good opportunity.
55:19
Dom Hind: Yeah.
55:19
Dom Hind: I can be a shining light.
55:22
Dom Hind: I can understand what the women are saying.
55:24
Dom Hind: Yep.
55:25
Dom Hind: And try and elevate rather than hold down.
55:28
Ash BG: And there is some, as I said, there are some great creators doing exactly that.
55:31
Ash BG: And they are huge.
55:33
Ash BG: So I'm talking specifically about creators on social media, yes.
55:36
Ash BG: But imagine if you were that person in your organization.
55:38
Ash BG: Imagine there are hundreds of people in that organization, and all of a sudden everybody looked to you as the beacon, the shining light of the way forward.
55:46
Dom Hind: Yeah.
55:47
Ash BG: Imagine how influential you would be.
55:49
Ash BG: Imagine how much respect you would be given.
55:52
Ash BG: How much people would turn to you for advice and how incredible that could be for your career.
55:57
Ash BG: Yeah.
55:58
Ash BG: A lot of men are scared.
55:59
Ash BG: I reckon they are scared.
56:00
Ash BG: They're feeling vulnerable, they're feeling scared, but actually it's a great opportunity for growth.
56:05
Dom Hind: It is a great opportunity for growth if they're willing to grow.
56:08
Dom Hind: Exactly.
56:09
Ash BG: If you have a growth mindset.
56:10
Ash BG: Yeah.
56:11
Dom Hind: If you are, and if you do have a growth mindset, I think it is.
56:14
Dom Hind: But it would be such a shame for them to pass up on these opportunities.
56:17
Dom Hind: Yes.
56:18
Dom Hind: Yes.
56:18
Dom Hind: You know, I agree.
56:19
Ash BG: This is a time where things could move very quickly.
56:22
Ash BG: How do you do it in a school then?
56:25
Ash BG: Okay.
56:28
Ash BG: So, and again, I my child is not in school.
56:30
Ash BG: I really want to hear from you on this as well.
56:32
Ash BG: But I like my first instance is it starts from the principal, starts from the leadership.
56:37
Dom Hind: Agree.
56:38
Ash BG: So what do you think when you look at a principal who is not doing what you want them to do?
56:42
Ash BG: Like, how does that feel?
56:43
Dom Hind: Well, it it's frustrating.
56:45
Dom Hind: Yeah.
56:45
Dom Hind: Like it is really frustrating.
56:46
Dom Hind: But then for me, I can't sit and do nothing.
56:50
Dom Hind: Yeah.
56:51
Dom Hind: But there are, and I know this from a fact, from the data.
56:55
Dom Hind: So there may, like I know from the data that so many people want change, but only 50% are willing to put their name to it and stand up.
57:05
Dom Hind: So and this is this is a big thing, is that, you know, either that they're scared of the repercussions, which it's hard because if the repercussions are on your son, uh like you don't want, you don't wish har or you know, a negative experience.
57:23
Dom Hind: But if you see and know that things need to change, you need to talk up about them.
57:30
Ash BG: And worrying only about the repercussions, repercussions on your own child is not good enough.
57:35
Dom Hind: No.
57:35
Dom Hind: But it interesting, even yesterday I was talking about discipline and consistent discipline within a school environment.
57:44
Dom Hind: Yeah.
57:45
Dom Hind: And one of the comments back was it's great, parents, yep, they all agree that there should be consistent discipline until it involves their son or until it involves their child.
57:58
Dom Hind: Which you go, hang on.
57:59
Dom Hind: Everyone should be held in account in equal measures.
58:04
Dom Hind: Exactly.
58:04
Dom Hind: Irrespective if you've been involved in it or not.
58:07
Dom Hind: Yeah.
58:08
Dom Hind: If you've if there's been shit behavior, it needs to be called out.
58:11
Dom Hind: So I think that's where it is.
58:14
Dom Hind: It's hard.
58:15
Dom Hind: People speaking up for the greater good.
58:18
Ash BG: Are enabling the parents to get away with doing very little.
58:22
Ash BG: But it's hard.
58:24
Dom Hind: I think schools nowadays are so worried about being sued.
58:30
Dom Hind: Yeah.
58:31
Dom Hind: Having a defamation lawyer come after you.
58:35
Dom Hind: Um so, and this comes back to rather than owning a behavior and learning from it, they're trying to hide from it.
58:45
Ash BG: And that's a system as well, though, that, you know, if we talk about our defamation laws in Australia, that prevents so many victims from speaking up against their abusers.
58:52
Ash BG: Yeah.
58:53
Ash BG: Like that, that as a system needs to change.
58:55
Ash BG: I listened to a podcast on that recently.
58:57
Ash BG: Abby Chatfield interviewed a um lawyer about exactly that.
59:01
Ash BG: And Abby was saying herself that she is writing a book and she can't include so much of her story in it.
59:07
Ash BG: Her own story.
59:08
Ash BG: Because of defamation.
59:10
Ash BG: Because of defamation.
59:11
Ash BG: But but to think that that would even be popping up in schools in the way that leadership makes decisions, we need to talk about the safety of children.
59:19
Ash BG: Oh, absolutely.
59:21
Ash BG: First and foremost.
59:22
Ash BG: But instead of the reputation of a school.
59:25
Dom Hind: But that's what I mean, education is about educating the children.
59:29
Ash BG: Yeah.
59:29
Dom Hind: Like, and this is the thing that the we send, well, I send or we send our school our kids to great schools because we want them to get a great education.
59:39
Dom Hind: And that is about them being good people, coming out the other end, but also having a good education.
59:45
Dom Hind: Like it's not getting the top marks because academics is well, you can get into wherever you need to from an academic.
59:53
Dom Hind: Like it's one piece of the puzzle.
59:55
Dom Hind: The being a good human is a massive one.
59:58
Ash BG: Do you think that they are taught that at school?
1:00:01
Dom Hind: Um Do you know what?
1:00:03
Dom Hind: I think where the good morals and good moral compass, whether or not you are religious or not, that does set it up so that there is a service for others where, and I've seen this firsthand, where there's not so much of that religious basis, it's about service for self.
1:00:24
Dom Hind: And while, you know, some of the schools may not be, you know, there may be other behaviours within the schools that aren't great, the good moral compass and the good values is what I take from it.
1:00:42
Ash BG: What do you think went wrong with those particular boys?
1:00:46
Dom Hind: I well, this is where it comes back to culture and the environment that they are actually in.
1:00:53
Dom Hind: And I do think that if they were held accountable for their behaviours early on in life, and if they were held to account, yeah, it could have actually changed.
1:01:07
Ash BG: And prevented.
1:01:08
Dom Hind: And prevented a situation like this.
1:01:11
Ash BG: So we need to hold boys accountable.
1:01:12
Dom Hind: We need to hold boys accountable, and we also need to make hard decisions.
1:01:16
Dom Hind: And I think that's what people are scared to do.
1:01:19
Dom Hind: Make a hard decision and have a hard conversation.
1:01:23
Ash BG: This is what I find so interesting.
1:01:24
Ash BG: So I get a lot of criticism in some of my work because I talk a lot about these issues and I talk about the manosphere, and I often talk about the fact that I have a boy, but he's only two.
1:01:33
Ash BG: And people say to me all the time, you know, it's like you're expecting him to turn bad.
1:01:39
Ash BG: You know, why are you talking like this?
1:01:41
Ash BG: And, you know, what are we just assume every boy who's born is going to be bad?
1:01:46
Ash BG: And I think, absolutely not, of course.
1:01:48
Ash BG: But if we're not willing to have these conversations as well discussed, the repercussions are potentially fatal.
1:01:56
Ash BG: So what is the alternative?
1:01:59
Ash BG: We have to have these hard conversations.
1:02:01
Ash BG: It's not saying we're expecting the worst of all of our children.
1:02:03
Dom Hind: No.
1:02:04
Ash BG: But maybe we can prepare for the worst.
1:02:05
Dom Hind: But do you know what?
1:02:06
Dom Hind: I think if you prepare for the worst, you can then expect the best.
1:02:09
Dom Hind: Like, I do think there is that if you have these hard conversations early.
1:02:14
Dom Hind: Yeah.
1:02:15
Dom Hind: And call out shit behavior.
1:02:16
Dom Hind: Yeah.
1:02:17
Dom Hind: And as a parent, you need to call out shit behavior.
1:02:19
Dom Hind: That is your job.
1:02:21
Dom Hind: If you don't want to parent your kids, you shouldn't have had them.
1:02:23
Dom Hind: Like, that is my hard and fast.
1:02:26
Dom Hind: Like, I just baffles me why we are letting a child dictate to us what the terms are.
1:02:37
Ash BG: And do you think that's what's happening with teenage boys at the blue moon that they're dictating the terms?
1:02:42
Dom Hind: Dictating the terms.
1:02:43
Dom Hind: They've got the control.
1:02:44
Dom Hind: They've got the control because it's too hard.
1:02:47
Dom Hind: Scary.
1:02:48
Dom Hind: It is scary.
1:02:49
Dom Hind: Like I joke around and say, like, you know, everyone says, oh, you have to have big balls.
1:02:54
Dom Hind: But I'm like, no, no, no, you've got to have a big vagina to actually um have those hard conversations.
1:03:01
Dom Hind: Because if you don't have those hard conversations, you are not setting the boundaries and the parameters around what is expected.
1:03:07
Ash BG: That's so funny.
1:03:08
Ash BG: You've got to have big balls.
1:03:09
Ash BG: I'm sorry, are the men having these conversations?
1:03:11
Dom Hind: The balls got to do with it.
1:03:13
Dom Hind: But you know, like everyone talks, oh, you've got to have big balls to have that conversation.
1:03:16
Dom Hind: It's not.
1:03:17
Dom Hind: You've actually got to, you know, switch it on its head and go, you need to have those hard conversations.
1:03:22
Dom Hind: And I'm very passionate about that.
1:03:24
Dom Hind: The anger.
1:03:28
Dom Hind: The anger.
1:03:29
Dom Hind: See, that's where your anger comes from.
1:03:31
Dom Hind: And it's do you know what?
1:03:32
Dom Hind: I don't think it's it is anger/slash frustration because you can see that it can be better.
1:03:39
Dom Hind: Yeah.
1:03:39
Dom Hind: And that's my frustration.
1:03:40
Dom Hind: I can see it can be better.
1:03:43
Dom Hind: We're just letting people get away with shit that they shouldn't.
1:03:47
Ash BG: And I think the frustration is turning to anger.
1:03:50
Dom Hind: Yeah.
1:03:50
Ash BG: You know, I think that again, we're at a tipping point and people are fed up.
1:03:54
Dom Hind: Yeah.
1:03:54
Ash BG: And women everywhere are done.
1:03:57
Ash BG: Yeah.
1:03:57
Ash BG: And are done, you know.
1:03:59
Ash BG: Again, where are the men?
1:04:01
Ash BG: Like, you know, how many men are sitting having a podcast conversation about this?
1:04:06
Ash BG: I'm sure there are some, but other enough.
1:04:08
Dom Hind: Yeah, otherwise.
1:04:08
Ash BG: Because I'm sure there are hundreds of women talking about it right now.
1:04:11
Dom Hind: Absolutely.
1:04:11
Dom Hind: I'm sure.
1:04:12
Ash BG: Thousands.
1:04:13
Ash BG: Yeah.
1:04:14
Dom Hind: But it's interesting, even, you know, in the work that I've done to develop myself as a person, I realize that in my childhood and even up until three years ago, maybe even three months ago, I didn't know how to feel and what my emotions actually were, what I was feeling.
1:04:30
Dom Hind: And I think even that and understanding that, I don't think men know how to feel.
1:04:36
Ash BG: No.
1:04:37
Dom Hind: Or or describe the emotions that they are feeling.
1:04:40
Ash BG: And I think that they don't let them feel what they're feeling.
1:04:43
Ash BG: So they end up with just this default happy or angry.
1:04:47
Dom Hind: And that's, you know what, my two default um emotions that I felt were frustrated where I would swear.
1:04:53
Dom Hind: Yeah.
1:04:53
Dom Hind: Or I'd cry.
1:04:54
Dom Hind: Yeah.
1:04:55
Dom Hind: Like they were my that was my range of my emotions because that's all I knew what to do.
1:05:01
Ash BG: But then when a man has these default emotions and one is anger, he beats his wife.
1:05:06
Ash BG: You know, after a football game.
1:05:08
Ash BG: Yeah.
1:05:08
Ash BG: Or whatever it might be.
1:05:09
Ash BG: You know, like this is much more prevalent.
1:05:14
Ash BG: Much more dangerous.
1:05:15
Ash BG: Yeah, yeah.
1:05:16
Ash BG: Okay.
1:05:17
Dom Hind: Yeah.
1:05:18
Dom Hind: All right, I'm gonna go into a rapid fire round with you.
1:05:20
Dom Hind: One thing women need to stop apologizing for.
1:05:25
Ash BG: Asking for help.
1:05:26
Ash BG: And not being able to do everything themselves.
1:05:30
Ash BG: Yeah.
1:05:31
Dom Hind: Not making a decision.
1:05:32
Ash BG: Yeah.
1:05:33
Dom Hind: One thing men need to hear.
1:05:35
Dom Hind: Do more.
1:05:36
Dom Hind: One thing mothers need to stop doing.
1:05:40
Dom Hind: Feeling ashamed.
1:05:44
Ash BG: You know, feeling ashamed that they can't do everything themselves.
1:05:50
Dom Hind: One thing fathers need to do more of.
1:05:52
Dom Hind: I knew that before I you even said it.
1:05:58
Dom Hind: Um, most overrated piece.
1:05:59
Dom Hind: Of relationship advice.
1:06:03
Ash BG: Oh, that things get better after the first year after you've had a child.
1:06:06
Ash BG: It's not as simple as that.
1:06:08
Ash BG: And also, if you don't fix things then, you're setting yourself up for being resentful 10 years later.
1:06:14
Dom Hind: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:06:15
Dom Hind: Absolutely.
1:06:15
Dom Hind: Um, just tell me what you need me to do makes you feel what.
1:06:20
Dom Hind: Oh, or give me a list.
1:06:23
Dom Hind: You fucking think of the list yourself.
1:06:26
Dom Hind: It's it's it's not helpful.
1:06:27
Dom Hind: It's not helpful.
1:06:28
Dom Hind: Uh the mental load is exhausting.
1:06:33
Dom Hind: Equality at home means respect.
1:06:37
Ash BG: No, sorry, let me change that.
1:06:39
Ash BG: I agree with respect, but equality at home means that one person is not drowning while the other person is standing on the shore asking, how can I help?
1:06:48
Dom Hind: Yeah.
1:06:49
Dom Hind: Feminism in 2026 needs to involve more men.
1:06:56
Dom Hind: Nice.
1:06:59
Dom Hind: Um one thing you hope your son understands about women.
1:07:08
Ash BG: That they don't need him.
1:07:09
Ash BG: That if you know he was heterosexual and one chose him, that that would be um that that would be that's the word that I'm looking for.
1:07:29
Dom Hind: That he would be lucky.
1:07:30
Dom Hind: Yeah.
1:07:31
Dom Hind: He would be lucky.
1:07:32
Dom Hind: I like that.
1:07:33
Dom Hind: Um one thing you hope he understands about being a man That he's allowed to be sensitive.
1:07:41
Dom Hind: Yes.
1:07:43
Ash BG: And softer and have big emotions, he doesn't have to fit into a certain mould of what a man should look like.
1:07:51
Dom Hind: And finally, what gives you hope?
1:07:56
Ash BG: Talking to parents like you who are willing to do the hard work and who are not digging their heels or pretending that this isn't happening.
1:08:06
Dom Hind: No.
1:08:06
Dom Hind: Do you know what?
1:08:07
Dom Hind: I think something that you said, you said that men can do better, but I think everyone can do better.
1:08:13
Dom Hind: Like I actually do think we all can do better, and that is our role.
1:08:18
Dom Hind: Like, you can bury your head in the sand all you want, irrespective of what gender, what sex, what anything, but we can all do better.
1:08:28
Ash BG: Yeah, completely agree.
1:08:30
Dom Hind: Okay, uh, you spend a lot of time writing about things women experience but often don't say.
1:08:36
Dom Hind: What is the one truth about women, men, and relationships in 2026 that we need to all stop pretending is there?
1:08:48
Ash BG: Oh, that's a good question.
1:08:49
Ash BG: Just to summarize it all.
1:08:53
Ash BG: We need to stop pretending that men helping more is gonna fix everything.
1:08:59
Dom Hind: Yeah.
1:09:00
Ash BG: It's not help.
1:09:01
Ash BG: You shouldn't even be saying help in your own household.
1:09:04
Ash BG: It's your house too.
1:09:05
Dom Hind: Do you know what?
1:09:06
Dom Hind: I've even stopped saying to my kids, can you help me?
1:09:09
Dom Hind: I'm like, no chance.
1:09:10
Dom Hind: It's like, can you contribute and do this?
1:09:14
Dom Hind: Exactly.
1:09:14
Dom Hind: Because help is like, it's my responsibility.
1:09:17
Ash BG: And it all falls on me and you're doing me a favor by helping me.
1:09:22
Ash BG: Yeah, absolutely not.
1:09:23
Dom Hind: Yeah.
1:09:23
Dom Hind: So can you contribute?
1:09:24
Dom Hind: This is our house.
1:09:25
Dom Hind: I'm hard.
1:09:26
Dom Hind: Like, I would hate to be my son.
1:09:30
Ash BG: He will thank you.
1:09:32
Dom Hind: Or his his partner will thank me.
1:09:36
Dom Hind: Let's hope.
1:09:36
Dom Hind: Yes.
1:09:37
Dom Hind: Let's hope.
1:09:37
Dom Hind: Yes.
1:09:38
Dom Hind: I had a mum who's amazing said to me the other day that she's hard on her son.
1:09:44
Dom Hind: And she keeps saying to him, Your partner will thank me.
1:09:48
Dom Hind: And it's like, yeah, they will.
1:09:50
Dom Hind: They actually will.
1:09:51
Dom Hind: Yeah.
1:09:51
Dom Hind: They really will.
1:09:52
Dom Hind: Um, okay, so I'm nearly 50 in 13, 14, no, 15 months.
1:09:56
Dom Hind: Are they gonna excited?
1:09:58
Dom Hind: Yes, so exciting, but it is a little bit scary at the same time.
1:10:01
Dom Hind: Um, what is one conversation I need to have before I turn 50, or that anyone needs to have before they turn 50?
1:10:22
Ash BG: My first thought is an honest conversation with yourself.
1:10:28
Dom Hind: Yes.
1:10:29
Ash BG: About how you really feel about where you've ended up.
1:10:32
Dom Hind: Do you know what?
1:10:33
Dom Hind: I'm doing some amazing work with Vashti Whitfield, who um she's fascinating.
1:10:38
Dom Hind: She's she was on my podcast, and one of the things that she gets me, is getting me to do is understanding my identities and the roles that I play and what percentage of my life they make up.
1:10:50
Dom Hind: Yeah.
1:10:50
Dom Hind: But also how I think about love.
1:10:54
Dom Hind: Yeah.
1:10:54
Dom Hind: What a good relationship looks like.
1:10:56
Dom Hind: Yeah.
1:10:57
Dom Hind: Because I don't think my parents' relationship was modeled as a good relationship, a codependent relationship, yes, but not a good one.
1:11:07
Dom Hind: I think so many of us can say that.
1:11:08
Dom Hind: And do you know what?
1:11:10
Dom Hind: It's more who am I?
1:11:12
Dom Hind: Yeah.
1:11:12
Dom Hind: What is love?
1:11:13
Dom Hind: What does a relate a good relationship work look like?
1:11:16
Dom Hind: And what am I willing to accept?
1:11:19
Dom Hind: And what won't I accept?
1:11:21
Ash BG: Because for so long, as women, again, our lives revolved around men and we just went along with it.
1:11:26
Ash BG: Because that's what we were supposed to do, and then we became mothers, and that's what we were supposed to do.
1:11:30
Dom Hind: Yeah.
1:11:30
Dom Hind: And I mean, I'm having these conversations because I've been in that my with my husband for since I was 21, uh, 22.
1:11:38
Dom Hind: So that's a long time that I haven't had my own reflection on who I am as a person.
1:11:44
Dom Hind: So yeah, it's a good I think that's a good one, an honest conversation with yourself.
1:11:49
Dom Hind: Okay, one thing to stop doing.
1:11:53
Ash BG: Apologizing.
1:11:54
Ash BG: If you're a woman.
1:11:56
Ash BG: Yeah.
1:11:56
Ash BG: Men can absolutely continue.
1:11:59
Dom Hind: Um, one thing to start noticing.
1:12:02
Ash BG: The way that you center your life around men.
1:12:05
Dom Hind: Yeah, okay.
1:12:06
Ash BG: As a woman.
1:12:08
Dom Hind: Yep, I think that's a good one.
1:12:10
Ash BG: The times you put everybody's needs before your own.
1:12:12
Dom Hind: I think it's not even men.
1:12:13
Dom Hind: I think it is even just everyone else's needs above yours.
1:12:16
Ash BG: Yeah.
1:12:16
Dom Hind: So because then that can come back to your children as well.
1:12:19
Dom Hind: Yeah.
1:12:19
Dom Hind: Because it is exhausting.
1:12:21
Ash BG: And then as a society, we need to stop judging mothers who put themselves first.
1:12:25
Ash BG: Yeah.
1:12:27
Dom Hind: It's so interesting.
1:12:27
Dom Hind: When I because I'm big into making sure that I do my own self-care and just lock it in for the whole year.
1:12:33
Dom Hind: Yeah.
1:12:34
Dom Hind: Um, but one of the things that a friend and I do during summer is we do lock out, just go and sit by the beach for two hours.
1:12:43
Ash BG: Oh my god, glorious.
1:12:44
Dom Hind: But it's amazing.
1:12:45
Dom Hind: Yeah.
1:12:45
Dom Hind: But when we tell people, they're like, what?
1:12:47
Dom Hind: You just go and sit at the beach.
1:12:48
Dom Hind: And I'm like, yeah, we sit at the beach.
1:12:50
Dom Hind: Yeah.
1:12:50
Dom Hind: And we do nothing.
1:12:51
Dom Hind: There's no phones.
1:12:52
Dom Hind: There's no book.
1:12:53
Dom Hind: It's just sitting there.
1:12:54
Dom Hind: It's just being present.
1:12:56
Dom Hind: So good.
1:12:57
Dom Hind: Yeah.
1:12:57
Ash BG: But I feel like as soon as you hear a mother talk about, you know, the things that she does for herself, there's always a hint of judgment from a and that's what we need to do away with.
1:13:07
Dom Hind: Absolutely.
1:13:08
Dom Hind: Yeah, I think, yes, the judgment is real.
1:13:11
Ash BG: Yeah.
1:13:11
Ash BG: Is real.
1:13:12
Ash BG: Oh my god.
1:13:13
Dom Hind: Okay.
1:13:13
Dom Hind: Ash BG.
1:13:15
Ash BG: Yes.
1:13:16
Dom Hind: Thank you.
1:13:17
Ash BG: Um I hear that in my head now every time I hear my name.
1:13:20
Ash BG: We'll see my name.
1:13:21
Dom Hind: Hang on.
1:13:22
Dom Hind: Do you think we have is there anything else we need to cover?
1:13:27
Ash BG: No, I don't think so.
1:13:28
Ash BG: I think we've we've had a very full conversation.
1:13:30
Ash BG: Have we covered it?
1:13:32
Ash BG: How do you many different things?
1:13:34
Ash BG: Yeah, I think so.
1:13:36
Dom Hind: Okay, good.
1:13:37
Dom Hind: Good.
1:13:37
Dom Hind: Okay, well then thank you, Ash BG.
1:13:39
Dom Hind: Um I think what I'm taking away from today is that so many of these conversations are connected.
1:13:46
Dom Hind: And the mental load, the gender roles, the misogyny, consent, what our boys learn about women, and what girls learn about themselves as well.
1:13:57
Dom Hind: And we probably didn't touch on that enough.
1:14:00
Dom Hind: Um and they don't begin when our kids become teenagers, they become when your son's two.
1:14:06
Dom Hind: Yeah.
1:14:07
Dom Hind: Well they begin when they're when he's two.
1:14:09
Dom Hind: Um and they begin at home.
1:14:11
Dom Hind: And what is actually modeled at home as well.
1:14:14
Dom Hind: And this isn't about women versus men, it is about raising boys and girls who expect equality and who build relationships where responsibility is genuinely shared and making respect something we live rather than something we talk about.
1:14:33
Dom Hind: So, Ash BG, thank you for being on the podcast and for saying the uncomfortable things and for questioning me as well.
1:14:42
Dom Hind: Um, because it is tough right now.
1:14:45
Dom Hind: It's really tough, and we are in the thick of it and we need to talk about it.
1:14:49
Ash BG: Well, thank you for being open to talk about this.
1:14:51
Ash BG: These are big, heavy conversations.
1:14:53
Ash BG: So being brave to have this conversation and record it and share it with the world is the first step.
1:15:01
Dom Hind: It is the first well, it is.
1:15:03
Dom Hind: Have the conversations, have the conversations so that people can actually hear it and not because I do think so many people hear what's going on in their brain based on what they've seen and what's been modeled to them.
1:15:15
Dom Hind: So if people are talking about something that's different, yeah, it can change and rewire the way that they think.
1:15:21
Ash BG: All of the confirmation bias.
1:15:22
Ash BG: Yeah.
1:15:23
Ash BG: You think one way, and then everything you read, see, every conversation you have confirms that.
1:15:29
Ash BG: Yeah.
1:15:30
Ash BG: It just reaffirms the way that you already think.
1:15:32
Ash BG: So we need to constantly be questioning that.
1:15:34
Dom Hind: Yes, I love being curious and questioning everything.
1:15:38
Dom Hind: So uh if this episode has resonated with you, please share it with anyone that you would like to.
1:15:45
Dom Hind: And I will put all of the links to everything that Ash BG is doing in the show notes so that you can connect to her.
1:15:53
Dom Hind: And if you enjoyed this, please, please make sure that you do start having the conversations at home.
1:16:02
Dom Hind: Start having them with your partner, with your kids, and do the hard work now so that you're not paying for it later.
1:16:10
Dom Hind: So thank you, Ash.
1:16:12
Dom Hind: And it's very exciting that we had this conversation because fuck, I'm nearly 50 and isn't it amazing?