Speaker A: Welcome to sharing my truth with Mel and Suzie.

Speaker B: Susie.

Speaker A: The uncensored version where we bear it all.

Speaker B: We do 1234.

Speaker A: It'S well, welcome back.

Speaker B: Welcome back.

Speaker A: Thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker B: It's.

Speaker A: Sharing my truth with Melan. Susie hello, babes. How are you?

Speaker B: Hello, darling. I'm great, I'm good.

Speaker A: You look fabulous.

Speaker B: Well, so do you, darling.

Speaker A: Babes, I'm wearing my little Mel scarf today.

Speaker B: You are? And I noticed that I looked quite fabulous.

Speaker A: I feel like sexy Parisian flight attendant.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's a certain GeneSiC word. It does.

Speaker A: I am Mel. I speak five languages. That's you. Thank you so much for joining us, everyone. Make sure that you rate and review this podcast if you have a second. It really helps us out, helps people find us, helps us in this community of love and peace and sex. And then follow us on Instagram at Sharing My Truth Pod and find us on TikTok as well. Because Mel is the TikTok a coen and she kills it. And if you see our videos on TikTok, almost every single video that's on there, mel edits and it's incredible, and it's so funny. And she'll comment back. If you want to chat with Mel, I will. Yeah. You just have to comment on our.

Speaker B: Ticket on our recent Instagram post.

Speaker A: Yeah, we got our first ten K twelve, almost 13K. Incredible.

Speaker B: Lots of comments. And I love the comments.

Speaker A: We love the comments.

Speaker B: Keep going at the comments.

Speaker A: I mean, first of many, absolutely. The fact that more people are finding.

Speaker B: Our community, it's great and it's fabulous. Empowering lots more people downloading. It's brilliant.

Speaker A: Yeah. So thank you so much and keep sharing this pod. We love it, but yeah. So we are going to get right into it today because it's a pretty big topic.

Speaker B: It is.

Speaker A: And it might be a little controversial, a smidge. Yes, smidge of the controversy. Because today we're going to talk about 50 50 relationships.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: And what we mean by that is mostly like women doing 50%, men doing 50% in the relationship. So, I mean, whatever that means to you, whether it's paying for 50% of the bills, taking care of 50% of the childcare, or the home cleaning or whatever it is, everything is 50 50. And we're here to talk about why that most likely does not work.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker B: We all yes.

Speaker A: I mean, it's pretty hefty because we're in this place that if you get married, we're dealing with a bunch of issues, and if we don't get married, we're dealing with a bunch of other issues. And as women, you're having to work, you're having to have a baby. If we're just going to go from society standards, work, have a baby, get married, maybe not in those orders, and then hopefully you don't get divorced and you're still taking care of your however many kids.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: You want to get a pet, you have to take care of your parents. It's a lot, and a lot of these caretaker things still falls on the woman side 100%.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: How did we get here, right? How did we get here in the way of modern feminism, where we do feel empowered, obviously, and there's so much that has helped. Like misogyny is still here, obviously, but it's gotten a lot better. And I know from when you were a teenager or in your 20s, obviously, it's been a very large change.

Speaker B: Oh, yeah, it's a massive change. I mean, in any workplace, I left university, my first job, proper job in an office, if that's a proper job, but you know what I mean, like paying the rent kind of job. And I would have been about 23, and I was in sales jobs, and I was always working with a lot of men, and it was so misogynistic and not even misogynistic. They were sort of being overbearingly masculine. I mean, they made horrible comments and that was just a regular thing. And I know lots of my friends experienced that, but I'd say my generation, generation X, is really the first generation. My mother actually worked, and so did my grandmother on my mum's side, so I had that in my family. But my mum then stopped working when she had me, which was quite common. But my generation, Generation X, probably the first generation because of the feminist movement, the we were going to look after ourselves. We weren't sort of looking to get married. That wasn't number one aim, to get married. And even growing up, my father always said to me, it was my father, not my mother, saying to me, if you want things in life, if you want a house, a car, whatever, you go out there and get it. You get a great job, you get it. Don't marry a man. Don't let a man decide that for you. And I think our generation was the US that really experienced not being trapped, if you know what I mean, because I think we can criticize. But women before that, they didn't have a choice. I mean, they got married for money, for finances. I mean, hopefully they loved the guy and he wasn't that awful, but they were trapped then and society didn't let them get divorced and what were they supposed to do? My mother's mother got married at 19 because she got pregnant and she detested my grandfather and I think spent her whole life being miserable, and that was a lot of people in that, right? But then the feminist movement, as far as I see it, was to supposed to be able to allow women to have the choice to have a choice to work, to not work, to work part time when you have children, to work, to not work, to go back to whatever the combination of whatever those things is was to allow you to have the choice and to not have to do what a man told you. What society? You could make those decisions. And of course, that is sort of.

Speaker A: Where we yeah, I mean, kind of.

Speaker B: Got to but it's kind of now it's so incredibly difficult for young women because if you have children, women still have babies, so you have to take time off. I mean, I took minimal time off with my two kids, but still, physically, you have to somebody's got to look after the baby. Somebody's got to physically go through it.

Speaker A: Someone's got to feed them exactly.

Speaker B: The whole thing, and to sort of have to go back to work very quickly, which a lot of women have to do within six months to a year. And then you don't know how you're going to feel. You think, no, I want this, I want my job, and I want to have everything. And then you have the baby and you're like, maybe I'd like a little bit of time out, which is perfectly that would be great in an ideal world. But then, even if you have a partner who can support you financially, it's so ****** expensive to breathe, let alone buy a house, that it's almost impossible for any family, unless one of the members, the man or the woman or whatever. The couple, whoever's in the couple, if you like, is an extremely high earner, a mega earner, which is 0.1% of the population. Then what are you supposed to do?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, we're still supposed to as society wants us to they want us to work like men, pretty much. That sounds extremely anti feminist in the way of, like, well, we should have this what we call equality, but it should be equity in the way of, like, we need different things. We are different people with different needs. 100% like our two genders, and whoever has a ****** has a *****. Whoever you are, you're going to need different things in your life and whether that's if you do want if you choose to have a child and make that ginormous decision and you might be even alone and you want to have a child.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker A: You don't need a ***** anymore, which is incredible, but you should make that decision for yourself. And people should be able to our society should accept that, and they should try to take care of these people that want to make their own decisions and not I feel like we're being punished for living how society has wanted us to live.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think in a way, young women are, because I would say, on the flip side, there's probably never been a fairer time, if you like to be a woman in terms of you can get the job. I mean, you look at the statistics of higher education and young women in education and do much better than young men and so on, but it's just incredibly I think the reason it's difficult for women is because you're supposed to be now? Apparently, either Kim Kardashian or running some global online super wearing, like, $3,000 suits. Or you're meant to be a celebrity. Whatever. Like, you're meant to be some super, super duper human being, and you're supposed to look amazing at all times of day, and you're supposed to be an amazing lover and amazing in the sack. And then if you have children, you're meant to be an amazing mother. Like, you're meant to be all of these things, which is like, I don't even know how that works.

Speaker A: It's hard because the women and we're probably going to get a lot of hate for saying this, but it's like, yeah, probably. But the women, we are the problem. We're our own enemy, because we like to pretend that it's all woman empowerment. And we've said this before, but women are the hardest, most judgmental, 100% on to other women ever.

Speaker B: It's hideous, and I think it confuses men. I think it really confuses men. They don't understand. They're like, I thought you guys were all meant to stick together. And you know what it's like if women are like, oh, if your friend has just bought some beautiful new house or has some amazing clothes, everyone's like.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm so happy for you.

Speaker B: And then behind your back, they're like, it's so bitchy.

Speaker A: And I think it's like a husband.

Speaker B: Probably about that very yeah, women are innately jealous. Yes. Most men don't really give a **** what house they live in, what the couch looks like. It's all often in relationships to the woman who's like, no, I have to have it's got to look better. And I'm worried about what other people think.

Speaker A: It's because we're secretly very competitive.

Speaker B: Secretly very competitive. And I also think I mean, I personally, the most criticism I've ever received is from women. And when I worked through both my pregnancies and with my children, I've always worked. And the amount of criticism and my husband's always had a very good job. So the amount of criticism I've had from other women saying, why do you work? So you'd have the women saying, why do you work? You don't need to work. Then the women who you've gone back to work, it just sort of came from all sides, and you're like, Hang on a second. How about **** off and mind your own business?

Speaker A: **** off.

Speaker B: I'm doing what I'm doing. It works for me and my family, and it has nothing to do with you. And it's horrible. It really is. And you think, oh, my God, you are the same woman who would say you're a feminist and you're doing this. You're criticizing me. Because I have had friends who've criticized me when my two children were very young because I was working. I had my own business. I still have my own business, but I had a nanny to help me when I was working, and I had friends who were feminists who criticized me for having a nanny and you're like, Hang on a second. So you're going to criticize me for having somebody to help me so that I can work? Okay, this is really, really messed up. And then those same women then had their children and of course had to have child care or something. How do you work if you don't have any help? If you're very, very lucky and you've got a mother or some kind of relative that will help you? Lucky you. But most people don't have that.

Speaker A: No, especially who live in the same place, because we're all living in different places now. That's just the way things go.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I think there's a huge amount of expectation on women. I'm 50 and I went to a super feminist private girls school in England, not for my very poor, very poor, not for home of my education, but sort of the bulk of it. And it was very feminist. It was like, your girls and you can do anything a man can do, and it was drummed into you every single day, and you can succeed and you can be a doctor, a lawyer, a banker, a businesswoman, whatever, and it was drummed into you.

Speaker A: And it's not true.

Speaker B: No, it's not true. It's very empowering. That was great. And all of us went off and had degree, got degrees and everyone worked and blah, blah, blah, but they sort of failed to mention what happens when you have a child. They sort of missed that bit out. And I know that that's very difficult, how they're going to talk about that when you're 18? But it's like it's kind of key because most of us that was a big issue, right, that you'd worked your *** off. Friends of mine who were lawyers, who worked their *** off, got these big jobs in corporate careers and then had a child, and then it's like, how do I do this? This is really hard because we still are not you can say, oh, the man could do it, but we're still not there. And you do physically have the child. The child comes out of you. There's a bond between the mother and the and I know lots of and I have lots of friends of all different combinations of ways that they've looked after the children, and it's worked very well for them, and it really is up to the couple, but it's still.

Speaker A: Stacked against well, I think it's also just so funny. Like, when you look at Instagram and you look at all these hot mummies on Instagram and things like that, they do not most of them anyways, obviously do not show that they have nannies around. Of course not, but of course they do. And there's just these women that are, like not maybe purposefully, but they are gatekeeping into these ideologies of, like it's.

Speaker B: A very good way of putting it.

Speaker A: Yeah. They're just like they're holding on. They're like, oh, we're obviously getting so much help and taken care of and looking super great on Instagram, but obviously.

Speaker B: Behind the scenes there's an army of people, of course, which is fine. I mean, if you can afford that, good for you either way, but don't pretend, don't portray something. And there are a couple of celebrities who shall remain nameless who do that, and they sort of, oh, I'm a great mother. And they're sort of walking around with their baby carrier, with their hundred children following them, but then you never see actually, the nannies behind kid number six.

Speaker A: Also like, what other I mean, are they making their own food? Probably not.

Speaker B: Probably not doing the washing.

Speaker A: There's so many things to being an everyday woman. Like you said, you have to look great. Where does all that money come? To buy the makeup, to buy the hair stuff, to make you look great, to be an everyday person in society?

Speaker B: Well, yeah, and the time.

Speaker A: And if you go to work one day and you don't put makeup on, someone's going to say you look tired.

Speaker B: Oh yeah.

Speaker A: And that's going to ruin your ******* ******* day. And any woman listening is going to know exactly what I'm talking about. Because if you don't wear makeup, if you have an actual office job or whatever, and you have to look professional every day, you're speaking with clients.

Speaker B: It'S.

Speaker A: Like proven fact that prettier or more well put together women are more successful.

Speaker B: But look at all the sort of the music stars that like a lot of young women. I'd say gen. Z's. My kids sort of look up to the sort of Beyonce and all these adels or whatever. Not so much Adele, but like Beyonce and trying to think of Cardi B or whoever it is. And they're all like mega put together and also very, very feminine and God, how long does it take to get to look like that? I mean, they've obviously got the raw material to start with, but the rest of us aren't able to do that because we don't have I've told you what it's like when you bump into celebrities, which I have done bizarrely in a lot of airports. And it's so disappointing because you're always like, is that it? Yeah. I remember seeing like various people. Jude laura. So I sent Gwyneth Paltrow. Heathrow Airport is like a mecca for all these people. You always see them and it's like, oh, right. It's like, I could be you. Well, not quite, but, you know, you could, though they're not that exciting.

Speaker A: Absolutely.

Speaker B: Then you realize how many people are behind and particularly women, and you know, it's like you go to hairdresser, all of you know how long all this stuff takes? Yeah, it takes forever. So do that. And to be like in a relationship and to have a job, which no job is nine to five, if you're progressing in your career, it's more like seven to nine.

Speaker A: If you want to raise, you have.

Speaker B: To work the extra hours, children, a house. And then that leads on to the other thing, that still so much unpaid work in the house. Women do it mostly because we don't want to leave it to men because they're useless at it. I mean, that would be my case. Right.

Speaker A: Well, if you want something done, you do it yourself. And I think a lot of women feel that way.

Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I'm lucky. My husband cooks and I can't, as you know, cook to save my life. However, everything else, my husband cannot put a wet towel after 25 years over the little rail he just can't get, and it's all scrunched up. What is the point in having the conversation for the millionth time? I just put the towel back every time.

Speaker A: There is no pick your battles. Yeah.

Speaker B: If I want breakfast, lunch and dinner, I'm going to put the tail. Well, it is actually the truth, but I think we don't realize and also there's the issue of a lot of stuff that women don't say, do they? Like, we're talking about the fact that there's sort of all the bitchiness and that we're really sort of quite jealous of each other, but there's also a lot of unsaid stuff.

Speaker A: Well, it's like when you see these women, whether in person or online, and you want to judge them because maybe they have a rich husband and they don't work and they have a bunch of kids and yeah, they're just living their life. They're trying to live their best life. And obviously, maybe you don't know these women and you're judging just based on looking at them, but you're obviously like, **** that. I can't believe this woman went there. She should have a job. Why are you making your money? You're putting us back a bunch of years. It's like maybe you're just jealous.

Speaker B: Yeah. Maybe secretly you're like, that would be quite nice.

Speaker A: Either way is fine. You want to work, you want to make your own way in life, ******* power to you. But if you want to take man's money and make it your own, power to you as well.

Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, you really have to do what's right for you. I do think that if you have children, especially I've got two daughters, it is good to have the role model of I've always worked, and they've seen that. But they've also seen that their dad is, in our case, a very strong figure in their life. And he does do things like he cooks, even though he's a very sort of alpha male. He cooks all our meals and they see that for male. Yeah. He is very what? What's the word?

Speaker A: No, I love it.

Speaker B: Male.

Speaker A: He knows how to take care of a lady.

Speaker B: Yeah. He's not well, A type personality. Very male. Yeah. And so they see that but they see that I also work, but that mom and dad obviously have an agreement, an arrangement, because I've done the bulk of the childcare I mean, not the bulk.

Speaker A: I've done all the childcare let's say.

Speaker B: It all the child care and got them out of my body. And that was pretty big. But also, we agreed that that was an agreement. And maybe that's the problem, is that people assume that if people are living these lives and then we sort of look in on Instagram and whatever, and we think it's true. And of course, it's a tiny slice of your life that those couples have hadn't they've spoken about this? They've arranged their life, they're happy with it. And in many cases, and I have several friends where the woman is the brain keeper, the breadwinner. The breadwinner, that's the one. And that works for them and great, but they've set up their life. They've had, obviously, conversations about it. I also know people where it hasn't worked, but that's entirely personal, isn't it? Yeah. Why can't we just all get on and do what is right for us? Because I think, unfortunately, that is the biggest thing, the biggest criticism, and people are going to come for me for saying this, for women, is that we just can't let it be. We've got rid of a lot of misogyny. It's a lot, lot better than when I was young. You can't say hideous things in the workplace.

Speaker A: What are hideous things?

Speaker B: Oh, my gosh, just so many sexual innuendos. I'm not even sure I can repeat some of them. They would just repeat them. So I mean, I can remember there's so many but I remember one day I was working I was working in a sales floor selling advertising for a newspaper group in the UK, big newspaper. And I worked all the sales floors in those days were men and very sort of male men, like, shouted down the phone, and it was very noisy and I was the only woman on the sales team. And I'm a sort of small, feminine I'm not exactly a yeah, I'm very cute. Well, thank you. Very but I'm sort of the total opposite to them. Yeah. And I got the job because I speak several languages. But anyway, one day I'm on the phone, I get off the phone, my boss looks at me and he's sitting at his desk and he's wheeling the chair with it in and out, and I'm like, what are you doing? He said, you know what I'm doing. I'm thinking about if I had a girl bent over this desk right now. And I just go in and in and out of her on my chair, and I just went, okay, great, thanks. I just got a call center. And I just completely ignored him. Right, but that is the kind of thing that you dealt with.

Speaker A: That's the environment that you're making comments.

Speaker B: Like, very that's your boss. Yeah, it was my boss. And it didn't even occur to me to say anything because I was just like, whatever. It wasn't specifically about me, but I have had things said specifically about me. Once. I was wearing a pearl necklace and this is very many, many years ago, and I was in my early twenty s and probably a lot more naive. And this guy who had a little bit of a thing for me, but he told me what's the expression like is that you're basically pearl necklace. I eat sperm.

Speaker A: Like jerk off on your track.

Speaker B: Exactly. That's what he meant. And I had no idea what he was talking about at the time. And then I had to get somebody to translate and I was like, all right, okay, whatever. And I just carried on because it wasn't an environment. But that's pretty bad, right? Looking back many years later and so many instances of that, of really sexual talk.

Speaker A: Just imagine if we went into a workplace and we were like, oh my God, my ***** is so wet when your tie is tied. Like that pretty much like anything.

Speaker B: Like pretty much. That is pretty much what it was like.

Speaker A: My nibbles get.

Speaker B: But they would love it. Of course they would love it. That's the irony. But I mean, you'd go to conferences or whatever. If you have conferences where you're sort of running a stand or whatever for your company and the men would come by and every single one of them had to chat you up and you're like, you know, I am here for work. I'm not here excuse me for your amusement so that you can chat me up. And you just go and you just kind of get used to it. But that was the environment. Very misogynistic, very highly sexualized. Less women, more men, especially in the jobs I was in. Yeah.

Speaker A: And then they don't want more women, so they can keep saying they're ****** ****.

Speaker B: And then when women complained, then they basically didn't talk to them. Now that's all changed and that's really great. That is good. And the other thing is that women who are in marriages and perhaps they don't work, they're not trapped anymore. They're not like, oh God, I have to stay married to this man. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's not easy to get divorced, but it's not like my grandmother's generation. She had to marry my grandfather because she was pregnant and what was she going to do? She hated the guy.

Speaker A: That's horrible.

Speaker B: And that has changed and that's very, very positive. But I just think we live in a world now that we're not really allowing for many exceptions, are we? And we're being very I guess the word is judgmental. So if a woman said, oh, I'm going to have my kids and I don't want to work, all your friends would get on you, giving you a hard time about it, where in actual fact. It's like, okay, if that's what you want to do, you do that. It's not what I want to do, but that's none of my business. Yeah.

Speaker A: I mean, for me, I have a really great group of friends and oh, my God, I love them so much. But, yeah, if any of them were like, you know what? I'm going to marry this rich guy, and I'm just going to be a mommy. And I'm like, that is ******* amazing for you. I honestly think it is. The group of girls that you surround.

Speaker B: Yourself with, well, that's incredible.

Speaker A: There's so many toxic and I've had so many toxic female friendships that are just like, you say one thing and then you think the other, and then you talk behind their back or like, they say something to your face and you're like, that wasn't nice at all.

Speaker B: Well, they're ready to jump on.

Speaker A: They're very ready to jump.

Speaker B: We had some a post this week on TikTok, and we said something. You said something funny. And all these women sort of piled on saying, you're not a feminist. It's a joke. I work. I support myself. I think I'm a feminist in the same case for me. But they're just ready for a fight. They're ready to go for you, that you're being subjugated to men. And I think that's a big problem, that women I think I've told you this. When my husband travels, he puts all his clothes on the bed and then you pat, and then I pat him for him.

Speaker A: So cute to me.

Speaker B: And I've always done that because he's traveled so much. Yeah, but I remember one of my friends saying to me that I was behaving like a servant and that I was being liked to his housewife. That's the kind of thing she said. And I will iron his shirts and stuff, but he does all the cooking. He'd do anything for me. So I'm like, who's got the menace situation? It was just ridiculous. I mean, just like, I'm not doing it because I'm a woman and he's a man. I'm doing it because I happen to be better at this, and I'm helping him because I love him and I want to do something for him. And he likes cooking because he's way better at it than me. And he loves doing it because he feels it's really contributing to the family, which it is, and it makes him feel good and everyone's fed and everyone's happy.

Speaker A: That's where we come back to the toxic way of thinking of a 50 50 relationship and how it literally just doesn't work. As in the fact that you have to take note of everything you've done for them for one day, and that what he's done for you and everything you've done for him and what he's done for you. And if it doesn't match up, then what? Are you going to break up? Are you going to. Have a fight.

Speaker B: You have like a little sort of thing like owed to Melanie one dinner owed to Max, one whatever or whatever it is, even. We were talking about this recently. Well, not so recently. Michelle Obama was interviewed and she said, and I will link this in the blog where the interview was, and she said that no marriage is 50 50 and that her marriage to Barack Obama was not 50 50. I mean, clearly he was the President of the ****** United States. So, I mean, he had a pretty big job and it doesn't get much bigger than that. But, I mean, she was saying that marriage is not always 50. It might be at some points 60 40, 70, and it's not always one way or the other. It just depends. Right, but you're thinking, look, this is a woman who is extremely articulate, who's incredibly capable, who obviously realized her brother, her husband, even though she was a lawyer and had a lot of education, is very smart, her husband's going to be the president. She kind of can't have a job. She kind of has to go to the White House. She kind of has to support him, and she's doing her duty for the United States by supporting him. If she was the President, he would have to do the other way around. And now obviously she's gone on and she's written her book and blah, blah, blah. But I mean, I think she's a pretty good example for the team. She worked for the team of her family, and I think that she's a great example and she is to be commended and talked about more. The fact that she did that. Yeah.

Speaker A: And I mean, that drives into the everyday woman of just like, yeah, your husband might make more money sometimes and maybe he can pay an extra bill, but there's also the fact that he might lose his job.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker A: And you have to be ready to either if you want to make sure that this is the partner of your life or maybe you're not just with him for his money, but how are to you whatever, but, yeah, there might be a possibility that you're going to have to help him.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: Or help the family. Either way.

Speaker B: Either way. But the beginning of my relationship with Max, I made way more money, and then it sort of swung in between all the way through. And to me, it's not important at all. I don't really understand why that's important. I guess I know couples where it has been problematic and that's a societal thing where the woman makes more money than the man and that's complicated to unpack that. And that depends on the couple and how they can deal with that. But, yeah, there are times in your life and not just if you've had a child like you said, you could be laid off. So you need to be with somebody who's going to kind of help you out. Not sort of have you on the street yet. Not have you on the street. Yeah, but it's true, right? Absolutely. Like, let's say you lose your job tomorrow. It's going to help you pay the rent, of course, and not be like, you've had one cube of whatever. You're not ruining a glass of orange juice. You owe that back. Exactly.

Speaker A: It's not like you're splitting the fridge. You're literally supposed to be happy.

Speaker B: It's supposed to be happy, and it's.

Speaker A: Supposed to be a nice partnership.

Speaker B: I know. And you want to do things for.

Speaker A: That person without expecting things to come back to you.

Speaker B: Exactly. 100%. And you shouldn't be sort of having there shouldn't be some kind of tally. And I do know couples where there is a tally yeah. Where they're literally tallying and they've had children and they have rotors, like today so and so feed so and so. Or tomorrow I do the shopping. So next week you have to do the shopping. I mean, who cares how many times you do the shopping? I don't know why that matters.

Speaker A: Well, as long as you're not getting completely taken advantage of.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: You know what I mean?

Speaker B: That's another issue. But I think, you know, if you're in a relationship with somebody and you're happy and you're both contributing in whatever way you're contributing, which clearly is not going to be the same, that would be ridiculous. And you are different people, therefore you bring different things to the relationship. It's so complicated.

Speaker A: I know. I just want to marry a rich man. Can I just have a sugar daddy already? I'm ready for it.

Speaker B: You're ready for it?

Speaker A: I'm ready for it.

Speaker B: Then a rich older man that's got its problems.

Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know. Because then you marry someone, they're 90, and then bye.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker A: I'm like half kidding.

Speaker B: But they are going to come for you today. Possible. I don't come for you.

Speaker A: Any woman who says that they wouldn't, like, imagine just having that opportunity, being like, this man is going to die in a year. Give him the best year of his life as a young woman, and you get to make a billion dollars.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker A: I take that. I take that.

Speaker B: I would. You know what? At least you're honest.

Speaker A: 100%. I don't know any woman who doesn't mel, you wouldn't do that.

Speaker B: Well, I'm already married.

Speaker A: No, I know, but if you were like, imagine just marrying old codger. So if someone was like, I don't know if their assistant was like, we need a fun, sexy woman for a year because this man has one year to live. He has a lot of money. He doesn't have anyone else to give it to. You're not taking this money away from his I don't know, his other family. Whatever. I'm just saying.

Speaker B: Yeah, you wouldn't take that deal. You wouldn't take that deal. I think most people would take the deal.

Speaker A: Thank you. It's a smart ******* decision. You might learn something from this old guy. I mean, maybe if a second old ****, who cares?

Speaker B: It depends who it is. If that is attached to some individuals, then I don't know, but I guess you can as one person, you're making.

Speaker A: A billion dollars in one of our TikToks.

Speaker B: They were like, you can close your eyes.

Speaker A: And I thought, oh, yeah, you can close your eyes.

Speaker B: We're talking about turn lights off. Just close your eyes.

Speaker A: And I was like, oh, yeah.

Speaker B: That was kind of eye opening, that comment. Anyway. But yeah. So where are we now in our conversation?

Speaker A: I'm just saying, women, come on, guys, just be honest with ourselves. You don't need to do it all. You don't need to be the feminist who believes that we can do it all. We literally cannot. We need help. We need help. And whether it might be a man's help, you shouldn't be ashamed of taking a little bit of help as long as they're also helping. Like you're helping.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Did I just speak?

Speaker B: No. I think it's basically not sort of dying on the sword of your principles. It's like taking it too far. It's like we are all trying to live here in a pretty tough world where it's getting increasingly competitive and there are no breaks anymore for women. That was one thing years ago, is you got lots of breaks because she's only a woman.

Speaker A: She's only a woman.

Speaker B: I have had that said to me in years and years ago more times than I've had hot dinners as a nice English expression for you. And it's true. And they would say that to you, and you'd be like, oh, thanks very much. That's great. Yeah, whatever. But that isn't the world we live in. However, the price we pay for not living in that world is all the other stuff, 100%. It's the price of progress, I guess. I guess that's the same with everything. It's so difficult to hike. Hang on a second. I don't want all of this stuff from the past, and I want all this good stuff, but I don't want that stuff. I only want this piece of feminism or quality. I don't want all the other stuff. Well, it doesn't work like that.

Speaker A: But it's hard because I want men to be nice to me and not sexually assault me because they think I'm hot and they think that I deserve it if I look a certain way.

Speaker B: It's amazing that men still behave like that.

Speaker A: And I don't believe that's ever going to stop. No, but yeah, I don't want that. But I do want the fact that maybe a guy can still buy me dinner and maybe open the door for you.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: What is that? Chivalry? Yeah, chivalry.

Speaker B: A gentleman.

Speaker A: A gentleman, but also just like a nice person. Like, I would hold the door open for anyone. Yeah, I would buy my friend's dinner.

Speaker B: And that supports you in your life, supports what you're doing is there, and you support them emotionally, physically, whatever it is, that you're both there for each other. And the idea is that you're both there, whatever happens. So whoever needs some, everyone needs some support. But I think the thing that's most unspoken, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, that the voice that we just don't hear enough, is that a lot of women actually do kind of want a mat. They want a man, so they want to earn their own money.

Speaker A: We're talking about straight women, obviously, lesbians. We are talking you can join the conversation. We love you so much.

Speaker B: I'd love to know, actually how these.

Speaker A: Lesbians, how that differs. Is it 50 50?

Speaker B: I'd love to know. And if one partner's female and one's mass warm out, yeah, I'd love to know that. So please, somebody let me know because I really would like to know.

Speaker A: Sorry, entrepreneur.

Speaker B: No. Now I've lost completely.

Speaker A: I know, I'm sorry.

Speaker B: No, but I think the unspoken thing is that you want to work, you want to do well, because I think you also want it for your self esteem and your morale. And of course you want to make your own money. So that basically, if you want to go and buy a handbag, you don't have to have a massive conversation about it. Yeah, but most women also want a man who's supportive, who's going to sort **** out if everything goes wrong. They kind of want and that's kind of a very male stereotype, somebody to kind of look after them, to be a rock. And I say look after I don't necessarily mean financially, but they also kind of like it when that man takes them out for dinner, when he turns up with a Louis Vuitton handbag. It all is quite nice. And we are kidding ourselves.

Speaker A: Let's just stop pretending we don't like that.

Speaker B: We are kidding ourselves if we don't say we like that.

Speaker A: And I think it comes from.

Speaker B: This.

Speaker A: Younger place of a woman. Obviously, you went to this really feminist school, and even I remember being extremely more feminist when I was in my early twenty s and like late teens. And obviously it's just changed now because I'm ******* tired.

Speaker B: Yeah, but idealism always kind of waves because then you live and you're like, oh, ****. Yeah, actually this is quite hard.

Speaker A: This is really hard. And like, wait, I still possibly have to have a baby and I'm going to have to work after that. That's insane. There has to be an option, right? And you have to have the choice.

Speaker B: Yeah, there can't just be. But I mean, that was the point. Exactly. The point of the feminist movement was for women to have the choice. And now we've got to this point and that everything is so expensive in most of the major cities in the world that both the man and the woman have to work. Otherwise, you can't afford to live in your house, you can't afford to drive your cars, and then, of course, children have to go to daycare. You can't afford that. I mean, the whole thing is mad. Yeah. It's toxic. It's completely mad. I mean, the cost of day childcare is insane.

Speaker A: And it's just going up.

Speaker B: It's just going up.

Speaker A: Everything is just going up. And we could talk about this for days, especially with children involved, but as a person who doesn't even know if they want children.

Speaker B: Right, yeah. But I think I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, I think there are also a lot of women who are making the choice, which, absolutely, if you don't want to have children, that's entirely your choice. So that is a choice, too. But I think there are also a lot of women that feel they can't have children because they can't afford it, and so they've kind of eliminated the choice for themselves. And that, I think, is really desperately sad. Yeah.

Speaker A: I mean, as we live in Canada, thankfully, abortion is very illegal. I mean, legal.

Speaker B: Legal.

Speaker A: Yeah, abortion is very legal. And we are able to make these decisions for ourselves. And if we can't afford it, which is in Toronto and other large cities, how can you if you're literally not working so hard with, like, three jobs? It's so difficult. And especially if you don't have a partner who's also working and who's also super just supportive and a real partner in it.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's very difficult.

Speaker A: So difficult in this economy.

Speaker B: Are you kidding? Yeah. But, I mean, also sort of not to go on about children, I make my last point about it, but even the way having children is so geared to somebody being at home. My kids, when they were little, they finished school at 315. Yeah, well, not everyone, obviously, can afford for somebody or has to pick them up or a family member to go and pick them up. So the whole thing is geared around somebody being at home. Yeah, mostly a mum or somebody being at home. It's not geared around the workday at all. It's just not. So that's kind of messed up. But, I mean, it leads into my facts. Do you want to hear my facts? Absolutely. I'm so excited. So my facts and I will link the article, just woman yeah. So this actually comes from publication called Pan McMillan, but I will link it in the blog, as always.

Speaker A: Okay. Amazing.

Speaker B: But I think some important things to actually consider about gender inequality, because this is a subtitle of this that still exists in the world. So we've gone through this huge sort of feminist movement, and there's been so much progress and a lot of in the Western world anyway, educated young women and many young women going on to secondary and post secondary undergraduate postgraduate studies and so on. But you think about so I'll just read you a few of these facts. You think the US in particular and obviously we're in Canada, the US is very different situation, but the US is one of the only eight countries in the world that does not provide any form of pay maternity leave. Sorry if that's not totally correct now, but I know that the US is very different to Canada and to the UK, where I'm from in Western Europe, where it's much better for mothers and paid leave. But that still is an issue that you're either going to, in the US earn nothing or you're going to earn less or whatever. So that's not really progress, is it? No. Then there's the issue of harassment, sexual harassment, either in like you were talking about. Not necessarily. We've done a lot of work to get that out of the workplace. And obviously there's lots of laws, but that doesn't in social situations, in situations particularly, like, if you're in a gym or something like that, or if you I mean, even at my in my advanced years, Susie, you know, you'll sort of be in shoppers drug martin. Some man will come up to you and and, you know, in my case, it's not some gorgeous young 25 year old. It's generally some doddry old whatever. Yeah, but I mean, some man will come up to you and say something like, super creepy and in like, what? I'm like, looking for shower gel or whatever. What? And I can think of a situation.

Speaker A: In the ******* tampon aisle.

Speaker B: Yeah, **** off. Recently I was in shoppers Jogma, actually. You're getting lots of advertising here. Not in necessarily a positive context. And this has nothing to do with shopping.

Speaker A: Don't sponsor it.

Speaker B: I was with one of my daughters, and this man, who actually was relatively young came up to my daughter and said, is that your sister pointing to me? Yeah, exactly. How many times is that? And she went and she was like, she has this as well. She's 19 now. She has men always coming up to her.

Speaker A: She's gorgeous.

Speaker B: And she's like, no, it's my mom. Because you kind of have to be polite. You're not quite sure to be polite.

Speaker A: Because you don't want to go and stab.

Speaker B: Exactly. And you want to kind of de escalate the aggression. And then he starts saying and you're just like and you just have to laugh and kind of back away. And you're like, this is not right. I am in shoppers drug mart. I shouldn't have to I've said it again. Have to have this. Or like you're in a gym or you're walking home at night or you're on the subway, you've got to make all those conscious decisions and that you think, well, we haven't made much progress there, have we? So harassment, that was the other thing. The other thing. And then I think we mentioned we touched on this earlier that still there's so much progress. But most of the unpaid work in the house is largely done by women now and childcare now. That is often we are our own worst enemy in that case. I know I am in my case, because I hate the way my husband does the housework than cooking it's. Just forget it. I can't be bothered to explain it to you. I'm just going to do it myself. And the same with the kids. It's just like, I'll just do it myself. It's easier. So I do kind of works both well.

Speaker A: Also, it's like, I mean, and I'm just going to interrupt you for one moment, but the children, they want their mums.

Speaker B: They do. That's also the thing.

Speaker A: It's like, the dad can be there, but the children want the mums generally wipe their bums and do all the mum dirty stuff.

Speaker B: Generally they do, but it is often, and I've seen with lots of couples, where the man takes a much more central role, so a more modern role, less sort of traditional role, and they do sort of also want that. In my case, my kids always like, they'll call my husband and he'll be like, oh, you're calling me that's so nice. You're not calling me about money or anything. Oh, no, I couldn't get a hold of Mum, so I'm just calling you. And he's like, oh, okay. Yeah, exactly. But, yeah, generally. And it depends whether you have girls or boys, obviously. And another last sort of point, because this is quite a lot in this article, but is about financial advice, because I think a lot of financial institutions still it's not very geared towards helping women. And for some reason, we're still I don't know why. That is a huge generalization, but I don't think it's been the advertising or anything has been geared towards helping women. And I don't think women are still as good as they should be at not being financially independent. Are you having a job? But making sure they have enough money for retirement, making sure they buy a house, making sure blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker A: You're making good investments.

Speaker B: Yeah. You're protecting yourself and you're not spending it all on Chanel handbag. That's so hard. Well, that's pretty hard. Louis Vuitton. Oh, Kate's Bay. Whatever. Prada.

Speaker A: Whatever can be bought to my sugar daddy's. I like prada.

Speaker B: You like prada.

Speaker A: In case you were wondering.

Speaker B: Yeah, he does Prada.

Speaker A: I'll be expecting one when I get home.

Speaker B: So those are my facts.

Speaker A: I love your facts. Well, I mean, it's hard. It's hard.

Speaker B: Bell.

Speaker A: Being a woman is hard. Being a person in society right now is hard. We're just there's too much going on.

Speaker B: There's too much going on. There's too many expectations. And the last thing I'm going to say is we also put too many expectations upon ourself. Yes. We make this oppressive expectation that you're going to be able to do all these things like, ease off, give yourself a break.

Speaker A: Give yourself a break.

Speaker B: That's what I would say.

Speaker A: I love that.

Speaker B: And I want to end it there. Yeah, because I think that was a.

Speaker A: Beautiful way to stop it. And if it's a reminder to anyone on this lovely Wednesday to just give.

Speaker B: Yourself a break, absolutely. Take a breath. Definitely.

Speaker A: All right, that's our show, everyone. Ladies and gentlemen, nonbinaries, whoever you are, dogs, animals, furries, we will see you next week. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next and don't forget to follow us sharing My Truth pod and rate and review this podcast. It really helps us out.

Speaker B: We'd love you so much. Bye, everyone. Bye. Thanks so much for listening. Please rate and review this podcast and follow us on social at sharingmytruth pod and leave us a voicemail on our sharingmytruth.com to share your stories and experiences with us. We'll see you next time.

Speaker A: Bye bye.

Speaker B: Three, two, one.

Speaker A: See you.