---
title: "None of us are included fully in the world until all of us are!"
episode: 33
date: 2021-03-25
guest: "Stacy Hart"
canonical: https://inclusionbites.co.uk/podcast/33-none-of-us-are-included-fully-in-the-world-until-all-of-us-a
audio: https://cdn.seech.uk/podcast/episodes/ibs-033/audio.mp3
---

# None of us are included fully in the world until all of us are!

Joanne Lockwood is joined by Stacey Hart to explore what it really means to say that none of us are included fully in the world until all of us are. Together they unpack how discrimination and exclusion harm everyone, and why a “bit of the world” isn’t enough when we’re trying to build safety, fairness and opportunity. They discuss privilege and meritocracy, including how systems, networks and social conditioning shape who gets heard, believed and promoted. The conversation also looks at how public debates about free speech and “cancel culture” can obscure responsibility and reinforce unequal power. As the discussion deepens, they touch on gender inequality and violence against women, the role of media narratives, and how race and racism affect which stories are amplified. They also reference mental health impacts in the public eye and in experiences of harassment. Stacey shares her work with the Women’s Equality Party and her creative project Jug Life, which aims to broaden representation by collecting and sharing more diverse personal stories.

## Chapters

- 00:00 — No one is free until all are.
- 06:28 — Intolerance of intolerance; inclusion makes life interesting.
- 11:26 — Pale, male voices complain about being cancelled.
- 20:53 — Recognise, unpack, and commit to challenging privileges.
- 22:46 — Lack of awareness about opportunities due to privilege.
- 30:16 — Unpacking societal conditioning through gender-focused literature.
- 36:28 — Privilege often unnoticed until personal experience arises.
- 39:19 — Focus on male violence, not passive framing.
- 43:23 — Sarah Everard case highlights privilege and injustice.
- 51:34 — Calling out perpetrator necessary for social change.
- 56:40 — Jug Life: Expanding diverse monologues on breast experiences.
- 01:00:39 — Subscribe, share, and connect via show notes.

## Key takeaways

- Examining disparities in privilege and opportunities, and their impact on wealth and success.
- The challenging but necessary process of recognising one's own privilege and its implications.
- The problematic belief in meritocracy and how it can mask underlying systemic biases.
- How exclusive networks perpetuate privilege, restricting opportunities for minority groups.
- The societal and individual consequences of being demeaned and judged, including effects on income, work, and health.
- The critical role of equal parenting and caregiving in addressing the gender pay gap and challenging traditional gender roles.
- The importance of acknowledging and addressing male violence and societal conditioning that normalises inappropriate behaviour.

## FAQs

### What is the main focus of this episode of Inclusion Bites Podcast?

This episode centres on understanding how privilege works, the disparities it creates in opportunities and wealth, and the critical need for recognising and addressing systemic inequalities. Stacey Hart joined Joanne Lockwood to discuss the nuanced dynamics of privilege, meritocracy, and societal biases.

### What are some key points discussed about privilege and opportunity disparities?

Joanne Lockwood discusses how privilege accumulates for some individuals, letting them start life with significant advantages in wealth and opportunity. Conversely, those without such privileges face numerous barriers. Stacey Hart emphasises the uncomfortable realisation of one's own privilege and the importance of recognising it to address systemic inequalities.

### How do the speakers define and critique meritocracy in this episode?

Stacey Hart criticises the widespread belief in meritocracy, noting that it often brings defensiveness when people realise society doesn’t function as meritocratically as they thought. Joanne Lockwood challenges the notion that current leaders, often wealthy middle-aged white men, are necessarily the most competent, suggesting that this belief is a construct of privilege.

### What personal insights do Joanne and Stacey share about their own journeys regarding privilege?

Both Joanne and Stacey discuss their personal journeys in recognising their own privileges and the societal conditioning they've experienced. Stacey reflects on her feminist journey during the "Ladette culture" era and stresses the role of media influences, like the Spice Girls. Joanne shares insights about biases in the workplace related to names, gender, and physical attributes.

### How does the episode address the issue of networking and its ties to privilege?

The conversation highlights how networking and established connections, often a result of privilege, influence opportunities and success. Stacey Hart notes that many people from minority backgrounds are unaware of certain opportunities because they are circulated within exclusive networks beyond their reach.

### What are some specific societal biases and their impacts discussed in the episode?

Joanne Lockwood and Stacey Hart talk about the advantages related to having a British-sounding name, being male, and the height factor in the workplace. They also discuss the stereotyping and diminished attention women, especially those from minority backgrounds, receive in cases of violence.

## Transcript

Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood, and I'm your host for the Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I have been interviewing a number of amazing people who are simply having a conversation around the subject of inclusion, belonging, and generally making the world a better place for everyone to thrive. If you'd like to join me in the future, then please do drop me a line to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk. That's S-E-E Change Happen dot co dot uk. You better catch up with all of the previous shows on iTunes, Spotify and the usual places. So plug in the headphones, grab a decaf and let's get going. Today is episode 33 with the title, none of us have included fully in the world until all of us are. And I have the absolute honor and privilege to be joined by Stacey Hart. Stacey describes herself as someone who is a full time parent, sometime actor and volunteers for the Women's Equality Party. When I asked Stacey to describe her superpower, she said that she could talk to anyone. Hello, Stacey. Welcome to the show. Hello, Jo. It's really, really good to be here. But

Stacey Hart: if you don't mind, I will not be grabbing anything decaf today. Going for the full strength, are

Joanne Lockwood: you? I will be. Yes. Dark and strong. I know. Sometimes I feel like that, especially after a long hard day. Yeah. I'm not satisfied to tell the bag to get

Stacey Hart: in for at least half an hour. I'm not really

Joanne Lockwood: a tea drinker. I'm definitely a definitely a bean shaker if you like. Yeah, I like my beans. Yeah. I've I think I I was put off my tea, by my grandmother. She used it's back in, you know, this is back in the late sixties, early seventies. She used to make tea with loose leaf. And, I would always get to the bottom of the cup and I'd end up with a mouthful of tea leaves because she didn't strain it very well. So I think that that psychologically damaged me, the tea, and I can't think about tea now without a mouthful of tea leaves and it's it's just been so ingrained in me because it was every Sunday we went to grandma's house and we had to have to drink this mouthful of leaves all the time it was like a ritual. So now I'm definitely a bean coffee person and, yeah, and I I think I drink it decaf more than CAF at the moment just, purely because I think I drink too much of of it and it was probably causing me to have palpitations from time to time. Wow. Anyway, if we digress, we digress, we Jo off into being in leaf territory here. So tell me Stacy. When you said, in in the show notes, you you you you've used this phrase, none of us are included fully in the world until all of us are, and I love that. So tell me about that and your view.

Stacey Hart: Well, in a lot of the work I do and a lot of the groups that I'm involved with, we say this phrase and, you know, people will have heard this. None of us are free until all of us are free. And to me, what that means is that, you know, when people who may be part of a group that, that that I am not a part of, you know, for example, let's say, black people, you know, I'm a white person. When those people are targeted for violence on the basis of who they are or discriminated against because of who they are, that means that the same thing could happen to any one of us on the basis of any of our own characteristics. So I fight for people that don't necessarily look like me or have the same background as me because until all of us are free from the kind of discrimination that stems from not looking like or being like someone else or coming from the same place as someone else or living a different lifestyle, it means that none of us are really free. None of us are safe from that kind of discrimination. So I think for me, the same applies to inclusion. If the world that I'm in doesn't include everyone, doesn't include, you know, people that look like me and don't look like me, people that live like me and don't live like me, people from all kinds of of of of backgrounds and walks of life and experiences, then it isn't the world. It isn't the world. It's it's a half a world or a bit of a world. And I don't I don't want to be a part of a half a world. I want to be a part of a fully rounded world that's representative of everyone and welcoming to all people because that's a world that's safe and happy and interesting and fair. Otherwise, it's just a bit crap, really. And that's so I feel like the the the same thing applies. Yeah. I completely agree.

Joanne Lockwood: I mean when I got into this DNI space about 3 or 4 years ago, I suddenly realized that it wasn't about me. You know, I launched into it with the primary objective of promoting trans awareness. I realized that I was just one person or one characteristic in a world where there are many people who are marginalized, discriminated against or denied opportunity for who they are and I realized I didn't want to be so self centered just to talk about myself. And I very similar to what you said none of us are included fully in the world till all of us are, I always say that I want the world to be inclusive for everyone because I am everyone. I am just a person as well. If everyone wins, I win. I think that's a great mantra and I often talk about this about inclusion being holistic. We have to who isn't included, who chooses who's good enough, who's not good enough to be included. I think that's it's very powerful that you say that and I think you're completely right because there's another saying that, you can judge an organization or society by the way it treats the weakest or the less or the most marginalized people because that sets the tone. And if I let this propagate, will it be me next kind of approach? And, yeah, that's how genocides have been formed. You know, some some of the the wars of the world have been where it's incremental and it builds up and then suddenly the they're coming for everybody and that that's kind of what we wanna stop, isn't it? But, yeah, I I I completely agree and I think that's a that's a really really powerful message you you said there. Yeah. It it is

Stacey Hart: that's that's why I don't understand, a lot of the time where, because if I do have a flaw, which I do, you know, like everyone have many, it's it's intolerance of the intolerant. And I sometimes find that I can't understand that that opposing point of view. And I think one of the reasons I can't understand it is because quite apart from the fact that it's just the right thing to do to include everybody, it's just the right thing to do. Put that aside and look at it from a purely self interest point of view. I mean, isn't it just more interesting and easier and more successful? Businesses certainly are more successful when they're more inclusive. You know, isn't isn't the art better and and the the conversations, aren't they better when people don't always look and sound like you? I mean, isn't it just a bit bloody boring otherwise? Do you know what I mean? And I like you, I kind of came into it, to to my work initially, from a sort of self interest, like to promote the rights of women. You know? I I I lead the Basingstoke branch of the Women's Equality Party. I set that branch up and and, and formed it. And and we're working now locally doing exactly what it says on the tin, working for for the rights of women. But I'm also having come into the fight for equality, very much thinking that it's not just about me and it's about equality for everybody. And I'm included in within the Women's Equality Party. I'm part of the LGBTQI caucus. I am co lead of the Race Equality Caucus Allies, which is the group of white people within the party who wants to be allies to the Race Equality Caucus, and and and set ourselves up to, to sort of learn and unpick our own biases and educate people that want to learn and do anti racist work. So it it truly is about everyone not just about women, you know. Interesting. I I'm just picking

Joanne Lockwood: up on, you know, the being intolerant of intolerance, I use that saying at all as well and it's, you have to know what you stand for and you have to say what is what is acceptable, what isn't acceptable and then being tolerant of that. But where do you stand on when people talk about free speech and Jo platforming and turning people off, When is your tolerance or intolerance different to their intolerance? And, you know, we've got a recent incident where, a well known presenter on a morning show on ITV stormed off set, for expressing his views and some may say those views are intolerant of a certain group, other people applaud those free speech, say what he thinks type view. So where where do you think society should just stand on this because we can't silence people, but we can't allow everything to to be said, can we? No. We can't

Stacey Hart: do either one of those things. And it is yeah. It is very much an ongoing conversation, isn't it? I think that there are in law fairly well laid out boundaries between the protection of freedom of speech and where that veers into hate speech. Now those laws aren't perfect. You know, misogyny, for example, is not yet classed as a hate crime and, you know, catcalling and bothering women on the streets because of their, you know, because they are women is is is not yet common. That needs to be, that needs to be fixed. But we, generally speaking, have a fairly kind of well known framework that says you can be unkind and not break the law, but you can't speak to someone in a hateful way because of a protected characteristic. And I think that the kind of culture war that is is going on at the moment is it's being sort of propagated on on a lot of sides and a lot of fronts. But I don't think it's actually as much of a problem as a lot of the, shall we say, illy interests think it is. I hear a lot about cancel culture, and I don't believe that cancel culture really exists all that much. The presenter that you mentioned, for example, walked off of his own show. Nobody canceled him. Nobody marched him out of the studio. He was being criticized. He didn't like it. And he marched off. And that was his choice. I hear people talking about and I'm not gonna name names because I don't like giving them, oxygen, frankly, but there are people that we've all seen out in the media and they're usually pale male and stale and they're complaining loudly and vociferously in broadsheet papers about how they are being cancelled and not apparently failing to see the irony that they're being given huge platforms all the time to say these things, to talk about how they're being canceled and to talk about how their rights are being trampled on. Meanwhile, you know, the voices that we hear, the representation in our politics, the representation in our businesses, you know, the arts that we see on the television, these things are glacially slowly getting better, but they are overwhelmingly the same voices that we've always heard, the same class of people that we've always, you know, been been ruled by, they are overwhelmingly very, very, very, you know, meet the new boss same as the old boss, if you don't mind me quoting who. And, so I fail to see, you know, there are instances occasionally where you might get, I don't know, like a student union for example saying actually we're going to disinvite you from this speaking engagement because you've said something that we're not happy with. Well for starters if we're giving, you know, young people the freedom to speak and to hear who they want to hear from You know, nobody's entitled to a platform for their views. They're allowed to say those things, but they're not entitled to a stage. And are we saying that young people don't have the right to say, actually, I don't wanna listen to you because you were unkind about my friend over there and and the people that look like my friend over there. So I think I I think I wanna listen to someone else. That that is a right as well. You know, nobody has a right to a platform. A right to freedom of speech is not freedom to to be heard. And we're very, very, very overzealously worrying about, about these things. And I believe, and this is gonna be perhaps a little divisive and that's why I'm hedging around it perhaps. I believe that the people that are worrying about it the most are the people who are concerned that their kind of politics is becoming unattractive to the younger generation. And they are realizing that young people are waking up looking around and going, you have ruled everything for a long time and you are really quite unpleasant and you are not inclusive and this society is not equal. This economy is not working for everybody, and I don't think we wanna hear from you right now. And the people that are shouting loudest about cancel culture are generally the people who are worried that they are going to be shut out of the future of politics because of that awakening and they are almost always also the people that have historically had the biggest platforms and they're worried about losing them.

Joanne Lockwood: So, it's people with privilege what you're talking about. So whoever holds the privilege of society are pushing back. They're feeling under threat. They're feeling under attack. Yeah, the woke culture is trying to tear down the patriarchy, tear down colonialism, tear down white supremacy or whatever it may be and that's making people uncomfortable. Is that is that what you think? I do believe it is. Yeah. That is what I think. And, I

Stacey Hart: mean, much like a lot of new movements and new vocabulary, you know, the word woke started out as a positive thing. It started in, you know, the black community as a way of describing people who had their eyes open to the world around them and and weren't blinded to their own privilege and if you were you know awake and aware of that privilege then you will work and like many words before it that started out as being a positive descriptor it got very very quickly co opted by those with privilege and turned into a sarcastic kind of, you know, demeaning thing to say about someone who was trying to be overly groovy about something. And I mean, what what is the opposite of woke? It is asleep. I don't wanna be asleep to my privilege. Joanne you call me what you like because of that and give a pinch of your A fine way of life. Yeah. I give a I don't give a rat's poop, yeah.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. No I agree and I think I've probably heard the word woke a few times over the last 3 or 4 years and I googled it, I went on Wikipedia and did some research on the origins of woke and I thought yeah, I want to be woke, I want to be awake, I want to check my privilege, I want to understand who I am. How can I understand anybody else necessarily who I am? And I think it's good to check your privilege and when someone calls you out for it, the reaction that most people have is oh no not me no I'm I'm yeah there's always this defeniveness and or people are worried about being called out for privilege. And I think sometimes you need to bathe in it and say, yeah, okay, I didn't see that. Wow, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I get it. Now tell me how that impacted you or let me let me process that. And I think many of us when we're challenged on our privilege, even if it's just the fact we speak English, the fact that we we could afford our weekly shopping bill whatever it may be, we we we say well but I've had a tough life as well is that me too or that what aboutism that goes on isn't it? What about tree? And we try and defend our privilege by saying, well, I've had to work for a living, I've worked all these hours. And people often forget that they've had opportunity from birth. And I describe privilege as something a bit like a pension pot. If you're contributing into your pension pot from a very early age, it gets enormous by the time you retire. And for those who are born into privilege, that privileged pot starts accruing within seconds of birth or in fact, it's probably reloaded before you're born. Whereas people who acquire education throughout their life, they still got that hole in the bottom of their bucket which is dribbling out their personal capital. And they can never fill up quick enough, whereas other people have got this watertight container of privilege just keeps growing and growing and growing. And I think people often forget that they say they're self made or they've generated some themselves, but they've generated it on the understanding of that privilege. Whereas other people who have not had that fortune to be born into that world, always starting 10 paces behind, they're always playing catch up. And when they're saying that they've had to make it themselves, that they've had to do overcome all of those barriers as well. And I think we often forget that. And it's easier to it's easier to turn £1,000,000 into £2,000,000 than tell £100 into £200. Yeah. And that's that's that's failing to the world, isn't it? It is. Absolutely. And,

Stacey Hart: I think it is an awkward thing to realize, particularly when you come to the realization, perhaps a bit later in life, you know, and that that's fine. It's okay to be at any stage of your kind of personal journey of trying to unpack your own privilege. In, in the Race Equality Caucus Allies Group, the women's equality party, we talk a lot about how, it is uncomfortable, realizing the things that you've benefited from over the years. And these aren't things that were handed to you. No one's saying that, you know, you didn't work hard for them. But it's a bit like being, you know, walking down a corridor where you go through lots of sets of double doors that are auto open ones and they you reach it at a stride and and it just sort of opens in front of you. You know, you're still walking down the corridor. You're still putting the effort in. You know, your legs are still moving. Your muscles are still, you know, working and all that stuff. But if you look behind you, there are, you know, there are black people and brown people and LGBTQI people and disabled people and older people and working class people who who for whom those doors are not opening and they're having to sort of muscle their way through them. I mean, that's probably, you know, an analogy that I've picked up somewhere in Sudan. I don't know. I love it. As you were as you were saying it, I was thinking

Joanne Lockwood: about traffic lights and some days you go for a drive and every traffic light is just green and what you just go home, you think wow, that was so easy. But there are other days where every traffic light is red, you have to change down gear, you have to stop, you're going, oh, here we go again. Yeah. You're pulling away in traffic and you just know you're gonna get caught by the next one, then the next one. Yeah. And just I'm sure everyone can relate to the fact that just to just to picture those two journeys how frustrating the red lights are. Absolutely. And how how free thinking the green ones are, and that's a great analogy. I love your the doors just open in front of you that you have to push or stop or unlock. And it is it is awkward when you get to a

Stacey Hart: point and you might be in your, you know, you might be a a bright uni student or you might be in your thirties or forties or or later in life. And you come to that realization and you you look behind you and you see those barriers. And and it is awkward. We talk about that a lot in the race equality caucus. It is it's painful. You do sometimes the automatic reaction is is of a lot of people when when, you know, they're they're they're asked to unpack their privileges is defensiveness. And you can you can feel awfully bad about that. And what we always try and underline in the group is that, provided that once you have had this realization and you are aware of this, wherever you are when that comes, provided that you commit to continuing that learning and to not ignoring it and to actually working to, unpick those structures that make life so much harder for other people than it was for you, then, you know, give yourself a little bit of a pass because everyone's experience is different and no one is accusing you of anything unless you are refusing, once you realize you have it, to unpack that privilege and to and to share the wealth a little bit. If you're and a lot of people do that too, but, you know, don't get me wrong. There are a lot of the powers that be that do that too. And those people we can have a go at. But, you know, for those of us that are genuinely trying, for those people that are willing to do the work, generally speaking, no one's accusing you of anything and you just you don't need to be quite so defensive about it.

Joanne Lockwood: But many people who come from minority backgrounds or not what you wouldn't consider having a great deal of privilege don't even know that these rooms or these opportunities or this access exists. This is not that being denied access to an opportunity. They don't even know the forum exists in which they can find that opportunity because often, I mean, there was a program on Doctor. Mitchell on BBC the other night about, PPE contracts. I have no judgment about whether it's right or wrong or whether the people who awarded them not were awarded them, but what it became clear was there's a whole load of people ideally placed in their view to be able to supply, but they didn't even know how they got on the list. Whereas other people who book were on the list because they knew someone. And that's often the difference when we talk about privilege, we talk about networking, old networks, be a member of a club, you hear about things, there's people you go to school with, you keep in touch with all your life, they're in positions of power, they hand things out to people they know. Whereas if you come from an environment where you don't have that access, you never know about those opportunities. You you you've got no clue they even exist, let alone how to ask for them. And that's where that keeps the divide active all the time, isn't it? It does. And I agree. And I think that that,

Stacey Hart: sort of feeds back into what we were saying about that defensiveness. I think a lot of people, if you say, well, that's nice that you've achieved this thing, but, you know, you didn't have any barriers because of, you know, the fact that you're able-bodied or the color of your skin or whatever it might be. And you were able to to achieve that thing through hard work but without the additional barriers of this other person. That defensiveness is often born of the fact that they have a belief in a meritocracy. And that's that's another side of it. It's not always purely selfishness. It's not always purely, you know, you're trying to take away this thing. And I feel I've earned it. It's that reaction I do believe for a lot of people is, is based in the fact that it is really quite painful to understand and appreciate that you don't live in the country, in the world that you thought you did. If you have a belief, in a meritocracy and then someone is telling you, look, that really isn't the the society that we live in. I'm sorry. That's not only kind of feels maybe undermining to you and the work that you've done, but it's also, like, psychically quite painful, I think, to to feel that betrayal by, you know, the country that that you thought you lived in, the world that you thought you lived in, the world that the the newspapers always told you that you lived in. And, you know, those rousing cries of of land and hope and of hope and glory always told you that you lived in. And a lot of people, I think, cling to that idea that the meritocracy exists and that they were just the ones that did the best in it because it's not just about them and their work. It's also really painful to understand that you don't live in the place that you thought you did because that meritocracy just does not exist really. You know, it's who you know a lot of the time. We see it every day. You know, look at the people that and I know this isn't about politics but look at the people who are making the decisions, the people who are making the laws, the people who are writing the newspaper stories, and tell me that you truly truly believe that those people, that the best people in the country to do all of those things all of the time, forever and ever our men are all middle aged, wealthy white men. I refuse to believe that that is the case.

Joanne Lockwood: You're shattering everyone's mist now. Yeah. The merit about the meritocracy. I mean, I thought I thought the best person always got the job. Are are you saying that this is bullshit? There is the the baritox is it's just a myth created by by the privilege Jo say the best person gets a Jo look at we see in recruitment. We see in opportunities because the best person must get the job. If we don't believe that, that undermines everything, doesn't it?

Stacey Hart: Well, it does. It it undermines the foundations of the of the society that we thought we lived in. And, I think what that does is is as it undermines a lot of people's self worth because for a lot of people, their self worth is tied up in a kind of, a nationalism, a feeling that they stand for good British values in inverted commas whatever that means and and their their their feelings of self worth are tied up in that in that sort of you know slightly jingoist, you know, we're the Brits fair play kind of thing. So it's undermining. And also it's not very pleasant to realize that actually you can work as hard as you like and it might not mean that you get anywhere. It's that that that's depressing, you know, that does make you feel like collapsing into a ball of ennui with Netflix, doesn't it? It's it's

Joanne Lockwood: nice. But the reality is, it's not just about your capability. It's your name. If it's a traditionally British Anglo Saxon name, we know that you have to have more chance of achieving something that a non British name. And we know that your gender, if you're male, we know you stand more chance of being promoted to senior management, especially if you're a tall man, you stand more chance. And we know all these biases exist and they become sort of self fulfilling, don't they? We believe tall white men have more authority than short black men or whatever it may be. And even amongst other women, we find that women don't rate women as well as they rate a man in a leadership role. So it's society's conditioning on us all, isn't it? We we can't just blame men or privileged people for this. It's kind of we've also socialized ourselves to believe in some respect. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And,

Stacey Hart: during my kind of, you know, this is gonna sound so awful when you put it like this. During my feminist journey, inverted commas, you know, I've unpacked, but a lot of crap that I that was socialized into me as a kid, as a young woman. You know, I grew up, you know, my I'm 41 now. I was born in 79. So my kind of my formative years, what I think were my formative years were sort of the bits where you start going out with other people for the first time and you're not sort of just necessarily being at home. So you're talking, you know, later school going into kind of college which Early nineties sort of thing. Yeah. Well, for me, like, 6th form was where that that kind of really happened, where I started really sort of forming as a person, I suppose. And, and that was like 95 through 97. And so we're talking Laudette culture and, Spice Girls,

Joanne Lockwood: Girl Pow. Girls and Heat Magazine. It was a very, you know, and I you

Stacey Hart: know, definitely wrong. I still get a little bit nostalgic for the Spice Girls and some of the some of the early work, but, but it's isn't it a very, very narrow view of what girls are and what girl power is? It's girl power that is distilled very much through a, traditionally, male approved attractive, you know, narrow

Joanne Lockwood: Fit, sporty, attractive, as you say. Yeah. Yeah. And,

Stacey Hart: so all of those things. And we we are socialized, you know, so successfully and conditioned so successfully as young people by by the media and by the people around us. And, you know, in my forties, I am unpacking that still. And there are some great, great books. Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine is one of the ones that I'm working through at the moment that talks a lot about, you know, the studies, that are out there that sort of prove that, you know, we aren't born thinking that, you know, girls like pink and boys like blue and girls like, you know, nurses' uniforms and boys wanna be truck drivers, you know, that all of that stuff, even by parents who do believe that they are, parenting equally and in a gender neutral way is, is just drip fed in there by absolutely everything around us. And unpicking it is hard. It is hard. And I find that now as a parent as well with my 2 boys. Yeah. I often talk about the fact

Joanne Lockwood: that we should have pre parenting classes to just help the future parents think about how we socialize our children and how they can start bringing those thoughts into play before even the child is conceived. So they can start thinking about how they want to bring their young boy, their young girl, whoever they they develop to be into the world in a very equitable and an opportunistic way rather setting that expectation almost from the pink bedroom or the teddy bear they're given. And that's the beginning of it for most people and because there's this feeling society that we have to treat our little girl in a certain way or a little boy has to be a bit rough and tough, no matter how woke you are as a parent it's really hard to escape that programming isn't it? It is incredibly

Stacey Hart: hard and there was a great story in in the book I was just reading where they were talking about, a set of parents that said, you know, we do everything gender neutrally. We buy our little girl. You know, we bought her just as many trucks and dinosaurs as we did dollies, but she just went for the dollies. She picks them up. She puts them to bed. She looks after them. She changes their now piece. And but but we've given her equal toys. So it must be that she just has a predisposition for putting little dollies to bed as something that she is is kind of conditioned, like, brain wired in there. And then they asked, well, who puts your little girl to bed? And the mom said, well, I do. And there you have it. You know? It's So mommy is the role model. Yeah. Kids learn far more from what we show them than what we tell them. And I know that because everything I tell my boys goes in one ear and out the bloody other. Right? So they learn far, far more about about what they, should be doing and, and should be, how they should be behaving, by by watching us than they do do by listening to us. And I think that's why you know for the Women's Equality Party we have 7 core objectives and one of them is equal parenting and caregiving because it's important for fathers to have as much time at home with their kids as is it is for mothers. You know of course speaking in a sort of assuming the relationship is a traditionally, heterosexual sort of nuclear family one, which not all families are and that's great. But, yeah. So it's really important for both parents to have as much time with the kid because that is not only formative for the child but it allows, you know, all the dads that have been denied that bonding over the years. And then that, you know, that goes on to affect the entire family dynamic all throughout everyone's lives. It goes on to affect, you know, the fact that then that feeds into the pay gap which, you know, equal pay is another one of our core objectives. It goes on to, mean that as traditionally the higher earner, the the burden of earning is then on on the dad. And that that can be an incredibly powerful and and and and horrific thing to have to carry. All of these things, all of these inequities are tied up together like a knotted ball of rubber bands is how I describe it. There's no one issue that doesn't affect another issue. Equal pay has to do with equal parenting, which has to do with equal media treatment because when you look at the way that we we talk about people in our culture when they don't fulfil the roles that we, you know, the way that we talk about, oh, daddy's babysitting, is he? No. He's looking after his kid, actually. Parenting. Yeah. Parenting is is what it's called. Exactly. All of these things are tied up together like a big old knotty ball of rubber bands, and that's what it's, you know, kind of our work and and my work on our Basingstoke branch and with our Basingstoke team. I have a great team of people here, that I work with, is trying to unpick some of that bit by bit.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I mean, it's it's a fish doesn't see the water it swims in until it's taken out. And it's really difficult for people to see the privilege they breathe and live every day until they lose privilege. And I know people who have had a life changing injury or or they've got cancer or some some of these significance happened in life. And that's often enough to nudge them and jolts them out there off their traditional trajectory to make them realize what it is to lose that privilege, that able-bodied privilege or that financial stability. Because it goes far beyond just the protected characteristics and this the non protected characteristics are kind of the starting point that there's a whole load of other inequities around your ability to provide for your family or even the language you speak of the default there, all these things impact. I think people don't really see that in themselves. And when people are having conversations around the inequities, around gender, around race or whatever it may be or about ability or disability then people don't have any reference point. They just, as we said earlier, they just they don't see that privilege and that's a real it takes someone to have that life changing moment either with themselves or someone in their family to really, really understand it. And I think for many men, it can happen when they have a daughter or they their wife or partner experiences some sort of, discrimination or violence or whatever it may be, then they become woken up to that that scenario. And I think I mean, I've I've where are we? We're we're middle of March and the tragedy of the death of Sarah Everard in the last fortnight and the fact it was a police officer has woken up many women to start telling their stories. And many men are pushing back, well, it's not me. Yeah. The not all men is coming back in the same way we had the, white lives matter, all lives matter to the response to the black lives matter. And but yeah, I mean, we can say it's not all men, but actually it is all women, isn't it? And that's part of the problem here that every woman I know has a story. And I only transitioned four and a half years ago. And I've got my stories around being female. And I've woken up to a world that I didn't know existed. And yeah, I'm not saying I was a significant problem but I wasn't perfect. I don't think any man is perfect. We all contribute to that social construct of gender. But we don't know be doing it because it just is. And I think it's I mean, you you must have heard lots of stories, from or you've probably got your own stories, but you've heard lots of stories about the people about just the everyday reality about being a woman in the world in the UK right now. Yeah. Yeah I

Stacey Hart: have. I both heard a million and one of them and of course have my own as well. And I think I do I do get a little we talked about intolerance of the intolerant I do get a little bit impatient with the not all men crowd because it's once again sort of dragging that focus background to themselves. And I have to keep the fact that we have to keep saying no one is saying it is you is really frankly depressing. The fact that someone is hearing about a horrendous horrific tragedy in which someone lost their life that didn't and Jo, do you know what, her life was taken. And that's another thing as well. We talk a lot about these things in, in a very passive language. And we do that, I think because it's easier to tell a blind eye to violence against women and girls when we use it, when we use language like that violence against women and girls, life was lost is very passive framing. It's talks about it like it's a tiger wave or an earthquake something that was horrible and tragic but couldn't be helped. Whereas actually we should be talking in terms of male violence because, you know, it is overwhelmingly I think it's like 97% of lives taken across the world are taken by men. And and talking about, you know, lives taken rather than lives lost. And as you heard, I just did it just now. So all of that stuff is there for the unpicking. And it is, it is frustrating when you hear about something, a horrible case like Sarah Everard's and a person's first reaction to being asked, 'would you please help us so that this doesn't happen more?' is, well, I don't do it.' Are you saying I do it? That is their first reaction. And I will admit I sometimes have trouble keeping my temper with people like that because again and again and again, no we're not saying you do it, we are saying you don't do enough to prevent it because none of us do. You know, I myself have been in positions where I wish I had stood up for other women and yet I as a woman would would have been terrified to do it but that doesn't mean that I couldn't have done more. And I have you know been in positions where I wish I'd stood up for other people, you know? Not necessarily women just other people in different scenarios and I didn't. But this is such a big thing and it's such a hugely split issue. Like it is predominantly women that are being attacked, that are being violated and it is predominantly men that are doing it and we need all men to make that not okay. Because it's not about the high profile cases, it's not just about them, it's about a scale of violence that ends with those cases that we that we're hearing about, but that begins with catcalling in the streets or a bit of a grope in the bar. Love honker honker, whatever despicable thing it is that people think that they could do. That they that that's allowed. I I've had that honker

Joanne Lockwood: honker Yeah. In a bar. Yeah. And the the the person knew I looked to them and they just shook their shoulders and go, woah. Yeah. I go, really? And Really? It's

Stacey Hart: part of, you know, the the unpicking that I've had to do in myself is is that now I'm obviously at a stage where I would, you know, I would raise the roof, you know, if that were to happen tomorrow. But when it did happen and it has happened in the past, you know, as I talked a bit about, you know, the socialization of us as younger people in my generation in the nineties when we were out drinking, you know, it was like, wait, because you had to be one of the lads. That was what you were taught was valuable. That was how you were of value. If you were in on the joke, if you got with the program, if you, you know, kind of went, yeah, come on lads and and and did that because that was how you were liked. That was how you were then 1 Yeah. It's the lads culture. It's

Joanne Lockwood: yeah. It's how to Unpacking that as I say it takes

Stacey Hart: it takes a lot a lot of time and it's really really important. When we were talking, you know, we've obviously talked a bit about Sarah Everard and that horrible case but we were talking a little bit earlier about how other people don't see their, their privilege. And that, you know, the flip side of that is that they literally don't see things like this when they happen to other people. Because when you look at, you know, it is an appalling tragedy that Sarah Everard's life was taken away from her. But it is also worth noting that this particular case which has, you know, torn the lid off of this debate and that has been in every single paper on every single TV channel is the case of a young, attractive, blonde, white, professional, middle class woman who absolutely did not, you know, deserve to to have her life ripped away from her. But there are all of the time you know in in in the week following her disappearance there were 6 women and a little girl that lost their lives and at least 3 of them were women of colour. And you won't hear their names. You won't hear the same stories. You know, if you think about the story of Nicole Smallman and Biba Henry who were 2 Black women that were murdered and their family, you know, is saying that they their disappearance wasn't taken seriously. The search was organised by their own family. They were actually found by a member of their own family. And then horrendous thing happened. Police officers that were investigating their murder took selfies with their murdered bodies. Yeah. I heard that. Yeah. They sent them to WhatsApp groups. WhatsApp groups that included members of the public who weren't also police officers. I mean, like, it would have been okay anyway. Of course, it wasn't. And those police officers are still in posts. That was a year ago. And we are not hearing these stories. We're not hearing them in the same way that we will hear about Sarah Everard or that we heard about that we still hear about poor Madeleine McCann to this day. There are very specific stories being told and those with less privilege, you will not hear those stories.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. As you say, it's if you're blonde, you're white, you're attractive, professional, or have a level of privilege, then Yeah. Society sees you as more tragic. Yeah. And that's, until you said until you said that, I I hadn't really thought about it in those terms and that is really powerful. And I mean, that that leads me on to talking about, the Meghan Markle interview and and how she has been the target of hate, abuse from the media. I mean, let's leave the family side out of it. Let's not let's not talk about the family squab or whatever exists within the family but there's clearly mental health issues going on there and how people are denying that because she's not white, attractive, blonde. She is a woman of color of mixed heritage And the press seem to think it's okay to target her because she is that person. And again, it's this free speech, it's the how often do we hear that the press aren't racist, yet we can see the evidence of the way they compare how Kate was treated, how first is how Megan was treated and the same story and how it spun differently. And they said, well, that's not racism. It's just we're selling papers. It's the justification, isn't it? It is.

Stacey Hart: And, I mean, they're lying. It is racism. It's clearly blatantly racism. Let's say that most importantly, first and foremost. It's also the way we treat women in the public eye. I mean, whilst there is clearly a huge racist element to the treatment of Meghan Markle, it is worth noting that, you know, Kate Middleton didn't get an easy ride in the early days before she showed that she was willing to ignore it, be demure, and they had thrown everything they could at her and she was still willing to sort of sit down with her head and and put up with it and then they decided that that she was acceptable actually. And look at the way, you know, Diana was treated. That's not to, take away from how blatant it was. And Sarah as well. I mean Yeah. Any any role

Joanne Lockwood: that as you say Yeah. If you put you can poke and provoke somebody then you keep poking and provoking. Once the person submits, they're no longer they're no longer news are they? They're just ordering again?

Stacey Hart: Yeah Absolutely. And, that's not, as I say, to take away from the fact that the treatment of Meghan Markle is blatantly and entirely racist as well. But it's, there's a word, misogynoir, which describes, the treatment specifically of black women at the intersection of being a woman and and being black. And that's very much what this is. She's getting it, you know, from all those all those angles. And it's just appalling. I mean, who are we? Who are we that we read this? I don't believe that this is a freedom of speech issue. You know, freedom of speech is not about bullying. It's not about hounding. It's not about treatment that is clearly when you compare it side by side and if you go onto the internet I'm sure you've seen the same things I have comparing stories about Kate to stories about Megan. It's not being so blatantly biased against people for very obvious reasons. And that is not the kind of thing that it is okay to platform. That's not the kind of treatment of people that it is okay to hang under the freedom of press banner and that's a problem. We have a huge problem in our media with that and we really need to reckon with it. But we need to reckon with it on a personal level as well because if you're picking up Heat Magazine, and for the exposes on the celebrities, and if you're picking up the tabloid newspapers because they've got the headline there of, you know, with Meghan and you if you're rolling in that stuff like like a you know like dogs you know. Yeah. If you're feeding off it then you're part of the problem. Then you are a huge part of the problem and that's a difficult thing to hear I think for a lot of people. They've managed to successfully divorce their consumption from the means that is used to get that to their eyeballs. Mhmm. It's interesting you use the word demure and

Joanne Lockwood: and subservient and and basically giving up. And that's how women are expected to behave when it comes to violence or rape. Women standing up and say it happened to me. The first reaction is disbelief or what did you do to incite it? It's always pushed back to the woman. It's never somebody else's fault. It's always the woman who is question first. And I was on a debate the other day, talking about people's experiences on social media, and I was talking about LinkedIn, and the number of unsolicited male interactions I get on LinkedIn that often are, well, they're early stage sexual in nature, you know, Jo how darling I love your eyes, that warm up act, you know, the kind of the soft intro was only harmless. And one of the other people, the panelists on this was talking about how they were shamed for calling it out. Jo what about this man's family? What about this man's wife? What about this man's children? By calling them out and shaming them verbally and publicly, what about what you're doing to their life? And, well, the reaction was basically, well, why shouldn't we call this out? Why shouldn't we be vocal? Because unless we do, unless we stand up every time and say, this is what's happening to me, this is not acceptable, I, the person who's the perpetrator, who's creating this problem will never learn. But it has to become socially unacceptable for women to be treated in this way because whilst it's hidden, whilst we're socialized to say to us, don't make a fuss, don't call it out. Maybe it's your fault. Maybe your profile picture is too attractive, maybe the clothes you're wearing in your profile picture are too attractive, maybe it's the fact that you're a professional woman, it's your fault for being there. It's often often what's being said. And men are just being men. We don't mean anything by it. It's just the way men are is a bit of fun. And that's the excuse that's often given. And I find that really, really frustrating. Now I sit on this side of the fence, if you like. I'm living in a world where I never knew existed. 5 years ago, Jo one ever wrote to me like that, but now they do. And it's not every second, every minute. And I know some women I've spoken to get it on a daily basis and it becomes escalating in the intensity of it. And then if you block, delete, report, it just carries on. And it's so it's so tiring. Yeah. And it undermines you. It does.

Stacey Hart: It is and it's exhausting and you know you can Lockwood can you know sort of digitally stick your fingers in your ears of course you can but that takes time to do maybe a few seconds or maybe a little bit longer if you wanna file a report to to Facebook or LinkedIn or whoever. That takes time out of your day and that time adds up. And so the the the time and physical energy penalty adds up over, you know, days months years and sucks that out of you. And what it does to you psychically adds up. You know, you hear a lot of people going, oh, is wolf whistling against the law now?' or whatever. And, you know, getting wolf whistled at once in the street probably, you know, on one occasion isn't going to do that many people that much harm. But when you're being told essentially daily that your value is whether or not you get attention in the street from random guys that adds up. That is, you know, stone gets worn away eventually if you drip water on it over a long enough period. And that is what this is. It's that cumulative nature of being told that your place is to be demeaned, belittled and judged. And maybe you're one of the lucky ones that if you're judged attractively enough and you get the right kind of attention in inverted comms. And, you know, that isn't, it's not okay. It's not okay. And it, it has huge income, you know, issues. It has huge impacts on pay throughout your life. It has huge impacts on you know your working time and and just your mental and physical health is it's really, really damaging. And that's why yeah I sort of I'm fighting the fights that we are here in Basingstoke and, and why we have our our wonderful candidate Priya standing for local elections in May. So yeah.

Joanne Lockwood: Brilliant. Well, I can't believe the hour's almost up and we've been

Stacey Hart: Bloody hour. We've been we've been chatting away now. Time's

Joanne Lockwood: flown. I mean, I'm sure there are people out there who've who've been listening to this who may wanna get in touch with you, find out more about the work you're doing. So what's the best way of making contact? Do they wanna find out more or or have a chat with you? Well, the best thing

Stacey Hart: to do is to get in touch via if you wanna get in touch about the women's equality party, you can look at women's equality.org.uk forward slash bazingsstoke. You can get in touch with us on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram. We're at wepbazingsstoke and find out more about what we're doing, not just about gender inequality, but about racial inequality and representation. We're doing work on the environment. We're doing work on school sports equality. We're doing work on the economy. All kinds of things to to bring everyone to the table. I also have, we didn't talk at all about my acting, but I am an actor. And as you know, Jo, I co created a theater show called Jug Life, which is all about is based on verbatim monologues about people's experience with their own breasts. So we've taken interviews from all sorts of people and made a really funny and, insightful, I think, and hilarious and heartbreaking show about, about experiences with tits, basically and there's all sorts of stuff in there but what I'm doing at the moment since we're talking diversity and inclusion. As you know when we first created the show we did so under a little bit of a time pressure because it was to be initially a one off thing for a charity. But what what I wanna do now, now we're sort of have the time to do so is expand the show and get more monologues, more stories, more diverse and interesting experience in there and make it more inclusive of basically more people. So if anyone would be interested in being interviewed about their boobs for whatever reason, It could be, a silly thing, a small thing. It could be a huge thing. It Joanne be funny or sad or yucky. It can be any experience at all. We wanna hear it all. You'll find us at juglifeshow on, Twitter and Facebook and also, juglifeshow@gmail.com. So get in touch. We wanna hear from you. Yeah.

Joanne Lockwood: I mean, I I told the story about my relationship with my breasts. I know this was probably about 3 3 or 4 years ago when we first met. Yeah. And, I remember going to the that event that you did as a result of it and it was a fantastic evening. It was, very relaxed in the cafe in the middle of Basingstoke. It's a very socially fair and you had lots of different voice actors reading out people's stories. I remember sitting in the audience actually with my wife and a couple of friends hearing my story read out. I thought, wow, did I really say that? It's kind of really, really powerful hearing your own story read. But to listen to the stories of the other women or the people that had contributed was also phenomenal just to hear the different relationship people have with breasts, their own breasts. And it's really insightful that we're not the same, are we? We have we have our own view of our own bodies and and what things are mean to us. These these floppy bits that hang in front of us. What we do with them and and how we see them, doesn't it? It's a it's a really interesting, yeah, it was a fantastic night. So if you're if you're taking that project and doing more with it, I think, yeah, get in touch. And it's not it's not just about women. If you have if you're someone who identifies as male with breasts, if you've got a story about your own boobs or your own nipples whatever it may be?

Stacey Hart: Absolutely, yeah. Since I, since that first show that that you saw, Jo, we, in the sort of second round of interviews, I have had discussions with a couple of non binary people. I have interviewed a cis man with gynecomastia. I, you know, there's there's all sorts of people that have gotten involved. I've I've done a group interview with a group of, old school friends who are, you know, different now at different stages of their lives and that was really, really good fun. I've spoken to, someone who has like, a monitor, a heart monitor, you know, sort of surgically implanted inside of a breast. And all of these different things, they're so important to hear. And, you know, when we talked earlier about the fact that we are, more likely to hear certain people's stories than others, that's something that we really, really want to do properly with Jug Life. We really want to hear from, people with all walks of life. And there's a lot more information on the Facebook page. Jo, yeah, do have go and have a look at @JugLifeShow. I'll make sure all

Joanne Lockwood: of these links are in the show notes so if you want to find out more you can click on the links or get in contact with you as you said via Instagram I'll put those links in there and yeah drop me a private message Jo wow thank you. We could have carried on for another hour or 2 I'm sure people are still listening got this far that they would also got a huge amount out of this. So thank you for getting this far for listening in tuning in. Please do subscribe to keep updates on future episodes of the Inclusion Bites podcast, that's B-I-T-E-S. Tell your friends, tell your colleagues, please do share. I have a number of other, I was gonna say more exciting, could they be more exciting than the guests we had today or in previous times? But I've got lots of guests lined up who are equally, if not, passionately exciting as well. So please tune in, please subscribe. If you'd like to be a guest, I mean, you are potentially an inspiring guest yourself. So if you want to get in touch, please do contact me at jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk. And if you've got any feedback or suggestions on how we can improve future episodes, then please do let me know. So finally, it's for me to say my name is Joanne Lockwood and it's been an absolute pleasure to host this podcast for you today. Catch you next time. Bye.