You don't have to be perfect to be a force for change, says comedian Deborah Frances White.
That’s been her message in the seven years since she started her wildly popular podcast, The Guilty Feminist.
She's back in New Zealand with The Guilty Feminist live show in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch later this month.
The Guilty Feminist tour poster Photo: supplied
White believes feminism and guilt are linked because women have been trained to feel that way.
“When women have children it’s like well if you’re not home with the children, if you’re working, hmmm, and if you don’t have children, it’s like ‘oh you don’t have children? Are you some kind of monster?’
“Whatever you’re doing, you should be doing something else. I think women have been trained to feel that and if you are balancing your high-powered job and your children, are you a good enough daughter? Are you a good enough friend? Have you done enough self-care this week?
“I honestly feel like I need self-care just to get over the guilt that I don’t do any self-care. Like it’s just the pressure.”
And feminism has become one more thing to feel guilty about if we feel we’re not doing enough or something seemingly contradictory, she says.
“I was hesitant to admit these things but of course when I did, immediately thousands, and then hundreds of thousands of women were like oh thank God you’ve said that, I also am not perfect, I also have spent fours, instead of watching that suffrage documentary, watching Say Yes To The Dress and felt bad about it, lied about having seen it.
“I think it’s so important to confess things because it’s like guilt, when it sits on the body it becomes shame. And when you exfoliate it, and we all laugh about it, and it’s just gone, and we can get on with the important business of just changing things.
“Because I think I used to feel … if I’m not perfect, if I’m carrying all these shameful little secrets, am I entitled to speak up? And so exfoliating them and realising … it doesn’t matter unless I internalise it and allow it to stop me speaking up.”
The US Supreme Court's decision taking away a woman's right to an abortion is just one more thing for women to fight, she says.
“I feel like as a woman, if you’re not even in charge of what happens to you on a cellular level, what happens inside your own uterus, as a woman or a person or a minority gender who has a uterus, if you’re not even in charge of that, what are you in charge of? That’s frightening to me.”
America’s affairs have an enormous impact culturally and politically, she says.
“We think oh well maybe it won’t have so much of an impact but already there are British MPs emboldened to say they don’t think that abortion should be a given. Now I don’t think that’s going to shift in Britain any time soon to be honest with you.
“But it emboldens attitudes and it emboldens people who feel certain ways to say certain things.”
White tells Jesse Mulligan she’s thrilled to finally be back touring in Australia and New Zealand after lockdowns.
“If you’re up for the resistance but you feel you need inspiration, community and resilience, then this is the place to refuel, because you’ll get joy and you’ll feel that sense of community and hope.”
