Why Not? & What If?
A podcast about life, work, well-being and the beautiful chaos in between. Hosted by Andy Cracknell, a creative whirlwind and a disruptor of dull thinking and allergies to doing things the usual way. And Siobhán Godden who listens through the noise to what really matters.
Think of Siobhan as the calm in Andy's storm!!!
In each episode, we’ll dig into the stuff that shapes how we live and lead – from gender equality and parenting, to burnout, brave decisions, and big ‘what ifs’.
Why Not? & What If?
Catcalls, Kilts & “LinkedIn Isn’t Tinder”: Walking a Mile in Her Shoes
In this messy-but-necessary conversation, Siobhán and Andy dig into the everyday reality women face from catcalling and “optics” to objectification at work and what men can actually do about it.
We talk intent vs impact, how social media blurs the lines between professional and personal, and why “LinkedIn isn’t Tinder.” Plus: the “kilt test,” power dressing as armour, and how to start noticing what you’ve been conditioned to miss.
If this episode is your pill from The Matrix, swallow it then share it with a mate.
Referenced in the episode:
• Charlotte Delsignore — Open letter to men: a raw, unsparing inventory of the everyday safety calculations women make.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/charlotte-delsignore-career-coach_men-you-have-no-idea-what-its-like-to-be-activity-7295752586882666496-OJTQ
• Charlotte Delsignore — Follow-up post: deepens the list and doubles down on the ask for men to notice, intervene, and hold each other to account.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/charlotte-delsignore-career-coach_men-you-have-no-idea-what-its-like-to-be-activity-7292090363631063040-5MwC
• Bryan Maguire — “LinkedIn isn’t Tinder”: calling out objectifying comments under women’s professional posts and reminding us what the platform is for.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bryan-maguire_ive-noticed-something-recently-that-doesn-activity-7362448994075041795-5HhN
• Caitlin O’Ryan — Spoken-word reel: a visceral piece on being seen, the grey areas around attention and consent, and the “spotlight vs shadow” feeling many women describe.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DA81XIgo0Wn/?igsh=MTh4amMyeWhzbm1ueA==
Got a story or a view? Email letstalk@whynotwhatif.com
— we might do a follow-up episode with your takes.
Welcome to Why Not and What If? And I'm Siobhan Godden, a HR consultant, coach, and the one who listens through the noise to what really matters. Think of me as the calm to Andy's creative storm. Why? This is Andy Cracknell, creative whirlwind, disruptor of dull thinking, and allergic to doing things the usual way.
Andy:Thanks Siobhan. I'm also a marketing and communications consultant. And this is...
Siobhan:The podcast where we explore the messy, magical intersection of life, work, leadership and all the bits we're not supposed to talk about. Let's get into it.
Andy:We're back. We're on a roll. We are on a roll and I'm loving every minute on it. Before we go any further, I've got a bones pick with you. I done. I did. You were on Toby King's podcast and you didn't tell me. So I should be having words with Toby. That was hilarious. So anybody listening, I would say check it out. It's Toby King, which is K-H-E-N-G on LinkedIn. Siobhan talks about a time she was interviewing somebody and they started on getting undressed in the interview. And I just, I was like gripping the edge of my seat. It was hilarious. So yeah.
Speaker 01:It was all about the worst parts of work.
Speaker 02:That's
Speaker 01:it. But I took a bit of a humorous spin to it because we know that it can be tough out there. Some of the conversations we have, you've got to where you can.
Speaker 00:You've got to make things a little lighthearted. Okay, so we'll put your little indiscretion to one side. I
Speaker 01:will get him to pay us back by coming on our one.
Speaker 00:We've got to get Toby on our podcast. absolutely do so we need to get our heads together and come up with a topic because he's I love watching his live stuff on LinkedIn as well he's brilliant yeah now all that humor to one side I'm actually really nervous about this one because today we're going to be talking about I don't even know how to title this but it's about well I'm not even going to say what it's about we'll just start talking about it but there's a number of things that I've seen on LinkedIn recently and we've been talking about that have left me as a really lost, confused, concerned, upset, scared, all kinds of different emotions. The one I'm going to kick off with is a story that's hit the press recently around Surrey police who had two female police officers go undercover to catch cat callers. So these two female police officers were dressed in running gear and they went out around, I don't know where it was, was in surrey it was somewhere around surrey it's the forces jog on campaign which sees female police officers running in targeted locations with uniformed officers on hand nearby to deal with perpetrators who cat call or shout sexually suggestive comments When I first heard... Sorry, go on. I
Speaker 01:was going to say, what's interesting about that is a couple of months ago, I was at a networking event and the lady I was sat next to, another HR pro, she was training for the marathon. And she'd said she'd noticed a stark difference. She's always been a runner. And the catcalling and feeling unsafe had got significantly worse in the last year, two years. And it was noticeably different, which I thought was really interesting. Scary, but also interesting.
Speaker 00:And this is what worries me with it, because the statistics for that particular thing are going up rather than down, which I think is why Surrey Police have decided to act on it. There was a distinct shift in terms of how vocal people, if you can call them that, became. I noticed it around the Brexit vote. So there was a lot more overt racism on the streets and stuff when Brexit hit. And I wonder whether that's kind of unlocked the Floodgates 4 all kinds of nasties and bits and pieces in society where people just say what they think now.
Speaker 01:Yeah, absolutely. I
Speaker 00:mean, there's an argument around as to why it's a good thing because it exposes people and it means they can be dealt with. But then the negative is that more people are at risk. Being outside is more threatening and the environment that we live in is not as comfortable.
Speaker 01:And it sometimes normalises these things. I saw another thing, I'm going to bring this up because it made me laugh out loud. But I saw on one of the platforms, Instagram or TikTok or something, and there was this woman and she was saying she was talking about sets at school. You know, at school you have sets, you know, top set, middle set, whatever. And she was saying in her school they had eight sets. And there was no social media. So you'd have all year eight sets. She goes, the people in set one maths did not know what people in year eight maths were doing. They had no business knowing because they were just teaching different things to their level. She goes, but now with social media, you've got set eight people talking about set one matters when they have no plates. And it made me laugh. She goes, we need sets in social media. And it made me laugh because I thought, you know what? She's being funny, but I think she's got something there.
Speaker 00:But then to Twitter was always like that, wasn't it? Because Twitter tended to be a bit of an echo chamber.
Speaker 01:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 00:And it'd be quite easy to go and find people that hold particular views. Anyway, so yeah. So I think probably at this point, I'm going to read something I read on LinkedIn and I'll put a link to the post. I don't know that I can read it actually. It's a powerful post by a lady called Charlotte Del Senor. I'll link it in the show notes. But she talks about, it was an open letter to men. And it starts off with, every woman you know has felt unsafe because of a man, every single one. And here's what that looks like. So she lists, I'm going to pick out some of the lists, but I strongly suggest reading the whole list. So realising at age 13 that men suddenly look at us differently and knowing what that means and then walking with keys between our fingers just in case. Feeling your heart rate spike when a man walks too close behind you and constantly navigating the tension between being nice enough and not leading someone on. Walking around I'll leave that one. Avoiding eye contact so it's not taken as an invitation and being told to smile more when we just want to get from A to B. Faking a phone call when we feel unsafe. Texting friends our location when we get in a taxi. Keeping an eye on our drinks because we know spiking happens. Although that's changed now, isn't it? Because people are actually injecting other people.
Speaker 01:How scary is that?
Speaker 00:She's just ridiculous. Well, there's no words for that. Holding our breath in a lift when it's just us and a man. Asking security to to walk us to our car at night because we've been followed before being backed into a corner a work event for the satisfaction of a pervy senior leader which is something that you and I covered off in a podcast that we recorded
Speaker 02:yes
Speaker 00:but I'm a little bit nervous about putting out so watch this space that was to do with the Coldplay concert and their CEO HR lady
Speaker 01:do
Speaker 00:you know what
Speaker 01:well you've mentioned that early in my career I did have a boss who when we went out for work dues, he had to have a girl on either side of him. And quite often it was me and his PA. I mean, it wasn't inappropriate with us, you know, but we had to, it was like a visual thing that he wanted to be seen. And I also had another organisation which was very male dominated. The CEO had flown in by helicopter and we had this big meeting in central London. And because it was being filmed, They said to me I needed to sit near the front and I refused and I sat as far back as I possibly could because it really peed me off because I knew they only wanted me to sit to the front because I was a token basically.
Speaker 00:Okay, so there's two rabbit holes we're going to jump down here. Have you
Speaker 01:like a rabbit hole?
Speaker 00:I'm going to pause your post for the moment, Charlotte. The first one is, I'm sorry, just run that past me again. So you had a senior leader at an organisation who, when he entered an event, needed to have a woman on either arm.
Speaker 01:Not on either arm. It was when we were sitting down at dinner.
Speaker 00:So he sat one either side?
Speaker 01:Yeah.
Speaker 00:My God. So So was that, hang on, brain exploded. So was he doing that because he was showing off to other men and it was an alpha male thing saying, look at me, I've got two attractive women or an attractive woman sat either side of me?
Speaker 01:Yeah. But this is the same guy though. who broke his mouse by throwing it against a wall and demanded that the head of IT drive down two and a half hours, did give him a new mouse. So this is the same guy.
Speaker 00:There's apex predator stroke, narcissist stroke. I don't even want to think what other issues are going on there. Okay. All right. Let's park that one there. The other one, I went to see Top Gear being filmed and I also went to see, it wasn't Top of the Pops. It was another, music show. I can't remember what it was called. Wow. That ages you. Yeah, thanks. And I know I've said this a million times before, but I'm six foot six and... When, in both of those shows, they had me stood at the front, so they pulled me from the back, stood me at the front, and then they went round and got six or seven young, attractive, my age, because I was in my twenties at the time, but young, attractive women to stand around me. Really? Now, they weren't subtle about it. They said it's about optics. It's all about the optics. You've got a men's car show, and they want young, attractive women stood at the front, and then top of the pops all it wasn't Top of the Pops but the Top of the Pops type thing they wanted young women around and it made me so uncomfortable but there was I saw a video clip on I think it was TikTok or YouTube where Jeremy Clarkson was stood he was doing the final closing bit for Top Gear this wasn't the one I went to this was a video clip I saw and he was stood next to a rather curvy woman and The full video clip shows him doing the outro and then getting completely distracted and ended up turning and placing his head probably three or four inches from her chest. And everybody around was laughing about it and everything else. It goes back, all of this goes back, it's all about optics and image, and it leads into something else we're going to talk about, which is the fact that LinkedIn is not Tinder,
Speaker 02:which
Speaker 00:is another post I've seen on LinkedIn today, sorry, recently, where a guy's called out people, men specifically, and I'll read the post. So he said, it's a guy called Brian McGuire, who's a recruiter. I've noticed something recently that doesn't sit right with me. Too often I see women posting here on LinkedIn about their work, careers, achievements. And instead of engaging with the content, some men comment with things like, you look beautiful or gorgeous girl. This is not the place for that. LinkedIn is a professional platform. It's for celebrating skills, ideas, experience, blah, blah, blah. Now I had to reply to that. because he said this is not the place for that. And my response, in not such a polite way, said, no, no, you've got it wrong. Nowhere's the place for that. So we're starting to build this picture where we've got, effectively, we're talking about the objectification of women. So the other thing I want to bring into here is the halo effect, which is something that sits within marketing. And we've all heard that cliched line that says sex sells. And it's this objectification of young, thin women. on advertising billboards TV adverts even in films where they're being used to attract a particular audience so the point because we were talking about this before we started recording and i really struggle because into into the conversation the piece of the piece around morals and morality is if you then throw everything that's been in the press recently about bonnie blue and for those of you who don't know she wanted to set a record of sleeping with a thousand men in 24 hours she's an adult entertainer adult actress and they did a documentary about it where you I mean, I'm massively surmising here, but effectively she sees her body as a business asset. So it's something she uses to make money. Now there's all kinds of conversations around morals, morality and everything else. It's quite often said that men need to challenge men. Women can't challenge men. Men need to challenge men when it comes to misogyny and objectification and need to call other men out. And there was a line which is in Charlotte's post, which says silence is complicity. But you and I were talking and silence isn't always complicity. complicity I guess if a man observes something then yes they should call it out that silence is complicity but you and I were talking and some of this stuff I until I read this content over the last year I wasn't even aware was happening
Speaker 01:yeah and I was saying to you that there was a stat recently and it was something like 90 odd percent of women at some point in their life has been inappropriately touched or groped or whatever out and about and I was on a dog walk with my husband and I was laughing saying there's no way there's no way and he thought I was going to say no it's like 70% I was like no it's 100% I don't know any woman that hasn't at some point and he's quite a he's very observant and I would say he's not a laddy lad and to be fair to him he wasn't really a pubby clubby person when he was younger but he was genuinely shocked because he thought he should have been able to see it and probably he should have been but he's not looking and this is kind of how society's created isn't it unless you're looking you don't necessarily see
Speaker 00:That's always the risk, isn't it? Because I think that there's another element here around. So this was the other thing we were talking about earlier, which is that back when we were kids, it was only 20 odd years ago. Sorry. Back when we were kids, there wasn't the. It was easier to establish morality for your children. So the rights are wrong. So one of the rules I was brought up by was you never disrespect your mum. That's almost reverse discrimination because it was putting her on a pedestal. I never had a problem with it. I still don't. I do the same with my wife.
Unknown:Yeah.
Speaker 00:So this idea of objectifying a woman or leering at them, which is a line that my dad used to come out with when he was kicking off about some bloke doing something he shouldn't have been doing. You can grow up naive to the point that you're blinkered and you don't see it. And it can be happening right in front of you, but you just don't see it. It's almost a denial thing, I think, partly. But then I look at some of the people I grew up with, and this one I have in mind, who is completely, I mean, he's borderline. Is it Adam Tate?
Speaker 01:Andrew Tate. Oh, no.
Speaker 00:Where he's very much a misogynist and apex predator type. He's not in my friendship circle for obvious reasons, but he's somebody that I knew growing up. And I don't understand how the two can be so distorted. But I suppose what I said, okay so let's get to the point so we've got police officers going out undercover to try and catch out men catcalling and making sexually sexually suggestive comments yeah we've got women posting on linkedin trying to educate men around actually how real this problem is this predatory behavior is by telling us things like we walk everywhere with keys between our fingers just in case
Speaker 01:that was an early thing that I was taught
Speaker 00:yeah and then we've got men challenging men on LinkedIn saying this is not the place now I'm not criticizing Brian because I know what his intent was and his intent was pack it in guys this isn't yeah you shouldn't be doing this
Speaker 02:yeah
Speaker 00:but you can argue the semantics over it that it was kind of a slip his intent wasn't to do that his intent was to say it needs to stop
Speaker 01:yeah
Speaker 00:and then there's a wider problem for me which is about the fact that linkedin has turned into facebook so there is now nowhere for professionals to go and network and whatever without seeing what people ate for dinner or finding out that somebody's cat died and all this other stuff which is that's a whole other podcast yeah but then it but then you've got the opposite side of it where you've got women proactively encouraging men and not just one or two but thousands and I'm not going to use the words that she used but to literally come and objectify and abuse her which is speaking to because of the target group of individuals she went for which were university students Yeah
Speaker 01:that's the bit that gives me the biggest ick actually
Speaker 00:Well it's telling those 18, 19, 20, 21 year olds Come and treat a woman like this and it's perfectly acceptable.
Speaker 01:Also, I was reading an article about this because a lot of people were watching a documentary and they spotted their partners.
Speaker 02:Really?
Speaker 01:Yeah, they could spot them, even though most of the people had their faces kind of pixelated out or they gave them balaclavas, actually. But they had tattoos and stuff. I mean, how stupid. Of course you're going to be identified. Yeah, there was people, like there was one article I was reading with this girl and she didn't watch it, but her friends did. And she had like three messages from three different people going, you need to watch this. I think it's him. And that was one example. And then loads of people going out and saying, yeah, I caught my boyfriend on there. So not only are they doing that in the first place, but they've got a partner at home.
Speaker 00:That was also part of the documentary, was that she was proactively encouraging married men and partnered men to come and do whatever they wanted. So I suppose there's two things coming out of this. The first thing is, How are men to be educated between what's right and wrong when society, where you can find examples in society, and not just ones or twos, but large numbers of examples on both extremes of a particular argument that make it acceptable. And I'm specifically saying how are men to learn because, let's be honest, we live in a misogynistic world where men think they hold the power, women are belittled, demeaned, objectified and everything else so this isn't sexism going on from my part this is me saying men are the problem so how do we teach men and How do we set up that foundation or that basis that shows a clear path with a very clear narrative around what's right and what's wrong, but without removing a woman's right to do what she wants to do? Now, I'll give you another example because Bonnie Blue's a bit of an extreme and there aren't many women out there that are saying they want to sleep with themselves for 24 hours. And we were talking earlier about a man buying underwear for his wife or partner.
Speaker 01:Yes. Yeah, we were.
Speaker 00:Now, On the one hand, some women will say, you're objectifying me by doing that. On the other hand, some women like that. So that's a really good example. And my experience over 25, 30 years of dating, going out with people, relationships and stuff, is that it's probably a 50-50 split. Now, your response to what I was saying was spot on. Well, you wouldn't do it on a second date. And if you know them well enough, then you're not going to make that mistake. But it illustrates the point, doesn't it?
Speaker 01:Yeah.
Speaker 00:Because at what point in the dating process or in working with someone do you start to become more relaxed or more exploratory in the conversations or the nature of what you're doing?
Speaker 01:And I think it comes down to intent for me because in your example there, yeah, there's a bit of an objectification perhaps, but there could also be an appreciation of the female form. And if the intention is I want to help you to look and feel good, then that's one thing. If the intention is to dominate or bring fear, that's the difference. So with the objectification, with the jogging thing, men can't call, not because they genuinely think a girl's going to turn around and go, thanks, let's go out on a date. They're not expecting that to happen. They're trying to intimidate. And I think that's the difference there. It's the intent behind why they're doing it. I mean, the other thing we were talking about was I have a friend who is dating and it really frustrates her when a guy carries her bag for her. They were away for a weekend break and he was carrying her bag and it was really annoying her because she's an independent woman who can carry her own bag, thank you very much. Now, I'm not like that. If you want to carry my bag, happy days. Really happy with that. But again, it's about the intent and it's about communication. If you don't want him to carry your bag, tell him you don't want him to carry your bag and explain why. If you're coming at it from a place of trying to be helpful, not saying, oh, you're a weak little woman, actually, compared to you, I am weaker. So I kind of expect you to carry my bag. But when we were on holiday, I was struggling with our suitcase on the escalator. Now, if my husband hadn't stepped in and helped me, I'd have been really annoyed with him. He's like, you can see I'm struggling. Help me. Not because I'm a weak little helpless woman, but I'm a human being that needed some help. So I think it comes down to intent.
Speaker 00:You see, that's interesting. because when I first started going out with Emma we were and this was like literally a week after we met we were walking through London and the footpath that we were walking alongside a fairly busy road was two people wide and we were walking along holding hands and it dawned we'd come out of one road and turned into another which meant that Emma was then on the outside so she was on the road side interesting okay
Speaker 01:and he swapped so I swapped yeah my husband does that too he swaps
Speaker 00:places Now, I said at the time, or Emma challenged it, but she did it in a nice way. She's like, why did you swap sides then? And I said, oh, because, and then I had to think. It's like, well, because I should be on the outside.
Speaker 01:Yeah.
Speaker 00:It's a protective thing.
Speaker 01:Yeah.
Speaker 00:Now, luckily for me, she didn't get funny about it. She saw the romance in it and she was like, oh, that's really sweet. I was telling somebody else about it. Oh, that's so sexist. But by you doing that, you're suggesting that she needs protection. She may not need protecting. I was like, but it's not a view of I'm belittling her. It's a case of actually, no, I want to protect her. I don't want to reduce her risk.
Speaker 01:Isn't it a potential loved one in your case at that point?
Speaker 00:I know she was a loved one at that point. No, I knew the minute. So to sidetrack, so we met on Tinder and we were talking for... About, probably about two weeks. And then we'd arranged to meet up, but a really, really close friend of mine died the day before, a couple of days before we were supposed to meet. And I said to him, I just, I can't. So she's like, okay, fine. So we met up and I said to her, we met in Croydon, East Croydon station. And I said to her, oh, you won't miss me. I'm going to be the tallest person there kind of thing. Never forget when I first saw her. I walked around the corner and she was just stood there with this massive smile on her face. Peace. And we went off around all the pubs and the bars in Croydon and got absolutely shit-faced. It was hilarious. We were so drunk.
Speaker 01:That's a good first date, though, isn't it, when you can just get wasted?
Speaker 00:Yeah, and it kind of went on like that for about two or three weeks. Anyway, that's sidetracked. But no, I remember when I first met her. Actually, I'm remembering now, walking down the road from the station, going up to one of the bars, I stepped onto the outside of her. The pavements were a lot wider. but we were towards the road. And going back to your point about intent, it was nothing to do with the fact that Is it about me or is it about her? It's about me wanting to protect the person I'm with. I don't even think, I mean, gender probably is an unconscious part of it, but I wasn't thinking you're a weak little female, I need to protect you. I was just thinking I should be on the outside.
Speaker 01:And it's interesting because Simon does exactly the same with me and I think it's deeper than that. I think it's very subconscious. I don't know if it's an upbringing thing or a generational thing because you're kind of the same age. I don't know what it is, but I don't know if he would consciously have thought why he's doing it it's an instinct
Speaker 00:yes I think it's but this is it I think it's instinctual because like I said when she asked me about it I had to think about what I'd done and why I'd
Speaker 01:done it yeah
Speaker 00:yeah It's that odd. Isn't it? But the point is there are people, there are women out there that will kick off when you do it and they'll be like, what are you doing? I can look after myself. All right, fine. You go by the road then.
Speaker 01:Yeah, yeah. And there's women I know that kick off if somebody opens the door for them.
Speaker 00:Don't get me started
Speaker 01:on that. But that for me is more than just male, female. That's just people. It's like, what do you want to do? Slam a door on your face? No.
Speaker 00:I need to admit to something I'm not particularly proud of, but I was walking through it was in and out it was in a building it was in London and I stopped to hold the door open for a woman coming through she just looked at me she must have been about my age and she went I can get my own door And I said, sorry, I was just being polite. She said, no, it's sexist. And I said, no, it's not. Because if you were a bloke walking behind me, I'd have held the door open for you as well.
Speaker 01:Yeah.
Speaker 00:She really kicked off. So we got to the next set of doors. I went through it and just let the door go. And when I say it slammed into her, it didn't bang into her. It just closed on her.
Speaker 01:Well, what else would you have done in that scenario, honestly?
Speaker 00:But the bit that made me laugh, and this is the bit I'm not proud of, as the door closed on her, because she had a couple of bags on her, it closed on her. on her I carried on walking I turned and looked over my shoulder she looked so annoyed at me because the door closed on her and I felt like saying to her but do you see what you've done because that took a lot for me not to hold that door open for you but you've just bollocked me for holding the door open for you so of course I'm not going to
Speaker 01:and
Speaker 00:this is actually that's a good illustration of the point we're trying to make is you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't
Speaker 01:in that scenario yeah I agree with you I agree with you. But then with catcalling and all of that kind of stuff, then you just don't. You don't. Just don't do it. Just don't do it.
Speaker 00:But what is it? Tell it. So the fact that the police are now policing this stuff. I mean, I'm curious. I haven't read the full article, but I'm curious as to what the offences were that they would have charged people because they actually arrested people that did it. I think
Speaker 01:it was harassment, I think. But I'll tell you the other interesting thing about this, and this is where it gets really complex and how we are programmed and conditioned in society because I shared with you a poet and I highly recommend everyone listen to her Caitlin what's her name?
Speaker 00:O'Ryan was
Speaker 01:it? Caitlin O'Ryan really powerful poem she does but in one of them she mentions how you get catcalled and objectified by your looks but then you get to a certain age and it stops and then you're like I'm not getting catcalled anymore and then you whiz it and you're like I shouldn't miss it. I should be feeling free and happy because I don't have to worry about it anymore. But we're so conditioned that you're like, because I've noticed it. I've noticed that my daughter is 13 and she's turning into a little beauty, even if I do say so myself, if I am biased, but she is turning into a beautiful girl. And I started noticing people looking at her differently. And it highlighted to me that I, that used to be me. Now I'm the mum. Now I'm the old mum. And that's a weird, weird feeling because I hated the cat calling. The worst thing is when a smile, oh my God, I just wanted to punch them in the face. I hated it. And I'd always feel intimidated and, you know, walking past, you know, the stereotypical walking past construction sites. But it's true. You just, you see it and you literally hold your breath and you think, right, I'm going to walk through here. Hold your breath. stand up straight, go through as quickly as you can, bibbed at it by cars driving past, you know, all of that stuff. Absolutely hated it. And then all of a sudden it stops and you're like, oh,
Speaker 00:come on. There's some curious thoughts going through my head here. So when you miss something... it means that it's had a positive impact on you. Now, logically, and I might be completely wrong, logically it suggests that the positive interpretation is that somebody's complimenting the way you look and therefore it makes you feel good about yourself, even though the act is threatening and everything else.
Speaker 02:Yeah.
Speaker 00:So is that positive experience within the negative experience a coping mechanism to... accept what's happening I
Speaker 01:think
Speaker 00:it's we're
Speaker 01:conditioned to place value on how we look
Speaker 00:so So what you're saying is the measure of how good you look is indicated by how cat-cooled you are.
Speaker 01:Yeah, potentially. And one of the things that Caitlin says in her poem is it's almost like, I think she uses the word the shadow of it. So when you're in the spotlight, you feel really intimidated and scared. But then when you're in the shadow, almost then thrown out, thrown to pasture, you're no good to us anymore. That's worse. So actually, the worst situation just gets worst.
Speaker 00:For some reason, Stockholm Syndrome is coming into my head. And this is a power play.
Speaker 01:Yeah, and it's conditioning, isn't it?
Speaker 00:It is. It is. And the Stockholm Syndrome, if I remember rightly, is when the captor, sorry, the hostage or the person who's been captured forms a strong emotional bond to their captor. And it's a power stroke dependence, stroke reliance thing. Now, There's going to be some psychologists out there who will be able to answer this, but I think that's likely to be the same with catcalling, isn't it? Because effectively, women and girls... I've got a 13-year-old at the moment who's struggling with her identity.
Speaker 02:Yeah.
Speaker 00:And she is very conscious about how she looks and what other people think about how she looks. And I see it in her and I see it in Emma and I see it in loads of female friends that... tell you what let's come at this from another angle so I think so Emma to me Emma's beautiful and she doesn't wear a lot of makeup she rarely wears huge amounts of makeup but I think she looks better without makeup and we had that conversation years ago and she said yeah but that's fine that's your opinion
Speaker 02:yeah
Speaker 00:but I feel better when I'm wearing it yeah which was a which was a and for context I wasn't criticizing her for wearing makeup I was just saying I think you look beautiful without it so it wasn't oh why are you wearing makeup you shouldn't you look better with that it wasn't that conversation But it was a learning curve because it's actually about that self-empowerment and self-confidence and self-esteem. Using makeup as an example where women put makeup on to make them feel better about themselves and then the world sees a different version of that woman and they're more confident, they're more self-astute. Is that the right word?
Speaker 01:Yeah, probably self-confident, I suppose. Because I see, it was interesting because I was doing a training session with some young management trainees and we were talking about workplace etiquette and unspoken rules and things like that and dress code came up and one of the conversations went down a line of see like now now I'm talking to you I'm not wearing any makeup right and quite often on a team's call or a zoom call I don't bother because I'm at home and I can't be bothered depending on who I'm speaking to but if I was going out to an office especially if I'm presenting or delivering something I will always wear makeup because it's It feels like kind of part of the uniform and it's part of a, it is a bit of a shield, I suppose.
Speaker 00:Yeah. That's interesting because my, I can't remember if this was, if I've told this story before. my old boss Karen she and I were really really close professionally so we never spoke outside of work but we were like just such a close relationship completely trusted her I was in a very bad way at the time I had PTSD I'd just come out of the police my son had died a handful of years before
Speaker 01:yeah
Speaker 00:and I was in a relationship with somebody and we'd split up and it absolutely broke me and I was got into the office that morning walked in the door Karen saw me came came over, put her arms around me and went, come and have a chat. So I was like, okay. So we went off sat in a side office and I burst into tears and I said to her, how do you do it? And she said, how do I do what? And I said, you come into the office and this was a common thing with her. Everybody used to say she was the graceful swan. So all hell could be breaking loose. There could be major problems. And she'd just breeze in, bring in this sense of calm. It would wash through the office and then she'd breeze out again. So I said, so how do you do it? Because I know you well enough to know that you got, and this is out of context. This might sound a little bit disrespectful, but you just need to trust me. It wasn't. But I said, you've got Chandler. in your personal life but no one would ever know how do you do it and she said when I get up in the morning I sit in front she had a this is what she told me I don't know this but she had like a little makeup table with a big mirror on it that she used to sit at to do her makeup and And she said, I used to sit at the table looking in the mirror and I think about Hollywood actresses or a film character or somebody else who's famous or someone well-known and I adopt their personality for the day. She said, I do that as I'm putting my makeup on. And she said, that gives me two shields. The makeup is about physical presence and how people see me. And the actor, actress, famous person is how I speak, so it's verbal as well as visual. And she said, that way then, if anybody criticised me or says anything disrespectful or does something I don't like or says something harmful to me, then it's easier for me to process because they're doing that of the mask or the shield. They're not doing it of Karen, they're doing it of this. Which is such a, that was one of the most powerful lessons she taught me because it enabled me to be able to do the same when I was feeling broken or weak. I could still go in and manage the 30 odd people I was managing at the time without bursting into tears or getting upset or whatever it was.
Unknown:Yeah.
Speaker 00:And then it made me think about how I dressed because I'd always heard this thing and there was a mate of mine I used to get really annoyed at because he'd go out and he'd spend thousands on Giorgio Armani suits or whatever and I was like, are you arrogant? You're doing that because it's, oh look how much money I've got. But then my mum had said about power dressing and this is something we hear, I subsequently heard a lot about women talking about is this power dressing, like the power suit that they wear or whatever it might be. And it's the same for men too and then because when I put a kilt on believe it or not I do actually wear a kilt do you yeah or that's another podcast actually no this is relevant to what we're talking about I'll come back to that in a minute but if I'm wearing a kilt or I'm wearing a suit I feel infinitely more confident
Speaker 01:really
Speaker 00:not bulletproof well actually yeah pretty much bulletproof but then when I because I used to ride boat cycles well yeah hang on But then it's because I used to ride motorcycles. And if I used to go on a quick... Not with a kilt. I did it once. I did do that once. Stop. I'll come back to the kilt in a minute. Actually, there's a... Yeah, no, I will come back to the kilt in a minute. No, if I was going to the shop, I'd just go in jeans and trainers and a hoodie or something.
Speaker 01:Yeah.
Speaker 00:And my riding style was very different. I was far more cautious than if I was wearing a one-piece leather, reinforced armored leather suit with like full bindings. I'd say I'd write like a lunatic. I didn't because I was in the police at the time. I wrote very sensibly, but I was a lot more confident in my writing style when I had a one piece on. So there's definitely something in this about. confidence and self-esteem in how you perceive others perceive you so me saying to Emma you don't need to wear makeup no I didn't say that I think you look beautiful without makeup would have had absolutely no positive impact on her because it's not playing to that how she feels about herself when she sees what she looks like with makeup on and it's the same with Karen using those examples about protection and everything else we will go down the rabbit hole about the kilt because there's two funny stories there and then there's one serious one that brings us back to the point we were talking about
Speaker 01:okay a serious story about a kilt wow
Speaker 00:oh don't so my ancestry so I quite a big chunk Scottish which I'm really proud about so we were originally Vikings came over to Scotland and then came down to Norfolk and then out down across the south east and And our tartan is Graham of Montrose. So we were lowlanders that supported the highlanders in kicking the English's backsides at the Battle of Hadrian's Wall. So I'm proper anti-English.
Speaker 01:Yeah.
Speaker 00:By blood.
Speaker 01:But with my Irish background, we're a good combination.
Speaker 00:And when I'm in France, I don't ever tell them I'm English. I tell them I'm Scottish.
Speaker 01:Yeah.
Speaker 00:And the reason for that is that the French hate the English, or at least that's my experience. They hate me when I tell them I'm English. But when I tell them I'm Scottish, they don't have a problem with me. Yeah. And that's if they can work out that I'm actually not French, because there have been a fair few French people that have actually thought that I was French.
Speaker 01:You have a bit of a look, actually, saying that. Careful. You could fall off French.
Speaker 00:I went out with a French gendarme, police officer, so they're at the military side of the police, and she thought I was French. Right. Because I speak, spoke fluent French, but she was from Paris, and my accent, because my French teacher in school was from Bordeaux, my French accent is the equivalent equivalent of a Bristolian accent in the UK and the Parisians see it as a proper country accent. So because my accent was so strong to her as a Bordeaux accent, she didn't even clock that I was English.
Speaker 01:Wow. I'm always impressed when people can do that, when people can speak so fluently.
Speaker 00:Don't ever ask me to do it, though. It's funny. On demand, can't do it. But if you drop me in the middle of France and the wheel's blown up on the car, I got myself out of so many scrapes in France being able to speak French. Anyway, so my ancestry is Scottish so I wear this tartan so when I got married to my ex-wife I bought the full Prince Charlie which is the real smart formal dress jacket and the Jacobean shirt and then the white collared shirt and the kilt and the sporran and the skin doon I never pronounce that right Scots people kick my ass when I say it but it's a little dagger that you tuck in your sock and the brogue shoes and the laces that go all the way up your legs to your knees to your knees not the way up to your knees anyway two stories so the first one is on my wedding day a mate of mine he's no longer a mate of mine actually he's the guy I was talking about earlier on was being an idiot generally it was everybody had a bit to drink it was in the evening and And he was just being a nightmare and in a drunken stupor wearing a kilt. I went and stood over the top of him when he was laying on the
Speaker 02:floor.
Speaker 00:He wasn't happy about that. The other one is that there have been three or four events I've gone to with clients which have been proper black tie events where I've worn my kilt and it's helped me infinitely when it comes to imposter syndrome and And because I'm not particularly a social person, especially if it's a black tie event, I find them... Duffy's the wrong word. I just don't feel like I should be there.
Speaker 01:Right,
Speaker 00:okay. It's part of imposter syndrome, a bit out of place. But I put a kilt on and it's ironic because one of the clients that I go, have been to these events and it's just popped up on my screen on LinkedIn with a post about a hot pink suit that she's wearing in the middle of London and she looks amazing in it. I love it. She wears all these really bright colours. It looks really cool. Right. But yeah, so I wore this kilt to two or three events. In those environments it's really interesting how people react because they're very very respectful when you wear a Scottish outfit so the full Prince Charlie sporran and kilt and everything else now the story that's a little bit controversial is that I don't know what possessed me to do this but I went out in Bristol on a night out in my kilt once. As you do. Now this is where I get in trouble because and there's no exaggeration in this at all. Over the course of the evening from the point I started counting I I had my kilt lifted by women 37 times. Wow. Now, if I, as a bloke, walked up to a woman in a nightclub wearing a dress or a skirt and lifted her, I'd be in prison. Yeah. But we got to about the 12th or 13th or 14th occasion and this woman walked over to me Probably about my age. leant forwards grabbed the hem of my kill and lifted it up right so i leant forwards grabbed the hem of her dress and said i'm not going to lift your dress up but how would you feel if i did
Speaker 01:yeah
Speaker 00:and she stopped dead in her tracks dropped my kill apologized profusely and then walked off
Speaker 01:wow
Speaker 00:but it kept happening right away through the evening to the point where we got to about i up for staying out it was an all night event and I was up for staying up until about 7 o'clock but I went home at 11 I just had enough I was done with it I'm not going to sit here and start preaching about whatever people want to read into that situation but it just illustrates
Speaker 01:it does illustrate what do people think because I think if you saw a man with a kilt you think they're looking to stand out but that's the same argument as you see a woman with a beautiful dress
Speaker 00:the other thing with it as well and this goes for both genders, is that I know, I'm trying to think if I've ever done this, I don't think I ever have. But I know guys that have gone out in kilts because it's almost guaranteed to help them pull.
Speaker 01:Absolutely, yeah, I'm sure.
Speaker 00:Women do the same, you know, dress. It's the dress to impress thing, right?
Speaker 01:Yeah.
Speaker 00:But the bit that annoys me with the kilt thing, and I get the tongue-in-cheek humour, but if you wear a kilt properly, for anybody who doesn't know, you don't wear underwear underneath it.
Speaker 01:Yeah.
Speaker 00:Okay. Now, that's... the traditional Scottish way of wearing it. There are men and women out there who, and the term is go commando, because either they want to, it's something that works for them, or whatever the reason is. But you don't see men running around lifting women's skirts up to see if they're commando or not, do you?
Speaker 01:You don't. But I think in that context, because it is one of those things that people talk about with kilts, are you wearing it the traditional way or not? And let's have a look. I think that's probably a bit different. But I get your point. Absolutely. If it was a woman, it was known that a woman goes commando in a kilt, you wouldn't lift up the kilt, would you?
Unknown:No.
Speaker 00:I wouldn't, but I'm pretty bloody sure that if women went out wearing kilts, men would react the same way to women wearing them that women do to men wearing them. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, the point I was going to make was that at these events, these corporate events, you don't even get asked. are you wearing it the proper way? You don't even get asked. It doesn't come out.
Speaker 01:Yeah.
Speaker 00:Whereas out in public or out in social events, I lost track. I felt like getting a sign on my head saying, no, I'm not because I wasn't that night because you'd have to be an idiot. Yeah, you'd have to be an idiot to go out in a kilt on a night out and not wear underwear. I was actually wearing thermal leggings because it was freezing. So they were sorely disappointed. But yeah. But do you see my point? So it goes back to what we were talking about, kind of talking about before around this confidence thing, to the point where that experience in Bristol completely destroyed the relationship I had with that kilt. So I now only wear it at corporate events. I don't wear it out. I don't wear it to family events. I don't wear it out, you know, anything like that. I mean, family, you think you'd get away with it? Not when my brother's around, you don't. But anyway. That's
Speaker 01:what I didn't think
Speaker 00:about. Yeah, it is. But it was, and that was a long ass way of getting to the point I wanted to make. And that effectively is the closest thing I've ever been able to do that has allowed me to see what it's like to be a woman out on a night out is how we objectified you become and stuff.
Speaker 01:You've made, you've unlocked a memory for me because when I was in my early twenties, I went traveling and I spent a month in Asia. No, I spent two months in Asia. but I spent a month in Thailand with my then boyfriend my ex-boyfriend now my then boyfriend so we were in our early 20s and he got so much attention hassle from the ladies and it was really interesting because I remember one night sitting there we're in a bar and I was just laughing because he was so uncomfortable and I said to him now you know how I feel when when I'm out in Joe Bananas that was our local club that's how I feel when I'm out in Joe Bananas he was like really he was so uncomfortable so stressed because he was like a six foot odd he was six two young western boy and he was getting a lot of lot of attention. Was he wearing a kilt? He wasn't wearing a kilt.
Speaker 00:So this is just because he was attractive or...
Speaker 01:It was because it is a real role reversal because of the... Because of the culture, and you get a lot of backpackers, and you get a lot of old white men looking for a wife, basically. It's horrendous. They are looking for a meal ticket, essentially. That's what they're looking for. And rather than having the normal 60-odd-year-old Western men, a lot of Germans tend to come across more so than other nationalities, but generally European Western men, older men, he young backpackers were attractive to them for a different reason I suppose and yeah so it was just all very very flirty very coming up to him all the time trying to touch him all of these things and he felt he absolutely hated it to the extent that we didn't go out that much of the evenings anymore in certain on certain islands when we were in the really remote places it was fine but if we're in quite a backpacky touristy place it was like but I remember smiling and telling to him, this is how I feel all the time. And he was like, wow, really? The
Speaker 00:more we took, because we've covered a lot of ground, a lot of different things here about the differences between men and women growing up, what we're taught, the lessons we learn, the experiences we have, you know, LinkedIn becoming Facebook, the fact that, sorry, police have got to go out and start catching people, catcalling and that kind of thing. There's a saying that keeps jumping into my head and that is that you never know the life that someone lives unless you walk a mile in their shoes.
Speaker 01:Yes, very true.
Speaker 00:And there are two good examples, my experience in Bristol and your ex's experience in Thailand of an opportunity to learn something. But it's about what you do with that experience and how it affects you. Now, I've never been one. When I used to go clubbing in my late teens, early twenties, I wasn't a geezer. I wasn't a lad. I never really used to drink a huge amount. And I'd be the one kind of stood in the corner, just rocking backwards and forwards, having a laugh with my mates, talking and stuff. I was never out pulling or, you know, approaching women and that kind of thing because I never felt comfortable doing it. It's just the wrong environment and everything else. But the stuff I used to see happening in nightclubs, I was a doorman for a while and some of the stuff you used to hear about happening in clubs is just shocking. And it does, it begs the question, it goes back to the original point, which is that the only people that can call men out for doing this stuff are men. Because the people that are doing it don't have enough respect for women to listen to anything women say anyway. So women saying something is going to fall on deaf ears. But, I wonder how many men who are like that, if they were put in a position where they could experience what women experience, would change.
Speaker 01:Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 00:Now you're going to get the hardcore, and this is something that Charlotte told me because I spoke to her after she put that post up. You're going to get that hardcore of men that won't, they don't care. They're Andrew Tate types. They're full of misogynists, control power freaks, predators, everything else.
Unknown:Yeah.
Speaker 00:There's got to be a way, and it's through content like what Charlotte's put out and what Brian put out around LinkedIn not becoming Tinder, and then this education piece that Surrey Police are doing where people will be affected by it, men will be affected, and they'll think, shit. Somebody did a comedy sketch about a woman being catcalled. Was it Rhys and Jones? God, that shows my age, doesn't it? I've got a story for you that will make you laugh your ass off in a minute where they had a woman who was getting catcalled. And she turned around, went up to the builder, started taking her clothes off, and went, go on then. Really? Yeah. Now, the reaction, which was the whole point of the sketch, was the bloke, he didn't know what to do with himself, just completely freaked out. And you made that point earlier, is that it's not about men thinking, actually, if I shout something at a woman, they're going to think I'm attractive and come and do whatever. It's about that power and control thing.
Speaker 01:Yeah.
Speaker 00:But I wonder how much of that is subconscious. It's hardwired into them, so they don't even realise their motive for doing it. They just do it because they're with the boys or because...
Speaker 02:Yeah.
Speaker 00:And I might be wrong, I don't know what the statistics are, but I'd be surprised if you ever found a builder on their own working on a site on their own catcalling women.
Speaker 01:It happened to me, for sure. But I do think it's more of a pack mentality, definitely.
Speaker 00:Wow. Sidetrack, quick one. Griff Rees-Jones saved me in Southampton. Wow. Literally saved me. So this is a funny story. I was down, I was working for Orange at the time and we used to do the Orange Sailing Regatta, really posh thing, where they used to get qualified skippers from across the organisation and they would get people who'd never been sailing before to come down to Cows Week for a week. And we used to do the, what's it called? It's the big event that happens every year on the Isle of Wight. Cows Week. And I was a navigator for a captain, on this 38-foot SunSail yacht. Beautiful boat. We had an amazing week. We were out sailing. Another boat caught fire. The RNLI came out. RAF came out. Navy came out. All hell broke loose. Really exciting stuff. Anyway, we got to the end of the main racing days. We'd all arranged to go into cows and sit in the pub and then come back to the boat because we all slept on the boats in the harbour. And my skipper awarded me crew member of the event, which I was really chuffed about because that was literally three months later. No, it wasn't. It was six months after my son died. I was, I just, I, yeah. So I was really broken. And he was like, no, skipper of the week, crew member of the week. So he said, we got one final task for you. He said, I need you to refeed the main halyard. Now the main halyard is the rope that runs up the inside of the mast and it's a 50, 60 foot mast. And then it comes out the top, down the front of the mast and it ties onto the top of the sail. So you pull the sail up using the halyard and it takes the sail up the mast. when we were coming into into the port the halyard had come undone it basically let go the top of the sail and you had we were giving the boat back the following day so we had to get it back into place and it's a real nightmare to do it now without wanting to sound too posh my dad had a 28 foot westerly merlin sailing yacht so i knew how to do all this stuff so the skipper said to me i'm going to put you in a bosun's chair which is the most uncomfortable thing to sit in if you're a bloke and you tend to come down 10 octaves higher than when you went up. I'm going to pull you up the mast. So we had one guy on the safety break. We had another guy on the winch and the skipper was on the radio talking to me. So I've gone up this mast. They pulled me up the mast, tied the rope off and then fucked off to the pub.
Speaker 02:Oh
Speaker 00:my God. Grace Jones was with Dermot. O'Brien.
Speaker 01:Oh, Dara
Speaker 00:O'Brien. Sorry, Dara O'Brien.
Speaker 01:Yeah.
Speaker 00:And there was another comedian. It was, they'd done this, it was a TV show. Rory McGrath, that's it. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So it was Dara O'Brien, Rory McGrath and Griff Rees-Jones. They were in Cows and they'd been out on this boat and I'm up this mast and I saw Dara O'Brien, recognised him straight away and I'm 50, 60 feet off the ground and and I shouted down I was like yo guys help and they're like they're looking around they're not going to look up they're just looking around and I shouted I'm up here look up the mast and the boat next to you so they looked up the mast and they saw me and they're taking their piss and then the other two so Rory McGrath and Griff got onto the boat and they had to figure out where it was all tied off anyway they got me down I was so embarrassed I was absolutely mortified went into they were going into the same pub we were so I went into to the pub with them they bought me a pint amazing the other the other crew saw me come in with them and Rory McGrath, because I told them what had happened and everything else. And he said, well, we're going to go upstairs, but just tell them whatever you want. So I went over to my crew and they were like, did you just walk in with Dara O'Brien, Griff Rhys-Jones and Rory McGrath? I was like, yeah. And they're like, what was that about then? And I said, I've known Griff and Dara for years. And Rory, I've known for a little while, but they saw me up the mast, thanks. And they came and let me down. So I'm going back to their boat later. Exactly. Anyway. So, yeah. So I got saved by Griff Rhys-Jones. That sounds like a postcard. Walk into a bar with... It was. It was an Englishman, an Irishman, and a Scotsman. Yes, it was. It was an Englishman. No, it is. Englishman, Irishman, Scotsman, and a Welshman. Dara's Irish, Rory's Scottish, and Griff is Welsh. And then I was English. I say I'm Scottish.
Speaker 01:Yeah. You're Scottish or French.
Speaker 00:There you go. Okay. We kind of need to get to a point for all of this. I think there's three big things here for me. One, the fact that the police have to do what Surrey police have done is just not good. But the fact that they're doing it is really good because hopefully it will educate people. Emma's a runner and she tends to wear headphones when she goes out, which I keep telling her she needs to be aware of what's going on around her. But the fact that I'm having to tell her that is a problem.
Unknown:Yeah.
Speaker 00:The second thing is, is that for heaven's sake, LinkedIn, you need to sort out your platform because it's turning into Facebook and it's just, it's just shocking some of the stuff that we're reading. I mean, it's almost over endorsement of sexism and everything else going on on there now and the way people are behaving and stuff. And thirdly, I would encourage anybody to look at the two, so the link to the post from Charlotte Del Senor and the Instagram video that Siobhan shared of the poet talking about women's experiences and maybe if you're a man ask yourself the question are you prepared to step up and challenge people when they're being misogynistic
Speaker 01:sexist
Speaker 00:threatening whatever it might be
Speaker 01:and just start noticing it
Speaker 00:yeah
Speaker 01:because I don't I don't I don't get angry necessarily that men aren't noticing it because it's part of their conditioning and it's part of society. But it's a bit like the matrix. Once you've taken that pill and you start seeing the real world, you can't unsee it then. So start looking.
Speaker 00:Yeah, take the pill. Whether that's this podcast or Charlotte's Post or the video from Siobhan, whatever that pill is, take it and start challenging it.
Speaker 02:Yeah.
Speaker 00:And if you've got daughters... As I have, I've got a 19-year-old and a 13-year-old, very soon to be 14, as she keeps pointing out.
Unknown:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 00:It doesn't change anything. You're a year older, love. You're still a child.
Speaker 01:My 13-year-old, my husband, keeps teasing her saying that she's 10. She's permanently 10.
Speaker 00:You're only 10 years old. That's more denial on his part, isn't it? It is. She gets so annoyed. There's a serious point there, though, because at the age of 10, my relationship with my daughter was very different. I didn't have to worry about a thing.
Speaker 01:Yeah.
Speaker 00:I'm questioning how much longer I'm going to have liberty for. It's getting a bit scary. But yeah, it's about seeing and noticing what's going on around. Well, I think we may be covered far too much in one episode there without going into any depth with any of it. So maybe we need to get people to write in with their views on this.
Speaker 01:Yes,
Speaker 00:and do a follow-up. Yeah, we can pick apart some of the pieces we've talked about.
Speaker 01:I would be very interested in people's experiences, especially guys who take the pill and start seeing things. What do they make of it?
Speaker 00:Well, that's it for this episode of Why Not and What If, where the conversations get messy, magical and a little bit rebellious. If it made you think, laugh or rage text your mates, job done. That's what we're here for. Got a topic you think we should dive into? Drop us a line at letstalk at whynotwhatif.com. Seriously, your ideas fuel this chaos. And don't forget to follow, subscribe, shout about us in your WhatsApp groups, on LinkedIn and come back next week for more brutally honest, occasionally unhinged and always human conversations. See you next time.
