← The Guilty Feminist
The Guilty Feminist
483. The Epstein Files with The Nerve featuring Ria Lina, Carole Cadwalladr, Lucia Osborne-Crowley, Dan Whitlam and GeeJay - part two
00:53:47
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- [00:01]
Deborah Frances-White
Get the ice cream love big freezer.
- [00:08]
Lucia Osbourne Crowley
It's by the peas.
- [00:11]
Carol Cadwallader
Some things are really best not to
- [00:13]
Deborah Frances-White
put off, like defrosting the freezer or if you're a landlord sending a copy of the new government information sheet to your existing tenants.
- [00:20]
Carol Cadwallader
You must do this by 31 May
- [00:23]
Deborah Frances-White
or risk a fine.
- [00:24]
Carol Cadwallader
Make sure you're up to date with the new laws.
- [00:26]
Deborah Frances-White
Find the information sheet@gov.uk rentingischanging study and play come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the unreal college deal.
- [00:42]
Carol Cadwallader
Everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs.
- [00:45]
Deborah Frances-White
Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 Premium and a year of Xbox game Pass ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn more@windows.com studentoffer while supplies last ends June 30th terms at aka mscollegepc.
- [01:01]
Carol Cadwallader
This episode is brought to you by Prime Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice off campus. Elle every year after the Love Hypothesis, Sterling Point and more slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime.
- [01:32]
Deborah Frances-White
Welcome back to part two of the Guilty Feminist. So plug in and get ready for the fun. Hello, Leicester Square Theatre. Are you ready for even more Guilty Feminist? Then put your hands together and please give a big Guilty Feminist nerve news. Welcome to the wonderful gj.
- [02:00]
gj (musical performer)
Good evening everybody. Thank you so so much for having us. My goodness, you're looking wonderful. There's big smiles in the house this evening. I wanted to start you with this song which is basically an account from my my former self early 20s. I'd started traveling around the world and I wrote this as how it left me feeling how as a young woman I was treated or were left feeling after different experiences along the way. And what I drew was a complicated world and it left me feeling quite ordinary. So this one is Ordinary girl.
- [02:41]
Ordinary girl in a complicated world oh I know I know I track Try to live the life the life I want to live A nary girl in an over complicated world oh I got a vision I see oh I oh I I wanna cross the ocean seas this and I will rise I know I'll try to cross the upper seas the issues Bl In a complicated world oh I I know oh I know I try try to live the life the life I want to live Ordinary girl in a over complicated World I'm a diamond in the rough oh I, oh I will show I'm good enough I'm caught up in the dream that's all I know I'm heading upstream keep pushing against the flow hear the words that I sing I show that I am worth more than you think Listen I will rise I know I'll try to cross the upon se the issues of w I never go in a complicated world oh I, I know oh I, I know I try try to live the life the life I want to live Ordinary girl in an over complicated world oh, I want to be extraord. I want to share my thoughts and dreams I want to be a l. You have to wait and you'll see how every girl in a complicated world oh I, I know, I know I
- [05:12]
Carol Cadwallader
try
- [05:14]
gj (musical performer)
try to live a life the life I want to live but every girl in an over complicated world oh yeah yeah yeah it's complicated but I will make it.
- [05:35]
Deborah Frances-White
Thank you.
- [05:43]
gj (musical performer)
As with all of you here this evening and everybody on this stage this evening, I just wanted to add this second song in called proud to be me. Because sometimes, you know, life is a real challenge, and if we don't have the right people around us to say, you know what? You need to take a minute and be proud of yourself. This song is for all of us to take that minute and say, you know what? I'm proud. I'm proud to be me. So this one's proud to be me.
- [06:14]
Oh, I walk here as if I'm 10ft tall. Cause I'm proud proud to be me. Oh, I walk yeah, with my heart on my sleeve. Cause I'm proud prouder than me. You don't, you don't know what I've been through. But I'm sure if you've seen it, you'll be prouder than me. I homie and I wherever I go I may die, that's for sure. Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. I will always try and take love my stride cause I'm proud you're proud you're proud but I'm proud of it man I will always try and take love in my stride cause I'm proud you're proud you're proud but I'm proud to be me. When I look back and see how far I've come makes me proud proud to be me. When I look back and see what I've achieved makes me proud. Prouder than me. You don't, you don't know what I've been through but I'm sure if you sing it you'll be prouder than me. Homemade high wherever I go A homemade high, that's for sure. I will always try take love in my stride. Cause I'm proud. You're proud? You're proud? Well I'm proud of him. I feel up with stride take up my stride cuz I'm proud. Your breath, your breath. I'm proud of him. If you just seen it oh what we've been through and how we stood up and how we learn to let go go. I know you'll be proud of me. Clap will up is try you take love mist Cuz I'm proud you're proud you're proud. But I'm proud of him. Come on. Hey hey. I will always try. Tick love must try Cuz I'm brought your breath, your breath And I'm proud of him. Thank you, gj. Everybody
- [09:19]
Deborah Frances-White
give it up to gj. Fun fact. Their names are in fact G and J. They are. They are. They're short for. But I love that I only discovered them because of Jane at the Nerve News. But they've got lots and lots and lots of Spotify monthly users. I don't know how we live in the world now. Something to do with monthly users. Why? Remember when you used to go and buy a record from the shop and you'd be so excited to get it home and you'd read the notes on the album? I like at that time and nobody had monthly users. It just sounds like, oh, we're using you. Do you know what I mean? A user was a bad thing. Oh, she's a bit of a user, they'd say, now no artist can survive without users. We have to make content. Which just sounds like vomit. Like this is just a thing for you to just hoover up into the machine content. No, it's art. They make art. You could be a fan, listener, don't be a user. Anyway, go and find their stuff and however it helps them, follow them. I'm aware I sound 105, don't give a fuck I'm correct. Are we ready for some more deep dive conversation? Do you have some cues ready so that there is some A's? Get your cues ready, please. Welcome back to the stage. My co host for this evening is Realita. And our guests, Carol Caudwallada and Lucia Osbourne Crowley. Thank you.
- [11:07]
Carol Cadwallader
I said it feels like the walk of shame.
- [11:09]
Deborah Frances-White
Oh, I see. Why did you just do someone in the audience? Quick interval work, I have to say. Listen, we do what we can to get by now, we do what we need to do. Do what we need to do. And, you know, sometimes urges must be met. But I have to say, you're the first guest to have said walking onto stage is the walk of shame, so I will.
- [11:33]
Realita
It is the guilty feminist, though.
- [11:36]
Deborah Frances-White
Listen, it's not. We don't call it the guilty feminist for nothing. So let's dive back in after that beautiful musical interlude. I do like, when we have a bigger show in a bigger theater, we like to do, like, feminist variety. So, you know, we've got poetry, we've got songs. It just makes the evening so much lovelier. I've always thought the only thing we've never had is a feminist magician. And I've always thought it'd be great to get a feminist magician who, at the beginning of the show, cuts a man in half and then just leaves him there. And then people just leave going, bye. And then he's just there waving out of a box. That would be great. So let's gear change back into our discussion about how terrible the world is.
- [12:17]
Realita
Do you know the problem with that trick, though, is because I think they do it with, like, two people. So that would mean that we'd be hiring one feminist female magician and two men.
- [12:25]
Deborah Frances-White
They'd be volunteers. They'd be audience volunteers and. Oh, okay, yeah, yeah, I think that would be the best.
- [12:34]
Realita
Now, we don't have to saw them in the middle, do we?
- [12:37]
Deborah Frances-White
No, I don't think we have to work out all the statistics now, to be honest. Some of this can be done backstage now. Carol, you have written very brilliantly about the Epstein files. How are you feeling about all of this? Now, if you could share something with the audience about this, how we got here, where we're going, how we might get justice, anything in that area. How do you feel about it all so?
- [13:04]
Carol Cadwallader
Well, I have to say I felt very lucky for quite a long period of time in that there was this terrible story, and people like Lucia were, you know, really getting into the weeds and having to deal with this man and what he'd done. And I felt really relieved because I was. This is not my beat. And I was like, I've done a decade of, like, these deep dives into things like Silicon Valley tech companies. Oh, that's very kind.
- [13:35]
Deborah Frances-White
Yeah. You famously broke at Cambridge Analytical.
- [13:39]
Carol Cadwallader
Cambridge Analytica. So I've been reckoning with these Silicon Valley companies and their impunity.
- [13:46]
Deborah Frances-White
I really thought you were going to say Silicon Valley comes there. Did anyone else think that I'm here for it? Our audience is like, that's what we thought she was going to say.
- [13:54]
Carol Cadwallader
It was like, well, definitely here for it. So there's Silicon Valley, no company companies. And I've been dealing with the far right with Steve Bannon, with the rise of populism in Britain, in Europe, in America. I've been really looking at Russian interference and the effect that that's had on our world and our elections. And I've crossed into Israeli defense tech and surveillance firms. So this has all been sort of like part of my orbit of what I've been doing for the last 10 years. And I could ignore stories like Epstein. And then the files came out and, you know, it was there, obviously, you start doing your keywords and you start looking things up. And it was just. It really did blow my mind because not only did I find out that all of these different worlds that I'd been looking at, the Silicon Valley tech companies and the Russian interference and the Israeli spy companies and the European far right, they're all in there, they're all connected. And the person who connects them all is Jeffrey Epstein. So it really did kind of blow my mind. And of course, it's not just Jeffrey Epstein connects them. It's also the trafficking of women and girls, like, under lies all of these things, all of these connections and all of these relationships which are so fundamental to what has happened in our world in the last 10 years. And so, on the one hand, my mind was blown, and I was kind of excited in that way that you can, you know, in those sort of early days of looking in the files. The US News organization seems to be completely asleep at the wheel. You could just delve in there and find, you know, sort of scoop after scoop. And I was like, okay, great, I'm going to do this Russian, you know, he's communicating with this Russian spies, and he's going to Moscow. He's buying an apartment there really late on, like, 2019. I think it was 18. When did he. No, went to 18. Anyway, and then I felt really overwhelmed by it all because it felt really fundamental to this world. And all of the things I've been writing about, that it is underpinned by this abuse of women and girls that. That sort of baked into this technologies and this power relationships. It's all power. That's what I've been looking at. And so the fact that it's underpinned by this abuse of women and girls felt very significant. And I think the thing is, with all of the technology that I've been looking at, These companies that is also baked into these technologies. And I sort of really, sort of took a moment to think about that and really about what that says about our culture. And it was this sort of revelation in a way that, you know, we don't want to look at this stuff. And that's why, you know, on the open Internet, porn isn't there, really, obviously, and the search terms aren't there, and you're not necessarily coming across it, but yet it is by far and away the most traffic on the Internet. It's what most, you know, more than anything else. And, you know, even on the most popular porn sites, the most popular content is around teens. It's barely legal. You know, that's the sort of term which is used. So there's a whole sort of market of porn, of fixation, particularly on young girls. And this is how so much of these companies are making their money. Right? This is capitalism. But also the fact is, they're not just making money off that, they're also accelerating and amplifying it. That's what these algorithms are doing, and they're connecting users to these materials, they're growing it, they're enlarging it, and they enjoy total impunity. Like, my whole work for the last decade has been about the impossibility of holding these companies to account, of holding anybody to account. Trump personifies that, you know, and increasingly, we're in this world of strong men. And so this story felt such. It felt like a sort of personification almost of the geopolitical sort of circumstances in which we're living the world that we've created, the technology that is shaping us. And it kind of just overwhelms me, even really thinking about it. And as I said, it was. I'd really hoped that I didn't. This wasn't a story that I had to go near, and it turns out that I did.
- [18:24]
Realita
Can I ask, in your opinion, chicken and egg, is it men with this proclivity end up in positions of power, or is it that by the time any man gets to that position of power where they can have everything they want financially, the only thing left is that which is forbidden? And therefore, I mean, like, I mean, I just.
- [18:45]
Carol Cadwallader
I really don't know. I mean, it's a currency. You see that in the files. You know, it's a way of bringing people in. I mean, a lot of these. There's a lot of academics in there, you know, and my kind of take. These are kind of guys who really didn't know how to pull their Own groupies. They needed Epstein to do it for them. But I think, you know, I think going back to the proclivities, I mean, the thing. This is what I find so disturbing. And Deborah, what you wrote so brilliantly about in the Nerve, about these terrible sites now, which are connecting men together who want to rape their sleeping partners. I mean, it's. It's a. Sorry, that was a bit too. I mean, we have to go dark on this stuff, don't we, to do the. To do the light. But that was maybe.
- [19:34]
Deborah Frances-White
Yeah, it is an extraordinary thing. And I can't imagine this has always been the way it's been. Is it something to do with a lot of boys and men now have for too long had so much 247 access to pornography. And that pornography has got more and more extreme. Because I've read some stuff that says if you are addicted to pornography in order to become aroused, in order to orgasm, you need. If you're going to sit there round the clock, you need more and more graphic visions, expressions to. In order to reach arousal. And so this is why pornography's got so very, very, very dark.
- [20:22]
Carol Cadwallader
I mean, I think something these tech companies are creating. I think you look at Gisele Pellico, you look at that example of. It was more than 70 men. I think it was a 20 kilometer radius of the town. And the point is, is that these sites create permission. They create a normalization, they create opportunity. They're creating this culture and they're connecting men to other men. If these sites hadn't existed, that wouldn't have happened to her. All of that was enabled.
- [20:53]
Deborah Frances-White
But also, I really think every single woman in this audience could see a sight that said, do you want to come and look at a comatose man and touch him? And we'd all go, no, that sounds horrible. Like, not one of us would go, well, I'll pop my shoes on and see what it's like. Let's see what this is about. Like, we just wouldn't. We don't want to see a comatose man. Like, I think, now listen and hashtag notallwomen. There are women that do bad things. And you read about them in the paper, you know, it isn't. It isn't that women are always good. And, you know, when it comes to extortion, 50, 50 women and men, it is not that women are less moral, it is that they are less violent. And that is what fascinates me about that though, is I think for most women, consent is the point. I want to Be desired. So if, for example, Jacob Elordi was hanging around in the West End because he was premiering his movie, I just. These are just some thoughts that are discurring to me now.
- [21:55]
Carol Cadwallader
You wouldn't need to be asleep is what you're saying.
- [21:57]
Deborah Frances-White
I 100% want him to be awake looking in my direction and going like, if he was flirting with me, if he fancied me, that would be the fun part. If someone said, oh, we've got Jacob Elordi's passed out body in a basement, I'd be like, I'd be ringing the police, I'd be trying to get him out. I'd be like, that is not attractive. I think to the vast majority of women and I hope to the vast majority of men that is also absolutely sinister and terrible and dreadful, I would hope. But too many.
- [22:30]
Realita
Can I add to that, that also if Jacob Elordi said, I want to sleep with a thousand Women in like 12 hours, I would not be in that queue.
- [22:38]
Deborah Frances-White
Yes. Oh yeah, absolutely. Because the arousal, the desire for me is the point. That's the point. Like, you know, I would prefer that
- [22:48]
Realita
Jacob to have like this seems to be about possession. It's not about to have, it's about to be with.
- [22:54]
Deborah Frances-White
Yeah, I would prefer that Jacob, lordy, hadn't fancied anyone for some months before.
- [22:58]
Carol Cadwallader
Yeah.
- [22:59]
Deborah Frances-White
I mean he sees me and he's like, oh, I really thought I'd never love again.
- [23:03]
Realita
I get that, I get that. And if he could boil sanitize down there as well, that would be great.
- [23:08]
Deborah Frances-White
I don't want to be one in a thousand in a 24 hour window. I'd just be like, oh, like, you know, we'd feel like queuing up in the rain to get into the trial. Like
- [23:19]
gj (musical performer)
it.
- [23:20]
Deborah Frances-White
So I mean, okay, that's.
- [23:22]
Realita
But like the trial, he'd probably Conk out at 4.
- [23:26]
Deborah Frances-White
The point is, what is the point? Yeah, I don't. Do you see what I mean? Like we could watch porn all day and all night and we would still never want to do that. So I don't know what's going on with.
- [23:39]
Carol Cadwallader
But I think, I think you can say that, you know, there might be impulses, there might be. You know, I think that those were held in check. I think that's the difference. And I think that these platforms are doing something different. They are creating this culture and that culture includes the permission for a cohort of men to be okay doing this. And, and I think this is a new phenomenon. You know, I think we are Living in a very, very experimental time. All of our brains are being wired together simultaneously with this experimental technology which has been untested on humans. And many of those tests have really terrible, you know, consequences. You know, we see this all the time. There's these, you know, I was speaking yesterday to this guy who chatgpt, you know, send him into a complete delusional spiral and there's now, he's now dealing with 250 other people who've been sent into complete delusional spirals through communicating with chatbots. You know, we know, I mean, it's just, there's so many unintended consequences and, and the companies don't care. They test their products on us and then they see what happens. And that's not how we build airplanes. We don't just give it a go. We don't just like, you know, try a new type.
- [25:00]
Deborah Frances-White
We stopped animal testing, we banned that, and now we are the guinea pigs. Yeah.
- [25:05]
Carol Cadwallader
And we generally prefer it when the planes that we do build don't fall out of the sky. We then just don't go, oh, okay, well, maybe they, you know, they can sue. You know, we have product testing, it's quite a big deal. But there's, you know, there's way more regulations around, you know, what lipstick we can use as opposed to like what OpenAI can just stick out as it's new.
- [25:28]
Deborah Frances-White
Yeah.
- [25:29]
Realita
So do you think in this recent trial where, you know, meta and well, meta was found responsible for the mental health of a woman and possibly and more. But do you think that trial is the beginning of regulation? Because we often see that, you know, cigarettes, same thing, weren't regulated. Oh, they cause cancer. Regulated. You know, we saw the relationship with alcohol through the 20th century as we had prohibition and then realized that it did actually need to be regulated in some way. Do you think that this is the beginning of that?
- [25:58]
Carol Cadwallader
I mean, totally. It's exactly the same playbook and you know, the companies it used, the companies which spent the most on lobbying, it was things like Big Tobacco, it was Big Oil. That's been that for years now. Far and away the biggest lobbyists in Washington, in the eu, it's big tech. And these are just, you know, I think it comes back to, I think it's a really good way to think about it. Like, do you want, when you buy a toaster, do you think, well, it might send me psychotic or it might kill my teenager. But you know what? It's okay. It does make quite good toast. No, you kind of like, you Hope that somebody else has, like, looked at that and said, actually that's safe to use. And that hasn't happened with any of these products.
- [26:37]
Deborah Frances-White
And there are recorded cases where these apps, these best friend AI apps, have told teenagers to take their own lives and that has happened. How the fuck hasn't it all been recalled? It is not ready and it should never be ready because it's eroding the moral fabric of our society and it's drinking all our water.
- [26:56]
Carol Cadwallader
Yeah. And so I think in that sense is that sort of, you know, there's primitive biological drives are also being experimented on this way. I mean, I think. I think there's a. There's a sort of empathetic and compassionate view you can actually bring to that. I don't think many of those men, you know, in retrospect, wanted to be, you know, put on trial for what they did to Giselle Pellico. That wasn't a good outcome for them, was it?
- [27:19]
Deborah Frances-White
No. But, you know, honestly, what got me
- [27:22]
Realita
was the ones that went, no, I'm not guilty. Like, amazingly, some of them went, no, I'm not guilty.
- [27:28]
Deborah Frances-White
Guilty. Really thought they were not guilty.
- [27:42]
gj (musical performer)
Girl.
- [27:42]
Realita
Winter is so last season.
- [27:45]
Deborah Frances-White
And now spring's got you looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes.
- [27:49]
Realita
Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs.
- [27:51]
Deborah Frances-White
You're thirsty for the sun on your
- [27:53]
Realita
shoulders that perfect hang on the patio sundress.
- [27:56]
Deborah Frances-White
Those sandals you can wear all day and all night. And you've had enough of shopping from your couch.
- [28:01]
Realita
Done. Hoping it looks anything like the picture
- [28:03]
Deborah Frances-White
when you tear open that envelope.
- [28:05]
Carol Cadwallader
It's time for a little in person spring treatment.
- [28:08]
Realita
It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic.
- [28:12]
Deborah Frances-White
Do we have any questions from the audience? There's somebody right in the front row.
- [28:16]
Realita
Thank you. You're talking about technology, but I'm reminded of the movie recently called Women Talking, where this happened in a Mennonite society with absolutely no technology.
- [28:28]
Deborah Frances-White
That's an incredible point.
- [28:33]
Realita
Urgent. So where they were, they were raping their own community off in the middle of nowhere and they were using horse tranquilizers.
- [28:42]
Deborah Frances-White
Oh, my God.
- [28:43]
Realita
Against this small women, you know, like young girls and the wives, and they'd all wake up bruised.
- [28:49]
Deborah Frances-White
Oh, my God.
- [28:50]
Realita
And then the women got together. It's a true story.
- [28:53]
Deborah Frances-White
So there's a. There's a Mennonite community. And Mennonite, like the Amish people, famously don't use technology. But the men in that community, which presumably operated a bit like a cult, were using horse tranquilizers and doing the same thing that had happened to Gisele Pellico. That's sobering, isn't it? Because that's not an influence of technology or pornography.
- [29:14]
Realita
Something I'm very interested in is education, especially gender education. We don't start young enough. And I think one of the real issues is this issue of how we raise boys to be boys and girls to be girls, especially in sort of religious and Christian ideals. And so what that community shares with our culture is these are the roles for boys and men, and these are the roles for girls. And the problem is, is that boys are taught from a young age to not be girls. Don't be a girl. Man up. Why are you crying? Stop showing your emotions. But if you then take someone who is born to find women attractive and tell them for the first 15 to 18 years of their life not to be the thing that they then want to have sex with, they're not going to know how to handle those emotions properly. And they're going to look at something they've been taught to hate and go, but I also want it. And then what ends up with that conflict is violence, sexual violence.
- [30:06]
Deborah Frances-White
That's a very good point, Rhea.
- [30:10]
Lucia Osbourne Crowley
I also think, kind of connecting all of these things is, again, to Rhea's point, about how we're socialized. I think there is a very basic thing here, which is that women are socialized to think of sex as being about sex. And a lot of men are socialized to think about. Of sex as being about power. And that is what Epstein did, again, to Rhea's point before, I don't think that all of the men who were clients of his necessarily had the same proclivities as he did. But what he was offering them was the ability to do something that is not allowed, that everyone we thought agreed was absolutely not allowed. And he was offering them the ability to do that with impunity. And that makes people feel powerful. So, you know, what they were doing was not even necessarily about the act itself. It was about power. And that's the problem with how we raise a lot of boys and men, is that they kind of get to choose whether they think about sex as being about sex or whether they think about. Think of it as being about power.
- [31:22]
Deborah Frances-White
That's what Dominic Pellico said, didn't he, when he was asked why he did it? He said, I wanted to subdue a powerful woman or words to that effect,
- [31:30]
Realita
because he felt emasculated in, you know, but that's. But that's what it is. It's about it's instead of. It's so frustrating. You know, we have these situations, and instead of being better, there are some men out there that go, I'd rather make you worse. They just don't want to do the work.
- [31:50]
Lucia Osbourne Crowley
Facebook exists because Mark Zuckerberg was dumped. I mean, that's why, like, that's why we have it. It's because he was sad and he didn't like that. He felt powerless.
- [32:03]
Deborah Frances-White
To be fair, it was also so he could rate the women on campus out of 10.
- [32:06]
Lucia Osbourne Crowley
But that's what I mean. But he did it because. To get back at his ex. So he said, I'm gonna go back to my dorm room and do this thing to rate all the girls, and I'll rate her really low. That's how we got here. That is one of the most powerful men in the world now. And he was pretty straight up with us about it. Like, he told everyone what he was doing. He was like, oh, I created this piece of technology to rate women because my ex made me sad. And then we let him rule the world.
- [32:38]
Deborah Frances-White
But again, I feel like when we feel sad because we've been broken up with, with, we come together, we go over to each other's houses. It's a lot of conversation, a lot of crying. Ice cream. A lot of ice cream. I've gone over to girlfriends houses with. I stopped on the shop on the way, got the ice cream, got the wine, got the Haribo in, and then we talk about it for hours. We do hash out the same beats for weeks on end. If you're a good friend, you will set. You'll say the same thing 27 times.
- [33:05]
Realita
You burn whatever you left in your house.
- [33:08]
Deborah Frances-White
All of that. But what we don't tend to do is take over the world with very evil technology.
- [33:13]
Lucia Osbourne Crowley
None of us have done that.
- [33:14]
Realita
But is that where we're going wrong?
- [33:17]
Deborah Frances-White
That may be where we're going wrong.
- [33:18]
Realita
That's where we're going wrong.
- [33:19]
Deborah Frances-White
Do we have any other questions?
- [33:22]
Carol Cadwallader
Thank you.
- [33:23]
Deborah Frances-White
There's a question here.
- [33:25]
Nev (investigative journalist)
Hi. It's not so much a question in so much an observation, but I'm an investigative journalist at cnn and I actually produced the rape academy piece that you have all been talking about tonight.
- [33:35]
gj (musical performer)
Oh, my God, Really?
- [33:39]
Nev (investigative journalist)
Yes.
- [33:39]
Realita
Hi.
- [33:39]
Nev (investigative journalist)
Yeah, we were chatting on Instagram earlier. I'm Nev, and I spent months in these rape group chats and forums.
- [33:45]
Deborah Frances-White
Oh, my God.
- [33:46]
Nev (investigative journalist)
You put my colleagues messaging men and also asking the same questions that everyone's asking. Why, why, why? And I just wanted to offer some insights in case. It's useful. So obviously my colleagues and I, we. We focused extensively on Pellico as well. We actually interviewed the psychologist in the Pellico trial who profiled the 50 defendants. And what was really interesting was there were no pathologies or mental illnesses per se with any of these men. None of them had a single mental health condition. The only thing that she identifies was narcissism. She said across the board, they were all narcissistic men who were engaging in, again, archaic power plays where domination was the thing that they wanted and it was power and control. And I found that really interesting that it wasn't that they were bipolar or personality disorder, they had these narcissistic traits and then they get into these spaces, like Coco, the website that Pellico used, which is now. I don't know if anyone's seen, but it's now since rebranded and it's been reopened in the. In the past week.
- [34:53]
Deborah Frances-White
I read that yesterday. What's it rebranded as?
- [34:56]
Nev (investigative journalist)
It's called Coco Land.
- [34:58]
Deborah Frances-White
What?
- [34:59]
Nev (investigative journalist)
Yeah.
- [35:00]
Deborah Frances-White
So it used to be cocoa.fr and now it's cocolan.fr yeah.
- [35:04]
Nev (investigative journalist)
Again, I could talk about this for a while, but basically there are so many ways and slippery ways that they evade this. So they've registered it now in the Cocoa Islands, which is a territory off Australia, where there's a lot of kind of slippery kind of ways to have a domain name there. Anyway, long story short, I think it's all about education and narcissistic traits are an important thing to look out for. But also in our documentary, which I would encourage you to watch, if you haven't watched it, it's on YouTube, a lot of the women were also in kind of coercive, controlling relationships too. And I think that's another important factor. And Gisele Pellico herself, who we interviewed in our piece, she talks about how it is all education and it needs to start much younger. It needs to start, you know, 10, 11, 12.
- [35:56]
Realita
Four.
- [35:57]
Nev (investigative journalist)
Four, yeah. And again, sorry, not really a point, but I just felt like I had to.
- [36:02]
Deborah Frances-White
Not education clearly about this, but education boys about how to behave. Well, thank you for your service. We would love to talk to you longer at another time. That's an incredible thing you did and it must have cost you dearly to be in those situations. So we'd love to have you on another show.
- [36:27]
Realita
Sorry, can I change that? I said four, because it does need to be younger. It does need to actually start from birth. We already have science studies that show that we treat our babies Differently according to their gender. And by nine or 10 months, we can already see how boys are behind girls based on just the way that we treat them. So from birth, it needs to be different.
- [36:46]
Deborah Frances-White
We've only got time for one more question, and this person's had their hand up for ages, and they've been waving like they're drowning. So I will take that one. Thank you so much. This is a question for Carol, actually. Ever since this show was advertised, I've been wanting to ask you, what do you think or are there any connections that you can see between maybe the attitudes or even the way that relationships and social connections work between the people around Epstein and the people who enabled the stalker of your poor ex stepdaughter? You did this wonderful podcast called Stalked, and I wondered whether there was incredible. There was a connection. You could see anything that connected those two worlds.
- [37:40]
Carol Cadwallader
Thank you for that question and for listening for that. And that's incredible. I'm amazed. That's so brilliant that you're here. And I was really curious about the team which had done that. So it's amazing to meet. And, I mean, one of the things that we say in the podcast is that the first use case of any new technology is against women. Like, we see that time and time again, that whatever the novel technology that comes in, the first use case is to figure out how to weaponize that and use it to abuse or surveil or target or, you know, diminish women in some way. And this is, I think, you know, as I said, the sort of. The sort of sensation that I took away from the Epstein files. And why I, you know, I think, as so many women did, found it hard to really take in the magnitude of this all, but I came away with this. We are living inside the manosphere, right? That is our world. And these. These technologies which have been built by. And they are all men. And this I. It's an ideology which, you know, you've done so much on this podcast to, you know, illustrate and illuminate and show that is coming for us here in the uk that so much of this, you know, religious ideology which is coming for our rights. And, you know, in so many respects, it's baked into these technologies, and it's inherently retrogressive. And we, again, are the first use case, I think, of how we are seeing that play out. So the podcast was about Hannah, who is my ex's daughter, and how she was being stalked by predator, and. And, you know, I think that's the thing which connects this. These These are predators. We're talking about predators. And this technology is predatory. And that is the sort of nature of, you know, one thing I sort of to go away and think about is that our data, your data, which is being harvested, it's the business model of these platforms that's a predatory business model. They're taking, it's extractive and it then is used and weaponized and turned against us to enable to be targeted in all of these different ways. So, yeah. Yes is my answer. Thank you for the question.
- [40:11]
Deborah Frances-White
Can I ask you both what. You know, Lucia, you were at the Maxwell trial, so you heard it all. How hopeful are you that justice might happen? And how do you think we as people in our community who care? And you know, I know this is. Has probably been a tough night. If you're a man in the audience thinking, oh God. But there are men in the audience who've come because they care about this. What is it? And there's obviously lots of women and I'm sure some non binary people in as well who are really want to change the world. Like, what is it that can. What is it that we can do? And how hopeful are you?
- [40:54]
Lucia Osbourne Crowley
I am actually. And this, this might sound insane because of everything that's happening, but I actually am feeling very hopeful right now because, I mean, you know, I've been covering Epstein for almost seven years. I've seen this come in and out of the news. I've seen people care about it for five minutes and then not care about it. And I've, you know, been on that journey with survivors of his who have to see that happen. But something has changed. It's very obvious that we're at some. We're either approaching or have reached some kind of tipping point with this case in particular. And, you know, there are survivors who had never told their story before who have now passed an act of Congress. You know, they're the only reason that these files are out in the world. And they lobbied and they fought for it and their voices are being heard for the first time and, and they are being so brave. And you can see that it's working. You can see that something is shifting in terms of the way that people are kind of demanding justice. Like, I'm seeing people who even in my life who never cared about Epstein or were interested in the work I was doing about Epstein, are now really passionate about it and want to see people being held accountable. So I do feel like, like the mood is changing. That's very different to whether anyone will be held accountable. Because that's up to law enforcement who are, you know, their ultimate boss at the moment is Donald Trump. So that's a totally separate question.
- [42:34]
Deborah Frances-White
Do you think Andrew and Peter Mandelson will see the inside of a jail? I mean, I'm an abolitionist. I don't really believe in jail. But on certain circumstances I'm like, well, that's the situation we've got. If other, if very disenfranchised people are in jail for much more kind of understandable and victimless crimes, they should not be just pardoned like that. Do you think here we might see any justice?
- [42:59]
Lucia Osbourne Crowley
I think we might. And a lot of people really wanted to really dismiss those arrests as kind of not meaning anything. But for the survivors, they meant a huge amount, you know. And you know, people were trying to get me to write opinion pieces saying, oh, this means nothing to survivors. And I thought I said I'm not gonna write that. Cause it's not true because I'm texting them and it's really important to them, you know, to see the police in this country doing something, making arrests.
- [43:30]
Deborah Frances-White
They probably enjoyed that picture of Andrew Scotchman back in the car.
- [43:33]
Lucia Osbourne Crowley
Absolutely. And you know, it was a huge moment after decades of absolutely nothing in terms of accountability. So, you know, I do feel hopeful and I think that in terms of what we can do, we can all just make a decision to kind of get up every day and care about this and decide that we're not going to let this go away the way it has every other time.
- [44:05]
Deborah Frances-White
What do you think, Carol?
- [44:06]
Carol Cadwallader
I think, I actually think we do have to give ourselves a bit of clap on the back because, you know, in America not a single person, you know, a single man has been, you know, they're all over those files, their names are everywhere. We know who they are. Nothing has happened. And the fact that Prince Andrew, you know, there has been, there is some sort of, you know, some sniff of accountability with Mandelson. We are, you know, let's see how that rolls out. So I actually feel, you know, the rules based order is just about holding up here. And I feel that we can give ourselves a very small pat on the back. I mean, it's a small one.
- [44:42]
Deborah Frances-White
We've got to take the wins.
- [44:43]
Carol Cadwallader
We've got to take the wins.
- [44:45]
Deborah Frances-White
Take the wins. We're going to be so depressed and we're going to be demotivated. So we've got to take the wins where they come.
- [44:50]
Carol Cadwallader
Exactly. There's not impute, you know, in the States we are seeing, you know, I Mean, I hope you're right. But there isn't, you know, with Trump, he's the ultimate that, you know, has the ultimate impunity. He can do anything and there's been nothing to hold him to account. And so although I spend a lot of my time saying, you know, it is, we have, we're living on borrowed time in terms of what is going to happen in this country and what could happen at the moment, we still have some, you know, some semblance of that is not okay. And even a prince is not totally beyond a prince.
- [45:28]
Deborah Frances-White
Well, he's not a prince anymore.
- [45:29]
Carol Cadwallader
Well, exactly.
- [45:31]
Deborah Frances-White
He is the, he's the nonce formerly known as prince.
- [45:37]
gj (musical performer)
Now,
- [45:40]
Deborah Frances-White
in the meantime, could everybody just get their phones out and sign up to thenerve News? Because we can't say we want female journalists, journalists driving the news, driving the agenda, writing such quality pieces as you read in the Nerve news and then not support it. So if you can afford, so if you, I think you can just sign up and not pay anything. But we would prefer it, obviously, if you could afford it to do one of the paid options, maybe you could knock off a subscription to something else that's run by some spreadsheets abroad and where you're dropping money into an ocean and they're just getting paid from clickbait boohoo bikinis and give it to the Nerve instead. These are just suggestions, but at least sign up so you get the emails and then you can decide down the line if you're not ready to do Paid right now. If you are ready to do Paid right now, just click it on the Apple pay. I'm sure those guys are good. And I can only assume you must also buy Lucia Osbourne Crowley's book the Lasting Harm and you can read that in your own time then. And if you know things get too much, you can just read a chapter and then you read another chapter in two days time. It's good because you can really take it in with a book that's well written by somebody who was really there. And now you know she was really there because she paid for it by queuing up all night. How dare we not read it when she froze her ass off for it. Can I just say a huge, huge round of applause for Carol Cadwalader. Lucia Osbourne Crowley. Ri Alina, you got anything to plug?
- [47:30]
Realita
I would just like to plug me right now. I'm shifting direction. I have a book coming out next year called how to Erase a Woman, which is all about the Matilda effect. So just keep an eye out for
- [47:40]
Deborah Frances-White
that great buy reel is book. Follow her on Socials and the incredible Dan Whitlam. And now to close our show, it's gj.
- [47:59]
gj (musical performer)
Abracadabra. We just thought we would finish the night with something uplifting and to present like musical flowers to you somehow for all of your efforts and all your hard work and it's truly an honour to be up here. So thank you so much and thank you to all of you for being here and being a part of this. This one's flowers.
- [48:23]
From the day till the day we throw up with all the way let's talk about it. Cause I can't do without your love. It'll mean so much to omega. Can't you say Right here I'll always be? By the way, did I say that I'm here to stay Right here beside you? I will never deny you my love. You're everything to me, can't you see? I give it to you unselfishly Because I need you so. Whoa, baby. And I won't never ever let you go. I bring you flowers in a pouring rain. Living without you is driving me insane. I bring you flowers, I make your day. Yeah, the tears, you cry them all the way. If one day you went away I, I'd feel so lonely inside. I can't deny that I would break down and cry. And all those flowers, they were wilts in the rain. And it would cause me misery and pain. Because I need you so. Oh, baby. And I will never ever let you go. How I bring you flowers in a pouring rail. Living without you is driving me in S I bring you flowers, I make your day. The tears, you cry them all up. Whip, whip, whip me. Sa.
- [50:53]
Carol Cadwallader
Jay on the keys, everybody.
- [50:57]
gj (musical performer)
Make some noise for the Nerve.
- [51:01]
Make some noise for the Guilty Feminist, the Carol, the Tia and everybody. Ria.
- [51:07]
Carol Cadwallader
Thank you so much.
- [51:17]
gj (musical performer)
Gj, everybody.
- [51:20]
Deborah Frances-White
Gj, everybody. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. You've been an absolutely fantastic audience. I've been Deborah Frances White. We've been the Guilty Feminist. Thank you and good night. You have been listening to the Guilty Feminist with me, Deborah Frances White, guest co host Rio Lena, and our very special guests, Carol Conwolada and Lucia Osbourne Crowley with poetry from Dan Whitlam and music from gj. The recording engineer was Grundy Lazimbra. The Guilty Feminist theme tune was composed by Mark Hodge. The producer was Tom Szalinski for the Spontaneity Shop. Thanks to Gene, Edicio, Zaynab Mohammed, everyone at the Nerve and everyone at the Leicester Square Theatre as well as all of you for listening. For more information about this and other episodes, visit guiltyfeminist.com. If you're thinking, I think that's meant to be a punchline. She hasn't had time to workshop this. A lot of it's based on what happened yesterday or in some cases today. Then you just go, yeah, like encourage her. You know, if you go to bed with a new lover first time, you don't want to discourage them. Now I don't want any fake orgasms either. No, no, no, we're feminists here. But you know how you might go, oh, just to encourage them that you.
- [52:31]
gj (musical performer)
Yeah, you're warmer.
- [52:33]
Deborah Frances-White
You're warmer.
- [52:34]
gj (musical performer)
Yeah.
- [52:35]
Deborah Frances-White
Okay, that's what I'm looking for. Don't fake anything. Just, you know, don't hold back. Okay. So since I saw you last the king has gone.