Deborah Frances-White, who hosts the global hit podcast The Guilty Feminist, in Melbourne.Credit: Joe Armao
Sitting in a plush South Yarra hotel room, in a silk maxi and red Louboutins, Deborah Frances-White tells a story about how other forms of change-making can be just as good as fury.
Anger, says one of the world’s most prominent online feminists, still has its merits but although women have a multitude of reasons, especially now, to feel and use it, “it cannot be the only tool in our box”.
Other techniques can help bring around even the most closed-minded opposers to progress towards equality, or basic safety, still required for women. Frances-White knows this because of a man named Lawrence.
He wrote to her saying he had only tuned in to her global hit podcast, The Guilty Feminist – which he could hardly miss, as it’s nudging 200 million downloads – to hate-listen.
“He said: ‘I’m listening to your podcast to see what the enemy is up to because I hate feminists; but 18 months later, you’ve worn me down – I do ‘other’ everyone who isn’t a straight, white man and sometimes what you say still annoys me, but I’ve realised keep saying what you say because it’s working’,” says Frances-White, whose breath-to-anecdote ratio is nothing short of impressive.
“I wrote back and said, Lawrence, what kept you listening for 18 months? And he said because it was funny. Even though the jokes were sometimes about attitudes like mine, I laughed and my armour came off’.”
If he had tuned in and “we’d been kind of scalding” it may not have grabbed Lawrence enough to bring him along, she says. “Not that we don’t get angry on the show; if you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention.”
“Sometimes anger works to motivate people, sometimes comedy works to motivate people, sometimes joy works to motivate or keep people going,” she says. “It’s about what colours are in our palette and how can we strategically use comedy to wake people up and disarm people.”
Frances-White landed on her latest visit to Australia in the midst of another round of public rage and rallies prompted by abuse of women, notably 28 women having been allegedly killed by violence in the first third of the year.
Frances-White hopes her “feminist variety show” will boost women and allies.Credit: Joe Armao
She was visiting relatives in Murwillumbah and Toowoomba when the recent No More marches took place to protest this in capital cities, otherwise she would have attended. The Oxford-educated writer hopes her “feminist variety show” will boost women and allies with reason to feel dispirited.
The woman who, as a one-time comedy festival director, gave Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge her start, cites fabled feminist Gloria Steinem as an inspiration for her own tone, and stresses that celebration and gender revolution are not mutually exclusive.
“I want people to experience joy: I want people to laugh. There’s a great Gloria Steinem quote: ‘If you want to have music and dancing and sex and joy after the revolution, you’ve got to have music and dancing and joy and sex during the revolution’ – I think that’s right,” she says.
“Anger can become one-note and people stop hearing it. These other tools draw people to the movement to energise people, to give people resilience, to be magnetic: all of the emotions.”
As ever, Frances-White’s live show – recorded for podcast – will open with light-hearted confessions of less-than-faultless feminism. It is a clever device to alleviate feelings of never being quite “feminist enough” that were familiar to the comedian and the show’s now-departed co-creator, fellow stand-up Sofie Hagen.
The story goes that the friends brewed their hit formula over lunch in 2015, when discussing feminist-fails like dashing into a shop during a women’s march to use the loo, then being distracted by the face cream.
The “I’m a feminist but ...” trick never fails to give other women the opportunity to relate, feel forgiven and be in on a joke with serious undertones in a time when as much as ever, plenty feels at stake. The threat to reproductive choice in the United States is just one cloud on a still-stormy, global women’s rights horizon.
TAKE 7: THE ANSWERS ACCORDING TO DEBORAH FRANCES-WHITE
- Worst habit? Watching videos on my phone as I fall asleep.
- Greatest fear? Getting complacent.
- The line that stayed with you? “We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.” – Toni Morrison.
- Biggest regret? Not striking out boldly earlier – but it’s made me strike out boldly ever since, so it’s not so much a regret as a motivator.
- Favourite room? I have a living room in my little flat with floor to ceiling bookcases. Love to sit in there with a cat and read.
- The artwork/song you wish was yours? Immersing yourself in other people’s art is connection. I’d never wish it were mine. I am so happy I get to create my own stuff and hope others find connection in that. Having said that, Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen is a perfect song.
- If you could solve one thing... To make the world value kindness and connection as much as it values power and money. That would solve almost everything else.
But Frances-White, who lives in London with her husband, writer Tom Salinski, does not allow herself to cede to gloom. The overturning, in 2022, of the landmark Roe versus Wade decision (that in 1973 declared a state law banning abortion contravened the US Constitution) is both a cause for alarm and a symbol of a success, she says.
“The backlash demonstrates we are making progress, if the women’s marches of 2018 and the #MeToo movement hadn’t changed anything, hadn’t ruffled feathers, we wouldn’t see any backlash,” she says.
“The reason Roe v Wade has been overturned is because they [those who oppose women’s rights] are frightened we are powerful. When the empire strikes back, you know you are making strides forward, so you keep making them and never take that as a sign you are losing; you take it as sign you’re winning.”
Asked on a promotional appearance on The Project what her definition of contemporary feminism was, Frances-White kept it concise: “It is the request-slash-demand for equality, and to be seen as a whole human being.”
Frances-White promoting her stand-up show in 2008.Credit: Craig Sillitoe
She does not go into detail while in Australia about becoming a Jehovah’s Witness in her teens when her Australian family converted to the faith, but she has said in previous interviews, and in her book, The Guilty Feminist, that some aspects of it ignited her interest in feminism.
She told The New York Times that: “The most senior position for a woman is ‘elder’s wife’, which has a Handmaid’s Tale ring to it. Even the Kingdom Hall cleaning roster and the most basic admin work are done by men. I had a slow awakening that this wasn’t for me. I needed to create a more feminist space in the real world for myself after that experience.”
As a Brisbane schoolgirl, she learned that activism can produce results, having pestered the school principal for months to get a music teacher on staff by sitting outside her office every lunchtime for weeks on end with a bunch of mates to reinforce their determination.
Frances-White also realised during her school years that she loved making people laugh, including while door-knocking as a Jehovah’s Witness. She told the Times: “When I left, the first place I went was a comedy improv class … Being in the moment is the opposite of a high control group mentality. It opens you right up.”
Her knack of making others feel able to do the same is undoubtedly one of the drives of the huge success as a live-performance podcaster, an achievement to which she has added author, screenwriter, playwright and, soon, documentary maker.
Frances-White stresses that she wants those coming to her six-date national tour to be as free to share their full range of emotions during the evening as she typically does hers: “If you’re someone who wants to change the world, you’ll leave feeling really empowered to do so.
“If you’re someone who doesn’t think you can change the world, look out! You’re going to leave feeling altered and like you can.
“I want it to be a magnetic space where we can laugh together, cry together, talk together, sing together, dance together. Just generally feel full of all the emotions and leave inspired and energised for the work.”
Deborah Frances-White records The Guilty Feminist live at Hamer Hall on May 25.
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