Historically, when a woman was giving birth, she was attended by the women she trusted most, including her child’s prospective godmother. The word ‘gossip’ derives from the Old English ‘god-sibb’, meaning godparent, but came to refer to what went on around the childbed. As Erica Jong later put it: ‘Gossip is the opiate of the oppressed.’
Gossip has since moved online – see Mumsnet and the network of Facebook pages called ‘Are we dating the same guy?’. Women use the latter to post warnings to alert others to serial cheaters – and worse. Perhaps inevitably, it has become the focus of several lawsuits brought by men who have been publicly maligned. Is it possible to keep the old ‘whisper network’ alive without being sued in the process? Lily O’Farrell, a young writer and cartoonist, is determined to show us how.
It will furnish you with enough household titbits to make a tradwife proud
It says a lot about the state of the world we’re living in that we need podcasts like hers. Beneath its apologetic title, No Worries if Not! is a potent, even fiery examination of the damage wrought by internet culture. Its target audience is young women – 20-something feminist O’Farrell has a sympathetic voice that will appeal to the slightly younger Gen-Zers – but the topics discussed affect all of us.
A recent episode explored the hysteria over ageing that has prompted even children to use products containing peptides, retinol and other alleged youth-enhancing chemicals. Another proposed that dating apps are turning us into human fruit-machines devoid of empathy. You may not be shocked to learn that 75 per cent of Tinder users are male.
Statistics, eloquent experts and deep research elevate this podcast above most others of its ilk. In place of chit-chat we get a carefully considered commentary which builds to tell a broader story of our times. If you’re bewildered by the current vogue for 1950s domesticity, for example, listen to the episode entitled ‘Should we all become Trad Wives?’. When the average woman is still putting in 3.5 hours of housework a day – and has a paid job besides – she can hardly be blamed for dreaming of dishcloths.
The house is a world of its own. TV historian Ruth Goodman – she of the red hair and rapid period costume changes – focuses on a different household item or fixture each week in her podcast The Curious History of Your Home. We have the oven, the medicine cabinet, even the lawnmower, but you can bet it is the episode on the loo that attracts the highest audience figures.
Goodman decided to begin her journey of ‘lifting the lid on the toilets of the past’ in Pakistan. If you have the budget… The Bronze Age site of Mohenjo-daro (the Mound of the Dead) doesn’t sound like the most obvious place for studying the history of bowel functions, but apparently its waterworks were remarkable. Many of the houses in the area had lavatories built into the brickwork of their outside walls. Minoan Crete also excelled on the privy front.
There is an unintended Life of Brian quality to Goodman’s podcast, which serves to illustrate that, where the home is concerned, our ancestors did just about everything for us. The Romans feature prominently, but so too do the ancient Assyrians, Egyptians and Iranians. The episode on home security is particularly fascinating. Few will know that the palace doors of Khorsabad in Nineveh were fastened using an early form of pin-tumbler lock.
The surprises continue. I hadn’t noticed, for example, that keys feature on the Bayeux Tapestry. It also came as news to me that Benjamin Franklin angled mirrors on his exterior house walls so that he could see who was approaching without being seen himself. This early form of doorbell-cam was targeted principally at his mother-in-law.
The one oddity of this enjoyable podcast is the slight disjunct between the opening and the contents of most episodes. You could be forgiven for thinking you’re listening to an audiobook as Goodman sets the scene over several minutes at the start, transporting you to a drunken feast near Corinth in the third century bc, among other places. The opening scripts, akin to the prologue in a book, are breathless and not a little purple in their prose. Don’t be put off. This is mostly easy listening and will furnish you with enough household titbits to make a tradwife proud.
Comments