Standard Issue Podcast

Eating disorders have, unusually, made the news a fair bit during the course of the pandemic, which – perhaps unsurprisingly – has seen a rise in eating disorders. And while the official stats aren’t available as yet, professionals are also reporting a surge in self-harming behaviour, not just in adults, but also among children, some as young as eight.Mickey and journalist Kelly Welles chat about their personal experiences of eating disorders and self-harm, and how Kelly channelled her depression, anxiety and self-harming behaviour into her debut fiction The Fear. (And managed to make it funny.)If you or someone you know needs help, beateatingdisorders.org.uk is a good resource, Mind.org.uk is brilliant on, well, loads of stuff, including eating disorders, self-harm and suicide ideation, and Harmless.org.uk provides advice around self-harm.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/standardissuespodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mother of God, Line of Duty is back and we've thoughts, loads of them. There's also a whole lot to say about the end of an era for Unforgotten, and three-part ITV series Too Close. Mick's got a lot of good things to say about the Tina Turner documentary, TINA, and Hannah's been watching a documentary about the Great Famine in Ireland. Never let it be said that we lack breadth.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/standardissuespodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Narratives around race and ethnicity continue to be reductive and damaging, says journalist Natalie Morris, who chatted to Jen about her new book Mixed/Other, as well as identity, entitlement, and the limitations of the census. Hannah’s found out some juicy gossip about her family, so she’s caught up with Professor Rebecca Probert about the history of divorce and – SPOILER ALERT – bigamy.In Jenny off the blocks, Jen’s talking about the unstoppable rise of Rachael Blackmore. In Rated or Dated, the team rollerskates gratuitously into 90s romcom, The Truth About Cats and Dogs. And it's breaking news, unreliable news, and surprising news sources in the Bush Telegraph. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/standardissuespodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Women are often missing from history, their roles downplayed, their achievements diminished. In this week's Chops, Hannah chats to three women on a mission to correct this: Ailsa Holland, Tania Hershman and Jo Bell. After the success of the @OnThisDayShe Twitter account, they've released a weighty book, also entitled On This Day She, which as they tell Hannah, is filled with tales of brilliant, pioneering, complicated, flawed women. And some plain bad ones too.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/standardissuespodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This weekend is the British Library's HistoryFest, so Hannah's been on the Zoom with one of this year's speakers, Dr Peggy Brunache, to find out more about the trans-Atlantic slave trade and what myth should be thrown in the bin forever. Mickey catches up with Katherine Kotz, multi-hyphenate in the arts, and curator of an excellent new online short-film festival called The Motherhood Project at the Battersea Arts Centre, which is raising cash for Refuge. Katherine managed to fight the delirium of new mumming to explain why it exists and what punters can expect.And blimey O’Reilly, what a Rated Or Dated, as Hannah and Mick revisit Bridget Jones’s Diary 20 years on to see how it speaks to, for and about women. Strap in: it ain’t pretty.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/standardissuespodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Covid 19 has given the handshake a bad rap, reckons explorer and paleoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi, who set out to explore the origins and significance of the greeting in her book The Handshake: A Gripping History. She chatted to Jen about why she is a massive advocate for the handshake, why it's probably not gone for good, and why some of us have really missed physical contact in our lives, over the past yearSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/standardissuespodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brace yourself for Hannah's naming of the genre of film that British filmmakers have absolutely mastered and of which 2014's Pride – the (based on a true) story of the 1980s alliance between London gay-rights activists and striking Welsh miners – might just be the pinnacle. Yosra's onboard, but will Mick's po-faced feminism ruin everything? Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/standardissuespodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're not always singing from the same hymn sheet as other women's magazines, but that doesn't mean we don't find the whole industry fascinating. So this week, Mickey got on the phone to Nina-Sophia Miralles to chat about the history of one its biggest beasts, Vogue, which Nina charts in her new book Glossy. Jen's chatting hormones, training and women's sport with The Well HQ's Baz Moffat and Dr Emma Ross. We put on our best push-up bras (we don't) for this week's Rated or Dated, as we watch Julia Roberts being beautifully frank and frankly beautiful in Erin Brockovich. In the Bush Telegraph, Hannah's pretty dubious (and very sweary) about vaccine passports and Mickey's got some shocking (also not shocking) facts about women in advertising. Have at it.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/standardissuespodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

American poet and essayist Molly McCully Brown’s latest book, Places I’ve Taken My Body, is a collection of personal essays that travel the physical, emotional and mental journeys of a life in all its frustration, pain, limitations, joy, humour and colour, told through Molly’s lens of living with cerebral palsy. Molly chats to Mickey about disability and desire, treating a body with kindness (and how hard that can be), the sheer stop-everything-and-watch-it-now excellence of the documentary Crip Camp, and activism by necessity not choice.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/standardissuespodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At just 20 years old, Ameena Hamid is Britain’s youngest theatre producer and a champion of those whose stories don't get told. She chats to Hannah about supporting young graduates, putting underrepresented voices centre stage, and why it’s key that theatre pays attention to who its audience is and – crucially – who its audience can be.Grooming and exploitation of children has risen during lockdown, so Jen got on the blower to Becky Fedia, national programme manager at The Children’s Society, to discover more and find out what we can all do to help if we spot something that doesn’t look right. And in Jenny Off The Blocks, Jen’s talking about a landmark deal for the Women’s Super League that’s mainly good news… right, Jen?There’s foreign policy, no policy, a load of euphemisms, panda loving, and cartoon pants in the Bush Telegraph. And grab a biro and a hot needle as we tattoo Hannah’s best ‘notes to self’ on our leg in honour of 2001’s Memento, this week’s Rated or Dated.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/standardissuespodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices