‘If this space is entirely yours, what do you most want to say?': interview with Deborah Frances-White

Deborah Frances-White is a comedian, author, screenwriter and host of “The Guilty Feminist”, the award-winning podcast that has been downloaded roughly 75 million times. Pi Media spoke to her about her upbringing, whether her time at university was more “guilty” or “feminist”, and the podcast that launched her to fame.

Source: The Guilty Feminist

Deborah Frances-White is enjoying lockdown as “a time to enjoy and repair.” Usually darting around the world to record her podcast, she is making the most of this time at home; she remarks that it is easier to organise meetings with people via Zoom, although she admits that she misses the buzz of the live audience. She is relishing the opportunity to spend time with her “little nest”: Tom Salinsky, her husband and producer of the podcast; her cats; and housemate Steve Ali, a Syrian refugee who lives in her spare room.

Born in Australia and adopted at 10 days old, Deborah became a Jehovah’s Witness as a teenager when her family converted to the religion. In her podcast, she has been unreserved in her criticism; she remarks that “in the history of that organisation there has not been one single decision made by a woman,” and explains that she felt “uncomfortable, oppressed, angry and marginalised” for the duration of her time as a Jehovah’s Witness. She knew that she was brighter than a lot of the men in charge and was “desperate to get out.” Asked in what ways both her life and her feminism were shaped by her experience, she stresses that had she not been a Jehovah’s Witness, she would be “a totally different person,” yet suggests that “sometimes being in an extreme environment makes you define your attitude, and so [she is] probably more of a feminist than if [she] hadn’t been in such a high-control group.” 

“You’re a generation of Greta Thunbergs and Malalas.”

Deborah eventually left the Jehovah’s Witnesses and moved to the UK, embarking on a degree in English at Oxford University. Asked about her time there, Deborah looks back on her experience as a “really freeing time” in which she had the opportunity to try her hand at a variety of different things. Describing her early desire to be a feminist, she laments that at Oxford there wasn’t the same sort of drive to be an activist or the awareness that the present generation has. She explains that feminism at Oxford didn’t feel “active”: “it felt like, ‘let’s analyse this text through the means of gender’, and I think what’s happening now is ‘let’s analyse our lives through gender. Let’s have the discussions about race that are difficult; let’s have the discussions about accessibility and inclusion; let’s make that a real-world thing.’” 

She states that the current generation is the greatest that she has seen in her lifetime, “because you’re the first generation of autodidacts.” She compares this with her own experience of doing school projects, where the only resources that she had at her disposal were whatever she could find in the library or what she was told by her parents and teachers. She quips “you’re a generation of Greta Thunbergs and Malalas” because of the ability to do research, gather data and information, and inform others about discoveries; this generation drives the future “because you can see that the evidence around climate change means that there’s not going to be a world for you to live in.”  Rejecting the suggestion that she was a feminist before it was à la mode – “I think it’s always been pretty cool to be a feminist” – she explains that it is certainly much more accessible now, in terms of the variety of information and the different ways to connect.  She says that “you were pushing against the grain” if you were a feminist when she was at university, qualifying it by adding “I’m not saying that there weren’t feminists when I was at Oxford. But now it’s just in the ether; it’s in the conversation, and it doesn’t feel niche anymore. It feels more part of the fabric of university life.”

“I’m not saying that there weren’t feminists when I was at Oxford. But now it’s just in the ether; it’s in the conversation, and it doesn’t feel niche anymore.”

Deborah found her feminist stride in 2015 when she started her podcast, “The Guilty Feminist”, “the podcast in which we explore our noble goals as 21st century feminists and the hypocrisies and insecurities which undermine them.” One such example, Deborah explains, is when she attended a Women’s Rights march: “I popped into a department store to use the loo, and I got distracted trying out face cream, and when I came out the march was gone!” She jokes that she feared that the feminists would “kick [her] out of the club” for telling this, but instead found that lots of women connected with the story and responded with similar tales. 

Asked in what ways the podcast has changed since its conception, she explains: “I started the podcast to focus on my own oppression, and what I’ve learnt about more than anything is my own privilege.” She is much more up-to-date and contemporary due to the amount of feedback she receives about the podcast, and states, “I’m just much more aware of how to make space, and how to create a microclimate where people who have spent a lot of time in the margins can succeed.” She mentions a recent episode called Black Trans Lives Matter featuring Travis Alabanza and Kuchenga. She explains how much it meant to her to be able to platform voices that are not often heard: “normally it’s one Black trans person who has to talk about their oppression, as opposed to me saying to them, tell me about your work, and then platforming two Black trans voices who can talk to each other about what that experience is like.” She goes on, “it’s creating spaces for voices, not just asking them to respond to an attack, but saying: if this space is entirely yours, what do you most want to say?” She finishes by stressing the importance of allowing positive discussions where people are not just asked to react or respond to oppression.

“The jokes! You disarmed me!”

Regarding the feedback that she receives, Deborah explains that it is overwhelmingly positive.  However, she clarifies that on occasion people challenge particular word choices or ask her to concentrate on certain topics more: “I try and take this on board, and take it as a compliment that people feel, ‘this is my space, this is my family, you’ve said something that’s made me feel excluded in a place where I normally feel included.’” She mentions a particular fan favourite – a man named Lawrence whom she calls “a lovely guy” – who emailed her to explain that he started listening to the podcast because he considered “feminists to be the enemy and needed to know what the enemy was up to”, but after 18 months had a change of heart, saying, “sometimes what you say still annoys me, but keep saying it because it’s working!” Deborah explains that she wrote back to ask him how he had managed to listen if it angered him so much. His response: “The jokes! You disarmed me!” Asked how she manages to engage people “outside of the choir” – she sometimes refers to the audience as such – she explains, “‘The Guilty Feminist’ is a good place for doing that, because it just draws people in a bit. We tend to want to build bridges on “The Guilty Feminist”. And that is not in any way to dismiss the power of anger, but I like it to be a joyful space.” She explains that what she has created is “a space where people feel safe. It’s a community of people who feel safe to come out and be entertained, but we also do talk about really important stuff, and we don’t mind shifting gears and talking about something sad, important or nuanced, and then we come back with a laugh.”