F*ck, I’m Nearly 50!
Hi, I’m Dom Hind, and F*ck, I’m Nearly 50!
I started this podcast for the chats with friends, the things we usually whisper about and the chance to learn as I go. Health, hormones, work, money, friendship, relationships and starting again. The questions we don’t always say out loud.
I’m still a beginner at plenty of it. Still getting bits wrong. Still curious about what comes next. My guests bring their stories and experience, and together we ask what we can take into our own lives.
Each guest leaves me with something to try before 50. A question, an experience, a little shift. You don’t have to have your next chapter sorted before you press play.
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Still figuring things out? Me too. Because f*ck, I’m nearly 50 — and isn’t it amazing?
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F*ck, I’m Nearly 50!
F*ck, Why are Women still carrying it ALL? With Ash BG
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Season 2 · Episode 8 | Ash BG
The milk, the school bags, the appointment nobody else remembered. If you’re tired of being the person who notices everything, come and have a listen. Ash BG and I talk about the work that happens in our heads before anyone sees a task — and why sharing the jobs is only part of the conversation.
Ash is the writer behind You Wanted This and the founder of Tether. We get into motherhood, resentment, whose career bends when family life needs something, and what our children learn by watching us. Ash asks men to take more responsibility; I ask what all of us can do differently. We don’t agree on every starting point, and that’s part of what makes this such a worthwhile chat.
Inside our conversation
- Why having a baby can pull even progressive couples into traditional roles, and why “give me a list” leaves the thinking with the same person.
- Parental leave, workplace flexibility and the assumption that Mum’s career can absorb the disruption.
- The milk example, my before-7.30-am list, and how Tether makes cognitive and emotional labour visible.
- The manosphere, pornography, consent, healthy intimacy and the need for better male role models.
- Our discussion of reported sexual violence involving young people, victim blaming, school culture, consistent discipline and leadership.
- Why jokes about harm matter, the reluctance to speak up, and the barriers people describe around accountability.
- Making room for boys’ emotions, questioning inherited relationship patterns, and what “decentring men” means to Ash.
- The rapid-fire questions: apologising, shared responsibility, respect, hope and an honest conversation with yourself.
This conversation includes discussion of sexual violence and abuse.
Take something from the chat into your week
Get the free mental-load guide on the podcast website — five lessons, a practical exercise and a conversation starter.
Visit this episode’s website page for the guide, player and transcript.
Where shall we go next?
Vashti Whitfield on reframing your life — if our chat about old patterns and who you are beyond your roles stayed with you.
Dr Mark Williams on screens and attention — to keep exploring what our online habits model for our children.
Connect with Ash
You Wanted This · Tether · Tether on Instagram · Tether on the App Store
Let me know what you'd love to hear about next.
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Why This Conversation Feels Urgent
Dom HindHi, I'm Dom Hind, and fuck, I'm nearly 50. And lately I found myself thinking a lot about women, men, our kids, and the culture we're creating around them. Because some of the stories coming out of Sydney recently involving young people and sexual violence have been incredibly confronting. And underneath all the headlines is a much bigger question. Where does this actually start? Because surely we can't wait until something terrible happens before we start talking about respect, misogyny, entitlement, and equality. Maybe it starts much, much earlier. In our homes, in our relationships, in who carries the mental load, who compromises their career, who remembers everything, who gets listened to, and what our sons and daughters absorb from watching it all. Today's guest, Ash BG, is the writer and founder behind You Wanted This, where she talks honestly about motherhood, relationships, misogyny, the mental load, and the things women are often thinking but not saying out loud. She's also the creator of Tether, an app designed to make the invisible labour visible and help couples understand who is actually carrying what. And recently she's been using her platform to speak very directly about sectional violence and what's happening amongst young people in Sydney. Because if we want to raise boys who respect women, perhaps we also need to ask, what are they seeing happen to women every day? And what are we modelling for them at home? Because fuck, I'm nearly 50, and isn't it amazing. Ash B G writes about things women are apparently not supposed to say out loud. That motherhood can be wonderful, but also infuriating, that you can love your partner and sometimes wonder whether life would actually be easier without them. That the mental load is real, that unpaid labor matters, that misogyny has hasn't disappeared just because we talk about equality. And that when another story about sexual violence involving young people emerges, we need to stop treating it as an isolated incident and start talking or and asking much harder questions about the culture surrounding our kids. What I really like about Ash is what she does is she doesn't just talk about these things. She's trying to do something about them. She's created Tether to take one of the most emotionally loaded arguments inside relationships, who actually does more, and replaces perception with data. I love data. Or the let me just redo that one again. And lately she has been using her platform to talk very directly about women, boys, men, misogyny, and sexual violence. Some people will agree with everything she says, some definitely won't, which is exactly why I wanted to talk to her. Ash Bijou.
Why Men Must Be Accountable
Dom HindWelcome to Fuck I'm Nearly 50.
Ash BGThank you for having me.
Dom HindGreat that you're here. Um, you've written about everything from mental load to misogyny to sexual violence. What do you think all of those conversations actually have in common?
Ash BGMen. Yeah. Okay. So in all of my writing and my research and all the conversations that I have with the people around me, whether that's friends or colleagues or peers, or whether it's interviews, or whether it's academics that I've interviewed for pieces that I'm writing, the same theme is popping up in all of them. Yeah. And it's men. It's that men need to do better. Okay. And I think that all men? All men. And I feel like that's probably what this conversation we have today is going to keep coming back to. Yeah. But what are our expectations of men in 2026 and beyond?
Dom HindYeah.
Ash BGWhat are men doing now? And what do we need to see them do in the future?
Dom HindDo you also think that is, you know, and and I even just listening to you, I go, okay, yep. The we let people or men get away with things where we hold ourselves or women, like it's so interesting how ruthless women are against other women. Absolutely. And the expectations and the standards that we hold for other women. Do you think we hold those same expectations and standards for men?
Ash BGAbsolutely not. Do you know that every time, well, so I post a lot of divisive contents. It shouldn't be divisive. Because what I'm saying is that men and women deserve to be equal. Women deserve to feel safe in their own home. I don't think that should be divisive. Um, but it gets some people really riled up. And so many of the comments, when I'm talking about things like, you know, domestic violence in a relationship, or even a woman carrying more at home and feeling that resentment build in her marriage. Yeah. The answer is so often through the commentary, like through comments that I get, well, she should have picked better. Or even when we're talking about dangerous men, do you know that so many of the comments that come through about like how his mother treated him? We are putting so much of the blame on women. Yeah. And we're not holding men accountable enough. That's what I believe.
Dom HindIt's interesting, and I know we will get to it, but you're right. Even in the incident that happened last week with the the boys, the three 14, 13-year-old boys and the 13-year-old girl, I I heard an older man say to me, wait until you hear what comes out about the girl. And I was like, that's not okay. Like it's actually just not okay.
Ash BGOh my god. Anyway, but so yes, let's fury any starting this with an appropriate amount of rage. Yeah, but that's that's exactly, and this again, we're talking about blaming women, that's blaming a child.
Dom HindYeah, a thir a 14-year-old.
Ash BGLike a teenage girl, but let's also call them what they are, children.
Dom HindChildren. Yeah, they are children. Yes. Okay, so the anger. Um so um there is a lot of anger running through your work, uh, not performative outrage. Um, it feels more like frustration.
Motherhood And The Traditionalising Effect
Dom HindWhat are women angry and frustrated about?
Ash BGDo you know what's so funny? When I started this, you know, journey of being uh well, I've always been a writer, but becoming a content creator and sharing on social media and starting with Substark, I started with a TikTok account and I was gonna create some baby-led weaning content. They had a baby at the time, and I was gonna post some recipes and just share, like, you know, the ups and downs of motherhood. And it got dark really quickly. Oh, really? But I don't know what I was thinking, like I'm a pretty serious person. Yeah. I'm like that person that you don't want to bring to a dinner party where everybody will be having fun and I'll like bring down the mood. So I don't know what I was thinking. But I guess ultimately what happened was the more that I wrote about motherhood, the more this sense of inequality within my own relationship just continued to pop up. You know, and there was so much resentment there. There's something called the traditionalizing effect on motherhood, which is that it's it's basically explaining how you can be in the most progressive relationship and all of a sudden you have a baby. And this happens specifically for first-time mums. All of a sudden you have a baby, and immediately those gender norms are at play in your relationship. And all of a sudden you turn around and think, How did I get here? Yeah. And I think so many women find themselves in that. So that was the starting point for me. Yeah. To turn around and be like, hang on, what's going on? And then you can't, you know, we don't live in a vacuum. Then you just see the headlines over and over and over again. More and more and more violence against women. We talk about domestic abuse being so prevalent across our country. We talk about sexual assault. We talk about the manosphere. You know, we have a son. All of a sudden, my content started revolving around this much heavier content because I couldn't look away.
Dom HindYeah.
Ash BGYou know, and I really refused to dig my head into the sand. The more I started writing about the mental load, that led into the prevalence of misogyny in relationships, the prevalence of misogyny in society. And almost once I started writing, I couldn't stop. That was it.
Dom HindYou were on a roll. Yeah, but yeah. But it is it's true. And I think it's interesting you found that earlier on in your motherhood journey. Whereas for me, it took me 10, 11 years. Like it was three years ago where I lost my shit and just was like, I'm not doing this anymore. I'm not doing all of it and being okay with it.
Ash BGAnd I think that that is maybe the prevalence of social media. So I think it is a lot of women standing up and saying, oh, this isn't okay anymore. There are some incredible creators out there, like your Paige O'Connell, like your Abby Eccle, they're both US-based. But they share incredible content, really showing women what is acceptable and what isn't within a relationship. So a lot of that hasn't been shared. And women will get so much shit for oversharing on the internet, of course. We'll be told, you know, leave him or leave us out of it. We'll be told, if you're not going to do anything about it, stop complaining. Like this is just the narrative that, you know, every woman content creator gets, I feel. But what that what that's actually doing is normalizing women standing up and saying this isn't okay, which maybe wasn't as prevalent 10 years ago. Yeah. But now it is. Yeah, it is. So I think more people are questioning it, which is a good thing. But at the same time, how sad is it that I would say in 10 years things have gotten worse? Especially
Manosphere Gaps And Better Role Models
Ash BGin terms of the normalization of domestic abuse. Yeah. The rise of the manosphere.
Dom HindThe rise of the manosphere just scares me.
Ash BGAbsolutely. I think one of the most terrifying things.
Dom HindYes. But I also think the thing with the manosphere is that because it's such an extreme, there's no content for men. Like the there's no good content or not much good content out there that actually is showing men or modeling it for men. Exactly.
Ash BGAnd also that needs to start at home. Yes. You know, like I was talking to a um content creator who has chosen not to be named, but who went down the red pill, the manosphere um road, came out of it. And one of the things that he said was that he was looking for advice about girls that he wasn't getting from his father. You know, he wasn't getting that from home. He didn't have those older siblings or, you know, those role models in his life. So when I say that men need to step up, that's what I mean. It starts at home. Yeah. It starts with cousins, you know, any role models, any family friends. It starts with parents, obviously, definitely fathers.
Dom HindYes.
Ash BGYou know, think about the fact that Dr. Billy Garvey said this on a podcast recently, and it really stuck with me. And he was essentially saying, are you affectionate with your partner at home? And for a lot of us, we're probably not making out in front of our kids, right?
Dom HindYeah, yeah.
Ash BGYeah. Because that's a little sneaky.
Dom HindYeah, yeah. Or the kids go, okay, that's enough. Please stop.
Ash BGYeah. But why aren't we doing that? Yeah. Because if the only instance of physical intimacy that they see is on the internet and it's pornography, how is that going to end? So we almost need to be modeling these behaviors at home, showing them what a healthy relationship looks like, speaking about it openly, even when it's uncomfortable.
Dom HindYeah, yeah.
Ash BGYep. And then that extends to what I was saying before about men need to step up. Well, then we need male content creators, which we have some. Yeah, yeah. Probably a handful.
Dom HindThere's not as many. Bateman comes to mind.
Ash BGYeah. What he's doing is excellent. I'm a huge fan. He just followed me on Instagram and I just like had such a fangirl moment. Um, but we need more.
Dom HindYeah, there needs more.
Ash BGWe need to outweigh the negative content.
Dom HindI couldn't agree more.
Ash BGBut do you think we're ready for that? I don't think so, no. I think that it will be heavily, heavily, heavily resisted.
Dom HindYeah.
Ash BGI think that the men, I know as a woman I get so much criticism online. And I know I saw, I wish I remembered his name. It was one of the sports commentators who came out and roasted the Tigers players when they were. So the Tigers players were recently filmed mocking what happened with the Sydney Swans and making jokes about it and laughing about it. And this sports commentator came out and roasted them. And I thought to myself, oh my god, standing ovation. Yeah. Like, excellent. How great to see a man calling out this behavior on mainstream news. And then I read the comments. And I thought they were all going to be, yes, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But they weren't hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of comments from men, some young men, some older, so many with children. I was going into their profiles and looking at who is this person, you know, in their profile photo with their daughters, their young daughters, saying, Oh mate, give them a break.
Dom HindYeah.
Ash BGThey were just having a joke.
Dom HindYeah.
Ash BGThat I find that terrifying that that voice of the everyman is apologizing, making light of this situation.
Dom HindYeah.
Ash BGLike, if how how do we not turn around and say, hey, this is at a point where we no longer make light of this. Yeah. This is really fucking serious.
Dom HindYeah, it is. Well, it's the treatment of women. Yeah. And there needs to be a line. Yeah. It is actually held.
Ash BGI mean, at best, that woman, whoever she is, in a situation like this, her life is altered.
Dom HindOh, absolutely. For good.
Ash BGAnd at worst, she dies.
Dom HindYeah. Yeah.
Ash BGLike that is serious. Yeah. That is the most serious. Yet men still think it's okay to joke about it.
Dom HindWell, it's like, uh, what was the Epstein survivor? Um Du Bray. Um Virginia De Bray. Yes. Like just horrific. What actually happened to her
Sydney Cases And Boys’ School Culture
Dom Hindin the air. Absolutely horrific. Just outrageous. Um, I want to talk to you about what has been happening in Sydney lately. And I am going to say that I am a Scots mum. My son is in year seven. And Scots has made my son a great boy, but I also do think that I have made my son a great boy, or helped him, and his father has as well. Um, so I did just want to put that out there to disclaimer that yes, I am, you know, part of the institution that is in the news at the moment. Um and there have been some really confronting allegations involving young people and sexual violence. And whenever something like this happens, there's outrage. What do you think we are still refusing to confront the culture that has created this?
Ash BGI believe that culture is prevalent in boys' schools. Yeah. And I I think you're the exact right person to have this conversation with. Yeah. But I want to talk to you and I want to learn from you as a mother of a boy who is in a high school, specifically the high school that has been implicated in this horrendous situation that has left a girl, you know, completely changed for life. I think that the schools need to be held accountable at an absolute base starting point. Yeah. I am terrified about sending my son to high school. He's only two. Yeah. But I think about it every day. Yeah. And we've had to put him down for schools. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And some of the schools I now want to remove him from. Not because they've been implicated in anything, but just because of what you've heard.
Dom HindYeah. Yeah.
Ash BGAnd it has been, you know, when I talk about men who just continue to apologize for this behavior. We there were signs of this for a really long time.
Dom HindLike absolutely.
Ash BGLike the chance that boys have been heard um chanting on school buses and in public places that are derogatory to women. It starts there. Yeah. You know, what did the schools do about it then?
Dom HindWell, even last week, I was picking my son up, and there was a boy who was, you know, his behavior wasn't great towards me, and I'm not scared. So I got out of the car and confronted him, and he was shit scared of me because I'd confronted him. But I wasn't going to accept that behavior. It's not acceptable. Do you think that he wasn't expecting it? A hundred percent. How interesting. It will he was, he cowered.
Ash BGBut we have to start calling it out. Is this not exactly the situation we have to start calling them out? Absolutely. And almost removing that sense of entitlement that they have.
Dom HindBut I also think that, and I was having this conversation with a friend of mine on the way here, where it is the entitlement, but it's also that so many parents are stopping parenting their kids. And, you know, the but as you said, it starts at home, it starts with every man. The conversations that the dads and the men need to have with their sons, I still think that they're too embarrassed to have them.
Ash BGDo you know why that is? Because men have not been raised to be good communicators.
Dom HindYeah.
Ash BGTo share their emotions, to let down their guard. They are the first people who will admit, oh, you know, I got smacked when I was a child. It didn't do anything to me. I'm like, I've never seen you express a normal emotion apart from anger in your entire life. So how can you say it didn't have an impact on you? And again, holding men accountable, this is where we need to break cycles. I think that one of the so speaking to you, I find actually really inspiring. Hearing you say something like, I'm the parent, and it starts at home and you know, my son is a good kid because of me. That's my biggest fear that I will do all the right things, and still my son will go to school and they will somehow people listening to this might sound absolutely bat shit crazy, but that is my fear.
Dom HindYeah.
Ash BGThat I'll do all the right things and he'll go to school and the school will and his peers will turn and the internet and the mother sphere will turn him into you, you know, somebody that you don't is capable of doing bad things. Yeah, yeah. So hearing you talk about this, I find really inspiring. I think that it, I think that, you know, being able to stand up and say he is a good person because of the values that I've instilled in
Phones, Porn, And Consent From Young
Ash BGhim is actually really empowering.
Dom HindYes.
Ash BGAnd I think maybe parents have checked out a little bit.
Dom HindYeah. Well, it gets hard. Yeah. And you know what? The the social pressures, like he does not have social, he does not have WhatsApp, he has, he only just got a phone this year. And I don't care that I'm tight on the controls because I as soon as he sees something, yeah, he can't unsee that. Yeah. And I would prefer to be the one to talk to him or his dad to talk to him about stuff than for him to see it without an explanation.
Ash BGAbsolutely. And if he knows in advance before he sees it as well, I think a conversation that parents are really afraid to have, and they are kind of digging their heads in the sand a little bit about this, is they're afraid that they will expose their kids to the manosphere before they do it themselves. And what I would say to that is actually that's probably the best thing that you can do because then they're not going to go into it with blinkers on.
Dom HindYeah. But I would also say that for porn as well. Absolutely. And I was talking to um a couple of the ladies from Consent Labs, or the couple of people from Consent Labs this week. And even I didn't realize that they differentiate sex ed from consent ed. Yeah. And I was like, wow, that's actually something that, you know, even parents can get onto the consent. Yeah. If you're too embarrassed to talk about sex, you know, talk about consent. Because consent is an e well, it's it's yes or no.
Ash BGAnd consent starts really young. It does. You know, consent starts with my son who is two years old, and I know that there will be people listening to this who think that's absolutely crazy. But who goes and um, he was sitting on one of his friends the other day, um, and his friend was saying, No, get off me.
Dom HindYeah.
Ash BGWe had a conversation about, you know, a very small conversation because he's two. But about when somebody says something that they they don't want to do this anymore, you listen. And little things like that.
Dom HindYes.
Ash BGLike all of these little tiny conversations. That over time, you know, by the time he's 12, we've been having these conversations for 10 years. So he he gets it. He gets it.
Dom HindYeah. And understands. No means no.
Ash BGBut then the other thing is, I actually wrote a piece on Substack recently about how ultimately the manosphere, what we've got wrong about it, is that ultimately it's child exploitation. It's a money-making gap. Oh, absolutely. It's a scam. Yeah. Firstly. And they don't believe a lot of the things that they're saying. It's a scam. It's a pyramid scheme. Yeah. But they're making shitloads of money out of it. I think that's what we need to tell boys.
Dom HindYeah.
Ash BGI think we need to tell boys that actually what these people are doing is preying on young boys who are a little bit lonely and confused and unsure, as many young boys are at that age.
Dom HindBut then we also need to say the exactly the same for Instagram and for Snap and all of them. Like social is not. I had Dr. Mark Williams on the podcast and he talked about the impact of social on kids. And we talk about social being social. It's so not social. It is just media and advertising. And it's not about connection. It actually is not about connection. It has such a negative impact on people.
Ash BGI agree. And isn't Mark Zuckerberg in court right now? Trying to argue that he didn't purposely create addictive algorithms.
Dom HindYeah.
Ash BGLike this is the problem. And this is the other thing. Like a lot of pressure is put on parents, which I believe is fair. I think that is, you know, our job as parents is to protect our children, but also to make sure that, you know, our children don't cause harm to anybody else either. Yeah. Um, but we also need to look at these tech giants. Oh, absolutely. What are you doing?
Dom HindWhat are you doing? What are you doing?
Ash BGIs it enough? They're talking about putting certain bans on Meta. Okay, but what would happen then? They would go to TikTok or they would go to YouTube. Yeah. Like this needs to be done collectively across the board.
Dom HindAgree. And even the 16 years social media ban. I don't know how many people have actually been banned or how many parents have actually said no, you can't be on it.
Ash BGYeah.
Dom HindUm, because they just get peer-pressured by their kids.
Ash BGI know it's like 12 and 10-year-olds on social media. It's it's crazy. What you were saying before, I would love to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ask me, yes. Um, because I because I think about this a lot. Yeah. You know, especially in the work that I do it. I'm very close to it. But I think to myself, how could I ever willingly give my child a phone and let him access social media, knowing what I know? But then he goes to school and he's the only person without access. Yeah. What does that look like? How do his peers treat him? How have you navigated that?
Dom HindIt is hard, but my son is like, he's he just it's interesting. He just knows what's right. Um, he's always had a really soft strong sense of what's right and wrong. Um, a great moral compass. But he also he will play a game online with his friends and talk to his friends audibly rather than chat. Yeah. But there's restrictions and time around it. And this morning we were talking, saying in our at our school, there are so there's such a major minority of parents who parent. And there's so many who do just let their kids do whatever. And yeah, it's hard, but what's worse? A damaged 18-year-old or someone who has a little bit of hardship now and has to have real life connections with people, then have them on their phone.
Ash BGSo ultimately do the hard work now.
Dom HindIt is do the hard work now so that you don't have like the repercussions. The repercussions.
Ash BGAnd the repercussions that we're talking about, again, are heavy. They're heavy. Like I was telling you today about um the Northern Beaches girl who died yesterday after being strangled or choked on the weekend during sex. She was fine unresponsive and she died.
Dom HindUnbelievable.
Ash BGSo these repercussions are But that that will impact his life forever. Absolutely. Forever. Yeah. As a 16-year-old, he killed somebody. Yeah. But that is as heavy as it gets. Yep. We don't know enough about this case to predict and be talking about it. But I of course when you hear something like that, my first instinct is where did he see this? Yeah. Where did he learn this? And how did he take it so far that it was fatal?
Dom HindYeah.
Ash BGI I feel like as parents, if we're not having these conversations, then But see, and that is it.
Dom HindPeople are scared or they're embarrassed to have the conversation. Yeah. So they just ignore it. But I do think you do have to have the conversations. You know what? One of the best things that we bought, um, we have dinner together every night as a family, which is like one of our mandatories, always together. Um, and we bought these cards, which were talking cards, and they're great because they actually have questions that you do find out more about your kids. But I'm now thinking there should actually be consent chart uh cards or like sex ed cards or something like that, so that you can talk about those rather than just how you're feeling, but to open that communication.
Ash BGMaybe that's something that you can do. Maybe you've got plans to, yeah, I know, right? But I know you've got plans, and I think that you know, we're both here having this conversation because we want to be part of solution. That's it. Like talking about it absolutely is important, is the right like first step. Yeah. It's a necessary first step, that's for sure. But I think we're both sitting here going, okay, what now? Yeah. What do we do now? What are the next steps? How do we actually change that? Yeah, well, and that was my next question.
Dom HindThere we go. How, where does this end and how do you change it? Because, you know, even going back to the conversation we had before about, you know, it took me a long time to go, I've had enough, but it took you, you know, not even your son's two years old, and you've said you've had enough. Is it like, how do we get people to start talking about it and to look at the modeling and the behavior and the patterns that they're seeing at home and
Women Quitting And Parental Leave Reform
Dom Hindthat aren't right?
Ash BGYeah. I feel like that we're definitely at a tipping point. Yeah. That's what it feels like to me. And I mean, especially in my DMs, for example. Yeah, yeah. I just have fed up women sliding into my DMs constantly saying, we're done. You need to strike. And I would say I think there is a strike coming. I think women are gonna walk out.
Dom HindYeah. Well, it's funny. I tell my family that I quit all the time. That's it, I quit. I quit. I'm done. You guys do everything and then come back to me. And then I might hire you back as my family.
Ash BGI think that's a great idea. I think actually more women need to quit. Yeah. They did this. So the whole idea of the strike is based on something that happened in Iceland in 1975. So all women stopped for an entire day. What? And they did nothing. Yeah. And it woke society up to what was happening. In 1975. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But in Iceland, that had huge repercussions.
Dom HindYeah, right.
Ash BGAnd actually resulted in change. Not necessarily far. Yeah. But eventually. I mean, and we know that the Nordic countries are so much further ahead. Do you know what I will say though, in terms of like an action point, something that I always come back to every single day? Um, and probably every conversation that I have, I bring this up because I I believe it so strongly. I think that one of the most important starting points, there's somebody in the room here who's who's going to this is particularly relevant to. Um, one of the most important starting points is men taking parental leave. Yeah. Yeah. And I genuin and I know that that probably sounds far-fetched with what we're talking about, but if a man is present in the beginning in those early days, when a child is in need of so much care, so many things happen. That that creates a ripple effect compared to a man who walks out a couple of days, a couple of weeks later, goes to work, and then is never really as involved ever again, potentially. If a man is present in those early months, so say we did what a lot of countries do, like the Nordic countries, for example, like Sweden, where it's a and and what um like Georgie Dent at the parenthood is pushing for, it's a year of maternity leave, of parental leave, sorry, a year of parental leave taken between both parents freely. Yes. So say it was six months and six months, or whatever that looks like. So that a man can be there in those early days and really understand the weight of looking after small children. He's doing night wakes, he is caring for the child in the same way that she would. All of the domestic responsibility is on him or the two of them together. It is shared. Yes. Now, what would happen if that was mandatory in society? And not only that, we know that the more parental leave that a father takes, so when a father takes paternity leave, maternal well-being improves. Yeah. We know that he is better able to bond with his child. We know that it's better for child development as well to spend that time with both parents. Yes. I see no negatives. Yeah, no. In this situation. No. And then you're starting on, you know, I wouldn't even say equal. And I don't want to say that equality is the goal, but a more even, yeah.
Dom HindEven footing. I I yeah, I think it is a more even footing. Yeah. But it's also a more even footing in not only raising the child, but also what goes on at the house in the house. That's exactly like it's just,
Mental Load As Cognitive Labour
Dom Hindand I know that you have recognized the mental load, but the mental load is enormous. Like I looked in the fridge this morning and went, there's no milk. I've got to go do the order. Like, you know, like it is just those constant things that no one thinks about.
Ash BGAnd then, you know, a lot of men will say, Oh, okay, whatever. It's just like remembering or like writing lists. Oh, that's it. It's absolutely not that simple. And also, I'm sure that your train of thought didn't stop at the milk.
Dom HindYeah. My train, no, it didn't. It was like, oh God, what else do I need? Okay, let's get it in. Uh yeah, make sure that it's a good thing. And then you're thinking about your greatest. The everything.
Ash BGYou're probably thinking about, okay, what have my children eaten this week? What does my family eat in this week? Okay, has that been balanced enough? Yeah. We probably need more red meat. We probably, oh, I've got to buy those supplements. And oh, I heard that this was going to be good. And oh, I've got to make that doctor's appointment.
Dom HindAnd oh yeah, oh, my protein is run out. And now that, yeah, it is. It's all of it. One one thing of milk leads to about 75 different things.
Ash BGThat's exactly right. So when we talk about the mental load, that's all we're talking about. Yeah. It's it's almost like this cascade. And it might just be a couple of minutes, but several times a day, you know, maybe a hundred times a day, and then compound that over a week and then over a month and then over a year. No wonder we are exhausted. Seriously. Seriously. Need time off. Quit. Quicker than harder back. One thing that I've been talking about recently is we need to stop letting men use our brains. Oh, yeah, yeah. So every time somebody, it could be my brother, could be a male colleague, could be my husband. It's often my husband. Yeah, yeah. Says something like, Oh, you know, what do you think we should do for Father's Day, for example? I don't know.
Dom HindYeah, I I'm I'm big on that at the moment.
Ash BGI'm like, You don't get to use my brain.
Dom HindI'm not making a decision. You make the decision. Like I've made too many decisions today. It's on you.
Ash BGSo do you know that the one area of domestic life where it is somewhat even is decision making. Oh, really? And you know, I think that the reason for that is because we are so tired. Oh, it's just like just make a decision. Make a decision.
Dom HindThe one thing that we just go outdoors. Yeah.
Ash BGJust you decide. I don't want to think about it. I don't want to have to decide.
Dom HindWow. Um, what do you uh when you think about boys and what they're learning at home or even in the world at the moment, what do you think they're learning about women right now?
Ash BGI think that they feel an entitlement over women. I think they're being told that women are inferior to them. I think they are being told that women need to be put in their place.
Dom HindDo you think that's all of them do? Or I think having Trump as uh president doesn't help.
Ash BGAnd it's not just Trump.
Dom HindYeah.
Ash BGCloser to home. Look at the sponsors.
Dom HindYeah, oh yeah, look at our students. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Ash BGLook at the people that are idolized in our society who clearly don't care about women. I was gonna say something else, and it was completely disappointed. Completely lost. Learning about women. How how are they learning about women? Or what are they learning? And what they're learning is that well, they've got they they've got it wrong. So there's a misperception here. They're being told that what we think of as equality, they think of as oppression. Because it things haven't been equal for so long. You know, women have been oppressed for so long. But we're not there yet, but we're edging closer towards equality.
Dom HindDo you think it's interesting? I I think this is really interesting. When women do have a voice, we're often called difficult. Yeah. And it does my head in. Whenever I get called difficult, I'm just like, it says more about that person calling you difficult.
Ash BGAnd it does about you being difficult, doesn't it?
Dom HindYeah, because I mean I'm I'm measured in what I will say. Yeah. I mean, I do fight for what I believe, but it's not difficult. That's what I I think. Yeah. Just because I'm just conforming to what you want.
Ash BGYeah. And because you're not making yourself smaller. We are so used to women being forced to make themselves smaller, especially around men. You know, something that I wrote about recently was I basically wrote fiction about this dystopian society where men and women are equal. Oh, yeah. And I think a lot of like the home stuff really resonated with people. But where people stopped and like where this piece really stopped people in their tracks was the fact that our lives revolve around men as women. And if we have a catch-up with girlfriends, what are we talking about? We're talking about the creepy text that she got from, you know, or we're complaining about our partners, or we're talking about an abusive ex. How do
Decentring Men And Reclaiming Time
Ash BGyou change? Sexual harassment in the workplace.
Dom HindHow do you change it then?
Ash BGWe de-centrement. Have you heard about this?
Dom HindNo. Talk to me about it.
Ash BGI think you'll like it. There's a movement now. Yeah. But there's two movements. The first movement is the 4B movement. Have you heard about the 4B movement? So the 4B movement um started in South Korea.
Dom HindYes.
Ash BGSo some people might be wondering like, where does the mental load come into this? You know, how does this all sort of tie together? This will probably be a good example. So in Korea, in South Korea, women have decided that they are no longer interested in men, that they're not going to date men, they're not going to marry men, and they're not going to reproduce with men.
Dom HindWow.
Ash BGSo it's called the 4B movement. And it started because South Korea has the worst level of domestic equality.
Dom HindYes.
Ash BGSo women are doing so much more that they have decided we're done. Yeah. So that's called the 4B movement. There is another movement that is a little bit more mild. Yeah.
Dom HindThat's it. No wonder South Korea's reproduction. I read yesterday, was it Singapore or South Korea? Someone is paying $77,000 for people to reproduce.
Ash BGYeah. It's probably South Korea. They have the lowest fertility rate of any country in the world right now.
Dom HindUnbelievable.
Ash BGSo I want everybody to think about that really, really, really clearly. The country with the lowest fertility rate has the highest rate of inequality at home. Yeah. So there's a professor called Claudia Golden. She's a Nobel Prize winner. So she has directly made this link between the birth rate and the fact that men are not doing enough. So women are checking out. And women are deciding that they don't want to reproduce. Women are being treated so badly. Under yeah, understandable if it is. So the step down from that is decentering men. Yeah. Which I think is only going to become more and more prevalent. And it's this idea of, you know, a a very simple starting place is as I we were just saying, stop letting men use your brain. You know, and our worlds don't need to revolve around men anymore. Yeah. But when you start to realize what that looks like in practice, it feels so extreme, which is the realization that for so long our lives have revolved around men. Every decision we make, everything that we do at home and at work.
Dom HindIt's interesting. Even I think about not only at home with my husband, but also thinking about my dad. Yeah. You know, even with my dad, it was all, you know, how do we make his day better? He's been working, you know, all of that. Yeah. It starts young.
Ash BGYep. And, you know, a lot of our families, where did you live? Somewhere close to where your dad was working. And, you know, our lives revolved around their careers. And as you said, like they've had a long day at work. Long day of work. Don't be noisy. And now this generation of women are saying, Oh, you've had a long day of work. Here's the baby.
Dom HindYeah. Yeah. And sort of changed. It's funny. When um, whenever anyone says, Oh, what are you doing for Father's Day? I'm saying, I'm letting Justin spend time with the kids. I'm having the day off. He can go and be a father on Father's Day. And then what do I want from Mother's Day? A day off. Yeah. Like, I'm out of here, guys. See ya. You and every every other mother. But it is that thing. It's like, you know, I think it is really interesting. I think the the stop making the decisions and pushing back.
Ash BGYeah.
Dom HindI think that is like that's an easy first step.
Ash BGYeah. It's a really good starting point. It's a necessary starting point. Yeah. And again, when we start to then talk about the ramifications, like we started this conversation because we were talking about young boys.
Dom HindYeah.
Ash BGYou know, and how will they learn? Well, they need to learn that the world doesn't revolve around them.
Dom HindOh, absolutely. And I do think that we have made the world revolve around our kids. Right now, we do everything. Like even this week, my son left his locker key at home and sent me a message. And I was like, So I did because I knew that he would get in trouble. But my husband came with me. He dropped it off to the school. Yeah. And on the back of the envelope, I said last time, bud. And that was it. Like that would be the last. You know, for little things. Yeah, for the little things. Because it's those little things that they need to own.
Ash BGYeah.
Dom HindI don't need to own it.
Ash BGThat's not on you.
Dom HindYeah.
Ash BGAnd we can't keep picking up the pieces for everybody.
Dom HindThat's it.
Ash BGThat is how we end up in a mental idol institution. Which used to happen to women. Like that was an entire period of history where women were just
Workplace Flex And Bias Against Mums
Ash BGtold that they had hysteria and off they went to a mental asylum. I think the one thing with the yeah, exactly.
Dom HindOne thing women's careers have always been considered flexible. Yeah. It's always the mum that gets the call when the kids are sick. It's the mum who's on pickup duty. Or how do we change that?
Ash BGDo you know that there was a study done in 2012? Um, it was done by Eve Rodsky, who was the author of Fair Play. Yes. And she created Fair Play card system.
Dom HindYeah.
Ash BGUm, hugely influential in this space. And she interviewed couples where the man was the doctor and the woman was the lawyer, and asked whose work is more flexible. And they all said hers. And then she interviewed couples where the woman was the doctor and the man was the lawyer. Whose work is more flexible? Hers. Oh, wow. We have always assumed that women's work is more flexible so that they can do the majority of the caregiving responsibilities. We have made this up. These are the exact same careers. Yeah, exactly.
Dom HindSo how do we stop it then?
Ash BGAh, that's a great question. Come on, Ash, what are we doing? My husband's got a really, really busy week at work.
Dom HindThat's it.
Ash BGI'm gonna leave work early today to pick up my child. Yeah, but it is like you do, and this is we're laughing about this so that we don't cry about it.
Dom HindI know, that's but it is, it's the accommodation. Like there is, there has to be flex, but I think the flex also has to be both ways.
Ash BGAnd I think both workplaces need to come in and stop discriminating against women because we see them as caretakers. So there've also been studies that show that in an interview process, as soon as you get a whiff of somebody having caretaking responsibilities, you're less likely to hire or promote them. We assume this is our bias, we assume that women have more caretaking responsibilities than men. Yeah. So even when we know that a man has a little one at home, we're not assuming that he is caretaking in the same way that a woman is. So I am very, very passionate about the fact that we should be hiring mums, that we should be giving them flexibility. Yes, like huge, huge important first step. We need to normalize flexibility for men. Again, let's go back to what I was saying before about paternity leave. Let's force all men to take paternity leave, then let's force the To have flexible work. You know, I feel like you know, my husband works in an industry where he him leaving early at the end of the day to pick up a child would be very frowned upon. Yeah. And that's the reality. And okay, maybe, maybe we're not changing that today in this moment. But what I would expect from him is in 10 years, when he's leading a team and he has a young dad on his team, I would expect him to say, no, mate, you go. Yeah, you go. You go. You go. You should.
Dom HindYeah. Yeah.
Ash BGYou go, you be there for your child. That is what we need to start seeing. And we need to stop associating presenteism with being a good worker. Yeah. Because I don't know about you, but I have worked with incredible mothers who can do both.
Dom HindWell, yeah, that's it. And it's also like I it's funny. My career, I've had a long career in advertising, mainly in digital. When before I had kids, I didn't understand it. I didn't understand mothers. I thought, you know, even raising a kid, just put it like it's easy. Like, I don't know why, why are they whinging? Yeah. But when you go through it, you realize that it is actually really tough. Yeah. And you can be more efficient and to the point because you know you've got time pressure. Umbody's more productive than a mother. Nobody is more productive than a mother.
Ash BGNobody has got their eyes on the prize as much as a mother does as well. Because since I had a child going back to work, I'm like, this doesn't matter. No, exactly. Well, that's it. It's like stop wasting our time on this. I don't have time.
Dom HindYeah. Let's move on to something else. Why do we need another meeting? Exactly. Or we actually don't. Exactly. Let's just get where we need to go in five minutes. Just get it done. Yeah. Yeah. I think it is even that, normalizing that and getting even because it's not going to change. You're right. It's not going to change now because it's too ingrained. But if the dads who are coming through today can make sure that they do, even if they speak up for the other people around them as well. I think that's a big step.
Ash BGYeah. And then, you know, men taking, again, everything for me comes back to parental leave, but men taking the parental leave that is offered to them. But then the workplaces letting them do that. You know, there was this case in in the UK recently with a big bank, Goldman Sachs. Yeah. They had an employee who took the parental leave that was promoted to all parents, and then he was fired because of it. And they said that he wasn't committed.
Dom HindIt's so ridiculous. It's so ridiculous. It is a fine balance, though, with, you know, Australia and our productivity crisis at the moment. And I mean, I know in some of the work that I do, um, there are people who do take the piss. Like there are people who do take the piss. And it's hard because by pushing for flexibility for other people, you can see how others are just absolutely roarding the system. We have ruined it.
Ash BGThose people have ruined it for everybody. We all have ruined it for everyone else. What I would say is those those people would be roarding the system, whatever the system was. True, true. You know, like it's an even playing field. Yeah. And, you know, a mum is going to be a good worker.
Dom HindYeah, yeah.
Ash BGWhether or not she's in, you know, whether or not she's given the benefits or not. Like that's ingrained in her. Yes. And her dad would be the same. And there are always going to be people who are lazy and who are not productive and who are potentially just not even very very good at their job. That's it. They're just whatevering and getting through life. Know that a lot of people have, especially if you're employed. Like, how do you trust your team, you know, to be working productively when they're working remotely? And again, we're not talking about everybody working 100% remotely all the time and having no contact. That's not what we're saying. No. What we're saying is if a man gets a call at 4 p.m., his child is sick, he needs to go and pick his child up. We just don't give him a hard time about it. Yeah. It's just done. It's that simple.
Dom HindAnd I'm sure he'll then jump online or pick up what he needs to do later. Yeah, exactly. Um, it is
Tether And Making Invisible Labour Visible
Dom Hindjust making sure that it's okay to do it.
Ash BGExactly.
Dom HindUm, so why is it so hard for couples to agree on who is carrying more?
Ash BGOh, such a great question. I think I think the one thing that I hear most from everybody that I speak to. Yeah. Every couple. Firstly, actually, the one thing that I hear most from women is that, oh, like he does so much. You know, I'm really so lucky. He's one of the good ones. You know, he you know, I should be grateful. Yeah. But I'm so tired. Like, why why am I still carrying so much? You know, he does a lot. He does a lot, and they always try and tell him he does so much. And I think it's because men think that they're doing a lot more than they are. Oh, yeah. And because they're not carrying the mental load that women are to the same extent. Everybody has a mental load. Everybody has their own kind of mental load. Uh a lot of men and women have a mental load associated with work. What I'm saying is that the majority of women carry the mental load of the household.
Dom HindYes.
Ash BGUm, and until you actually break down what each person is doing, you're never going to know.
Dom HindNo. And even interesting to that point, when I cracked it three years ago, I wrote a list of everything I'd done by 7.30 a.m. Yeah versus everything my husband had done by 7.30 a.m. Yeah. His was went to the gym. Mine was like get the kids ready, breakfast, beds made, house cleaned, get ready for work. Like mine was so long in comparison to go to the gym.
Ash BGCan you imagine waking up and all you have to do is grab a bottle of water, go in the car, go to the gym.
Dom HindYeah. And I think as soon as I showed that, there was an understanding of the inequality in the workload.
Ash BGSo I'm a huge believer in that. Like say I built an app. Data. And the whole, like, because it you need a starting point.
Dom HindYou do.
Ash BGOtherwise, you just keep having the same conversation over and over and over again. And you can literally just make a list. Yeah. You know, you can put it into an Excel spreadsheet if you want.
Dom HindTalk. Okay, Tether is your app.
Ash BGYes.
Dom HindTalk about it. What what why? So this was obviously the reason why to try and balance the mental load. Yeah. But what are you saying? After people are using it, is it actually having an impact on who's doing what?
Ash BGThe conversations that I have with the users.
Dom HindYeah.
Ash BGIt's obviously mainly women. Yes. Who are sending me messages being like, thank you so much. Most of them say this was exactly what we needed as a starting point for this conversation.
Dom HindYeah.
Ash BGBut so many of them say, I didn't even realize how much I was doing until I put it all in. And then of course, in most situations, he realizes how little he is doing in comparison. Again, because we're we're adding in the mental load as well. So we're adding in all of the cognitive labor, all of the emotional labor as well. Absolutely. Women shoulder most of the emotional labor too. So if you just compare tasks, and we need to look at, you know, like how much time somebody spends in the house, again, why flexibility should be important for men too. But we'll leave that there for now and talk about that all. Coming, coming, it's coming.
Dom HindUm or normalizing flexibility for men. I think that is that's the big thing that we need to work towards.
Ash BGIt's we need to change that whole workplace culture to be able to normalize men to have a more flexible role.
Dom HindYeah. And that's not saying don't be productive, it's just allowing the men to take part.
Ash BGWhen we talk about productivity, like I look at you, thinking about my days, I've never been more productive in my life.
Dom HindLike seriously. It literally, it feels like I have got five full-time jobs. Like AI is the best and the worst thing in the world because I am so much more effective, but I then take on so much more stuff.
Ash BGLike it's the most relatable thing I've ever heard. It's just ridiculous. This false sense of it is much false sense.
Dom HindYeah, exactly. It is a total
Stopping The Joke Culture Around Harm
Dom Hindfalse sense. Um, before we move on, I do just want to come back to the shocking behaviour over the last couple of weeks where there have been three instances and now four with the death of a 16-year-old. What uh how and what do we do?
Ash BGAlso, in that time, there's been two other women who have died that we haven't spoken about. Yeah. This is a and this is just two weeks. This is just two weeks. What do we do? And the two weeks before that weren't much better either. We keep talking about it. Well, okay. Keep men accountable. And we need to help men step up and be part of this conversation. That's not going to change otherwise.
Dom HindDo you think that they and it's it is interesting. So I look at, you know, men over 50s in corporate world. Yeah. They are having a hard time. Like they are the questions and the spotlight is being put back on them. Yep. Do you think that they are resentful for that? And how can we actually get rid of the resent and show them that this is the way forward?
Ash BGWhy would they be resentful that they would have to take some accountability?
Dom HindI think it's more resentful that like I, and it's probably not the best um description, uh, in some instances, call them old white bread. Um, where you know they're a bit stale, um not the best thing to eat, uh, not the most nutritious. Um and they are being questioned about their role in society now and in corporate world where they're questioning themselves a lot. But I think it's a good point for them to question themselves, but then look at what we can change.
Ash BGAbsolutely. I mean, I think this the people who are feeling that resentment, yeah, I think that tells you a lot about who they are as a person. Yeah. Because somebody could see this. Yeah. You know, you could be a man in your 50s and see this as a real opportunity for change. And you could see this as a real opportunity to be part of that change.
Dom HindYes.
Ash BGOr you can put the blame on somebody else.
Dom HindOr dig your feet in.
Ash BGOr dig your feet in. Yeah. Exactly. And that's what a lot of people are doing. A lot of people are doubling down. Yeah. Because they feel attacked. And again, that's what happens when you have been the oppressor for so long and the tipping point starts to tip the other way.
Dom HindDo you also think that people can't take feedback?
Ash BGI think men can't take feedback.
Dom HindYeah.
Ash BGYeah. Okay.
Dom HindBut that yeah, I think can take feedback. Yeah, yeah. I'm more than happy to take feedback. I know. But you know what? I'm more aware of what my strengths and weaknesses are than if I look at, like, I know when I stuff up. Like I can, and I'm happy to have a mirror put back on me to say you stuffed up. Yeah. Like you held, like that wasn't the right thing to do. And I'll go.
Ash BGCompletely agree.
Dom HindYeah, I 100% agree.
Ash BGAnd then what do you do? You go, I want to learn from this. Yeah, absolutely. We're going to do this again. Then, you know, okay, how can I change? How can I change? What can I do better? And so those 50-year-old men, are they doing that?
Dom HindI don't know whether they are. Yeah. I think they're stuck in a pity party where they're rather than going, This is a good opportunity. Yeah. I can be a shining light. I can understand what the women are saying. Yep. And try and elevate rather than hold down.
Ash BGAnd there is some, as I said, there are some great creators doing exactly that. And they are huge. So I'm talking specifically about creators on social media, yes. But imagine if you were that person in your organization. Imagine there are hundreds of people in that organization, and all of a sudden everybody looked to you as the beacon, the shining light of the way forward.
Dom HindYeah.
Ash BGImagine how influential you would be. Imagine how much respect you would be given. How much people would turn to you for advice and how incredible that could be for your career. Yeah. A lot of men are scared. I reckon they are scared. They're feeling vulnerable, they're feeling scared, but actually it's a great opportunity for growth.
Dom HindIt is a great opportunity for growth if they're willing to grow. Exactly.
Ash BGIf you have a growth mindset. Yeah.
Dom HindIf you are, and if you do have a growth mindset, I think it is. But it would be such a shame for them to pass up on these opportunities. Yes. Yes. You know, I agree.
Ash BGThis is a time where things could move very quickly. How do you do it in a school then?
School Leadership, Discipline, And Defamation
Ash BGOkay. So, and again, I my child is not in school. I really want to hear from you on this as well. But I like my first instance is it starts from the principal, starts from the leadership.
Dom HindAgree.
Ash BGSo what do you think when you look at a principal who is not doing what you want them to do? Like, how does that feel?
Dom HindWell, it it's frustrating. Yeah. Like it is really frustrating. But then for me, I can't sit and do nothing. Yeah. But there are, and I know this from a fact, from the data. So there may, like I know from the data that so many people want change, but only 50% are willing to put their name to it and stand up. So and this is this is a big thing, is that, you know, either that they're scared of the repercussions, which it's hard because if the repercussions are on your son, uh like you don't want, you don't wish har or you know, a negative experience. But if you see and know that things need to change, you need to talk up about them.
Ash BGAnd worrying only about the repercussions, repercussions on your own child is not good enough.
Dom HindNo. But it interesting, even yesterday I was talking about discipline and consistent discipline within a school environment. Yeah. And one of the comments back was it's great, parents, yep, they all agree that there should be consistent discipline until it involves their son or until it involves their child. Which you go, hang on. Everyone should be held in account in equal measures. Exactly. Irrespective if you've been involved in it or not. Yeah. If you've if there's been shit behavior, it needs to be called out. So I think that's where it is. It's hard. People speaking up for the greater good.
Ash BGAre enabling the parents to get away with doing very little. But it's hard.
Dom HindI think schools nowadays are so worried about being sued. Yeah. Having a defamation lawyer come after you. Um so, and this comes back to rather than owning a behavior and learning from it, they're trying to hide from it.
Ash BGAnd that's a system as well, though, that, you know, if we talk about our defamation laws in Australia, that prevents so many victims from speaking up against their abusers. Yeah. Like that, that as a system needs to change. I listened to a podcast on that recently. Abby Chatfield interviewed a um lawyer about exactly that. And Abby was saying herself that she is writing a book and she can't include so much of her story in it. Her own story. Because of defamation. Because of defamation. But but to think that that would even be popping up in schools in the way that leadership makes decisions, we need to talk about the safety of children. Oh, absolutely. First and foremost. But instead of the reputation of a school.
Dom HindBut that's what I mean, education is about educating the children.
Ash BGYeah.
Dom HindLike, and this is the thing that the we send, well, I send or we send our school our kids to great schools because we want them to get a great education. And that is about them being good people, coming out the other end, but also having a good education. Like it's not getting the top marks because academics is well, you can get into wherever you need to from an academic. Like it's one piece of the puzzle. The being a good human is a massive one.
Ash BGDo you think that they are taught that at school?
Dom HindUm Do you know what? I think where the good morals and good moral compass, whether or not you are religious or not, that does set it up so that there is a service for others where, and I've seen this firsthand, where there's not so much of that religious basis, it's about service for self. And while, you know, some of the schools may not be, you know, there may be other behaviours within the schools that aren't great, the good moral compass and the good values is what I take from it.
Ash BGWhat do you think went wrong with those particular boys?
Dom HindI well, this is where it comes back to culture and the environment that they are actually in. And I do think that if they were held accountable for their behaviours early on in life, and if they were held to account, yeah, it could have actually changed.
Ash BGAnd prevented.
Dom HindAnd prevented a situation like this.
Ash BGSo we need to hold boys accountable.
Dom HindWe need to hold boys accountable, and we also need to make hard decisions. And I think that's what people are scared to do. Make a hard decision and have a hard conversation.
Ash BGThis is what I find so interesting. So I get a lot of criticism in some of my work because I talk a lot about these issues and I talk about the manosphere, and I often talk about the fact that I have a boy, but he's only two. And people say to me all the time, you know, it's like you're expecting him to turn bad. You know, why are you talking like this? And, you know, what are we just assume every boy who's born is going to be bad? And I think, absolutely not, of course. But if we're not willing to have these conversations as well discussed, the repercussions are potentially fatal. So what is the alternative? We have to have these hard conversations. It's not saying we're expecting the worst of all of our children.
Dom HindNo.
Ash BGBut maybe we can prepare for the worst.
Dom HindBut do you know what? I think if you prepare for the worst, you can then expect the best. Like, I do think there is that if you have these hard conversations early. Yeah. And call out shit behavior. Yeah. And as a parent, you need to call out shit behavior. That is your job. If you don't want to parent your kids, you shouldn't have had them. Like, that is my hard and fast. Like, I just baffles me why we are letting a child dictate to us what the terms are.
Ash BGAnd do you think that's what's happening with teenage boys at the blue moon that they're dictating the terms?
Dom HindDictating the terms. They've got the control. They've got the control because it's too hard. Scary. It is scary. Like I joke around and say, like, you know, everyone says, oh, you have to have big balls. But I'm like, no, no, no, you've got to have a big vagina to actually um have those hard conversations. Because if you don't have those hard conversations, you are not setting the boundaries and the parameters around what is expected.
Ash BGThat's so funny. You've got to have big balls. I'm sorry, are the men having these conversations?
Dom HindThe balls got to do with it. But you know, like everyone talks, oh, you've got to have big balls to have that conversation. It's not. You've actually got to, you know, switch it on its head and go, you need to have those hard conversations. And I'm very passionate about that. The anger. The anger. See, that's where your anger comes from. And it's do you know what? I don't think it's it is anger/slash frustration because you can see that it can be better. Yeah. And that's my frustration. I can see it can be better. We're just letting people get away with shit that they shouldn't.
Ash BGAnd I think the frustration is turning to anger.
Dom HindYeah.
Ash BGYou know, I think that again, we're at a tipping point and people are fed up.
Dom HindYeah.
Ash BGAnd women everywhere are done. Yeah. And are done, you know. Again, where are the men? Like, you know, how many men are sitting having a podcast conversation about this? I'm sure there are some, but other enough.
Dom HindYeah, otherwise.
Ash BGBecause I'm sure there are hundreds of women talking about it right now.
Dom HindAbsolutely. I'm sure.
Ash BGThousands. Yeah.
Dom HindBut it's interesting, even, you know, in the work that I've done to develop myself as a person, I realize that in my childhood and even up until three years ago, maybe even three months ago, I didn't know how to feel and what my emotions actually were, what I was feeling. And I think even that and understanding that, I don't think men know how to feel.
Ash BGNo.
Dom HindOr or describe the emotions that they are feeling.
Ash BGAnd I think that they don't let them feel what they're feeling. So they end up with just this default happy or angry.
Dom HindAnd that's, you know what, my two default um emotions that I felt were frustrated where I would swear. Yeah. Or I'd cry. Yeah. Like they were my that was my range of my emotions because that's all I knew what to do.
Ash BGBut then when a man has these default emotions and one is anger, he beats his wife. You know, after a football game. Yeah. Or whatever it might be. You know, like this is much more prevalent. Much more dangerous. Yeah, yeah. Okay.
Dom HindYeah.
Rapid Fire On Respect And Equality
Dom HindAll right, I'm gonna go into a rapid fire round with you. One thing women need to stop apologizing for.
Ash BGAsking for help. And not being able to do everything themselves. Yeah.
Dom HindNot making a decision.
Ash BGYeah.
Dom HindOne thing men need to hear. Do more. One thing mothers need to stop doing. Feeling ashamed.
Ash BGYou know, feeling ashamed that they can't do everything themselves.
Dom HindOne thing fathers need to do more of. I knew that before I you even said it. Um, most overrated piece. Of relationship advice.
Ash BGOh, that things get better after the first year after you've had a child. It's not as simple as that. And also, if you don't fix things then, you're setting yourself up for being resentful 10 years later.
Dom HindYeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Um, just tell me what you need me to do makes you feel what. Oh, or give me a list. You fucking think of the list yourself. It's it's it's not helpful. It's not helpful. Uh the mental load is exhausting. Equality at home means respect.
Ash BGNo, sorry, let me change that. I agree with respect, but equality at home means that one person is not drowning while the other person is standing on the shore asking, how can I help?
Dom HindYeah. Feminism in 2026 needs to involve more men. Nice. Um one thing you hope your son understands about women.
Ash BGThat they don't need him. That if you know he was heterosexual and one chose him, that that would be um that that would be that's the word that I'm looking for.
Dom HindThat he would be lucky. Yeah. He would be lucky. I like that. Um one thing you hope he understands about being a man That he's allowed to be sensitive. Yes.
Ash BGAnd softer and have big emotions, he doesn't have to fit into a certain mould of what a man should look like.
Dom HindAnd finally, what gives you hope?
Ash BGTalking to parents like you who are willing to do the hard work and who are not digging their heels or pretending that this isn't happening.
Dom HindNo. Do you know what? I think something that you said, you said that men can do better, but I think everyone can do better. Like I actually do think we all can do better, and that is our role. Like, you can bury your head in the sand all you want, irrespective of what gender, what sex, what anything, but we can all do better.
Ash BGYeah, completely agree.
Dom HindOkay, uh, you spend a lot of time writing about things women experience but often don't say. What is the one truth about women, men, and relationships in 2026 that we need to all stop pretending is there?
Ash BGOh, that's a good question. Just to summarize it all. We need to stop pretending that men helping more is gonna fix everything.
Dom HindYeah.
Ash BGIt's not help. You shouldn't even be saying help in your own household. It's your house too.
Dom HindDo you know what? I've even stopped saying to my kids, can you help me? I'm like, no chance. It's like, can you contribute and do this? Exactly. Because help is like, it's my responsibility.
Ash BGAnd it all falls on me and you're doing me a favor by helping me. Yeah, absolutely not.
Dom HindYeah. So can you contribute? This is our house. I'm hard. Like, I would hate to be my son.
Ash BGHe will thank you.
Dom HindOr his his partner will thank me. Let's hope. Yes. Let's hope. Yes. I had a mum who's amazing said to me the other day that she's hard on her son. And she keeps saying to him, Your partner will thank me. And it's like, yeah, they will. They actually will. Yeah. They really will. Um, okay, so I'm nearly 50 in 13, 14, no, 15 months. Are they gonna excited? Yes, so exciting, but it is a little bit scary at the same time. Um, what is one conversation I need to have before I turn 50, or that anyone needs to have before they turn 50?
Ash BGMy first thought is an honest conversation with yourself.
Dom HindYes.
Ash BGAbout how you really feel about where you've ended up.
Dom HindDo you know what? I'm doing some amazing work with Vashti Whitfield, who um she's fascinating. She's she was on my podcast, and one of the things that she gets me, is getting me to do is understanding my identities and the roles that I play and what percentage of my life they make up. Yeah. But also how I think about love. Yeah. What a good relationship looks like. Yeah. Because I don't think my parents' relationship was modeled as a good relationship, a codependent relationship, yes, but not a good one. I think so many of us can say that. And do you know what? It's more who am I? Yeah. What is love? What does a relate a good relationship work look like? And what am I willing to accept? And what won't I accept?
Ash BGBecause for so long, as women, again, our lives revolved around men and we just went along with it. Because that's what we were supposed to do, and then we became mothers, and that's what we were supposed to do.
Dom HindYeah. And I mean, I'm having these conversations because I've been in that my with my husband for since I was 21, uh, 22. So that's a long time that I haven't had my own reflection on who I am as a person. So yeah, it's a good I think that's a good one, an honest conversation with yourself. Okay, one thing to stop doing.
Ash BGApologizing. If you're a woman. Yeah. Men can absolutely continue.
Dom HindUm, one thing to start noticing.
Ash BGThe way that you center your life around men.
Dom HindYeah, okay.
Ash BGAs a woman.
Dom HindYep, I think that's a good one.
Ash BGThe times you put everybody's needs before your own.
Dom HindI think it's not even men. I think it is even just everyone else's needs above yours.
Ash BGYeah.
Dom HindSo because then that can come back to your children as well. Yeah. Because it is exhausting.
Ash BGAnd then as a society, we need to stop judging mothers who put themselves first. Yeah.
Dom HindIt's so interesting. When I because I'm big into making sure that I do my own self-care and just lock it in for the whole year. Yeah. Um, but one of the things that a friend and I do during summer is we do lock out, just go and sit by the beach for two hours.
Ash BGOh my god, glorious.
Dom HindBut it's amazing. Yeah. But when we tell people, they're like, what? You just go and sit at the beach. And I'm like, yeah, we sit at the beach. Yeah. And we do nothing. There's no phones. There's no book. It's just sitting there. It's just being present. So good. Yeah.
Ash BGBut I feel like as soon as you hear a mother talk about, you know, the things that she does for herself, there's always a hint of judgment from a and that's what we need to do away with.
Dom HindAbsolutely. Yeah, I think, yes, the judgment is real.
Ash BGYeah. Is real. Oh my god.
Dom HindOkay. Ash BG.
Ash BGYes.
Dom HindThank you.
Ash BGUm I hear that in my head now every time I hear my name. We'll see my name.
Dom HindHang on. Do you think we have is there anything else we need to cover?
Ash BGNo, I don't think so. I think we've we've had a very full conversation. Have we covered it? How do you many different things? Yeah, I think so.
Dom HindOkay, good. Good. Okay, well then thank you, Ash BG. Um I think what I'm taking away from today is that so many of these conversations are connected. And the mental load, the gender roles, the misogyny, consent, what our boys learn about women, and what girls learn about themselves as well. And we probably didn't touch on that enough. Um and they don't begin when our kids become teenagers, they become when your son's two. Yeah. Well they begin when they're when he's two. Um and they begin at home. And what is actually modeled at home as well. And this isn't about women versus men, it is about raising boys and girls who expect equality and who build relationships where responsibility is genuinely shared and making respect something we live rather than something we talk about. So, Ash BG, thank you for being on the podcast and for saying the uncomfortable things and for questioning me as well. Um, because it is tough right now. It's really tough, and we are in the thick of it and we need to talk about it.
Ash BGWell, thank you for being open to talk about this. These are big, heavy conversations. So being brave to have this conversation and record it and share it with the world is the first step.
Dom HindIt is the first well, it is. Have the conversations, have the conversations so that people can actually hear it and not because I do think so many people hear what's going on in their brain based on what they've seen and what's been modeled to them. So if people are talking about something that's different, yeah, it can change and rewire the way that they think.
Ash BGAll of the confirmation bias. Yeah. You think one way, and then everything you read, see, every conversation you have confirms that. Yeah. It just reaffirms the way that you already think. So we need to constantly be questioning
Closing Thoughts And What To Do Next
Ash BGthat.
Dom HindYes, I love being curious and questioning everything. So uh if this episode has resonated with you, please share it with anyone that you would like to. And I will put all of the links to everything that Ash BG is doing in the show notes so that you can connect to her. And if you enjoyed this, please, please make sure that you do start having the conversations at home. Start having them with your partner, with your kids, and do the hard work now so that you're not paying for it later. So thank you, Ash. And it's very exciting that we had this conversation because fuck, I'm nearly 50 and isn't it amazing?
