Thank you to everyone who enjoyed our special episode with Tina Brown last week - we had a huge response. We miss her already <3

This week in the Tina-free studio, we discuss whether corporations offering to pay for women to freeze their eggs - as happening in America and soon, Australia - is a generous health benefit, or a patriarchal attempt to stave off motherhood. Shouldn’t we improve conditions and parity for working mothers (subsidised nurseries, better paternity leave, flexi-hours) first?

Also in this week’s episode: Taylor Swift has been accused of espousing Trumpian values, with her white feminism and political silence. We draw on several brilliant pop-culture writers, to discuss whether this theory has any value. We cannot help but wonder, in that Carrie Bradshaw way: when did it become possible for a popstar to just be, well, a popstar? Now, they must be a symbol, an icon, a vessel and a plate. As Greta Gerwig says on Fresh Air, when quizzed why she worked with Woody Allen - women are just terrified of saying the wrong thing and getting it wrong. Tiring, huh.

Nuggets from The Top Line include the revelation that salted caramel is comparable to heroin; Christmas dinners are more expensive than ever before; and, devastatingly, that a third of women’s refuges are under threat of closure in the UK.

There’s a slew of podcast episode, series, articles and exhibition recommendations this week - links all below - and in the run up to Christmas, a few requests:

Who will help Pandora find a Father Christmas jumper, complete with patent belt, to spread across her pudding-like paunch?

And, Adam Buxton, when will you come on our podcast?

You can e-mail us [email protected] or tweet us @thehighlowshow.

Reading/ watching/ viewing & listening this week:

Laura Freeman on Modigliani for The Sunday Times Culture mag https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/art-review-amedeo-modigliani-nudes-tate-modern-mfn8mkvp2

Book tickets to Modigliani at The Tate Modern http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/modigliani

Watch The Sinner, on Netflix https://www.netflix.com/title/80175802

Hadley Freeman on why feminist theory didn’t cure her anorexia, for The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/nov/25/wasnt-feminist-theory-cured-anorexia

Eva Wiseman interviews Little Mix for The Observer mag https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/nov/26/little-mix-interview-new-album-we-embrace-who-we-are-not-perfect

Dorian Lynskey on Taylor Swift for GQ mag (December issue, on sale now)

Taylor Swift: An Envoy for Trump’s Values? By anon for The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/24/the-guardian-view-on-taylor-swift-an-envoy-for-trumps-values

Greta Gerwig on Fresh Air: 

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