In her new book, Pleasure: The Reclamation of My Body, journalist and broadcaster Emma-Louise Boynton interrogates the societal forces that teach women to mistrust their bodies and perform rather than feel pleasure. Jen chats to Emma about Emma's own story, the impact of the male gaze and digital culture on women’s pleasure, why gendered ideas around sex and pleasure are doing us all a disservice, and about Emma's live event series and media platform, Sex Talks.

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Planning on spending the weekend on the sofa with all the fans pointed at you? Here are some suggestions on what you could watch at the same time. This month, we're talking about Two Weeks in August, The Four Seasons, Rivals, The Witness, The Burroughs, Widow's Bay, World War Two with Tom Hanks and what we make of World Cup coverage so far.

* Hannah's chatting about why she thinks The Pitt's Dr Robby is less than a hero on out Substack here: https://standardissuepodcast.substack.com/p/dr-robby-is-the-pits

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It’s feeling swampish in the UK this week, but spare a thought for the poor old Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool over in Washington DC. It seems Donald J Trump can think of nothing else. If the leader of the free world is distracted, the leader of the UK is... well, to be decided/Andy Burnham following Keir Starmer's resignation. There’s sexism live from the ITV kitchen, Hannah's found some elderly nuns hoping Scotland don’t come home too soon, and Jen's feeling cynical about Serena Williams in Jenny Off The Blocks.

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Steven Spielberg’s swashbuckling, whip-cracking, quip-cracking archaeologist Indiana Jones’s first adventure was beating the Nazis to the lost Ark of the Covenant. Will film picker Mick keep her big love for the film and its flawed hero under her fedora? Spoiler: NO! But what will Jen and Hannah have to say about the breakneck Oscar-nabbing adventure film that launched a thousand adventure films in its image? And also, George Lucas if you’re reading/listening: WTAF, man?

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Ever wondered why a female health campaigner writes ‘seggs’ instead of ‘sex’, or uses an emoji instead of a medical term? Turns out social media platforms are systematically censoring medically accurate content on topics such as menstruation, fertility and menopause – often misclassifying such content as “adult” material and limiting its reach. It goes further, with femtech entrepreneurs also finding themselves routinely censored. 

Enter the brilliant Clio Wood, co-founder of CensHERship, a research hub and campaign that has ending this sexist nonsense in its sights. Our Mick chats to Clio about exactly what’s happening, why it’s happening and how it’s having a negative effect on everything from women’s health outcomes to the global economy. 

Members of our Patreon £5 and above gang get some extra chat, including what Clio makes of the Government’s new Women’s Health Strategy. 

You can access that by visiting patreon.com/standardissue

And if you’re not already involved with our Substack, you can find that at standardissuepodcast.substack.com or sign up on our website, standardissuepodcast.com. 

And you can buy Clio and her team a coffee here: https://ko-fi.com/censhership.

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As the saying goes, you never forget how to ride a bike. But how easy is it to teach a small person something you can’t remember not being able to do?

Following the UK launch of children’s bike brand Woom, Jen jumped on the Zoom with senior marketing manager Christina Pallanch to talk about modelling an active lifestyle for our girls, carving out time to stay active as a mum, and top tips for picking a bike and getting your youngster on it.

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Charming, melancholic, funny and ever-so British, Tim Key and Tom Basden’s tale of two men stuck in the past and on an island is Hannah’s pick for this month’s Flicking. How does Carey Mulligan fit in? Is Basden really that grubby? And why is Key making Mick and Yosra cry so much? 

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Hannah and Mick can’t say FFS loud enough as The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill returns from the dead for another round in Parliament. And just how good an idea is the blanket banning of social media for under 16s? Or indeed the blanket banning of anything? Still, in good news, reading is up, the Wombles are back, and women get two personality choices courtesy of The Times. How generous. 

The kids, they be reading more. Here's that article Hannah mentions: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cze93wggw74o

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The second film in Jim Henson’s much-beloved franchise, contemporary critics said 1981’s The Great Muppet Caper failed to live up to the expectations set by its predecessor, The Muppet Movie. But were those reviewers mad? Can it top Hannah’s love for The Muppet Christmas Carol? What has Jen’s daughter written in her notes? And what has Mickey got on her feet?

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Set in Trinidad in 1956, Driftwood is the debut play of actress Martina Laird. She chats to Hannah about why Trinidad's history is England's history too, The Little Mermaid, and the night they sat really near each other in a theatre.

* Driftwood is on at the Kiln Theatre in London. More here: https://kilntheatre.com/whats-on/driftwood/

* Details on how to become a member of the supporters' club here:  Standard Issue Podcast | creating a magazine for ears, by women for women | Patreon

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