The Shift with Sam Baker

Hello and welcome to season 23 (!) of The Shift podcast, and this first episode is very close to my heart. Domestic abuse is something I have spent a lot of my adult life campaigning about, so I could not be more honoured that today’s guest is Denise Brown, older sister of Nicole Brown Simpson who was killed by her husband, American footballer OJ Simpson, on 13 June 1994, at the age of 35.  And that is the last time we will say his name during this episode because this conversation is not about him. It is about her, Nicole. A woman who did not get to live over half of her life. Who did not get to see her children grow up, did not meet her grandchildren, did not get to age or moan about wrinkles or the irritations of life after 40… And sadly - enragingly - Nicole is far from alone. In the UK, one in four women will experience intimate partner abuse in their lifetime. In the US that number rises to one in three. That’s something Denise Brown is determined to do something about. In the three decades since her sister’s murder, Denise has devoted herself to raising awareness of intimate partner abuse, touring the United States, speaking at shelters, fundraising and working to change the law. Now, she has written a book, For My Sister Nicole: Love Shouldn’t Hurt – What to Know About Domestic Violence⁠. A powerful, heartbreaking must read, it is also packed with resources to help recognise and tackle abuse. Her hope is that it will help save lives like her sister’s. Denise joined me from a hotel room in Manhattan, where she is currently on tour, to talk about the loss of Nicole, her lifelong mission to change the way we view intimate partner abuse, why relationship abuse doesn’t just affect younger women and how it feels to reach 69 without her sister. In the UK, call the national domestic abuse helpline on 0808 2000 247, or visit Women’s Aid. In the US, the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). In Australia, the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. Other international helplines may be found via www.befrienders.org. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including For My Sister Nicole: Love Shouldn’t Hurt – What to Know About Domestic Violence, by Denise Brown, as well as the book that inspired this podcast, ⁠The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too⁠, by Sam Baker. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.⁠⁠⁠⁠ • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I first encountered today’s guest, Marina Benjamin, when I was researching The Shift book and stumbled across her memoir, The Middlepause. An insightful look at what middle age means today, it was prompted by Marina’s own sudden menopause after a hysterectomy. The sense of dislocation she described was the first time I’d ever seen the way I felt put down in black and white. She followed it up with Insomnia (clue’s in the name) and has now completed her loose midlife trilogy with A Little Give a stunning book about the “unsung, unseen, undone work women do” - and what happens when we tire of being a human rehab centre for everyone around us. I inhaled this book, dog-earing page after page and internally yelling YES! and I’m pretty sure you will too. Marina joined me to talk about emotional labour, why “cleaner guilt” doesn’t seem to affect men (strange that!), time poverty and wresting control of the to-do ticker tape. We also discussed why women’s manual work is invisible and men’s is a skill, how to get maximum benefit from your feminist inner critic, the two way pain of caring for elderly parents and why you should always ALWAYS run towards yourself. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including A Little Give: the unseen, unsung, undone work of women by Marina Benjamin and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including transcripts of the podcast, please consider joining The Shift community. Find out more at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Emily Sandford. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You can be swimming along nicely and then all of a sudden everything you thought you had is gone. That’s what happened to today’s guest, the best-selling Irish novelist, Louise O’Neill.  She was 38 and had just taken on a big mortgage with her partner of five years when he blindsided her by pulling the plug. In the wake of losing the future she thought she wanted, suddenly everything she’d achieved throughout her career lost its meaning. Known for her fearless feminist writing, Louise had written six award-winning novels and been compared to Margaret Atwood. For months she struggled. Then, heartbroken but defiant, she made a decision: she was going to spend the next year saying yes to everything that comes her way - except the one thing society teaches women to say yes to, settling for the first man who shows an interest. The result is her first memoir, A Bigger Life, about that radical experiment in learning to bet big - on yourself.  Louise joined me to talk about the Christmas her life descended into chaos and her subsequent midlife dating odyssey. We also discussed the eating disorder that devoured her, why we still ask ‘why didn’t you leave?’, the downside of her crack-on, can do mentality, learning to recognise your own appetites, putting the humanity back into dating, feeling younger at 41 than 31, and why she really really doesn’t want her parents to read her book! * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including A Bigger Life by Louise O'Neill as well as the book that inspired this podcast, ⁠The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too⁠, by Sam Baker. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and this episode was edited by Kelsey Bennett at Pineapple Audio Productions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest today is the fashion designer and entrepreneur turned novelist Tabitha Webb.  What can I tell you about Tabitha - other than her life makes mine look extremely dull? She ran away from university, chased a hot surfer to America, was a roller blading extra in the movie Birdcage and got held up at gunpoint. Then, despairing of finding the bag she wanted, she decided to design her own and a fashion career was born. Tabitha Webb became a go to for celebrities in the noughties. And when I say celebrities I mean the Princess of Wales (then Kate Middleton), not just any old reality TV starr. But fashion is a tough old world and at the end of last year, her label went into liquidation. But like the heroines of her novels, Tabitha is not easily defeated, and in her late 40s she turned her hand to fiction. She wrote her first romance novel, the Jilly Cooper esque No Regrets in 2020 and has now followed it up with the extremely fun sex-filled romp, Playing The Field. Tabitha joined me to talk about her blind faith that anything is possible, being an older mum and the menopause puberty collision, and why she can’t stand the way her husband breathes! We also discussed her fantastic mum who ‘doesn’t want an old man breathing down her neck!’, (there’s that breathing again!) being resolutely uncool, how it felt to turn her back on the fashion label she put so much into and the joy of ‘climbing your second mountain.’ * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Playing The Field by Tabitha Webb, as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by Sam Baker. * If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices