Clare Stephens

But then I thought maybe that's because as a culture, we've already cut Lena Dunham down to what we perceive to be the right size.

And so at this point, she doesn't have that sort of cultural cachet.

She's certainly not at the height of her influence right now.

And maybe that makes everyone feel a little bit better about the fact that she also happened to write a superb book.

No, I get that.

I just want to be sure there's a danger in that, which is that if every woman says, well, I don't want to ever actually sort of engage critically with a work by a woman, what that means and what that results in is the sidelining of women's voices.

Because if you can't take them seriously and if you can't grapple with their shortcomings as well as their good qualities, you are going to end up with everything that women write being called chiclet.

She doesn't have to worry about not having a roof over her head.

And the perils of a reading gap relationship.

What does it mean if your partner doesn't read and can you survive it?

So I take it it's not going that well.

I feel like all my friendships slash podcasts slash like all my contact with the world is just a cycle of people being like, here's my hack for getting off my phone.

I got a Nokia 3310 and I bought this thing.

And I'm guilty.

I have a brick stuck to my phone that I forgot about.

Do you have it to your fridge at home?

So the thing that you like tap your phone on and it locks you out of your apps.

bloody great when I remember to use it.

But the problem is I'm on TikTok so much that it's distracting me from remembering that the brick is even a thing.

But I feel like everyone just goes through these cycles.