Hey Benches, wanted to announce that we have officially launched our Patreon, it is patreon.com slashbenchtopia, and we will be posting bonus episodes, early release of our regular episodes, monthly newsletters, reading lists, and monthly Q&As.

Here is a little teaser of our first bonus episode, and if you'd like to hear the rest, head over to our Patreon. Love you!

I think there's so many women that have been wrong by the media. I think there's one aspect of it, which is that lots of people, rightfully so, are having public breakdowns. If you're a celebrity and you're constantly being followed by the media, you're constantly being followed by the paparazzi, it makes total sense to me that at some point they would catch you having a mental breakdown.

So it's kind of the way that we view mental illness in general, you know like Amanda Binds is an example of that, where she clearly was just struggling and having an awful time.

I remember seeing a lot about Kirstie Alley when I was a kid in tabloids, and how she was gaining weight and really shaming her for gaining weight. And clearly she was going through something, who knows what she was going through.

I just remember all of this where it was like women were framed, their mental illness or their struggles were like a personal failure. And like as a celebrity, it's their job to like remain perfect at all times, and they really let down people by like not being perfect.

Yeah, and all of the expectations that we place on people, like I mean Brittany was a fucking teen idol. And first of all, I mean the pedophile like ways that they framed her like the baby one more time video, that magazine cover in her childhood bedroom where she's wearing like brawn underwear.

And whatever sexual hell said about it where he's like, oh, she wanted that. She was like, she told me that she actually wanted to take off her shirt.

It's like, well, probably because that's the way that she's being rewarded by society. That's what is getting her attention. That's what's making her like a superstar.

And then also like it makes me think of what we briefly mentioned in our previous episode where we talked about Brittany a little bit of that episode where the talk show where she basically is confronted with a death threat.

And then the Diane Sawyer, which it has been confirmed by my mother as certified Gen X or that it was Diane Sawyer, we were right.

We were a correct or genius minds. And then Diane Sawyer is like, well, you know, you're supposed to be a role model for these kids.

And Brittany's like, I never asked to be a role model. Like I'm not the one to babysit your kids. And we never ask men to be role model for kids.

Never in our lives.

No, and I remember so distinctly talking about this tabloid stuff. Like, do you remember when Vanessa Hudgens' moods were leaked?

And I remember people were literally like Vanessa Hudgens is such a bad role model for kids.

And I remember literally reading a people magazine at the nail salon because I always used to like, whenever I went to the nail salon or like anywhere where there would be like magazines,

I would always be like feverishly reading the people magazines. And it was like, there was this section that was like, how to explain to your children like what happened with Vanessa Hudgens.

And it was like an adult and her privacy was violent.

No, but it was like, oh, tell your children that like Vanessa Hudgens like made a bad mistake.

And it was just like a completely victim blame her. I wish I could find it. But I so distinctly remember that.

And it was the same thing that happened with Jamie Lynn Spears when she got pregnant.

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