Jameela Jamil posted to her substack that she’s done with doing print interviews with other women after one too many instances of her words being peppered with the interviewer’s own insecurities/projections/assumptions. She’s still fine with doing video or written interviews, but though she loves being interviewed by women, she’s hit her limit after a recent interview with The Sunday Times which Jamil feels was more like a hit piece.
Jamil claims that only three women interviewers have given her a fair shake over the past 17 years and names them. She writes that nearly other write-up from a woman takes digs at her character and rarely talks about her advocacy or the issues she brings up.
“What a patriarchal masterpiece. Deflect, distract, dismantle. Carried out to perfection by spineless women who have survived male owned media landscapes by doing the dirty work of what we shall call Miss-ogyny. Double agents for the patriarchy I call them. Wolves in sheep’s clothing. Women consciously or subconsciously dissuading other women from stepping out of line an inch.“
On male journalists: “I hate to say it, but male journalists have always given me a fair shot.” Jamil writes that men actually seem “more interested in actually exploring and challenging my ideas, rather than demanding my credibility to have ideas in the first place.”
Then Jamil recounts her interview with The Sunday Times and goes over what was edited out, that Jamil also recorded the interview for her own record, tired topics, the way the interviewer framed her objections, and the headline revolving around Meghan Markle even though Jamil was not the one to bring her up.
Critiques the method of humiliating an interview subject because all it does is “make them want to be smaller and quieter”. Says to pay attention to how women are interviewed versus men and says pay special attention to the way the media writes about disobedient women.
As for Jameela Jamil, she will never stop. “Almost 7 million people follow me online across social media platforms. I am a threat to the media. I will never be quiet. I will never stop trying to uplift women. I will never shut up about injustice. And I will die one day, knowing I left behind a legacy of love and hope.
Please God may I never find myself middle aged, dedicated to taking women trying to do something positive in the world, down a peg or two. I hope I’m still directing my energy towards progress, not taking the bins out for the patriarchy, for a paycheck and a pat on the head.“
