‘Anger’s not something that women have been allowed to have’: Why Myf Warhurst is done playing nice

Think of Myf Warhurst and the word “bubbly” might spring to mind. With everything she does – from Spicks and Specks , the Eurovision Song Contest or her documentary The Truth about Menopause – Warhurst is the ray of sunshine; the nice one. But she’s no longer playing nice. She’s taken on the patriarchy in a new book, Middle Rage (out August 25). And she’s mad.

When I heard you’d written a book on rage, I thought maybe it was about you shaking your fist at climate change or losing it over smaller things, like parking tickets. But this book is really serious – about tackling patriarchy head-on. What does the patriarchy mean to you and why did you decide to focus on it? Initially, it was going to be this funny book about all the things in middle age that annoyed me. But because [with menopause] you have this great awakening, you lose your oestrogen, and all of a sudden it’s like you’re overcome with a laser focus. You can see everything clearly. You see the inequality everywhere. And rather than just getting sad about it, I was feeling furious, and then I looked into that and realised, “Oh, anger’s not something that women have really been allowed to have over the years.” Girls are encouraged to play nice, keep it small, don’t be too expressive. There’s all this conditioning that has got us here, and it all leads to one thing, and that is the patriarchy. That’s an easy thing to jump to and say, “Oh, you know, it’s the patriarchy’s fault,” but it’s a system by which we live, and it’s a very clear system that advantages one over the other. It also disadvantages men, because little boys aren’t allowed to become the full human beings that they could become by showing their emotions, and they’re forced into a system that kind of makes them go to work and do shitty jobs for everyone who’s making the money at the top.

I’ve also had a couple of relationship experiences whereby I realised my own conditioning allowed me to put up with certain behaviours that I shouldn’t have ... I’m terrified of [releasing the book] because people aren’t going to expect it from me, but I’m also really proud of it.

What makes you terrified? Girls, especially, learn how to people-please because they realise it makes them safe in an environment. So it’s very hard to strip back all those layers of conditioning and know I might disappoint some people with this book and know that some will think I’ve changed or lost my mind. But this person has always been there. I just hadn’t shown that side of my personality until now.

You also talk directly to men in the book, don’t you? The thing is, I grew up with great men, and maybe that was a luxury and a privilege. My brothers are fantastic; they’re creative, they’re very emotional, they respect me, as do my male friends. But I think it’s probably having had good experiences that led me towards not questioning other men who have come into my world in the same way, because I just trusted a little bit blindly. And I think it’s a Gen X thing, too; the way that generation was brought up.