Historically, when a woman was giving birth, she was attended by the women she trusted most, including her child’s prospective godmother. The word ‘gossip’ derives from the Old English ‘god-sibb’, meaning godparent, but came to refer to what went on around the childbed. As Erica Jong later put it: ‘Gossip is the opiate of the oppressed.’
Gossip has since moved online – see Mumsnet and the network of Facebook pages called ‘Are we dating the same guy?’. Women use the latter to post warnings to alert others to serial cheaters – and worse. Perhaps inevitably, it has become the focus of several lawsuits brought by men who have been publicly maligned. Is it possible to keep the old ‘whisper network’ alive without being sued in the process? Lily O’Farrell, a young writer and cartoonist, is determined to show us how.
It will furnish you with enough household titbits to make a tradwife proud
It says a lot about the state of the world we’re living in that we need podcasts like hers.
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