Insecure
earning. Why did you want to dig into the issue of pay equality? I It’s just something that’s real. Women are paid less than men, despite the fact that that’s illegal. Black women, specifically, are paid less than white women. It’s something that we wanted to address. She is great at her job, so why would they undervalue her?
What challenges do you see women, and black women in particular, facing in the dating world, and how do those experiences inform this season? I We’re combating being undesirable. That’s a lot of the narrative: that black women are undesirable. Every day an athlete or a rapper says something along the lines of “That’s why I don’t date black women.” Like Kodak Black – your name is Kodak Black and you don’t date black women? OK, cool.
There are so many things that the white characters do and say in that make me cringe. But by bringing humour to it, you can easily call it out: “Stop doing this…” M Right, like don’t touch my hair. You need humour to deal with these obstacles, whether it’s racism or sexism. It’s easier for people to understand and accept [that criticism] when there’s humour in it.
Is there mentoring going on behind the scenes? M It’s such a priority for us. We have a shadowing director on every episode. The person is literally like a shadow to the director.
Kerry Washington was one, right? What was that like? M Crazy. My friend was like, “Was Kerry Washington your intern?” I’m like, “She wasn’t my intern.” She wants to direct, and she asked if she could come and learn. She was a total student. But we also have young filmmakers who shadow the crew. We’re trying to be that school, as we’re learning ourselves.
You have a number of celebrity fans, including Sterling K Brown, who guest-stars this season. I At an event he said, “I love the show, if you ever need me…” I was thinking, ‘Ha-ha, he’s just being polite.’ A few months later, he slid into my DMS: “These are my free days, if you have anything!” I was like, “What?” We had the perfect role. Every woman who watched his scenes on the monitors had a pasted-on smile – he’s dreamy.
So many women relate to the characters. What should that say to Hollywood execs? M You don’t have to be one colour to relate to a story. I grew up watching a lot of non-people-of-colour whose stories I related to. But person’s worth is as important as the next. We need stories that are different. Understanding about other people leads to acceptance, which is something that we need desperately.
more than six million readers have turned to me for advice over the years. One woman I’ll always remember wrote to thank me as she’d experienced her first ever orgasm after 16 years with her partner, thanks, she said, to the advice she had found in a leaflet I’d sent her called Women And Orgasm.
I was appointed problem-page editor in 1980, and then, as now, many of the letters were from readers suffering from sexual problems, so it made sense to write leaflets outlining basic self-help that readers could request in the post.
In Women And Orgasm, I exploded the myth of the vaginal orgasm, explaining that only a minority of women climax through sexual intercourse alone. I advised that most women reach orgasm through other stimulation, so you need to experiment – for example, being on top during sex lets you move into the most arousing position (and keeps the man’s hands free for extra stimulation).
I also described ‘sensate focus’, the process that sex therapists use; you take turns touching each other, first in non-sexual areas only (arms, legs, back) and gradually build up to all of the body. The exercise helps to loosen inhibitions and teaches you about your partner’s body – there’s no doubt that good sex helps to cement a relationship. The advice clearly helped this woman.
“I have a wonderful partner, but had been tempted to sleep with another man a couple of times,” she wrote. “Sex had never played an important part in our relationship, as I’d never been really satisfied. After discussing and practising some of the techniques in your leaflet, we discovered new pleasures. It’s wonderful for me – and my partner, as he is able to satisfy me at last.”
“I poured all I’d learnt since her death into my reply. I wrote about grief, yes, but I also wrote about what’s on the other side.”