Women, power and diversity

WILD SESSIONS PODCAST

Women, diversity and inclusion

with Ateh Jewel

Henrietta: So I'm absolutely delighted to welcome to the Wild Sessions, Doctor Ateh Jewel who I had the great fortune of meeting about five years ago. And I have to say, actually it was at the end of a, a long working day where I was doing a press day. And I think you were the last person to come in or the penultimate person to come in. And I was feeling a little bit low on my energy in terms of, thinking it had been a long, long day and you came through the door, this bundle of absolute energetic, light dressed in pink, of course, and just a joy. And it was so amazing. I just thought you were incredible then, and so it's such a pleasure. And we've obviously we've done some things since then. And every single time I love it. I come away thinking that this isn't work. It's just such a joy to speak with you. You're an amazing woman, but you're also on top of all of that. And award-winning journalist, you're a broadcaster and you've got over 20 years working in the beauty industry. But more importantly than that, you're a passionate campaigner fighting very hard to raise awareness of increasing diversity and representation specifically within the beauty industry. But I know it expands outside of that and your recent establishment of the Ateh Jewel education foundation, which I had the pleasure of being at the launch of which is absolutely fantastic. And I really want to talk to you about that in more detail in the next half an hour. And you're committed to increasing opportunity to education, so accessibility and opportunity for everyone to better education. And you're also an incredible woman, partner to your husband, mother to twin girls. And within all of that navigating what balance means to you and how you find that harmony between mind body and spirit. So it is such a pleasure to have the next half an hour with you Ateh, and so let's kick off. I would just love our listeners to understand a little bit more about you and how you got to where you are, what fueled you to want to get into the world of work that you're in. Just a bit of background.

Ateh: Thank you so much. And I remember meeting you too, and I can be a bit witchy a bit. And I remember thinking this is a wise woman. This woman is my people. I remember that distinctly feeling that when I met you too. So that's so kind of, yeah, so, I mean, I love the beauty industry. I've always loved beauty. My mum would get me a makeup palette, age five, and that was the best thing she could have done. And I remember she got it from Argos, you know, like a little.

Henrietta: I remember those kits!

Ateh: You know exactly what I'm talking about. And she got one for me and I thought I was a grown woman and it was amazing. And I just remember playing with it and loving to do hair and looking at color, looking at MGM musicals and just glamour and light and, you know, black and white films with Marlene Dietrich, you know, bunk of school to see all these amazing like Top Hat and things like that. That world was always really captivating to me. I also loved history where we just said, we both studied at Bristol university and at Bristol, it was really fascinating because I was given the words and the themes of the things that were really important to me, which are really power, really identity. So like I studied the minority man in medieval times and how some tree colors were used only very rich people could wear certain colors and I'm like, my God, it's 2022, and what is the color of power today? It's grey, you know, it's a great suit. It's a man in a grey suit. So I'm rocking a colorful hairband. I'm rocking color today. And that's seen as being clownish or seen as being not very serious. You know, we saw how Boris Johnson in Parliament talked about beauty during lockdown and all that, mysogeny all that contempt came out for an industry that makes more than the British car industry. So the things I learned at university, the things that I've always cared about are power identity, glamor. art, culture. And the beauty industry is a delicious mashup of all the things I really care about. So after university, I went to work on counter for Estee Lauder companies, where I was trained across all the brands. And then I politely stalked my way into the magazine world, which was that very glamorous Sex In The City, Devil Wears Prada, golden age of magazines. And I worked at InStyle and Tatler and Vogue house. And I remember being asked in my interview at Vogue House, you're very well-educated. Does that make you feel more white? It was as microaggressions. That was so truly shocking. I was 22 central London and this is how I was spoken to and now, and what was really sad was that she was giving me a compliment. She thought she was complimenting me.

Henrietta: Can I ask Ateh what your response to that was?

Ateh: Yeah, I was 22 and I remember thinking I've got to answer in a way, so I could be sitting here with you 21 years later. So I said, education doesn't have a color. You either are, or you're not. And then we went on to talk about gang warfare and south London. And I was like, I really wouldn't know about that. I live around the corner, my dad's a diplomat with the UN and I got in, you know, I had the blessing of the HR department and that's where my career started, but that was just such a horrible taste in my mouth of what I had to go through.

Henrietta: As a woman now and your girls growing up, do you feel that with the rhetoric and the conversation that we're having now?... thank goodness. Do you feel that you would have felt in a more empowered place to answer differently if you were a young woman now being exposed to that situation?

Ateh: I think I'm very lucky that I come from a lot of privilege and power. But, you know, my dad's from Nigeria and my mom's from Trinidad. You know, the older you get, the more you realize they were diversity advocates before, that was a word, you know, before there was the language of it. So I think I was very empowered in that way, but the conversations I'm having with my children, there's more words, you know, I witnessed my mum having microaggressions growing up. She'd always go shopping in Harrods. It was the eighties. We were very nouveau riche and bougie, and she'd always have crisp 50 pound notes and we'd always go shopping in Harrods and they would always, people would be served and then they take my mum's money and put it up to the light to check it wasn't counterfeit. So it's things like that. That's a microaggression, you know, the lady behind you, her 50's okay. And my mom would say things like, oh, don't worry, I printed it this morning, it should be fine. And she would always puncture that with humor. So I grew up with that, but I have better language for my girls. I can talk about hair. I can talk about power. You know, they're 10 and they're still going through the nonsense conversations I had. Colorism. One of my girls are mixed. One has blue eyes. One has brown eyes. People are constantly saying to my blue eyed daughter. Oh, you're so pretty. Look at your light eyes. Look at your skin. We are having the same conversations. They are having the same noise about not feeling good enough self esteem, people saying that their hair looks bushy, looks like a lamb, very reductive. So instead of all that internalized self loving I had growing up, I can arm them a little bit more, I think, but they're still having to go through what I went through, which is sad..

Henrietta: That is, I mean, I think it's a illustration of there has been progress, but there's still a long way to go.

Ateh: Exactly.

Henrietta: And I think it's also interesting how we can armour ourselves with the various things that we don't even know that we're doing as, as a way of protecting, like humor, bashing things away to kind of not actually allow things to get under the skin. So we've spoken about what inspired you to get into the beauty industry. And clearly it sounds like there was a lot built into you as , as a young child, there was that connection with color and beauty and magic and glamour as you say.

Ateh: It is an industry of incredible feminine wise, women power, which I really gravitated towards . It's an industry where people who are the bosses are women, and there's not many industries where that is the case where you walk into the room and the boss, the person who's making decisions was a woman, not back in 2001. So that's also why I love the beauty industry. You know, if you're a salon owner, if you're a nail technician, you're the head of your home and the many ways, and it is an industry that allows you to put food on the table. I really love that.

Henrietta: Well, that's amazing. And it seems like the word power is coming up a lot. And I feel like sometimes there can be a division between power and strength and when the power is coming from the right place, from that inner strength, that inner resilience, that inner determination at an amazing cocktail.

Henrietta: So listening to what you've experienced. I think it's easy for our listeners to know how and why you began the education foundation as well. So how did that come about

Ateh: Education is basically the key to power really? And it gives you armour it gives you freedom. I had a very privileged upbringing, but a very chaotic, traumatic upbringing as well. It was kind of wild, the wild west of what my childhood was like, but I also had a private education all the way up to 18. And then I went to an amazing university Bristol university. It opened doors for me. It gave me a Teflon protection. You know, like I can be sitting with Piers Morgan because I've had all that debating skill, all that history education it's like whatever. And also my dad was very scary. So he was like, uh, you know, he passed away recently, but he was Nigerian and he was the product of an amazing kind of colonial education empire. He was a child of empire. So he was educated by Jesuits. He's a very clever Catholic boy. So he was educated by Jesuits in the 1950 for Nigeria who saw him and he went all the way. He did a degree in Cork where he got a double first in Latin. So he went all it took. His brains and his education took him all the way from Nigeria to Cork in 1963, which still blows my mind. And then he went from Cork to America and he didn't pay a penny for his education. And he's got like yet four or five degrees. And he did a PhD in Princeton in a year, which I think was a record. And then off you went to the UN and he was a very powerful, scary, intimidating, and everything in between person. And he taught me what education can do. Do you know what I mean? He taught me how it is a cloak of protection, because you are educated. You can be creative. It's just so many different things. So for me, it's really fundamental and I see every day how my education that has protected me and got me out of many sticky situations. You know what I mean? So for me, I want to empower people and equality, social equality. These are things that really matter to me. And the only way you can do that is by flooding culture, society, and industry, with very educated, diverse people. And how do you do that? You go to school . Also. I hear so many friends, children, which breaks my heart and irritates me say Oxbridge is not for me. I won't be comfortable there. And, you know, we both went to Bristol and I was the only black person to study history in the entire year in 1997. And I remember the first lecture putting my hands up and saying, why am I the only black person in this room? You know, I was quietly crunching. I was like, okay. 64 million people in the UK, how many people of those? I did my numbers and I was crunching. And the number was more than one person was capable to be in that room to study history in 1997. And so why was I the only person in that room? And I just thought, no, I need to help. I need to be the change I want to see. And the more people you can get into industry, into marketing, people who sign checks, people who make decisions, people who on the boards, who are CEOs who have different stories, different things to bring to the table. That's a win-win. So. The education foundation was born out of that. And we've just awarded our first round of funding to black and mixed heritage cosmetic chemists, which is really exciting at London College of Fashion. So this is a new generation of people who are going to go to all the big beauty brands and they will be able to make hair care products because it's their lived experience. They'll be able to think about skincare. You know, my mom is in her seventies and I always say she looks like a tired 40 because her skin is oilier. She doesn't have lines and wrinkles. Her skincare needs a very different to someone who has a lighter skin tone, but she can never, ever get products because things are too rich or oily. But if you have someone in a lab making a product for a mature skin who is thinking about that mom or grandma, this is how you become inclusive.

Henrietta: Absolutely challenging the unconscious bias. And I know it's very timely actually also because it's international women's day, we're recording the week before international women's day. And I think the theme for this is breaking the bias, isn't it for this year, it's a call to action for everybody to challenge their unconscious bias. And I mean, I think your foundation is incredibly inspiring on many levels. I think it's the longterm changing the symbiosis, the diversity on a macro level absolutely has to happen. And it has to begin on an individual level as well. And so what you're saying is that what the foundation appears to offer to me is that it gives that increase in accessibility. But it's also, as you were talking about, something's got your back as well, gives you those tools in your box. And when you're in a situation where you feel like, I know what I'm doing. I can pull that out in those moments where somebody might be using their unconscious bias against me. I would like to segway over to you as a woman. So all the incredible things that you've done as a professional are inspiring and so commendable. Now I know that we've had conversations about that balancing act that juggle, that everybody talks about, you know, you have a very, very busy working schedule and you're also a mum to two children. Tell me about balance. Tell me how it works for you.

Ateh: I want to laugh because as you know, balance to me was a dirty word. It's like, what do you mean balance? That's ridiculous, but nature will always remind you very politely the importance of balance. And that happened for me

Henrietta: Well politely. And then if you don't listen really quite rudely sometimes.

Ateh: Very rudely aggressively, which is what happened to me. So there's always a price to pay. Like I feel that my whole career, my whole life has been one long battle. If I'm going to be really honest, the battle of my childhood, the battle of my career. And it's always just been fight, fight, fight, fight, fight mode. And my body was the dumping ground. There's always a price to pay. And for me, my body was the dumping ground of microaggressions of pain and everything else. So I used sugar. I used eating in a very wild way as my coping mechanism. And I gained 11 stone in weight, gave myself type two diabetes, and that was a massive wake up call for me to be like, there is a reason this is happening because you know, I still struggled to sleep, but for years it was just completely normal for me to go to bed at three or 4:00 AM and then get up 9, 10 AM on repeat, you know, I just crammed more into my day. I'm on a mission and sleep wasn't that important to me. And I just got more done. I got more shit done. And that's the thing. When you do very destructive things, you are often rewarded for it in our society.

Henrietta: It doesn't matter how you get there, if you get that end result, we don't care about the collateral damage to get there on a personal level.

Ateh: Exactly. So, you know, you know, I ballooned in a way I affected my health, but on the opposite side of the scale, if you're anorexic and you have this desirable body, you are rewarded for it in so many different ways, financially, spiritually, like attention. And so the other end of the spectrum, I was wonderful or my imbalance in a funny way. And then I had kids and I was still working. I was double breastfeeding and working. I remember being five months pregnant backstage at fashion week and my camera were falling cause they hadn't eaten all day and they were tired and I was like, let's go get the shot. I was throwing nuts at them and throwing cashews going let's go. Let's go. But I am that thing. I'm a hard nut. I'm really hard. I was five months pregnant with twins and I was like picking up my camera men who were exhausted from shooting 16 hours a day. You know, I do have that warrior energy and then like children were juicy and very healthy. And, you know, ironically being pregnant was the first time, I was very loving to my body because of them and not for me for them. So when I was pregnant, I got a personal trainer. I did light exercise. I ate like a 19 year old Instagrammer. I ate chicken salads and whole grains and blueberries, and I actually lost two stone when I was pregnant with twins, which is hilarious, like, so I lost weight and actually my body was happy when I was pregnant because I was being really loving. And then the minute they came out, I was just destructive again and sugar.

Henrietta: It's interesting how we can apply these things when it's about somebody else. Cause I can imagine as well, if you were giving advice to your best friend or you were giving advice to your children, you would say, eat these lifestyle changes can really make an impact. But when it comes to ourselves, it's not that straightforward.

Ateh: It's my grown-up daughters with doing the things that I was doing. I would come to their house and slap the chocolate cake out of their hands. I would like make them come and go on a mindful walk with me, but I would do the calm app with them. But yeah. Also, you know, you have to do things for yourself. That's what I've learned with good therapy. You can't do it for other people. You have to do it for yourself. And I went to vivid buyer and there was an amazing doctor there who told me, you know, children never listened to you, they watch, you know, and that was, that blew my mind. So my children would be having like hummus and carrot sticks and like a smoothie. And they'd be like, why are you eating a diet coke and a chocolate cake when they were little, when they were two. And I'd be like, don't, don't look at me. Have the smoothie and the carrots, but that's not good enough. So I'm like, I'm still on my journey. I'm still trying to sleep. I'm doing meditation now. I have a long holistic bath every night. I listen to whale music. I'm trying my best. I'm trying to eat better and look after myself. But balance is still difficult because you know that J-Lo Beyonce, they're not balanced people, they didn't get to where they were by being balanced. You have to be imbalanced and you have to work harder and be better to get to that level of success. I am a very competitive, ambitious person, but you know, this doctor told me all your plans are fantastic, but you'll never do any of them if you're dead. And that was really shocking,

Henrietta: A really fantastic phrase. I feel like we're getting lots of quotes out of this, out of this interview. I completely agree. I think balance is not static. It's dynamic, you know, our whole sense of being on every level and a physical level on a physiological level. Our body is constantly trying to keep us within a bandwidth of homeostasis and we're constantly kind of ebbing and flowing between if you think about it as a straight line, either side of that, we're constantly doing it, but the important part of it is, is how you get back to that middle piece. Even if you can't stay there for very long, it's coming back every day. If you can try and come back as close as you can, to that middle piece of homeostasis and your body doesn't have to fight quite so hard. and I think it's also the rich conversation that we had before. It's really interesting one about what motivates our sense of striving, because I think that one of the things that can push us as a balance as well, is that sense of what's driving us away from finding balance within ourselves. Is it this I'm not good enough to find balance unless I push push, push, unless I strive, strive, strive, nothing's going to come to me. It's all of the other emotional, mental experiences that we've had historically as well, that we sometimes need to unpick as to why we push ourselves so hard. You know, I think homeostasis or balance is not about being passive. It's not about doing nothing. It's about finding that sweet spot in the push pull between having times of being calm and grounded and pushing, you know, stress can be really, really healthy. It's really, really important. It's just finding that balance. Isn't it, to make sure that we come back at the end of every day. I mean, I know there are days where your scheduled simply doesn't allow you to sit still, pick your nose, do anything that is in the category of restful. But if there are opportunities at the end of every day to just go and let the breath out, exhale a bit, then that's building in those things every day. And also, I know that we've had conversations about how some dietary changes that you've made. What would you say are the things that have made the biggest impact for you?

Ateh: Um, I would say I have a very unhealthy relationship with foods. I overeat and food is love and food is comfort, but I also have a very kind of self punishing way of eating as well. Like I can go all day without eating any food. And then I binge at the end of the day because I'm so busy. I have a lot of time for it. It's two o'clock and I haven't eaten. It's just wild. And how unhealthy that is in so many different ways in terms of giving yourself space. And I've been in working with Amelia Freer, who said to me there's nothing more important than nourishing your body. Like. What is more important than 20 minutes of nourishing your body, making yourself a breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And it sounds so basic, but if you have someone who's been brought up in a very chaotic, probably quite low, I've got like low self, low high self-esteem. I, I don't have balance. I swing between feeling like I'm doing Beyonce at the super bowl halftime, and then like crushingly low top up. I'd probably swing between the two of those at any given point of the day. And it's learning to study. Loving with food and putting kind words, kind, food, kind, people surrounding yourself with kindness. Like, I think that's really important to me for other people, but I never really think about that towards myself. One of my mottos is action with kindness, these sort of things, but you know, I've got to turn it, as if it's a selfie on myself.

Henrietta: And I think what the yogic philosophy is around how kindness to oneself resonates out to others. So even if you can't at this moment, attach it to being about you, if you can attach it to being about others, which I think sometimes helps when there is that disconnect between being able to do it for yourself.

Ateh: It's really interesting. We'd both be brought up in a very patriarchal mysogenistic culture where taking time for yourself, especially as a woman has seen as selfish or indulgent, and it's battling that inner noise, but I was putting my feet up having like a meditation, which is like, not me, but I'm trying to do that every day. And I remember my husband was like, I'll tell you, he was on the other side of the house. And my daughter, Adana said, daddy, daddy, mommy is doing the meditation. And that made me cry because it was shoving my, my girl, child, my daughter, what taking space for yourself is.. And she was like, no, no, no, mommy's taking space. And hopefully I can give that to her. That can be ingrained in her, but you can't take up space for yourself and that you can be quiet and you can heal yourself. Just like you were saying with me, just doing self was a very positive thing for the household. Also, we have been all doing smoothies every day using your vegan protein powder, which is a game changer!

Henrietta: Amazing and how easy and quick is that? You know, that's a really simple two minute boost of self nourishment for everybody.

Ateh: I never ate breakfast. I was one of those skip breakfast and I was just running on attitude. How was I doing that? When I think about how ridiculous and now I have it on the school run with the girls, we all have a smoothie. They get to choose what berries or whatever goes in. We can put the powder in again. I think I'm giving them loving life, like a loving affirmation. Yeah. I want them to love their body if I don't want any teen angst and I want them to come out swinging, loving themselves.

Henrietta: Well that's amazing. And as you said earlier about they don't listen, they w what was it that you say?

Ateh: They watch, yeah,

Henrietta: true. It's absolutely true. It's like, you know, we have to be the change to see the change. So Ateh you if you could give three things out into the world, from your experience, from everything that you've learned, what would those be

Ateh: a sense of self compassion. 'cause I think that's where most of the wicked, this comes, because if you are self loving yourself, this, this is why Putin's kicking off. If you could just go and really deal with your own shit, please instead of oozing it into the world. So if you have a sense of self-compassion broken people create a lot of chaos and pain. So if you can have that self love, if you can have that self empathy to work on what the real issues are, it will be good for you. It will be good for society. That's number one. Number two is a sense of service. This is a huge, I think the minute you start to think about legacy, how to help people. How, it's not about you, then I think ironically it gives you the most peace and balance, you know, so a sense of service is huge. And then also calm. Whatever that looks like. How can you create a sense of calm and peace? So I moved to the countryside. I grew up in central London, very noisy, chaotic. I gave myself type two diabetes. I knew I had to change my life fundamentally. And so I moved to the Cotswolds. I get a lot of strengths from looking out the window and there's woods, and I hear. birds in the morning. It's quiet. I think I had PTSD from like my childhood, which was very wild and chaotic. And the minute I moved here, I just felt safe and calm and peaceful. It's very healing and also cutting out toxic people, cut out those draining friends who don't give to you in the way you give to them. Do you know what I mean? It's like just cut out all the toxic things, which you know, are not good for you because you are worth protecting and loving. And then from there, very good decisions will flow. Like I will feed myself, I will love myself. I will surround myself. I will make sure my Instagram has got very positive content. If you can just do that in a 360 way, things will be better.

Henrietta: It's like doing a sort of energy audit, isn't it? I mean, it's in the same way that you think about energy is almost as money as a currency. It's where are you spending your money? If you've only got a finite amount of money, energy, where are you spending that? Where can you pull it back? Where can you give more to you or to the people that you care about? And I love that point about service, because I think that there is a sense sometimes where the well-being industry, like it can be a bit indulgent or self-indulgent. There's that balance between nourishing and looking after yourself, but also remembering that we are part of something much bigger. And as we were saying earlier, how we, how we treat ourselves as how we need to treat others around us. And I think that's an important one to remember as well. There's a beautiful book by, I don't know if you've come across it by a Satish Kumar called Soil, Soul and Society. And it's about that interconnection between ourselves and our sense of stability and the nourishment of the society that we live in and the nourishment of the world that we live in. And I think, you know, our contribution to that is how we. How do we give to that? How do we contribute to that?

Ateh: I completely agree with you. The girls were six or seven when we moved here and we would just go for a walk and we were looking at rotting fruit. It was autumn or something. And my daughter, Ola, who is a poet and an artist said to me, oh, mommy, isn't it just so wonderful. How nature is just a natural recycler? Yeah, can we not tap into that energy and just realize that we are part of nature. We are nature. Yeah.

Henrietta: Who is the greatest representation of strength, power, resilience, wisdom, everything that you've spoken about or that we've spoken about in this conversation? Mother nature. She is the Uber she's remarkable. And we've got so much to learn from her. And again, you know, you were saying about when we're out of balance, sometimes you get that gentle nudge and sometimes we get that. And then sometimes we get that very rude awakening and she does it. Mother nature does exactly that. Does that. You know, can you listen to me? The trees aren't doing so well and then suddenly raging storms or whatever it might be. So, yeah, fiercely wild, fiercely powerful, just like you. You're incredible. Um, I love talking to you. I could talk for hours, um, and I'm just really grateful for you sharing your story and your wisdom to everybody, that's going to be listening to this. And, um, I really, I really look forward to there being another opportunity again, soon as well.

Ateh: Yes. And thank you so much for what you're putting into the world. You are a healer. Thank you.

Henrietta: Bless you. Thank you so much. Lovely Ateh. Take good care and enjoy the rest of your day.

Ateh: Thank you.

Voice-over: We hope you enjoyed that conversation. Please do let us know what you thought. Rate us on iTunes, follow us, share, and spread the word with others. This has been a wild nutrition podcast with Henrietta Norton. It's produced by Phil Bodger special. Thanks to Nina Humphreys who composed our theme tune and everyone at wild nutrition for their support. You can subscribe to wild nutritional podcast on apple podcasts and Stitcher, and you can also find us on our website, wild nutrition.com. .