Jameela Jamil, Unfiltered

It's not an imposter complex, I'm just an imposter.

Hello, Glamour.

This is Jameela Jamil, and this is my Glamour Unfiltered.

My greatest achievement as a woman

is daring to make mistakes and then carry on.

It is something highly discouraged amongst women

that we are supposed to be anything other than perfect,

and if we falter, then we're supposed to disappear forever.

If anyone finds us annoying,

we must remove ourselves from society

rather than just learn, grow, change,

and keep it moving, like men.

My greatest challenge as a woman that I've had to overcome

is feeling as though I need to be approved of

in every single way at any cost to my mental

or physical health.

And so that's all the ways in which I starved myself

trying to fit in by being skinny enough

or all the ways in which I suppressed my true personality

or my opinions or my pain or my sadness.

I didn't know that I had permission to live a life for me.

It takes a while to undo that programming

of your expectation, not only of yourself,

but of other women, of undoing that internalized misogyny.

So getting rid of all of that and freeing myself

has been my biggest challenge but my biggest win.

Unfortunately, the next big battle for women's equality

is one that we already fought and won before,

which is our right to bodily autonomy

when it comes to whether or not we wish to give birth.

How is it possible that we are having our right

to be able to govern our own bodies taken away from us?

I would never have been able to live the life

that I have lived had I been forced

to give birth when I was 26.

I'm so proud that I come from a country

that has at least up until now protected that right of mine

to govern my own future and to govern my own health.

I'm to die on this hill fighting for this,

and I can't believe

that we are not onto other more important issues.

But currently the violence against women

physically, mentally, and emotionally, and psychologically

is almost at an all time high.

I remember the exact day I felt my most empowered,

and it's when I went to a lesbian birthday party.

The atmosphere in that room was unbelievable.

For the first time in my life, I saw a room full of women

who were not positioning themselves towards the male gaze,

which is something that straight women especially do,

whether or not men are in the room,

because they've been conditioned to make themselves smaller,

to not give out all of their opinions,

to not be as funny as they really are,

to be as vulgar as they really are.

And these women were just bold. They were unapologetic.

They were having so much fun together.

They weren't reducing any part of themselves

because they were around people

who found the bigger they were more attractive

and they looked comfortable in their skin

and their bodies and with aging,

and aging was considered sexy and beautiful in that room.

And I felt so limitless.

It was such an incredible feeling.

And it made me really sad afterwards

realizing how many of us have been trained

and conditioned to mask ourselves

and position ourselves towards this expectation

because that room felt like the first time I'd ever seen

who women really were when no one was looking.

I used to want to clap back against misogyny

and I did want to call a sort of politician

a freshly wanked cock, which I now regret,

but I don't think I want to clap back at misogyny anymore.

I don't think clapping back's getting us anywhere.

Men are in a lot of pain,

and I think men are being brutalized by our society

just in a very different way to the way that we are.

And I actually think we have far more in common

than we realize, and we are all being hurt by patriarchy.

The violence that men receive from other men,

I mean, they are victims of more violent acts

per se than women,

even though we receive much more terrifying and pervasive

and sexual violence perhaps than they will.

Men aren't allowed to show their sensitivity.

They are just kind of kept in these cages of stereotypes

of what being masculine is.

So much of what we see as a hatred of women

is actually a fear of women and also a jealousy of women

that women have each other, and that women have spaces

to talk about our problems and our pain,

and that women have permission to show our pain.

We are all just being brutalized

by the same system in different ways.

And I wanna whistle blow on it and I wanna try

and fix it by spending more time with animals than humans.

No shade to humans, but animals are far superior.

And so the time I spend with my dogs in my bed

where we're all sharing snacks

is to me my favorite time in my life.

And if my boyfriend is there, it's even better.

But wholesome morning, cuddles in bed with us and the dogs

is how I protect my brain before I open my phone

and I see the horrors of the world.

I'm very protective of that first hour.

I have never ever had self-confidence

or self-belief in this industry.

And I've been doing this for 16 years.

And I am literally unprepared

for almost everything I've ever done.

I'd never acted before I was in The Good Place.

I'd never hosted before I was on T4.

I'd never been on the radio before Radio 1.

I really don't know what I'm doing

and I really mean that very serious.

It's not an imposter complex, I'm just an imposter.

And I think that is the fun and the joy and the beauty

and the chaos that has been my life.

Men are hired for who they're going to become,

and women tend to be more likely to be hired

for what they've already achieved.

And that's not fair and it's not balanced.

I love to run towards failure

and see if I can run all the way through back to success.

And I think it's because I don't think

failure is embarrassing.

I think failure just means that you were willing to try

when success wasn't guaranteed.

And I think that that's noble,

but, you know, maybe that's just me,

but my delulu did come true, lulu.

I have a very healthy relationship with rejection.

And so I don't see it

as if I am a terrible, worthless human being.

It means it wasn't the right time, the right moment,

or I wasn't prepared enough, and that's okay,

and that's a note to maybe go back

and work harder and try again.

Failure is how I learn.

Mistakes are literally how we neurologically

are more likely to hold on to important information.

And failure also leads to way funnier stories than success.

No one likes a winner, okay, no one,

especially not British people.

So I only consider all of my most mortifying public moments

especially as just fodder for the pub.

I look forward to failure because of that.

If I win, I'm just dull and smug.

I had very traditional metrics for success

as to awards, career, money, et cetera,

but then I got all of the things

and I was still miserable and I was fucking lonely.

And since then, I have pulled back in my career

and decided to spend more time indulging in pleasure

and going on holidays with the people that I love.

And I know that that is immensely privileged

because I have chosen not to have children,

which for me is a fantastic decision.

I just want to be there

for the highs and lows of the people I love.

And to me, if I can do that successfully

and make those people feel loved and heard and seen,

then I've succeeded.

Mostly it just pisses me off

'cause it's so arbitrary and ridiculous.

I find an aging female face beautiful.

And I am really excited for my third act.

And I think if we can find older men sexy

and call them zaddy, then we should all learn all genders

to find kinder words for older women

because I think they're hot as fuck.

I love wrinkles.

I love time and gravity.

I hope I leave this industry rather than succumb

to trying to stay aesthetically young enough

to please a bunch of patriarchal monsters

who've told me that the face

that I was born with isn't enough.

And I completely understand anyone

who does succumb to that pressure

or who enjoys that aesthetic

and who wants to look young forever.

I think that's fine. I know exactly where that comes from.

I would love to be a really, really chaotic

wild little old Indian woman.

One was from my therapist the first time she met me,

which was like a verbal bitch slap.

I was telling her about all these, you know,

these things that people were doing to me

and these ways in which I was being taken advantage of.

And she said, Well, darling, a doormat's already lying down

before people wipe their feet all over it.

And what's even more painful is that she was right.

And I was a doormat, and there was a part of me

that had to take accountability,

that I was allowing people in some way,

gesturing to people in some way,

giving off some sort of energy

that made them feel like that was acceptable.

And so that advice changed my life.

The greatest male ally in my life is my boyfriend.

He's the greatest champion I've ever had.

And he is someone who has taught me

how to stand up for myself, including to him,

which I think is very empowering and very cool.

And he taught me how to fight and get lairy.

And that's great.

And he's always looked at me as though I'm insane

when I feel as though I can't do something,

like I don't deserve to do something.

He's the one who has taught me that it's ridiculous

'cause it doesn't occur to many men

that they shouldn't just try anyway.

And he's infused that male entitlement into me.

And now I've got it. I'm riddled with it.

And now I'm just gonna see...

You know, I treat everything like a wedding.

You know, just gonna crash a wedding, grab the cake,

snog some people, and then get thrown out.

But James has massively emboldened me as a person,

and most importantly, taken away my phone

when I've become too annoying on the internet.

To be a Glamour Woman of the Year

just feels like a massive honor.

I have loved this magazine from the very first issue,

and so I feel always very lucky

if I'm ever included in this ceremony.

And it's one of the best nights of the year

because there is a feeling of so much love

and so much solidarity in that room

and so many women that I admire and really just fangirl over

and want to have a pathetic little selfie with.

And so just the fact that I get invited is enough,

but to be honored is silly,

and I actually think it was a mistake.