For years, the conversations between women across the marketing and advertising industry happened very quietly. Whether they were in meeting rooms or group chats, these women were exhausted by the same questions, the same expectations, and the same things they were repeatedly told to simply accept.
Now, Jasmin Bedir, Carly Pelham and Jen Dobbie, three women who have spent decades navigating those conversations are putting them on record in their new podcast, the Fck It List.
The podcast, which launched in May via the Nova Entertainment podcast network, is aimed at Australian women aged 35–60 – professionals, parents, leaders, and changemakers who have spent years carrying the mental load and questioning why so many things are still accepted as normal.
Born from the Fck the Cupcakes movement, each episode explores whether a topic belongs on “the fck it list” — from impossible beauty standards and invisible labour to algorithms shaping behaviour, scarcity mindsets, and the pressure to “have it all” — with expert guests joining the conversation.
Speaking at the podcast’s launch event on Monday night, the trio explained that the idea came from years of conversations that kept returning to the same frustrations.
“I started Fck the Cupcakes in 2021 because I was tired,” Bedir said. “Tired of performative cupcakes on International Women’s Day. Tired of a system that really ruins it for women — and for everyone else in it. And honestly, five years on, I’m still tired.
“But now I’m furious and fcking funny about it, which is a much better combination.
“It’s three women, decades of receipts, and the kind of conversations we’ve been having off-mic for years. We’re basically giving women permission to name the thing that needs to get into the bin.”
For Bedir, the podcast also comes at a time where conversations around equality and inclusion have become harder to have publicly.
“LinkedIn is de-prioritising a lot of our content, particularly when we’re talking about diversity and inclusion,” she said.
“It feels like equality is not du jour anymore. It feels like now we’re going through an economic contraction, everything we’ve been doing in media, advertising and marketing is being seen as a nice-to-have.”
Rather than retreat, Bedir said the group felt the opposite response was needed.
“If women who have been doing this work are going quieter and quieter, we actually have to do the opposite,” she said.
“And a podcast felt like the logical next step because we can self-produce it, we can have deeper conversations, and hopefully create some kind of movement.”
Dobbie said one of the most important parts of the format was making sure the podcast didn’t simply become an echo chamber.
“We’re aware that we are wildly privileged and might all seem to have very similar views and similar backgrounds, so we wanted to make sure we were having conversations with experts too,” she said.
“The conversations we’ve been having have completely blown us away.”
The podcast format, she added, allows the hosts to explore complicated topics with both depth and humour.
“Podcasts really allow you to go deep and wide. We’ve had really deep conversations, but we’re also able to have lighter moments.”
That balance has already shaped some of the show’s most unexpected moments, including one early clip involving “feminist donkeys” that quickly gained attention.
For Pelham, creating a space that welcomes different perspectives was equally important.
“We didn’t want it to be a middle-classing podcast by any means,” she said.
“We had a very serious discussion before we launched about the fact that it couldn’t be that. We want to look at things from all angles and understand different perspectives.”
She added that feedback from male listeners has highlighted the importance of creating conversations rather than divisions.
“The feedback I’ve received from the male audience has been that we very much do that. Nobody is going to agree on everything, and that’s completely fine. We can have intelligent conversations, debate things and have different points of view.”
The trio also wanted to ensure the production matched the seriousness of the conversations they were having.
“We didn’t want anyone to think, ‘oh look, it’s another person with a microphone,’” Dobbie said. “We thought about this really carefully. We’re researching it and scripting it properly — we wanted to make sure from a content perspective that we’re doing this seriously.”
Ultimately, The Fck It List is less about complaining and more about questioning the systems, expectations and behaviours that have become so normalised they often go unchallenged.
“So, we’re putting it on the record,” Dobbie said. “Each episode, we debate whether a thing — like impossible body standards, the algorithm, the scarcity mindset, or having it all — belongs on the fck it list.”
“We’re bringing in expert guests who aren’t afraid to say the things that needs saying.”
The Fck It List is available via Nova Podcasts, the Nova Player, YouTube and all major podcast platforms.
