Kirstie Allsopp opens up about sexism and says women 'can't have it all'
Kirstie Allsopp has admitted she doesn’t think women can have it all as she revealed her social life has “suffered” since having children.
Asked by Good Housekeeping magazine whether women can have it all, the 48-year-old property expert said: “No, I don’t.
“A famous TV personality once said to me ‘You can have a career, you can have kids and you can have a great social life, but you cannot have all three.’
“She was right. The latter is the thing that’s suffered for me. Now the kids are getting older, that part of my life is starting to open up a bit more, and I’m grabbing hold of it.”
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The Location, Location, Location presenter also revealed she’s been starting to claw back some of her pre-kids social life now that her children are older.
“Last year, I had my first girls’ weekend away since before Oscar was born. Let's just say that four days in the sun with three friends was exactly what I needed!”
The property and craft expert has been on our screens for 20 years, but says her time within the industry hasn’t been without difficulty and that she often feels frustrated that television roles are largely dominated by men.
“It’s not just on screen,” she told Good Housekeeping.
“I once said to my agent, ‘Phil gets all this voiceover work and I don’t get any; where am I going wrong?’ And she said, ‘According to advertisers, women make 95% of purchasing decisions and they don’t want to be told what to do by other women.’
“Things like that make it very difficult and there’s a huge amount of it still going on.”
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When asked if she’d faced sexism in the industry herself, Allsopp said: “For a long time, I thought I hadn’t.
“I thought, ‘No, it's completely equal with Phil and I.’ Then I realised that the only reason I'm paid what I'm paid is because I'm pegged to a man.
“I see sexism everywhere in this industry – it’s full of male bullies who don't like being told what to do and they have women sitting on either side of them who are too afraid to stand up for themselves.”
The presenter doesn’t believe there will be an improvement until women speak up for each other.
“It’s not easy, but it's in our power,” she continued. “I was impressed when BBC presenter Samira Ahmed won her equal pay tribunal; she was largely supported by other women.
“It was the same with the Harvey Weinstein case – women supported other women. That’s what we need more of.”
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The TV presenter also opened up about dealing with negativity on social media that she finds hard to escape.
“Nowadays, there are stories all over Twitter and Instagram, and half of them are not true,” she said.
“I've found it hard to live with that and there are times when the abuse has been so bad that I've thought, ‘No, I'm out. I don't want this.’”
Read the full Kirstie Allsopp interview in the July issue of Good Housekeeping, on sale from 3 June. It is available in all supermarkets and online at MagsDirect
Kirstie: Keep Crafting And Carry On is available to watch on All4 now
