‘Let her finish!’ Miriam Cates clashes with Nadia Essex over marriage being ‘lethal’ to women

There's a growing anti-marriage movement emerging in South Korea

Last month, a major pop star made headlines when she said, if I don't want any children, why marry

A view that is now being echoed by thousands of women. So this afternoon, we're asking

should women be turning away from marriage? It's going to get feisty, isn't it

Joining me now is celebrity relationship expert Nadia Essex and Gibi Nude's very own wonderful Miriam Kate

Good to see you, ladies. Thank you so much for joining me. Now, this is obviously happening in Korea, where women are under too much pressure to have careers and birth rate is falling through the floor

Let's come to you first, Miriam, on this one. I know you are passionate about the fact that we are an ageing population

What do you make of the situation in Korea? And could you see it happening here? Hi, Dawn. Well, I think the first thing to say is that South Korea is a very different society to here culturally

And you'll see that the birth rate in South Korea is absolutely catastrophically low

I think it's something like 0.7 or 0.8 children for women. It's still about 1.4 here, which is low, but obviously a lot higher

And the problem in South Korea specifically and many Southeast Asian countries is that whilst the world has modernized in some ways

so women now get great educations, there's a lot of pressure on them to have great careers

The pressure on them to do everything at home has not changed

So it a really gendered society Women are expected to do everything in the home raise the children do the domestic chores be the perfect daughter whilst also having a perfect career And I think that is the problem specifically in South Korea that women just can

do it all. They don't want to do it all. We don't have that situation here. And in a lot of Northern

and Western Europe, society is a lot more equal. Men share a lot more of the domestic chores and

the childcare. So we are not like South Korea. It is not that bad. Women and men do not hate each

other here like they do in South Korea. Having said that, there are problems. There have been

changes. There was a report out in the New Statesman last week showing some polling about

young women and how they feel about young men and how they don't understand young men, actually

So we do have problems here. But it is still the case that the vast majority of young women do want

to get married and do want to have children. There are problems with how we get to that point

But I think women who hate men are in the very, very tiny minority. I couldn't. I don't want to hate them. Couldn't eat a whole one, though, mind you

Nadia, let's come to you first on this one, Nadia. OK, we still have a gender pay gap in this country

We still have every single survey says that women are still responsible

for most of the domestic duties in the home and for childcare

What do you make of this? Well, I also think as well, just to take it to the real extremes

we have to remember that men are women's apex predator. You are more likely to be killed by the man that you marry

than any other 8 billion person on this planet. So it one of those things where it like it shouldn be entered too lightly And I think it really important that women feel empowered For the first time in history we as women no longer rely on men for anything

We don't need them for houses, credit cards, cars, movement in any way

So we're judging men based on their character. And the men are simply falling short

They are just not up to par, which is why I think a lot of people are

especially if you go on social media platforms like TikTok, there is a whole movement of women that are childless and single and they are just living

their best life and more and more women are seeing this as aspirational I don't I think marriage is

a wonderful thing when you find a partner and you you fall in love and you want to get married

that's lovely but I don't think we should be pressuring women to get married because

it can be lethal for some women. Miriam? Well, I think that there's a lot to unpack there

Firstly, as a biologist, that's a complete misuse of the word predator. Of course, men do not hunt and eat women, to your point earlier

Have you seen the Epstein files? They do. Have you seen the Epstein files? They absolutely do

It's to do with food chains. I think we should probably park that definition. But actually, women who are married are the least likely to face domestic abuse

less likely than women who are cohabiting and less likely than women who are single

That's not to say that married women don't suffer abuse. Of course they do. Married men also suffer abuse

But actually statistically married women are the safest Married mothers are the happiest of all women according to many many surveys So no of course marriage is perfect Of course there are marriages that are difficult

But generally speaking, whilst men may be in Nadia's word predatory to women sometimes

they are also women's greatest defenders. And we see that particularly teenage girls are much safer when they live with their father

They're much more likely to be protected from other predatory men. I mean, you're shaking your head

But that's what the statistics say. No, you're more protected by women

No, you're reading it. Hold on. Nadia, let Miriam finish talking. Men, all the jobs that men do that are absolutely crucial to society

that we as women would not be safe or able to exist if those men didn't do those jobs for us

OK, Nadia. But we could do those jobs. We could do those jobs. You don't want to fight on the front line of the war

You're saying that, you know, we need men to do all these jobs

Yes, because women do all the other jobs. make it possible for men to do those jobs but like we know in the war that if hang on hang on

like we know let nadia finish let nadia finish your point thank you like what happened in the

war when all the men went off to war the women left were left over and we took over all the jobs

so the fact that you were like oh we we don't need men we want men and men are the yin to our yang

and they are important as part of our species but this whole like trying to gloss over what

actually is happening. Women are fundamentally happier when they de-centiment