Season 2 Intro - The history of "normal"

Jenn Wilson:

Welcome to Season 2 of the Irregular Humans podcast with me, Jen Wilson, also known as Irregular Jen.

Irregular Human celebrates our differences and our uniquenesses, and there are some really important reasons behind that. Now, in the world, there’s a lot of talk about equality, access, inclusion, equity, but I think that doesn’t go far enough. I think that the diversity of our human experiences and identities are actually our greatest strength.

I think that acceptance and inclusion are just another way of judging some people as less entitled, less worthy than other people, or judging difference as not normal.

A good friend of mine recently said, “When you go around, Jen, saying ‘no to normal, be more irregular’, that rejection of normal feels like you’re dissing people whose lives are ordinary. People who are just regular, average people who might be straight, or married, or working 9–5, or enjoying everyday traditional things. Not neurodivergent, not disabled, not queer, not different. All your guests are that.”

Well, that’s true, but it’s not my intention to dis or put down anyone for living an ordinary, regular kind of life at all. That is really not what this is about.

My intention is to question the endorsement of normal as the default way of living. There’s a set of assumptions about what normal should look like, and that if you don’t fit in with that, you’re somehow less — not good enough.

I’m saying no to the lack of meaningful choice in the specific standards that are held up as normal. I’m saying no to seeing anyone other than normal as abnormal.

And I want to put that in historical context. My guest in Season 1, Amy Butterworth — my very first guest — talked about this a little bit, but I’m going to go into it in a bit more detail.

The concept of normal, as we understand it today, is an invention. It emerged in the 19th century. Before this, the word “normal” was understood almost exclusively as a technical term in geography, physics, that sort of thing — meaning average.

In the late 19th century, thinkers like Francis Galton, the founder of eugenics, used these statistical norms to argue that society should actively rid itself of “defectives” who fell too far from the desired norm.

The medical field adopted “normal” to mean healthy or functioning. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders — the DSM — codified these standards and added social bias to pathologise certain behaviours, such as classifying homosexuality as abnormal.

I am someone who has ADHD — Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. As someone who has ADHD, I don’t experience it as attention deficit, or hyperactivity, or even as a disorder, really. I experience it as attention that doesn’t always go where I want it to. I have loads of attention on the things that matter to me. I can get hyper‑focused and really pay attention to things, but it might not be attention to the things that society, or a teacher in a classroom, wants me to focus on.

As for hyperactivity, I’m not that classic ADHD “naughty little boy climbing the walls”. I never was. My brain, however, goes at a million miles an hour.

So the name ADHD is kind of defined by the ways it inconveniences other people, rather than by the ways people who have it experience it.

Schools have adopted standardised tests and grades not just as academic tools, but as mechanisms that classify our children as normal or deficient. It became normal to sort children into classes based on their ability to use officially endorsed teaching methods and standard ways of doing things to learn.

We know that people have many different ways of learning, and that highly intelligent people can struggle with conventional, mainstream methods of schooling. And it’s not because they’re not intelligent or capable — it’s because they can’t do it the way society expects them to do it. The “normal” way.

Going back into history, after World War II, Western governments sought to stabilise the economy and population, so marriage was held up as the foundation of a stable society — the normal way to be. The nuclear family.

Women were pushed out of their wartime jobs and back into being stay‑at‑home mums, with a breadwinner dad, and that became the norm.

Working 9 to 5 was designed for a man going out to work who has a wife at home handling unpaid domestic labour. This created a normal expectation for workers to work a 40‑hour week or more.

This convention has continued, even though women have entered the workplace. And somehow, magically, everyone is supposed to balance a normal full‑time job with normal working hours alongside the normal role of primary caregiver. It just doesn’t work.

Maintaining this system — or doing anything or being anything outside of it — has meant that those who don’t conform are labelled abnormal or deviant. If you’re queer, if you’re single, if you don’t get married and have children and live in a nuclear family kind of way, it’s seen as deviance: broken homes, unconventional lifestyles, and so on.

That is shifting now, but we’re also seeing a massive pushback — a push back into conventional 9‑to‑5 structures and binary gender roles.

These are the constructs I want to question and challenge, and that I want to encourage others to question and challenge too. Not because I want to challenge you if you’ve chosen a life that looks normal — if that’s your choice, great. I celebrate that for you as much as I celebrate anyone else. I admire the ease I imagine you might have living a more conventional life than the one I do.

But can we let that conventional, average, ordinary life not be the standard that everyone is expected to meet? Can we make it just as easy — and just as worthy of celebration — when people live differently and do different things?

This is what “irregular” is all about. It’s about consent, choice, personal agency, and using our power to connect and create communities that shape things differently.

All of the guests on this podcast have chosen to go their own irregular way in some form. Many of them are queer, neurodivergent, chronically ill, or marginalised because of their skin colour or another socially defined difference — labelled as less than normal.

But not all of them are. This season, for example, you’ll hear from Christina Poulton, who talks about her unconventional approaches to supporting non‑profit, voluntary, and charity organisations. This doesn’t come from her identity being different — in fact, she absolutely questioned being on the podcast, saying, “I’m not irregular, Jen.”

But everything she does is irregular because she challenges standard ways of doing things when they aren’t effective, inclusive, or beneficial. She cuts through bureaucracy and finds creative possibilities that create real social impact. She’s being the change simply by doing things differently.

For me, stepping away from normal ways of living was personally liberating. Trying to live up to 9‑to‑5, monogamous, straight standards was stifling me. It hurt me. It left me burnt out, overwhelmed, and depressed.

Letting go of that was liberating not just for me, but because of the difference I can now make in the world when I don’t try to show up that way.

So if you’re someone who’s ready to question normal — whether it really fits you — and you’re ready to stop struggling and start celebrating your own irregular path through life, keep listening. Especially if social systems and norms are making that hard for you.

This season will include more solo episodes from me alongside guest episodes, where I’ll share my consent‑led models and approaches for doing things differently, building communities, and creating a kinder, fairer, safer way of being.

It’s a rebellious thing to do — and sometimes the smallest, quietest acts of personal rebellion become huge breakthroughs. You’ll hear from guests who’ve made those breakthroughs in their own ways.

As you listen to Season 2, remember to check the show notes for links to guests and their work, as well as links to me and mine. I run the Irregular Membership — £26 a month — which is the best way I have of supporting people on their irregular journey.

I also offer programmes and one‑to‑one support to help challenge the harms of normal, unlearn limiting beliefs, and dismantle what this paradigm has taught us.

Later this year, I’ll also be publishing my book on this. But whether you’re a marginalised outsider or someone using your privilege and creativity to help build a future that doesn’t demand normal or conformity — you are irregular.

You’re shaping something beyond that narrow, historical notion of normal. And I truly believe a future where normal no longer exists will be better for all of us.

Thanks for listening — and I hope you enjoy Season 2.