Woman's Hour - 10/09/2025

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. Hello, this is Newell McGovern, and you're listening to The Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to the programme. Well, in a moment, Catherine Viner, editor-in-chief of The Guardian, with investigative journalist Lucy Osborne and Sharing Calle. We speak to them about the actor Noel Clark losing his libel case against the Guardian over their sexual misconduct investigation. Now, some say it is time to change.

change libel laws in the UK. We will also get into that. Also today, finding a comfortable bra after breast cancer. We're going to hear from the surgeon who's trying to revolutionise what is on offer. The Irish comedian Emma Doran is in town, so she'll be dropping by as well. Her comedy draws on her life and womanhood, whether that is who to avoid at the schoolgate or getting a UTI. Emma was a teen mother and was considered scandalous at the time It happened when she grew up in Dublin and I wondered if any of you were teen mothers and how was

it for you? You can text the program the number is 84844 on social media, we're at BBC Woman's Hour or you can email us through our website for a WhatsApp message or a voice note the number is 0-3700 100444 Plus you may have heard of the trauma

responses fight or flight maybe even freeze but we're going to talk about the fourth F, thawning with Dr. Ingrid Clayton. Do stay with us for a thought-provoking discussion on why some people feel that need to please, but really

it's a way to keep them safe. Now, to the women who took on Noel Clark. On August 22nd, the High Court rejected Noel Clark's claim that accusations against him by more than 20 women were false and part of a conspiracy. The writer, actor and producer

of the Kidult Hood trilogy sued the Guardian News and media over seven articles and a podcast that were published between April 2021 and March 22 in which more than 20 women accused him of sexual misconduct. He was seeking 70 million pounds in damages.

In a high court judgment and a 220 page document, Mrs Justice Stain rejected Clark's claims and ruled the newspaper had succeeded in both its defences of truth and public interest. I'm joined, I'm delighted to say in the studio, by Catherine Viner, editor-in-chief of the Guardian. Good morning.

Great to be here, you know. And we're also joined by Lucy Osborne and Shearing-Calais, the investigative journalists who uncovered the story. Good morning to you both. Good morning. Well, you're all very welcome. And let me start with you, Catherine. What did it feel like on August 22nd after this ordeal when the judge found in favour of the Guardian? Yeah, we've been four years. It had been six weeks in court. And it really was a thrilling moment. It was a real very very very very.

vindication for Guardian journalism. I think it was a great moment for journalism in Britain generally. I was thrilled that the judge so comprehensively backed our journalists. And most of all, I was thrilled for how much the judge backed our witnesses. We had 22 women in our first story. We had many more women to speak to us and come to court. And I think it was such a vindication for them to see the judge saying in black and white that they've spoken the truth. You know, I had listened to your podcast as well about this. And Sharon, you ought to let Lucy know you were being sued, I believe, just not very long after you were having your baby, Lucy. How long?

I think it was two days after I gave birth. So you were calling Sharon Lucy to tell her this news. And I can't imagine what the past few years have been like. But perhaps we can talk about August 22nd for a moment, what it felt like for you for. for a shorn and then to you lucy well it's been such a long journey for all of us and of course for the women who spoke to us for the story and came to court for us and so to see that judgment come out is very long um 220 pages yeah so i'm you know i'm reading it i'm digesting it and it felt so good to finally see in a court of law the women believed you know they've been through so

much they came to court for us they did not have to do that they chose to do that and i think for them it's just been tremendously vindicating and has felt like really this chapter of their lives has ended now with a high court judge saying yes you were being truthful about this and so you know it's a day i'll always remember absolutely you're a little one lucy must be a few years old now yeah he's three and a half now my goodness so that's really the timeline yeah absolutely i mean it's been i mean it's been a real uh emotional roller coaster for us as as journalists over the last four and a half years. But as Shiren said, I mean, it's not just the court case.

This is all the build-up to it as well. And that's been, yeah, difficult for us as journalists, but in particular for the women who were facing counter-allegations from Noel Clark and his legal team right the way up until court and they were being faced with, in some cases, threats of legal action reported to the police, getting horrible legal letters from Clark's team.

So it's been such a journey for them. And I actually spoke to one of the witnesses yesterday who was saying how it was, having had her credibility, you know, doubted and scrutinized for so long, to then have this judgment. It just means so much because she'd even sort of started to have, like, question her own sort of moral line. and her own sort of sense of right and wrong.

So to have this in black and white from the judge, it just meant so much to her. And she said she sort of finally feels seen and heard. Let me go back. I was reading Catherine when you wrote, sometimes you need to pull on the thread. But what was it that started the trail of this case? Well, we obviously get lots of threads at the Guardian.

And you can't pull on all of them. So it's trying to work out which ones might lead somewhere. And I think, Shiren, were you? No, it was Lucy. It was both of us. You were brought in straight away when we had the first tip off. And it moved quite quickly, didn't it? Yeah, so we received a tip from two sources

who were connected to many other people in the industry who had been hearing stories about Noel Clark's conduct towards women on film and TV sets. And I always remember being asked. by Paul Lewis, our investigations editor to, you know, just make a few calls, check it out. I knew I'd be working with Lucy, who I'd never met before, but I knew by reputation and was very excited to work with her. And I remember Lucy and I, it was during the pandemic, so we were doing everything remotely, and we're calling women up.

And every woman that we spoke to not only had a story, but also knew of someone else they'd worked with who also had a story or to give us a name of someone else on a film on TV set that might be worth speaking to. and so I don't know how it was for you Lucy but for me certainly I think within days we realised that there was potentially some serious allegations here. Yeah and I think that we were

really quickly we were starting to see patterns between these women's behavior that they were reporting Sharon and I were obviously having separate conversations with women who quite often didn't know each other and yet they were reporting very very similar things using the same kind of language or reporting the same kind of language from Clark

climbing like a tree I think it was the one that really stood out for us tell two women that he wanted to climb them like a jury. And these were women in completely different geographical areas that didn't know one another, and so the language was the same. I want to bring to our listeners a little off from one of the women who came forward in the investigation. This is Lisa Graham, and she gave evidence at the trial,

and she's given her permission for us to broadcast her interview from the guardians today in Focus podcast. This is the full interview is on the 8th of September. She spoke about the day she first met Noel Clark and his subsequent behaviour. So when I first met Noel, it was at Bournem of Comic Conny in 2016. I was about 27 and I was his guest assistant, so I was looking after him that day. He was really friendly, but he was quite childish. He reminded me of the boys when I had gone to university.

He were like 18, 19 years old. He were just thinking that they were funnier than they were. So, yeah, in the beginning, I was like, okay, who's cool, we're chatting. And then as a day progressed, it was as though every time he'd get bored, he'd just slide further into, like, really inappropriate behaviour. It began with comments about fans at the convention. Rating women out of ten and making comments like, oh, yeah, I'd do her. And then a very heavily pregnant woman walks by,

and he basically turns round to me, like staring me in the face and goes, 10 out of 10 would bang her because I can't put another baby in her. He was bored. Like less people will come into him and he would just be like, oh, hey, you know, let's go have sex. And I was like, I have a boyfriend. He's like, oh, what he doesn't know about isn't going to hurt him.

And I was just like, no, I'm not interested. And he didn't stop. He just repeatedly kept pointing and being like, let's go have sex, let's go have sex, let's go have sex, let's go have sex. To the point where you realize that it's not a joke that he was being deadly serious, his hand came, spayed and touched my thigh, like, between my legs on my inner thigh. And it was so close to my panty line that I remember just kind of pulling away and I had moved my chair. at like an angle away from him, but I could only move it so far while still doing my job.

That moment is just like burned into my memory. I just had the crazy urge and I reached out to the journalists and was like, hey, just so you should know, he did this to me and if he did this to me, then he's very likely he had done this to other people.

That was Lisa there. one of the women describing her encounter with Noel Clark. Sharon, were you surprised that the women were willing to go to court? No, we had really strong relationships with these women. I always say to my sources that my responsibility does not end when we publish. I'm always available to talk with them post-publication. And these are deep relationships that Lucy and I built with these women over time. but of course you know going to court is a really daunting prospect it was a many year process

you know four years from publication of the article and people move on with their lives you know they have children they have childcare responsibilities they have work and so to see 26 truth witnesses come to court for the guardian in the end I think for me personally was one of the most moving experiences of my life you're nodding Catherine it was just amazing you know because to voluntarily put yourself in the line of a cross-examination when you're going to be asked about your sex life, about how much you've been drinking, what you were wearing, really quite inappropriate, personal questions,

told that you were a liar, to voluntarily do that for the Guardian, for the truth, it was really moving for all of us. And this was a civil case rather than a criminal one. Perhaps you'd like to elaborate on that, Lucy, because it does have consequences for the women giving evidence. Yeah, so one thing we've sort of learned since the case, I think we were all quite surprised at some of the lines of questioning that were coming out. I mean, as Kath said, the women were asked about their sexual histories.

They were accused of being flirts, liars, and all kinds of myths and stereotypes were coming out during the case, whether that was during their cross-examination or in the build-up to court or in Noel's own evidence and the witness statements of some of his witnesses and that a lot of those a lot of the tropes that we were seeing play out or would be unlikely to play out in a criminal case

in particular in criminal cases these days you aren't allowed to ask women about their sexual histories only in very few cases and you have to get permission from the judge that juries are also warned at the beginning of cases about common myths and stereotype. So, for example, if a woman's wearing a short skirt, that doesn't necessarily mean that doesn't mean that she was asking for it. And, you know, various other sort of tropes that might come out,

which has seen a decrease in these kinds of things coming out in criminal cases. I mean, the witness I spoke to yesterday just said she was just so shocked at the kind of questioning that she was getting. It was just like she'd gone back 100 years. I mean even just in my own cross-examination I was told it was suggested to me that I should have doubted a woman's credibility

because she'd been drinking alcohol and because she'd been wearing a short skirt and we saw that play out over and over again with our witnesses one woman was told our barrister described it as she was portrayed as sex mad and she was asked more than a dozen times

about her supposed sexual exploits it really was a kind of quite a relentless type of questioning that they faced. I understand as you bring us into the courtroom. Coming up to one of the points there, Sharon, though, how do you corroborate the women's allegations? This is a really important thing that journalists do. First of all, you listen to the woman's story very carefully and you ask her to retell it many times

and see if any of the details changed. And they never changed. I must have heard these women's stories dozens of times. But you also asked them, did you tell anyone about this at the time or subsequently prior to you speaking to me? And if so, could I speak to them and get their recollection of that conversation? Were there any witnesses? Do you have contemporaneous documentation? That might be text messages or bank records or phone records.

You know, we always kept an open mind throughout the investigation and we always looked for evidence that might disprove what the women were saying to us as well as prove it. And that cooperation, I think, was really important when it came to building our public interest defence because it could show that we very carefully, pre-publication, considered the evidence we had before us before making that decision to publish and always kept an open mind. How confident, Catherine, were you about the outcome of the case? I was very confident, but you never know. I mean, anything can happen in court. That's the whole point. And so I was very confident, partly from what you've just heard, the extent of

corroboration that Shirin and Lucy did was extraordinary. I think the extent of documentation we did around is there a public interest for this kind of journalism was also extraordinary. I was so happy with the level of work that that was why I was confident. But, you know, to put yourself through a court case at, you mentioned at the beginning, there was 70 million was at risk for the Guardian. That's a lot of money. And so to put yourself through that is hair-raising, even if you are very confident in your story. And it's not an easy thing to do. Did you ever consider settling? Because this does happen a lot within cases like this. Yeah, I mean, I think at the Guardian, we're in a very strong position. We're owned by the Scott Trust, which means we don't have

shareholders or a proprietor. So the Scott Trust only exists to defend public interest journalism. And so there was nobody saying to me, don't risk the Guardian's money. I mean, I talk to them a lot. I kept them very closely involved because this was a lot of the big risk, 70 million. I think the standard of work was so good as well. But then I think once you have those women who were so happy to, who were happy to come to court for us and put themselves through that, I thought all those things together meant that we had an extremely strong case and we were proved right. And with the judgment, Noel Clark described it as disappointing, adding, he says, I've never claimed to be perfect, but I'm not the person.

described in these articles. You will have heard that before as well. But I do want to talk about it being in the public interest, Catherine, because you feel this is more about one actor's failed libel claim. And that it is something, for example, you called it a landmark case. Yes, I think it's a real, it's a landmark case in several different ways. In one way that I think it shows that you can't behave in this way at work. This behaviour went on for many, many years until pretty recently. And I think women have a right to be treated equally and fairly at work. It's not a sort of complicated idea. And I think that's why it's in the public interest. You have a right not to be sexually harassed by your boss. I think it's quite straightforward.

And that's why I didn't really have any doubts about the public interest. But we did interrogate it all the way through. and that was part of our process. Let's talk about libel laws because I think with the conversation that we are having, there are many who have listened to it, of course, poured over the documents and some saying that libel laws

in the UK need to change. How would you describe how they work at the moment, Catherine? Well, I think it's very, very difficult to defend. I mean, an interesting example is a bitter rival of the Guardian. Their editor message me on the day of the judgment to say, I've given up on the idea of any news organisation ever winning anything like this.

So it is really, really hard. And when you think the hoops we went through over these years, the amount of work, the amount of cost we spent building this case, it really is an extremely high bar. I think our winning is a real template for how others can do this kind of journalism and win. But it's a lot of work and a lot of cost. There has been changes being made, for example, the setting of the CIEISA, Creative Industries, Independent Standards Authority, saying that, you know, to protect women from the actions of sexual predators within creative industries of television and film. Do you feel change is coming?

And I'm curious for this with all of you. I feel, I mean, I mean, we have so much feedback from the first articles that these stories had made a big impact on the TV industry, film industry. immediately. That's nothing to do with the court case. That's just the reporting. And so I feel the feedback we've had is that there's been a real line in the sand. Lucy? Yeah.

I think that the sort of Clark's underlying sort of message ever since the stories came out was that this was just sort of po-faced women making a fuss, unable to take a joke and that he was just being cheeky and having a bit of a laugh. So I think that this judgment, it was so kind of. clear that this kind of behaviour is inappropriate and shouldn't happen in the workplace, that it is an abuse of power and quite often sexual harassment. And I think that that will mean so much to many women. And I'm coming to that because obviously it must have a personal toll over four years,

as we've described, and this huge amount of work, Sharon. But as you look back on that, I'm wondering, how do you feel, apart from maybe elated and exhausted? I think elated and exhausted. You never know how a story is going to pan out. right? You know that we all know that. I never had any expectations when I got that first phone call from Paul Lewis asking me to work on this story that it would change the course of my life. None of us did. And many times over the years as we've gone through this court process, I've wondered, you know, what is this all for? And there have been times where I've really, you know, doubted whether we'll get the judgment that we need and what will mean for the women and felt, to be honest with you, you know, a bit of responsibility for putting them up there in the witness stand and watching them go through that. aggressive questioning. And you couldn't actually be with them at that point because you were also a witness. Yes, I couldn't speak to them. None of us could speak to them because we're all

witnesses. But now that the dust is settled, you know, we have this landmark judgment. And now that I've actually been able to speak to the women and really hear how it was for them after the trial is over, they've all thanked me. And I didn't expect that because, you know, I wanted to thank them. And they've said, you know, this really feels so momentous for us because we have been believed. And the consequences of Noel Clark's behaviour has been really profound. You know, one of the witnesses I spoke to said to me that she works in a completely different industry now because of him. And so for them to actually feel that justice was served, that they were heard and believed is really amazing. And so I think to go back to your question, yes, it's been

exhausting, but I do feel a later than I really do feel of vindication for these women. I want to thank all of you for coming in. Really good to hear your story. People can find more, of course, on the Guardian website, also today in Focus, which goes behind the old car case. Also a really compelling, upsetting at times listen. But Catherine Viner, Lucy Osborne and Sharon Calle, thank you all so much. And I do want to say to our listeners, if you've been affected by any of the issues that we've been discussing this morning, you can find help and support at the BBC Action Line page. There's links to support organisations. Thank you for coming in.

Thank you. Some of you getting in touch, I was asking about teen mums. We have Emma Doran coming up a little later. She says, I was a single mom at 19, guilted and shamed by the general public and medical staff. Now I'm pregnant again, age 33. I'm also being shamed for being an old mum and for the big age gap between my children.

You just can't win, says Gabby, 844, if you'd like to get in touch. Now, I want to talk about bras after breast cancer. Finding the perfect bra can be quite difficult. at the best of times, as we know. But what about after breast cancer? A study by Portsmouth Hospital and the university is looking at how to develop better brass to cope with the changes after cancer surgery and radiotherapy.

Associate Professor Edward Sinjan is a breast surgeon at the hospital, an academic at the university. He joins me, along with Celeste Ingram, a patient taking part in the research. Welcome to both of you. Professor, let me start with you. How did this study come about? Well, good morning, Nula,

and thanks for having us on. So the study came about really because the University of Portsmouth already has two decades worth of expertise measuring breast biomechanics. Breast biomechanics is really the science of the structure and the movement of the breasts and how they move to sort of everyday forces and gravity. And so this has been studied extensively in the healthy population,

specifically used for sports bras and many, many of the bras being used in the UK will have gone through the Portsmouth, the University of Portsmouth breast testing laboratory. But this technology has never been used for breast cancer patients. And as a breast surgeon, I'm well aware what changes we perform to the breast. very frequently we leave our patients quite asymmetrical, or if we don't leave them asymmetrical, we definitely affect perhaps the structure of the breast. Often patients need radiotherapy after the surgery as well, and that further can stiffen the breast. And so the question was, could we apply these methods that have been used so well in the braw industry for sort of

every day and sports bras and apply that to our breast cancer population? So that's what you're going to try and figure out. I want to turn to Celeste for a moment. You sadly found out you had cancer four days into your honeymoon, I understand, but you are keen to take part in this trial. Tell me a little bit why

and what it involves. Because I have to, I love running so I wear a lot of bras, a lot of sports bras, but those sports bras are very ineffective because they can be quite painful, especially when it's in sight of the scar.

So that's why I was very keen to have a little bit of input. And so you're really taking one for the team, shall we say, as you do this. I mean, what is this that you need that you're not getting at the moment? Well, I really need something that's going to give me comfort when I run, even when I walk, to be honest, and something that looks nice as well. They're really not made for women who do any kind of. sports that's for sure and i think that the design of them are for seems to be for women that are much older not for younger women at all it's they don't look good they're not something that a woman

could feel good in it's bad enough when you have your you know breasts operated on when you don't want to but then to have a bra that doesn't look nice as well it just adds an insult to injury so it would be nice have saying that looks good and something that i could use and be useful in the gym or out on the road when I'm running. Well, let me throw that back to you, Professor. Can Celeste be hopeful? So we've found so far, so we open recruitment in February. The study's been really well received and we've recruited much faster than we thought.

And we are finding that first and foremost, we can measure breast biomechanic differences in our breast cancer patients. It is a method that's acceptable, and we are seeing quite big differences more so than just the changes in the volume of the breast alone. So I think this will be really useful data in the future to help enable the design of new bras, including sports bras for breast cancer patients undergoing exercise. And just to add to that, there's over the last few years, there's been a lot of news about exercise oncology, which is the base. that by exercising after a diagnosis of breast cancer, you can decrease chance of cancer coming back and increase overall survival. So we should be doing whatever we can to enable exercise to be as easy as possible. And so are you still looking for people to sign up to be part of this recruitment?

Yeah, so we are currently recruiting from my hospital, the Portsmouth Hospital University NHS Trust. So if you're there, then absolutely we're still recruiting. And as we come to the end of our feasibility study, which is, as I said, looking very positive, then I think we'll expand this further. And we're keen to work with the brower industry as we go forward. That have some of the expertise. Just before I let you go, though,

but we don't have any sort of timeline on this when this comfortable post breast cancer bra could be available. So I think the quickest way, to translate this is actually to work with the braw industries because they've got mechanisms to design bras and to get them out to the shops. And so what we want to do is show that this method of biomechanics is useful. We want to be able to record that in breast cancer patients of people who've had different types of breast cancer surgery and then we want to work with

braw manufacturers so that we can get out bras for breast cancer survivors as quickly as possible. Thanks to Professor Edward Sinjan and also Celeste Ingram talking, just through looking or trying to create a new bra for after breast cancer. Let me see. Sally got in touch. She says, I just had keyhole surgery. Most of the scars beneath my right armpit and breast. And the most excruciating thing has been the bra that I had to wear afterwards. The monster contraption offered no support for my heavily bruised breast yet far too tight and cut across so many of the wounds that it was agony to wear. My husband and I christened it the bra off death. Maybe you have one in your wardrobe as well. We have the comedian, as I mentioned, I'm at Dorn, coming into studio shortly.

She was a teen mother, considered scandalous. At the time she grew up in Dublin, maybe you were a teen mother. How has it been for you, 8444.844, if you'd like to get in touch on social media or at BBC, A Woman's Hour, or you can email us through our website. I want to turn to fauning. We've all heard of the fight or flight response in the face of danger. You've probably heard about freezing, but there is fawning, also known as people-pleasing or appeasing. Well, the clinical psychologist, Dr. Ingrid Clayton, has written a book about this.

The book is called Fawning, why we need to please, why the need to please, makes us lose ourselves and how to find our way back. I spoke to Ingrid about her own teenage experience that made her want to help others overcome this form of trauma response. and I began by asking Ingrid what fawning looks like in practice. So sometimes it looks like smiling when you feel terrified. It could be flirting when you have no interest. It could be overextending yourself, volunteering, caretaking, soaking up all the shame in the relationship in order to maintain some level of relational harmony.

It's interesting because we're not that familiar with the term, but we may be familiar with some of, those actions that you describe there. But let us continue to expand on fawning a little bit for people that are not familiar with it as well. You talk about people turning to the action of fawning when no other of the responses are safe options because we've often heard fight, flight, freeze.

Explain what's happening as you understand it. Yeah, so fawning does tend to be the last house on the block essentially And it's very common in relational trauma, which is synonymous with both complex trauma, childhood trauma. So if you look at childhood, for instance, a child who is being harmed by a caregiver, fighting back is likely going to make things worse, right? Their body has probably learned on occasion that when they try to have a voice or fight back, that it does, in fact, make things worse.

If you think of the flight response, where are they meant to run, right? We are reliant on our caregivers for longer than any other species. And complex trauma tends to be ongoing. So it's not an acute event, right? Which fawning can also be useful in acute events. But complex trauma tends to be ongoing. So when you think about something like the freeze response, while it's also a common one, fawning sort of allows you to get up and get out of bed and go to school every day, right?

We have to figure out how to navigate. these environments, and the fawn response allows us to do that very thing. So basically, you're in a difficult or a dangerous situation. Some of those first response that we often think about when we're in danger as we are animals aren't going to work in that situation. So people have learned to fawn. You know, I was very struck by your story that you tell in the book, very frankly, about being a young teen in the hot tub with your stepfather.

And you recognize now that you had that fawning response. Can you tell us a little more? Yes. So, you know, I had experiences. I was 13 years old in that story. And I had experiences with my stepdad being overtly aggressive. He could rage. You know, he was a drinker.

And we were all familiar with sort of the flight response, running to our rooms when you would hear the car coming down the driveway in the evenings. But on this night, I was sitting. out in the hot tub and looking up at the stars, and he came out to join me. It's the first time I recall feeling that same level of threat. But when he was actually acting like nothing's going on here, I'm being quite friendly, I'd like to be your friend.

And so the part of me that wanted him to be my friend was very grateful that he was extending me what felt like an olive branch. But my body knew something else was going on. And it was deeply confusing. It was confusing for many years. I now know that he was grooming me. This was typical grooming behavior.

And I recall that I kept a very neutral tone. And I was like, what do you mean? And I was really endowing him with the best of intentions when my body knew that that was not what was happening. And I wanted to get out of the hot tub. I did not like this man, but I knew. knew that my life was in his hands, I needed him to like me. And listen, it's not just a physical threat when I say my life is in his hands. He held the power in our family. He made every

decision, right? If I was even allowed to leave the house, it was up to him. And so it equated to this very ingratiating behavior that was so incongruent with how I was feeling. And it led to what felt like a day in, day out experience of a chronic fond response, which is so common for a lot of us and why ultimately, at the end of the day, we can start to confuse it even for our personality, right, or a choice. It is not a conscious choice. These are unconscious, reflexive behaviors that come online without our consent. The body chooses the response that it feels will work in that moment. It chooses it in a nanosecond.

And then like me, for people, when you have to do this to survive the day to day, you know, years later, I move out of that house. I drive hundreds and then ultimately thousands of miles away. The fawning pattern is still so active in me. It comes online even before I could potentially sense the threat, right? The body goes, I am not going to put myself in harm's way again. and I'm perpetuating dysfunctional relationships. I don't have a sense of, you know, self or autonomy or boundaries that I hear people

see them exhibiting and hear them talking about like it's just no big deal. It's this rational, available choice to everyone. And it did not feel available to me. Yeah, because you're hypervigilant. And so your defenses are up before you're even within a new relationship. I think the other aspect you mentioned, even on the cover of the book, do you avoid conflict?

Do you tend to take the blame? Do you take care of others at the expense of yourself? Many people just try to stop those behaviors and feel embarrassed or ashamed that they exhibit those behaviors like that there's something wrong with them and they need to work on it.

But you kind of turn that on its head when I was reading it, that some of this is done, whether it's by a child or a woman as we're speaking about specifically, to keep you safe. That's right. And so the idea that all these years throughout my life that someone could say, well, Ingrid, just set a healthy boundary, right?

This is the thing that is why the language of fawning, a trauma-informed lens and language on these things is so important because it looks at safety and survival, which the body will always prioritize. So essentially, a healthy fight response for me was snuffed out, right? as a kid, as a woman, you see this in so many contexts, right? People of color, we are disempowered, we are in systems of power everywhere we turn, and the body knows where it resides in the pecking order. So a healthy boundary is an aspect of a healthy fight response. We are meant to have these responses, right? But we're meant to have more flexibility within them.

And to tell someone who's only experienced a chronic fawn response, to go ahead and just set a boundary, have a voice, raise your self-esteem, you're asking them to let go of the one thing that has kept them safe. It's like, just take off all your skin, you know, and now walk through fire. This is what it feels like in the body. It feels like terror. And so we cannot start with changing these things in our relationship. in the external world, that's at the end of a much longer process that must begin with starting with our internal sense of safety, something that a lot of us have maybe never experienced before. And I will come to unfauning in a moment, but how much do you think

fawning is tied up with being female? Well, I talk about it in the book. It's one of the biggest systems of power that I have to navigate is patriarchy, right? You think about my step dad another dynamic in that in that hot tub wasn't just his physical size right he was the head of our household but he was also a man and i've experienced this countless times girls from very young i think are taught to please and appease which is another name for the fawning trauma response it's like be sweet smile give your creepy uncle a hug you know so we are primed for these behaviors they are support it out in the world. You talk there about people's experiences of it, but how can you unfawn if it's not as simple as I'm going to put some boundaries down? Well, I think honestly

understanding this framework, like I said, it reduces the shame where you can finally see yourself from a place of I didn't actually have a low self-esteem problem. It's not about not loving myself. In fact, my body had a genius adaptation to a threatening environment, and that means I kind of love myself a whole lot, right? It's like it changes that whole paradigm. And once someone is restored to that sense of, oh, I make sense, I make sense, it's the seed that we've planted to be able to build now an entirely different relationship with oneself. the old paradigm continues to say you're broken right go sort of get fixed and get a hold of yourself what i'm saying is you make perfect sense let's start there and build from that moment right and there's a lot of trauma therapies and practical things that i can talk about in the book but

ultimately this is the thing that matters the most it's taking this external orientation to the world and the environment and saying, do you give me permission? Do you validate me? Do you like me? Right? Like we're so oriented to the external world and going, even just pausing for a moment. And I often put my hand on my heart and I go, what do I think, right? What do I believe about me? What do I notice in my body more importantly? Because the body keeps the score, as they say. and it's also the biggest truth teller, because my mind might be, my thoughts might be going, well, you need to smile, you need to take care of them,

you can't say that thing, you can't disagree. But notice what I'm experiencing in my body. If I can notice even for a moment, the terror or the numbness, whatever it is, I can now be present to it. How can we take care of ourselves when we're not even present to ourselves to begin with? You know, you've obviously had a long journey you talk about your stepfather as well, as you say, grooming you. And there's other instances you go into in the book.

You also talk about trauma, even though there was no actual touching and physical abuse in that way. But I think another part of the story, Ingrid, which I found very poignant really is your stepfather was with your mother. And your mother did not accept your interpretation of events, I think it's fair to say. Were you able to find peace with that? I have found peace with it in a very different manner than I thought I ever would. What is very common is that we tend to think that people that harmed us have to validate the pain or that they have to make it right. And it becomes this unbelievable hook.

it keeps you sucked into going, I'm not worthy, I'm broken, I wasn't good enough, right? And ultimately, writing my memoir, what it finally returned to me was a sense of, this is my story, I know what happened. If my mother never believed me, it does not take away, not only what happened, what it did to me for decades after the fact. So talk about restoring a sense of agency and autonomy. I also had to unhook from what my mom thought and maybe even what she still. thinks. And that enabled me to finally take care of myself.

That was Dr. Ingrid Clayton. She's a clinical psychologist. Her book Fawning is out now. And again, if you've been affected by any of the issues you're hearing about, the BBC Action Line page, is there with links to support organizations online. Fawning, here was one message that came in while we were listening to Ingrid. Isn't that all women, extreme people pleasing, always trying to keep everyone happy at the expense of their own happiness. Sounds like most women, I know, sadly, myself included. I was also asking any of you teenage mums, lots of you got in touch. Here's one.

Hi, I was a single teenager, 18 when I had my baby. All I was told that it should go up for adoption and then I hid my second pregnancy. Why am I talking about that? Well, a little bit because of my next guest that I want to introduce you to. She's the Irish comedian, Emma Dorn. She's about Tour Ireland and the UK. She's a new stand-up show, Immaculate, very good name. And it's her third and biggest one yet.

New dates just been added this week. I did notice a lot of them are sold out, Emma, as I was looking on your site. Now, if you haven't caught Emma on stage, you still might know her from Instagram. She has, I think I'd say caustic takes on various aspects of life, whether it's parenthood or the schoolyard or the workplace, and she's hundreds of thousands of followers. She is a mother of three. She's also written a book called Mad.

isn't it? And that tells the story of how she got unexpectedly pregnant at 18. And then after a decade of parenthood, found her way into comedy. You're very welcome to the Women's Our Studio. Thanks for having me. Shall we start with your Instagram? That's where I found you. And I think a lot of people did. And it does make me chuckle because you lay into people that you see in your everyday life. I think nobody is safe. Would that be fair? I do know, it's interesting because I think it's because in real life, I'm actually quite a, I'm a bit of a people pleaser. So I have that person say, oh, no, I'm fine. That's great. And then I'll go home and send a voice note to a friend. Say, well, you'll never guess what you want such me. So I've just put it on Instagram now and it's a cleanse for me.

It's a cleanse for you and it's going viral for others. So I think because this is September, we've been talking about a lot of people sending off, you know, their child to school, perhaps for the first time. we're going back to school. You talk about who to avoid at the school gate. What would your advice be? Well, look, the school gate, this is the problem. And it's one of the issues around parenting. It's the monotony, isn't it?

It's the repetition, the drudgery? So what I like to do on the first day, I like to pick somebody fairly early on that I'm going to despise. They're going to be my art and me. They won't know, but I need that firing me to keep it interesting, you know. So it's usually kind of like

the SWAT parent who's like they're the first last leave tries to chat to everyone. Like they're actually quite a nice person. That starts the WhatsApp group. That starts the WhatsApp group. I don't know what, this person that starts the WhatsApp group and they do the collection. They put all this work on themselves. They start the collection for the teacher and they send the message of, hi guys, can't believe it's that time of year again, doing a whip around.

You don't have to give the money if you don't want to no pressure. And of course, there is huge pressure because you can't be the only one who doesn't give the money. Then we all have to thank that person. and thank you so much for volunteering to do this. Then they sent a picture of the thing and a receipt and they say, thanks so much again. Then they tell you they've given it to the teacher. There's too much admin.

There's too many class WhatsApp groups. I need a couple of people to despise just to get me through it. And then the ones that you're really looking out for that you want to make firm friends with is the person who's... Yes, it's the people who clearly haven't brushed their hair. Their child has eaten a bit of toast en route to school. Like they're trying to ferry. children, that kind of person, like the person who has the look of, they are shocked every day

that it's school again. You know, like, it's just like it's happening again. If they turn up, now these people are hard to find, but the people that turn up when the school is closed, those people or they're rushing. That makes me think you were there if you saw them. Yes, I've done it a couple of times and you think, oh, I'm really so organized this morning. I'm ahead of the curve and then you realize, oh, the school's not open. Those kind of people, they're not going to help you with like the secret midterm that we, none of us, you know that midterm that we're all shocked when it happens? It's a midterm next week?

Oh my God. They're not going to help you with that, but they're going to be entertaining. You know, at least. And I will get to, I think SWAT is quite a good word because you have a lot of words that you use that are perhaps particularly Irish. I'm not talking about Gaelic. I'm talking about that they're a little bit of Irish slang like a lick, for example. A lick.

Yeah. So there's a new word perhaps for some of our audience. And you are unashamedly Irish in your comedy, I think. Yes. Words are part of it. Some of it is just some of the situations, perhaps. But it does translate because I'm seeing wherever you go, you're incredibly popular. How do you understand that?

Well, when I was starting as a comedian, I used to hear these tales from comedians that had travelled, you know, to the UK to do gigs. And the story was, oh, you can't, you'll have to change. this and you'll have to change that and the other and they won't get that or whatever. And for me, it was just too maybe complicated to start changing how I spoke and that that would be in the rhythm of jokes. And I was like, well, I'm just going to do it and see how it goes. And then I was like, oh, it's fine. But one thing that is universal is we've all seen the pictures of Christmas of families in matching pajamas. Yes. You take them down. Yes. In the sense of asking why on earth

with a family do that. Did you get any pushback? I did. I got a lot of pushback. That wouldn't be the thing that you might think would be... Oh, that was the thing that people were really angry about.

So my theory was a family that dresses up matching Christmas pajamas together and takes a picture and posts that online. I was asking the question and I was having a particularly bad day that day.

I was asked the question, why? What has that man done? Is he having an affair with her sister? What's happening? You know, like, Why is he being humiliated in that way?

Yes. It's kind of like those posts when people put up what they got from himself, boy done good, kind of look at all the things that he got me. And it went up, I didn't think that much about it. A lot of people were very angry about it. So what could I do? I just had to dig in deeper with us. I couldn't apologize. I think that might have been when I first encountered you, Emma, actually. And it did very much make me laugh.

Let's talk a little bit about you as well. I mentioned that you were pregnant when you were a teenager. Yes. You were 18. That was in the early 2000, but still there was a lot of stigma around being a young woman who's pregnant at that time. You were still in school during the equivalent of A-level, shall we say. What's you a member of that time?

Or telling your mom. Oh, my goodness, telling my mother. I couldn't say the words. So when I was growing up, it was really, you know, we'd all kind of decide it's kind of the worst thing that could happen to you like you had ruined your life

and when I had I knew that I had to tell my mother I suppose that's the thing with a pregnancy you know you can only keep it for a secret for so long and I actually wrote a letter

rather than saying it to her and the letter was kind of this, you know kind of a long drawn out story I'm sure she was reading it going Emma get to the point but I didn't want her to think differently of me

I was almost kind of craft I slipped and fell like I've, you know like I don't know how it happened don't know how it happened but it was just I couldn't I couldn't think of saying it to her without bursting into tears

I left the letter for her and I ran across the road to her friend's house and she tracked me down pretty quickly she was knocking at the door and I was like I know that that is and I went out and she just threw her arms around me and she said you know come come back home when you're ready

and I just felt it an enormous sense of relief like that my, not completely drop, but my shoulders dropped into hers that I knew that she was going to, I suppose, look after me, be my mother in a different way and probably a way that she hadn't planned.

But, yeah, I was just really afraid. Yeah, because I think the society at that time for people that weren't aware, it could be very judgy and intolerant of something like that. And there was many mothers who did not react in the way that you're well they did. I think it was really

it was seen as a problem it was it wasn't seen as yeah it was just seen as a big problem and we all used to talk about in school you know kind of what would you do would be a terrible you know terrible thing the worst thing that could happen to you

and I even remember at the time then when I was you know still in school and it was open knowledge and whatever I had a meeting with the career guidance teacher which everyone did as they were getting ready to leave school and her advice to me was maybe do it like a childcare course

but that wasn't because of my own interests or aptitude that was because she saw I was pregnant so the vibe kind of was like see if you can maybe get something with this but don't you know but did I read this right that you sat your leave insert by gay levels just a couple of weeks after having the baby? Yeah so I had

my daughter and then 13 days later I sat the my like state exam or whatever so I went into the maternity ward with like my school books like when you think back you're 41 now when you think back of that young girl I mean it's some determination and drive I think do you know I think it's that thing that's always driven me a little bit of kind of hatred and you know venom myself that I wanted to I don't know who the people were but I wanted to do I wanted to prove them wrong because definitely people would have thought

oh sure she won't she won't do her exams now she won't do this she won't do that so I felt like I'm supposed to to rewrite it myself I felt like I kind of

had written my own history now like this is kind of the end to her so it was me trying to rewrite that in real time and so you went on various jobs

obviously did really well and here you are now with this extended tour I was thinking as I was looking at your material and some of the others that it's kind of a golden age for Irish female comedians at the moment.

Yes. I really do think it is and I think I wonder why that is. I think there's something brilliant about us. I think it's like the way we talk or I mean maybe it's the speed at which we talk or the openness

or with the intersection maybe of technology for people to find you. I think it's technology because I suppose we were kind of out on our own on an island on a little island

and now with online I mean you really never know who will find you so we're not that far away but I suppose we're always out there

getting baited by the Atlantic wind but yeah I think a lot of people have found me online and the world's kind of a smaller place

now I think we feel more connected to the world and maybe it's that we're not trying to hide our Irishness

yes You know, it's not kind of seen as a negative. I think now it's more seen as a positive. Well, you have a different voice. So I think maybe before, different voices, just where I'm coming from, where it may be encouraged, or I didn't feel like that was a positive thing. I think that's a fair point, probably across various industries. What can people expect if they come to see you with Immaculate?

I think if they come and see me, the tone will be quite similar to maybe what they see online. It's immaculate because somebody asked me, oh, Immaculate Conception, I said no. And then they said Madonna's album. And I was like, oh, well, kind of, because when I was actually in school, a girl in the year ahead of us, all girls' school, we had a talent show and she sang like a virgin

and she was actually six months pregnant. There's a little nod to her, and I know she's doing well. But Immaculate for me is it's that word that was the biggest compliment a woman could give another woman, like a mother, that her house was, Amaculate.

Fabulous. Fabulous, exactly. Amaculate. And our children were amiculate. So it's family, women, womanhood. But playing on that, well, I wish you all the best with it. Emma, thanks so much for coming into us. Emma Doran's upcoming tour, Immaculate, starts on September 25th.

Running until March next year, all around Ireland and the UK, you can find all the dates on her website. Right. Tomorrow we have Sophie Ellis Baxter. She's in studio to talk about her new album. Perry Menopop and she'll be performing live also the author Helen Morris with her new book

The Wish. I do hope you'll join Anita for Women's Hour tomorrow starting right here at 10 a.m. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Look, we've promised. Nikki's never seen this before. Oh wow. It was just here.

In homes across Britain, children and grandchildren are discovering stories about their families in the Second World War. I've never noticed it before. It's a battered old suitcase. Do you want to open it?

I'd love to open it. Not the war you're thinking of, the fight against the Nazis, the other story of World War II, the one on the Asian front against Japan. The battle was gun battle ready and kept on pounding them, pounding them, pounding them. I'm Kavita Puri.

From BBC Radio 4, The World Service and the History Podcast, this is the second map. 80 years after the end of that war, why don't we remember it as well as we should? Listen to the second map, first on BBC Sounds.