Woman's Hour - Afghanistan earthquake, Friendship anxiety, Invasive Species play

Episode Date: September 4, 2025

It has been four days since the huge 6.0 magnitude earthquake struck the mountainous eastern region of Afghanistan, near the city of Jalalabad. Over 1,400 people are reported to have been killed by the initial quake and its aftershocks, with over 3,000 injured. While already living their lives under the restrictions imposed by the Taliban, how are women and girls affected by this disaster? Nuala McGovern talks to Mahjooba Nowrouzi, senior journalist for the BBC’s Afghan Service.After the fall of the Taliban in 2001, Afghan women judges set out to reform the country, tackling corruption and presiding over cases such as violence against women and children. When Western forces withdrew four years ago, these judges were targeted by the Taliban and many fled Afghanistan. In her new book, The Escape from Kabul, the journalist Karen Bartlett tells the story of some of those women and how international judges from around the world banded together to help them escape. Karen joins Nuala along with Fawzia Amini, one of Afghanistan’s leading judges and women’s rights campaigners, who came to Britain with her husband and four daughters after the Taliban returned. Is navigating friendships and the pressure not to be too demanding making women lonely? Journalist Chante Joseph talks to Nuala about how adopting the role of a “low maintenance friend,” once a source of pride, ultimately left her feeling isolated along with the journalist Claire Cohen. Two councils in South Yorkshire are introducing new policies to make night-time venues safer for women. In Sheffield, there will be a Women's Safety Charter, while in Rotherham, councillors are set to approve a new programme to tackle harassment and drink spiking. So how big a problem is the harassment and what is being done? Nuala is joined by Rob Reiss, a Sheffield city councillor and Kayleigh Waine project manager of Sheffield Safe Square and manager of Katie O’Brien's an Irish Bar in Sheffield City Centre.The play ‘Invasive Species’ is about a young woman attempting, for the sake of ambition and survival, to force herself into various moulds that do not fit who she truly is. Nuala talks to Maia Novi who stars in the London transfer of her own semi-autobiographical dark comedy in which she plays herself, an ambitious Argentinean actor who will stop at nothing to achieve the American dream. She joins Nuala to talk about the themes of the play. Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Rebecca Myatt

Hello, this is Neu La McGovern, and you're listening to The Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to the program. Well, in a moment, an update on the Afghan earthquake and how women and girls are expected to be among the most effective. Effected, excuse me. And we're also going to hear the gripping stories of the Afghan female judges who escaped when the Taliban came to power. They're told in a new book, The Escape from Kabul.

Also today, Shante Joseph thought being the low-maintenance friend would set her free. So not asking for much and expecting little. But instead, it made her lonelier than ever. Now, Chanty asks friends for more things, also makes demands on friends' times. And I'm wondering, is that something you feel comfortable doing? Is there any anxiety around your friendships, particularly if you want more?

More of their time, more things to do with them, let me know. Claire Cohen will also be here. She's navigating the change of balance that can come in friendships now that she has become a new mum. You can text the program. The number is 84844, text charged at your standard message rate. On social media, we're at BBC Woman's Hour, or you can email us through our website.

If you prefer to send a WhatsApp message or a voice note, that number is 0300-100-444-4. Also, we'll hear why South Yorkshire are introducing new policies to make nighttime venues safer for women. And if you catch the acting bug, it can be hard to shake. Maya Novi knows that well. And also how it can bring anxiety and pressure. Well, for Maya, it led to spending weeks in a psychiatric ward.

But that gave rise to a dark comedy invasive species. That's on stage in London now. Maya will tell us all about it this hour. But first, I want to turn to Afghanistan because it is four days since the 6.0 magnitude earthquake struck the mountainous eastern region off the country near the city of Jalalabad. As time passes, hope is fading for survivors. What we do know is that over 1,400 people are reported to have been killed by the initial quake and also the aftershocks that we've heard about.

We believe over 3,000 are injured. Now, this is the third major earthquake in Afghanistan since the Taliban. took power in 2021. The Taliban have appealed for aid from the international community. There was, you might remember, also the 2023 earthquake in the Herat region of the country, and women and girls were greatly impacted. Women accounted for nearly six out of the ten lives lost, nearly two-thirds of those injured in that disaster. So many are wondering how are women and girls affected by this new crisis, particularly as they live under the restrictions imposed by the Taliban. Well, joining me is senior journalist for BBC Afghan service, Madhuba Nourousi,

who is going to give us a little update on the situation at the moment. How are you seeing it, Majuba, and particularly when it comes to women and girls? So, thanks for having me, Nula. Well, as you said, a powerful 6.0 magnitude earthquake hit Eastern Afghanistan on August 31st, killing almost. 1,500 people and destroying over 6,700 homes, according to Reuters News Agency. Just two days later, 5.2 aftershock shook the same mountainous region sitting off new landslides and cutting off villages already in droins. I heard that people have felt another aftershock today.

Unfortunately, we don't have the details yet, but survivors are sleeping in the open, scared of more tremors, while rescue teams struggle to reach remote areas. Humanitarian groups say that the response is bad, underfunded. The W. Cho warns of a $3 million US dollars shortfall for medical supplies, and the World Food Program says its food stocks could run out within weeks. So in total, aid agencies estimate around like 84,000 people have been affected, which is a large number.

and they are urging the world to step up before the crisis gets even worse. So you mentioned women, and women face strict limits on where they can go and what jobs they can do. Most high school and university education is off limits and getting access to. aid, health care or other services is really tough, especially in rural provinces like Konar and Nangahar where travel is difficult and the Taliban's restrictions are enforced most strictly. Many women there are basically cut off from opportunities that other people like you and I take for granted. Because I'm wondering. in a situation like that

and we have heard about women being excluded from public life basically like what happens people need to be talked about the figures there there's thousands of people that have been injured for example they need to be treated they need to be brought to a

hospital we've heard about the difficulties of women getting treated because it would only be by another woman particularly in conservative areas but if there are no female doctors practicing Well, that's true. I mean, I just recently visited Afghanistan and another province, which is one of the hard-to-gate provinces in Afghanistan, and there were no female doctors. So, and in 2020, three, another earthquake hit Afghanistan, and 90% of people affected were women and children.

So it is very difficult for women to get access to medical care in a normal situation, let alone in disasters like this. Afghanistan has always suffered from shortage of medics, female medics, across the country. People do not have access to medical care. But when a disaster like this happens, it gets worse, of course. In Jalalabad, there's a hospital with only four female doctors, and they are basically gynecologists, but they also attend to injured people coming from very remote parts of Jalalabad-Konar who have been affected and injured, and of course, many women prefer to go to female doctors.

and sometimes their male members of their families do not allow them to go to male doctors. So it is a very difficult situation. Because I'm just trying to think of a woman who is forcibly displaced by this earthquake. For example, maybe there are no male members around, maybe people have been killed or lost in that crisis situation. What happens to her?

If she needs medical treatment, Well, I honestly don't know because what happened last time I had written a piece about this situation that many women were not even rescued when they were under the rubbles because men didn't want to touch women that they were not related to. So you can imagine the gravity of the situation. I spoke to one of the medics and she wanted to reach to the main hospital as soon as she could. She wanted to get a taxi but the taxi driver would not give her a ride because she didn't have a male guardian and she was not wearing the preferred attire by the Taliban and the taxi driver didn't want to get in trouble with the morality. police. So she had to walk for more than an hour to get to the hospital to help women. So this is the situation in Afghanistan at the moment. Gosh, it's very sobering, Majuba, because you began by speaking about aid, for example. I know AP is, say that aid agencies are

urging the international community to increase funding. Of course, there is these thorny issues about giving money and not going to the Taliban but going to humanitarian agencies for example some I believe

the UK has pledged a million to humanitarian agencies as it doesn't recognise the government but how can you really

help those women and girls I'm trying to think because money isn't the solution in this you're trying to change a cultural mindset

of trying to take somebody from the rubble Well, it's not an easy task, if I'm being honest, but the world needs to get live-saving aid to Afghanistan fast. Medicine, shelters, clean water, and make sure women can actually be on the ground helping. Because if men cannot touch women, then they need women on the ground

to help these desperate women. Aid should focus on women and girls. And yeah. And what I'm just thinking, as you're speaking there, for example, so that sounds like because the Taliban have requested aid, and it sounds like if a country or an organization gives aid, that it should come with conditions? Oh, definitely.

Yeah. And long-term support should only go to projects that give them real access to services, schools and work, time and again, we have seen that nighttime quicks combined with mud bricks, heavy roof houses, or especially deadly in Afghanistan. Afghanistan has building rules that they are barely enforced and funding is, as we all know, is limited and simple upgrades to make homes stronger and safer, along with traditional quick resistance designs promoted by the UN since 2022, could save money lives, especially women. And they should also speak to

the Taliban and make sure that any aid going to Afghanistan is going directly to women. And it's managed by women and received by women because in many cases, these aid go to Afghanistan, but they're only beneficiaries or men, unfortunately. The BBC Afghan service, Majuba, Nauruzi, thank you so much for joining us, starting our hour on Women's Hour, speaking about Afghanistan. But it leads me to my next guest. And this was an item we were planning to speak about. And then, of course, over the past week, the earthquake in Afghanistan began dominating headlines. But I'm very happy to have in studio with me a couple of people that are very much steeped in the history of Afghanistan.

Talking about the Taliban, first I want to go back not to the rise of the Taliban and the taking of the country which I was speaking about with Majuba but to the fall of the Taliban a lot of us will remember that in 2001 and from that time until for 20 years, for two decades

Afghan women judges set out to reform Afghanistan they were tackling corruption they were presiding over cases such as violence against women and children but when the Western forces withdrew we'll all remember that, August 15th of 2021. The female judges were targeted by the returning Taliban and Manny had to flee the country.

They made up approximately a little over 10% of Afghanistan's judiciary, maybe 12% or so. In a new book, The Escape from Kabul, the journalist Karen Bartlett, tells the story of some of these women and also how international judges from around the world banded together to help them escape. She's in studio with me. Good morning, Karen.

Morning. Good to have you with us. Also, alongside Karin is Fazia Amini, who is head of the appeal court for violence against women and a member of the Supreme Court in Afghanistan. Good to have you with us. Nice to see you. So you left the country with your husband and four daughters after the Taliban return. So really, one of these cases, you know, I started reading the book and, oh, it's so evocative.

We're brought immediately to darkness where a power cut has gone out. And because the power cut has gone out and the men and boys have left to try and figure things out, the women and girls are all left alone. And for once they can join together because the men can't see them. They can talk to one another.

They can smile. They can laugh. They can sing. And so this cover of darkness is something that is so welcome. But as I was reading it, it was in Nangahar province. This province that we've been speaking about with Majuba, it kind of all comes together,

And tell me a little bit more about some of those women and why it's so important to profile them. Yes, that woman who's telling that story in Nanga ha is called Rehanna. And she's a relatively young judge. She was married and she had a baby. And she'd actually chosen to go there. It was one of the most dangerous assignments that she could have chosen. Because it's so conservative?

Because it's so conservative. And when she went to choose that assignment, You know, people were saying, look, we come from there, don't go there. It's just too dangerous. But she really believed that that was where she could make the most difference. And she went there and she worked on the court for the elimination of violence against women. And she starts with this story when she's actually by then resettled in New Zealand. And she's living in a sort of a similar kind of cul-de-sac. But obviously she's telling the difference of, you know, this amazing night that she had. where for one night the women could come together and they could be free and she calls it women's night because they could talk, they could laugh, they could look at each other's faces and then the power comes back on and the men come back

and they all have to go back into their houses and that's it, it's over. Exactly. And she's saying, you know, look, now I live in this cul-de-sac in New Zealand and I see kind of women of all ages doing all sorts of ordinary things. They ride their bikes, they go swimming, And, you know, I think one day, you know, can I go back to Nangahar to that place

and see ordinary women doing ordinary things? And that's her dream. We'll get into some of the stories of the female judges who fled. But in some ways, the writing was on the wall even before the Taliban returned for female judges. There were two that were murdered on their way to the Supreme Court. That's right. I mean, as Fausia will talk about too, no doubt. I mean, the women judges had been under threat for a long time. They were, you know, always really on the front line in terms of being sent to the most dangerous courts, being sent to the most dangerous provinces. So their lives were always sort of under threat.

And as the security situation worsened over the years, that got worse and worse. And some of the judges in the book talk about sort of attempted assassinations. Yeah. And of course, the book really starts with the assassination of the two women judges. in January 2021 who were on their way to work. The two sons of one of those judges are now kind of resettled here in the UK. But that was an enormous sort of shock and wake-up call,

not only to the women judges, but also to all of the international women judges in terms of realising this is really a grave situation. Well, let's talk about that, Fausia. When you heard that news, those judges were your colleagues. Was it, well, how did you feel? Yeah, basically I just wanted to say we were facing with the many problems. That's not for Ahia.

Judge Kadria and Judge Zakria was my classmate. And we studied in a faculty of law, me in Judge Zakiya, for four years. and we worked together and when I arrived to the Supreme Court to work together in one office in one table to be honest

we was very friendly with each other and on that time when I heard just I heard two women judge killed by Taliban and my boss that's general

head of Apple court he just just called me, where are you, Judge Vowsia? I told him, I'm in the room of the court and a bench of the court. So I'm sitting here. What happened? I suddenly just, because every morning, when we woke up some of our colleagues, one, two, three, or maybe sometimes group of judges, they killed by Taliban and martyred in different provinces and different way and very hardly and so on that time he asked me one of your staff maybe one of this

martyr I told him no my woman judges three of judges is here with me in the court so after that I worried who is she and who is they are so I just like and that's for just two three minutes just another woman judge asked me where are you Fausia I told him I am in the court I'm safe who martyred who killed by Taliban this morning they told me Judge Zakiya with Judge Kadria Yossini oh that was really

hard for me to be honest it was it was incredibly hard for me to immediately just here they killed And two seconds, without any reason, in the car, which car I traveled and I went to the court and went together back at home, three of us. Two months ago, I just appointed as a head of appeal court for a violence against women. And this separation just saved me.

Otherwise, I was in the car and they shoot me definitely. They would have killed you. That was happened, of course. So on that time, I just could go to emergency hospital. And I just look at my two colleagues, to my friends, my best friends. And even my guards and my security, they just prevent me to not go to. to the funeral. So I couldn't

to see again my colleagues just I look at both of them in the hospital and Judge Zakria shoot by many bullets in the front of and... You're pointing to your forehead.

Yes, and Judge Kadria shoot in here. You're pointing to the heart and and the chest. And my driver, my previous driver, shoot in the neck and here. And he is survived. But Judge Zakria and Judge Kadria Yossi. I can, just for our listeners, I know how emotional this is for you. If you want

to take a moment. I know. To speak about. It must have been very, very difficult to see that. and I imagine you weren't allowed to go to the funeral because it's too dangerous. It's too dangerous, yeah. The intelligent office just reported to me on that time. That's not allowed for you to go to the funeral. Otherwise, they're killing you. So I just said, but it was really hard for me.

I'm so sorry you had to go through that. I have good relationship with Judge Kudder. Yossini Sands and they are studying with the help of IBA Association and with the help of Baroness Helena Kennedy

she's a member and peer of House of Lord to study here and this it just brings this you really paint that picture for us though Fazia

of trying to do this incredibly difficult job in Afghanistan the reality of it that your best friends died trying to do the work of highlighting violence against women and girls and legislating against it or convicting people at times. And now you are here and that woman's son is here and people are dotted all across the globe, Karen, because they had to flee when the Taliban

came back to power in 2021. It's an incredible story in Manny. is heartbreaking for those that had to leave home and also an example of solidarity. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about that? Yes, that's right. I mean, when it sort of became apparent that the Taliban, that, you know, the forces were going to withdraw and the Taliban were going to take over the country very quickly,

which all of the judges I talked to in the book were extremely shocked about. They really didn't expect it to happen so soon. I don't think anybody did. Yes, you had groups like the international women judges and, as far as he has said, the International Bar Association and other sort of humanitarian groups who understood how much danger the women judges were in

and kind of expected that governments and forces would sort of step up and help evacuate these women. And then it dawned on them very quickly that nobody was going to help evacuate these women. And so they had to sort of step in and form this voluntary, coalition working around the clock together to figure out how to get these women out into places of safety. And calling any contact they had trying to work, I'm sure working the phones in a way

of picking up phones to leaders of countries. Absolutely. I mean, they, you know, just because they were very sort of senior women judges and senior women barristers didn't, they didn't have a clue how to evacuate people from war zones. Most of them had never been to Afghanistan. And so they had to be in touch with special ops groups on the ground. They had to put together sort of enormous databases of information about who these women were and their families so that they could

try and get them visas. I know the IBA organized the evacuation flights and sort of that huge logistical undertaking and raised money for it. It cost a fortune. And then had to help those women sort of resettle in new countries. So it's

an amazing undertaking. And the women, the international women judge is one of the things that's sort of a nice part of the book is that they had had, some of them had had very long relationships with the women judges in Afghanistan. They'd known them for decades. So they were already very close friends. So there is that sort of story of sisterhood and women, yes, high-powered women, but women helping other women. And the IBA, the International Bar Association. And women and UK Women Judge Association, when I was in Kabul, I was under a mentorship program of the UK Women Judge Association as well. So my judge mentor name is Judge Rachel Karp, and she helped me to know baronies and about the evacuation process and every steps. So I'm really grateful they are all together help us. Can I talk about you for a moment there Fuzzy as well?

You took your law degree certificates, I understand with you, sewn into your clothes. Yes, that's reality. On that time, just I thought because no chance to go out and show someone the degrees of my daughters and me and my husband just I seven back of my clothes and with the old clothes and old shoes and to be honest has a religion has a village woman I just got out from my house and I left my house so you were trying to disguise who you were yes no one know me who is I am and that was really hard and very difficult time for me and for my family members. But it must be so nerve-wracking as you make that journey.

What do you remember of that time? Yeah. When Baroness called me, Judge Fausia, you on the six-year plan, you have seeds there. and we tried to help you, Judge Fausia. To be honest, I didn't accept that. I didn't. Incredibly, that's news for you.

Someone just called during the very hard, darkest time for you. I never forgot this call and this voice. But incredibly, as an angel, she just called me. We try to save you with your children Because I have four daughters And they are child, eight years old, nine years old And that's it On that time, we were never thought about anythings

Just we tried to go out Just get out Just get out I wanted to cook something in my kitchen, in my beautiful kitchen. And just called for me the secretary of baroness, Emily Fowler, Fausia. That's the time to go. You have to go. And you have to leave.

It's so poignant, the thought of this life that you have built up, the good work that you have done. the challenges you've got through and you just have to leave it behind have your certificate sewn into your clothes and board that plane just I thought the value of the knowledge and proficiency which I had with me I don't have anything because I lost on that time

everything and if all define the mental rights to be honest I thought I'm a house wife and just hiding from one place to other place we just moved around on that time no no house no food no job no bank account all is free suddenly or immediately imagine and change the political situation with no security and we were facing with many many problems to be honest. Just I thought that's the knowledge

will be help you and someone know you you show your certificate or something otherwise where I'm going just we never thought about my daughters

when we look at to my daughters after three or five hours they just sat on the seat of car On the bus has a statue, to be honest. And my husband just told to him, please drink a water, a cup of water. This is the water.

For 13 hours, even they didn't drink. They didn't touch the water. You've just moved a glass of water as I speak to. Just we taught someone just calling us get off and they were killing us immediately. because more than 15 chick point. Wow. And everyone you had to go through. Everyone knows me because I had interviews and meetings with different offices. We worked together for a long time.

That's 20 years I was a member of the judicial system. As a judge, I worked. And I made new laws for my country. and I passed that that was really dangerous and opposite of that very fundamental

for the woman rights and for a woman situation so we try to change everything day by day but immediately collapse the republic

regime and it's still shocking when we look back four years of how quickly it happened we'll have to to speak to you again, Judge Fowzia Amini, about the future of Afghanistan. Your story is fascinating. We're glad you're safe and well, although I'm sure so traumatized by what it is that

has happened. Karen Bartlett, thank you also for coming in. Karen's book is The Escape from Kabul. It's a gripping story of many women like Fousia. We've just heard your story, but very compelling and heartbreaking, of course, at times as well. It's the escape from Kabul, a truth's story of sisterhood and defiance and it's out now. Thank you very much. Now, we're going to move on to friendships. I have a question for you. Are you a high or a low-maintenance friend?

Can we even really know? Because we're hardly objective observers. Low-maintenance is someone who doesn't ask for much and expects little. The journalist, Shante-Josef, was concerned about being too much as a friend and instead adopted the role of the low-maintenance friend

that ultimately left your feeling isolated and disconnected. Shante joins me along with the writer and author Claire Cohn, who's also been thinking about friendships, particularly how they change following the birth of a baby. What responsibilities do you have to your friends after becoming a mother or indeed them to you? What needs to change in maintaining the friendships? Well, they both join me now.

Let me begin with Chante. Tell us, hi, good to have you with us. So you thought being low maintenance and not making demands would make you a better friend. Talk me through that. Yeah. I kind of feel like now when we talk about our relationships, we kind of say, you know, you don't want to be too demand of people. You don't want to be an inconvenience. You know, everyone has boundaries.

You kind of kind of start to view your friends as kind of people that you need to slot in, not people who are like central to what makes a fulfilling life. And I kind of started to feel as if, like, I was just bothering my friends by wanting to hang out all the time. The convenience of being at university together and being up the road and popping over someone's house was so great. And as soon as we kind of graduated and we got into the swing of our adult lives, it kind of just felt like everyone became really preoccupied with other things that they had going on. And so now the fun little meetups were kind of things that we scheduled six weeks in advance, or we had to go and get a booking at this place, or someone was going on holiday,

or they couldn't get leave, or they couldn't do this. And all of a sudden, it kind of felt like, oh, I don't want to make demands of people's time because they have too much going on. Or I don't want to be too suffocating as a friend because they have so much going on. And so I thought, maybe I should just ask for less, or maybe I should show up less, or maybe I should demand less for my friendships. But actually, it just made me lonely. Because if I wasn't the one putting myself out there, kind of risking rejection or trying to maintain the friendships, then they wouldn't happen. And so that's how I found myself in just like a pretty like sad state of affairs where I was like, I'd, you know, so much for the companionship of my friends, but also feared kind of not respecting their space

or their time or their energy. Did you speak to them directly about it, Chante? You know what? I didn't. I kind of had to gauge how they were feeling, not wanting to make things too serious. And that's the whole thing about being low maintenance, right? A low-maintenance friend isn't going to call you out. A low-maintenance friend isn't going to say, I feel this way. You're always going to respect the boundary. You want to be the cool friend, the person that kind of copped in and out of their life and doesn't ask for too much. And that's what I was trying to do. I wasn't raising my concerns because I felt like, oh, that's emotional work that they have to do

and they may not have the capacity for it. So I can't bring up my very valid concerns. But it's kind of this whole spiral that you get yourself into. You know, I just got a message from Maggie Chante who says, I am low maintenance. However, I provide a lot of support to friends and can be reluctant to show my vulnerability as I'm always the strong one. I'm working on this. I wonder, do all of us consider ourselves low maintenance? In some ways, we probably do, because no one wants to be overbearing. And also, when you're not low maintenance, and I hate to say a high-maintenance friend because that's really, like, I don't think that's the right classification.

But when you are someone who, like, seeks companionship, shows up, asks for things, makes things happen, that is a risk, right? You put yourself out there. And I think a lot of people don't want to put themselves out there. So they've become the low maintenance friend by default because it's the safer option. And one thing that I didn't get to include in my piece is that, like, I kind of realized this was the coward's way out. By not really talking about how I felt and expressing my feelings and demanding more of my friendships, I was being cowardly. And I wasn't really being the sort of person who says, actually, this is what I want for my life.

I'm going to make it happen. And I think I have definitely changed that approach now. And it's changed the dynamic of my friendships. But ultimately, it's been for the best. Do you think your friends noticed you pulling back or pushing forward? I don't think they did. And they would use being low maintenance as like, oh, you know, you're so low maintenance. You're so easy.

You never asked much of me. You're not texting me all the time. You're not worried if I reply or not like. And I thought that was a compliment. I loved it. I was basking in this idea that I just, I was kind of doing less damage to them. Do you know what I mean? I loved it.

But then I realized, oh, you like that. this, but I don't like this. This is making me feel really sad and lonely. Also, I talk a lot about the fact that when people get into romantic relationships, that becomes the main relationship in their life, right? And all their friendships become secondary. I wasn't in any romantic relationships. So my friendships were still the top of the totem pole. So I treated my friends, essentially how they treated their partners. And when they got into relationships, I kind of became less and less important on the food chain of friendship. Well, you let me segue, perfectly to Claire Cohen, because if there's a totem pole and if you're saying the romantic partner is above the friend and what you experience, Shantay, what happens when a baby comes along?

Claire, good to have you with us as well. Have you had any anxiety about the relationship change with friends when there is another element introduced, which is a little one? Morning, Nula. I mean, you're not going to be surprised to him. You say yes. I do think we have these points of everything that Shantay said resonated so much. I do feel like we have. have these points of friendship anxiety throughout our lives. And I write about this in my book, BFF, about female friendship, you know, from the playground, making you friends at university, to when people start settling down when they get divorced. But yes, obviously, when people have children is a massive one. And I have only just had my first baby at 40. So I have been on the other side of this, you know, for the last decade, all of my friends, or a lot of my friends have had kids. And you suddenly find yourself not, you know, not their top priority.

anymore, not at the top of their totem pole. And that can be a real renegotiation of the friendship as people understandably have to pull away a little bit and have to kind of prioritise something else. But now I'm in that position. And it is really challenging. And for the first few months, I have definitely sort of tried to keep my friendships exactly the same as they were before. And I think I'm slowly coming to the realisation now that perhaps that doesn't work so well.

And it's on both sides, really. it's sort of me beating myself up and having all this friendship and anxiety about not always being able to go to things or maybe having to leave a bit early. And it's also my friends, maybe not inviting me to things and not, you know, and they're doing it out of kindness. They think they're being compassionate because they know I'm, you know, I've got another priority right now. You know, my little one's only nine months old. And I did actually have, it was really interesting what Chanty said about talking to your friends about this. And this is a really central theme of my book. because we don't talk to our friends about this stuff

because we don't have the same rule book as we do for romantic relationships. You know, if you were annoyed at your partner, you'd be like, hey, let's have this out, let's have a conversation, let's have an argument, whatever it is to sort it out. But with your friends, you are scared to rock the boat. You don't want to do that.

But I did kind of raise this with a friend a few weeks ago when there was a particular thing that she hadn't invited me to. And I was like, oh, out, I could have actually come to that. And I really wish you'd included me. And I kind of said this to her, and I felt really pathetic doing it. How was it received, Claire? It was received really well. And I wished I'd done it sooner, not just in this situation.

You know, in the previous like two, three, four decades of my friendships, you know, she just haven't realized that she hadn't intended to exclude me. She hadn't realized she was doing it. I felt really reassured. She was like, oh, my God, I will definitely invite you. in the future. I'm so sorry it was just a complete oversight. And it's just a really good conversation. And maybe taking it that you would be busy. You know, there's a line in Chanté's article, which is in vogue, I should say. Inconvenience is the price you pay for community, which I love. Yeah, I think isn't that right? And it can feel a bit awkward to feel

inconvenient to our friends. Nobody wants to feel inconvenient. But I think you were right when you said earlier, though we all feel a little bit like that and though we all try to be a bit low maintenance because we don't want to come across as desperate, needy or overbearing. And they're really awkward, you know, maybe they're things that we've been socialised to feel as women we shouldn't be, right? We're told me smooth, the waters, be nice, you know, keep it all very kind of light and happy. And, you know, we kind of fed those messages from being really young. But actually, you know what?

You do have the right to ask for what you need from your friends and vice versa. So our friendships are the most emotionally important connections in our lives. science has found this. So you need to ask what you need from them. Claire Cohen, Chante Joseph, pushing you forward to ask for what you want from your friends. Thanks very much to both of you for joining us, 84844, if you'd like to chime in on what you have just heard. I want to turn to two councils in South Yorkshire because they are introducing new policies to make nighttime venues safer for women. In Sheffield, there will be a women's safety charter. While in Rotherham, councillors are set to approve a new programme to tackle harassment and drink spiking.

So exactly how big is the problem and what is being done? Well, we're joined by Rob Rice. He's a Sheffield city councillor. Also, Kaylee Wayne, project manager of Sheffield Safe Square and manager of Katie O'Brien's, which is an Irish bar in the city centre in Sheffield. Great to have both of you with us. Kaylee, let's start with you.

You have a particular interest in this topic, I believe, because of your history. Tell me a little bit about it. Yeah. Yeah. So obviously, as you said, I work in bars. I work in the nighttime economy. I see every sort of angle of it that you can imagine. I see parties, birthdays. I see the support from friendships after you've had like a nasty breakup. I see all of it. I also have quite personal connection. I was spiked when I was when I was sort of 20 years old. So about eight years ago now. I've been through both sort of sides of it. I've seen like the lead up of like just having a great night out that goes a bit awry and then also I've been that person who had the like awry night out. So yeah, it's just one of those things that's a bit close to home. Yeah, really interesting. So Safe Square in Sheffield, you help run that.

What is it? Yeah. So Safe Square is a sort of medical and welfare hub. It's a little set up on Barker's Pool. It's currently only running on like specific dates and just due to funding. But it's essentially in its pilot scheme sort of infancy stages still. And you can go there to sober up while you're waiting to get home, wait for a taxi or meet your friends. If you've lost them, obviously, tourism is quite a thing in Sheffield. You can get lost. It's a good like, oh, we'll meet there. Charge your phone. If you're feeling just a little bit uncomfortable and want someone to speak to you that maybe isn't a friend, maybe you need a bit more authority, I guess, is the right word. Or if you want to report something that's

happened to you, it's a little bit less daunting than I guess someone in a uniform sometimes can be when you're already in that sort of like fight or flight state of mind. And just general like minor bumps and bruises, we see a lot of people who have like twisted their ankle in a heel and just things like that. So it's kind of there for just anything you might need. when you're on a night out and you're like, I need a bit of support here. And do you see many women come through? We do actually. We see, interesting enough, we thought it would be women heavy.

We thought that would be like the general, that's who we'd see the most of. But it's actually pretty split. We have noticed that that's probably more because it's so ingrained in us as women when we grow up. Never go home just on your own. Always go with all of your friends. like all of you stick together that's like from one we're tiny and we walk home together like from school um so i find that we see women sort of look after each other a little bit more

when they're on nights out and they're they're out drinking um so we get a lot of more men who are like oh it'll be fine i'll have a couple more pints you'll be all right um but we do see a lot of women for just like they want to come and have a chat and tell us that like they feel a lot safer knowing that we're there they don't necessarily need to use us they're not coming to ask us for anything but just like a oh thank you for being here it's it's interesting uh rob good to have you with us as well um why are you bringing in the updated women's safety charter i think for for myself and the rest of uh the level democrats on sheffield city council um fundamentally it's about allowing people to have fun and i think what kaley uh was saying about

uh the safe square and like i'm just going to get out there the work that you do is is absolutely a and the night time is made all the better for it. When people are looking over their shoulder, when they're not confident about the people around them, they're not fully able to let the hair down and have a good time, and that is something that we want to promote. The Nighttime Industries Association has recently come out and said a quarter of venues, late-night venues have closed since March 2020.

Part of that is about the costs associated. with running a venue as failure, I'm sure as knows. But it is also about having that confidence to go out, have a nice time. And if people don't have that confidence, then, well, they're not going to either go out or spend money. Because, Rob, may I interrupt you just for a second? Because there are some figures that we were looking at, the latest crime survey data for England and Wales. Sheffield Council estimate that over 20,000 people in Sheffield, the majority of which were women, 17,000, experienced sexual,

harassment in 2023, 24. Most common location for victims was in public. That was 75%. So I imagine that, the figures like that, are playing into the Women's Safety Charter and what's needed. So what will you do? So what the Women's Safety Charter, what the plan is to have a review of it

and see whether it is still appropriate, whether there's anything that we can add. And I think in those statistics, it shows that the venue-based aspect of the Women's Safety Charter does need to be expanded. What the brilliant work that Kaylee does in, I'm sure, in her own venue that she manages, is amazing. But there is so much more space in the town centre. So talking about how, in terms of transport after the nights in taxis, on public transport, one of the other parts of the motion was talking about night.

but also kind of walking between venues like what are our city centre ambassadors what are they going to be looking for how can they be proactive in making sure that when people are out on the streets between venues they feel confident in those space as well because the staff that are in the in the venues that we have in the city centre they're trained they're signed up The Charter. Which came in, I should tell people, in 2022. So it's looking for an expansion within this. Is there funding for the initiatives you're talking about?

So I don't want to preempt. So this was a motion to full council. I don't want to preempt the work of the policy committee that we'll be looking at it. But we do need to explore a wider issue. And on the funding, like business rates in Sheffield that come from venues. like if we get people back into our into our nighttime venues then that is a positive feedback

in time of people spend money in our nighttime venues. Venues get better. The council makes more money. Rob Rice, Sheffield City Councillor Kaylee Wayne, project manager of Sheffield's Safe Square and a manager at Katie O'Brien's bar.

Thank you both so much for speaking to us from Sheffield this morning. Now, if you were bitten by the acting bug, it can be hard to recover and the Argentinian Maya Novi was bitten hard. Her drive to succeed brought her to America

but also to a psychiatric ward. She stars in her play Invasive Species it's currently on in the King's Head Theatre in London. It's semi-autobiographical and it's a result

of those experiences. The dark comedy was a critical success off Broadway and resonated with young artists and celebrities she joins me in studio now. Good morning and welcome.

Hi. Let's talk about those bugs. It's called invasive species. Do you remember getting bitten by that acting bug. Yes, I am from Argentina. I grew up in Buenos Aires. And, you know, we are used to doing theater there with, you know, not that many resources. So a lot of it is doing what you can with what you have. And I remember just the first acting class I had there, there was just like, the teacher was just like, don't rely on spectacle, don't rely on props,

just go. And in that moment, I was like, When you think of it in that terms, anything feels possible because you can do so much with so little. And that's how it all started. But then you decided to go to America. Yes. And the majority of your play is set in a youth ward of a mental health facility. Yes. Tell us why.

So I moved to America because I wanted to be an actor there. I went to drama school there. final year of drama school. My teachers were basically telling me, listen, you need to sound American because you look a certain way. You don't look stereotypically Latin American, so we need you to sound American. And I started watching videos of Guinez Faltero because she became my like reference for an American accent that they gave me. And I was just not getting there. I was just not sounding American and I started to have a lot of insomnia.

So I went to struggling. really because I was like my final showcase which is the presentation to the industry my chance to get an agent is coming up and I don't sound American enough and so you weren't sleeping you went to the doctors for insomnia yeah and I told them you know the psychiatrist looked at me and was like so how would you describe insomnia and I was like well it's hard to describe it in English but it's sort of like my inner monologue is going really fast and he's like He was like, oh, do you hear voices? And I was like, no, no, no, it's my own voice. Is it telling you to do things? I was like, no, no. And I think the misunderstanding, the cultural barrier, the confusion just led to him to be really concerned. And he told me, we're going to give you a sleeping pill.

And if it works, you'll be able to go home tomorrow with that prescription. But when I woke up, I was in a psychiatric unit. For young people. Yes. You were 25 at the time. but these were kids, you know, teenagers that were there. You didn't get out for three weeks. Your husband, partner at that time, didn't know where you were.

You'd basically gone missing. Yes. I mean, this is rich material for a play, but it must have been terrifying. It was terrifying. So even though the kids, you know, they were between 12 and 16, I was 25, I became close friends with them by the end. By the end, by the three weeks, by the time I was discharged, we had created a, you know, strong friendship.

But during my time there, I wasn't allowed to make a phone call the first couple days because there's a system in this youth word in particular called getting status, which means if you behave properly, you're granted a phone call. And so the first couple days of not being able to talk with my husband, not knowing where I was for how long, why, for what reason, getting medicated with something that no one was really explaining me what it was, because the psychiatrist who had put me there had left for spring break. So I had to sort of really do some like mental grounding to be like,

Maya, you have no idea what's going to happen tomorrow. You just need to stay steady. But you did start to write. Yes. And the journals, the diaries from that time? Yes. I was like, okay, I need to keep track of time of everything. I see, everything I hear, every single medication they're giving me. And by the time I got

discharged, I held all these diary entries. And I was like, I just need to make sense of what happened. So I put them together. And then my husband, who's a dramaturg, said, I think this is a play. And I was like, I don't know. It was like, no, no, it's a play. And so I just submitted it to many theaters. And the tank, which is a nonprofit theater, which helps up, you know, upcoming. upcoming artists said we're going to give you the space to do a show and then it transferred off Broadway and then all these celebrities were coming to see the show. We're talking about Paul Meskell, Michaela Cole, Jennifer Lawrence, everybody loving it. And so, you know, if you go on TikTok, you will find my guest to Mayanovi in short order.

But, you know, I was reading about you that you always wanted so hard to be seen. Yes. And now you are being seen. Yes. Has it scratched that in? of the acting bug? It has. It has.

And in a way, you know, I wanted to book an agent. I wanted to book a job. I wanted to be in a movie. I wanted to be seen. And theater is more meaningful in a way. It's more special because you get to do it many times and you get to, people have reached out to me and be like, I've been struggling with mental health. I don't know who to talk with.

I felt seen. I wish I had asked for help sooner. I had, I did not expect all these people coming up to me. You know, immigrants, international students, younger people, women. It was like a miracle. Are you going to stay on the stage? Because I know it was Spider-Man that you saw that originally you want to say I want to be an actor. Yes.

Or do you want to be on the screen? Well, I'm getting, now people want to adopt a play into a TV show. How cool is that? Which is really exciting. I, the reason why I want to be on screen is because I've watched so many movies growing. up and the play is very cinematic of moves like thunder. So yeah. That's a great review. Moves like thunder. It is called Invasive Species. Currently on in the King's Head Theatre in London. Had it's opening night last night. Congratulations, Mayanovi. Thanks for joining us.

Thank you for having me. Now, I want to let you know. Anita's back with you tomorrow. You will be hearing the last in our series so moving on life after suicide. Steph will be talking about how she thinks the menopause impacted her mother who took her own life when stuff was just 19. Lots on low maintenance friend asking for nothing and being tired and always being the supporter, not being supported. Friends have faded from my life as I'm not so in touch with them anymore. What saves me is what I learned decades ago. Friends are in our lives for a reason, a season or for life. It's so true. Well, thanks for spending some time with me today and we'll talk to you again tomorrow. That's all for today's woman's hour. Join us again

next time. I'm Kate Lamble and from BBC Radio 4, this is derailed, the story of HS2. It's the tale of a railway which divided Britain. An ambitious idea brought down by political reality and what it tells us about why we struggle to build a better future. We'll hear the inside story of how the dream of HS2 was created before it morphed into a political nightmare and national punchline. The absurd spectacle of a hundred million pound bat tunnel. building up the country's single biggest infrastructure project. Through backroom deals, bat tunnels and the reality of power in the UK.

Listen first on BBC Sounds.