Woman's Hour - Arundhati Roy, Returning to work, Treatment after smears

Episode Date: June 10, 2019

Arundhati Roy won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1997 with The God of Small Things. It was followed up twenty years later with Ministry of Utmost Happiness. Now she has just published My Seditious Heart, a collection of political essays written in the two decades between those novels. She had a lot of praise for the essays but also a lot of criticism for challenging subjects like the acquisition of land, environmental degradation, government elites and the impact on the poorest and most marginalised people in India. How easy has it been for you to get back into work after a long time away? Did you apply for hundreds of jobs before getting one? Were you able to return to what you wanted to do? We hear from two women who struggled. They are Tontschy Gerig and Emma Land. A cervical cancer charity says we don’t always know that treatments for abnormal smear tests can have side effects. Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust says some women experience bleeding, pain and even lose interest in sex after going for follow up procedures. They conducted a small survey and found that 1 in 5 women said that no one discussed side effects with them.

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hi, this is Jane Garvey and welcome to the Woman's Hour podcast. It's Monday the 10th of June 2019. On the podcast today you can hear from the brilliant Indian writer Aaron Dattie-Roy. We also look at treatment after you've had an abnormal smear test result. What happens? Is the right information imparted to individuals in the most helpful way? It would seem not necessarily.

And there's some interesting contributions to that conversation on the podcast today. What else? There's at least one other item I should have mentioned and I haven't. Oh yes, we look back as well to the football, Scotland against England in both the team's opening game of the FIFA Women's World Cup, which was yesterday evening. First of all, we had a conversation about getting back into the workplace. If you've been at home

for a relatively long period of time, perhaps you have caring responsibilities. It may have been a period of illness, but whatever it is, you're now at that point when you think I really am keen now to get back into the world of work. It can be somewhat disheartening, especially if you're a woman in your 40s and 50s. We heard today from Tonshi Gerig, who's 61 and a senior manager in people services at EY and from Emma Land, who is 48 and a temporary play worker. Although, as she told me, she is a qualified teacher. I'm a qualified English teacher. And how long have you not been working as an English teacher? I recently had a period of unemployment for about 13 months

and applied for 103 jobs. How many jobs have you applied for, Tonshi, or did you apply for? About 500. About 500? Yeah. OK. Emma, or did you apply for? About 500. About 500? Yeah. OK. Emma, what would you like to do, ideally? I'm not going to commit to anything specific.

I know I'm qualified as an English teacher, and I love teaching English, I love writing, I love the power of words, but I want to feel successful, I want to earn enough money to pay the bills, and I just want to feel successful. I want to earn enough money to pay the bills and I just want to feel valued which is what I think everybody wants. Can we just go back a little bit, Tanshi,

in terms of your own story? Why did you leave the workplace in the first place? I left for multiple reasons. I had a big job that was very stressful. I was working extremely long hours and I got to the point where I really needed a break. I wanted to take a little time out which turned out to be three years. It wasn't quite what I anticipated. And also my daughter got older, so she didn't have the same financial support. So

that was why. And I took that time off, expecting to get back into work three, four months later. And it just didn't happen. Why didn't it happen? I have no idea. I'm an HR professional, as you said, so in terms of writing CVs, I'm extremely good at that. I started off by doing all the things that they tell you, like I tailored my CV to every single application. It was a full-time job looking for work,

but never got any feedback from anybody. I think I probably got feedback from one job in 70 or 80, and then it was the standard letter. Other candidates more closely fit your requirements. And I'm thinking, I've just ticked 12 boxes out of 10, the ones that you were looking for. Okay, but you've outed yourself as an HR professional. You know this game inside out. When you were having CVs sent to you, how did you look at them and view them?

I tried to reply to every single one of them. Did you really? I did really. I tried is the key word. I can't say I always did, but I did really make an effort because I know that people put a lot of effort into applying and I think it's pretty shitty if you don't get any response at all. But would you have rejected anybody out of hand for any particular reason when you were on the other side of the fence?

Oh, yeah, of course. If they didn't have the right qualifications or experience, absolutely. But you wouldn't have said, oh, hang on, this woman's 57, so I won't bother with her. No, I certainly wouldn't. And I certainly wouldn't run adverts which talk about, we're a young company, we socialise a lot outside of work. Hint, hint, you know. So no, I certainly wouldn't. I believe that people can make a positive contribution wherever they come from, whatever their background, whatever their age. And that's always the thing I've been interested in. What can people do? Not, you know, what are perceived barriers to what people can do. You were, I think, at quite a low point, weren't you, in that period of time when you were out of the workplace?

At its worst, what was it like? Oh, I got suicidal at its worst, because you have all those financial pressures, you know, you worry about feeding your kids, keeping your house, I nearly lost mine, there's all of that lot. But I think what's even more corrosive is what it does to your relationships and your sense of self-identity I think the lowest point for me was walking going for a walk in the morning at the time that everybody was going to work and seeing

hundreds of people walk past me from obviously doing a vast array of jobs and thinking what is it that they've got that I haven't? That was awful. Emma, you, I know, have a gift for words. You are a great writer. What's the name of your blog? So people can have a look at it, actually, if they're interested. It's called Mummy Needs a Job. And I've got a paragraph here that I was reading yesterday

and it really stuck with me. You take us through a day in your life, effectively, after you've seen the kids at the front door and they've gone off to school. And you write here, eat something, drink some water, trying to be healthy, put some washing on, darks today, not enough whites or pastels for a full load. Look in the freezer, pick something for tea that may or may not be eaten. The tap drips, the clock ticks, look through emails, look through job sites, look out the window. It is, it's debilitating, isn't it? That sort of day. And we've all had those days. Absolutely. emails, look through job sites, look out the window.

It's debilitating, isn't it, that sort of day? And we've all had those days. Absolutely, but it's more than demoralising. I think you do feel like you don't exist. As she just said, you do feel bewildered. You don't understand why people don't respond. You fire off all these applications. You get back silence. No one ever responds.

Maybe one or two might respond with some generic thing like, oh, you don't fit the criteria when you know you do. And you do feel that you just, you don't exist. So the normal world is carrying on and people are busy driving to work and doing what they do and being successful and and you're not and it's very difficult to try and pinpoint why when you know you still have value and you still have a lot to offer and you've got a lot to bring to the party but no one's

inviting you email emails have come in from listeners and this is an anonymous one from a woman who says i gave up my job six years ago to care for my elderly parents who had dementia i've now just returned to work part-time again in between i did work for agencies wherever possible but that dwindled to half a day per week as my father lived with me the benefits of having regular work are huge i'm not sure i fully appreciated them before of course a regular income is one but equally important is the So that's a key point, Emma. Is it better to do something rather than nothing, even if you are vastly overqualified for the job you're currently doing? I've found that it is. I think everyone would advise you to get out and do something as long as you're with people and you're trying to do something productive,

even if on paper it's something you are, as you say, overqualified for. During those 13 months when I was unemployed, I made a point of getting out of the house and going to sit in the cafe. And even if the only person I ever spoke to was the person on the till, I still got out there and I still wanted to be part of society. Even if I felt on the margins of that I still got out um it's so important because your mental health really does suffer and it's a little bit like being in a prison actually I know that sounds quite melodramatic well you recognize that

Tonshi do you that feeling well certainly I recognize that feeling of isolation not so much the prison bit but that thing about going out to the cafe just as some desperate attempt to maintain some form of social contact. Because I think the other thing that's very hard about that situation is it's so isolating. It's not like there's people advertised, hey, I'm unemployed. Let's all go to some kind of unemployed. And spend money we don't have. And spend money we don't have. Exactly.

Exactly. And you see the figures, you know there are a large amount of people are unemployed but it doesn't help because you're not really connecting with them. You are now back in a high paid important job in a big big organisation so Tanshi how did you do it? I was very very lucky and it was a partly a question of luck I met somebody who told me about the reconnect programme for people who are returning after careers. Sorry, Women's Returners Programme. And I got into EY on their Reconnect programme.

Without that, I think there's a strong possibility I wouldn't have been here. I mean, I really do think it was a lifesaver because I can't see anything, you know, may not have changed. I would have carried on giving. Can I just ask, how did you find out about Reconnect is EY's version of a returnship? It is.

You happened to meet somebody? I did. I went to do an advanced course in coaching. Well, that's important. You got yourself out to do that. I did. I did. And it wasn't actually, I just, I'm already a really qualified coach, but the market had

changed. So I felt I ought to go and do the qualification. And I happened to meet somebody there who knew about it. But because you'd done it and because you'd gone on that course, that was where you made the connection that led to your current role. Absolutely. So, yeah, I think that is important. We've also had a lot of people mentioning age is obviously a factor, but so is a feeling that things will have changed.

And this listener makes the point that returning to office work, she says, has been horrible, to quote her. It's changed beyond recognition. Technological developments which have meant that everything is faster and more urgent. The new faster-paced office life creates more stress and anxiety. People, I think, are less kind and considerate. Everybody hides behind their computer screen. I've never been able to return to the same level that I worked up before.

My children and my pay is half what I used to earn that's just that's just fact for many people Tonsha you are not earning less than you used to are you or are you I am slightly yes but not massively no not massively so I'm very lucky in that in that respect and the technology had it changed well it was interesting because that was one of my concerns about it and it has changed but what i find was the same and perhaps that's more on my area you're still dealing with people so all those issues that were there before about how you relate to people how you get people to talk to one another they're still the same because i did hear lots of messages about all your skills are going to be out of date and all that kind of stuff and it was not true the fact

that you are 48 emma it's not it's not old by any stretch of the imagination is it something that people mention to you when you approach them for work they don't mention it uh but i think most of what is communicated is unspoken and either they give you a certain look or they might refer to the fact that maybe they might say, oh, your skills might not be up to date, but I think really what they're saying is, you're 48, you're too old, which is ridiculous. I think many TV talent shows would have you believe

that age is just a number, and you can achieve your dreams, and all of this, and of course in the real world, that's not actually true. An age is a number and I think you are judged by that number. And it's not fair. Thank you very much, Emma. We do need some advice from our HR expert, Tonshi, on that CV, on the tricks you said you'd used. What are those tricks for anyone doing a CV at home today?

Oh, well, I mean, I still had the same problem with the age that Emma's talked about. But I mean, I didn't put my age on it anywhere. I put my qualifications and obviously you have to put dates for those. But in general, I tried to do anything that didn't indicate something that you could rule you out. Like I never put my address anywhere, for example, because some people, would you believe,

are looking for you to live in a very particular area, like three miles from where you are working, so they don't have to worry about you commuting. I didn't put anything like that. I personally didn't put other information like having kids and stuff like that, all because the sad reality is some people are just looking for reasons to exclude you rather than looking for reasons to include you. So I just tried to remove that. And the spring in your step when you wake up on a Monday morning and think, I'm going to work? Oh, it's much, oh, much better. For all the reasons that Emma's articulated, you feel like you have value and you can still contribute, which is something deep down you knew all along.

It's just that wasn't the message that you were getting from other people. Thank you both very much. I really enjoyed talking to you. And I hope that some people have taken heart from that. I think the key is to get out and make connections. It might not seem relevant on the day, but as Tonshi discovered, you never know. Something might crop up in conversation that leads to something.

Let us know what your experiences have been. Email, I think, is best for this. We've got some interesting tweets, but I think we need longer stories. And you can do that on email. BBC.co.uk slash Women's Hour, please. Now, a word on the football yesterday afternoon. It was on BBC One, of course. Commentary on BBC Radio 5 Live as well.

England's game against Scotland in the FIFA Women's World Cup, which is being held in France over the course of the next couple of weeks. And the score was 2-1 to England. It was actually an excellent game and Scotland were ferocious in the second half and it did look towards the end as though they might just get a draw. It didn't quite happen, but not far off. Rachel Brown-Finnis is the former England goalkeeper. She joins us from Nice where the match was played yesterday.

And Gemma Fay is Scotland's most capped player, also a goalie. I think she's at Glasgow Airport. She's just landed. Gemma, good morning to you. How are you? Good morning. Yeah, I'm sitting in the baggage arrivals hall. Oh, the glamour is just absolutely unspeakable. So I was right about Scotland's second half performance, but England were pretty good in the first half, weren't they? Yeah, I think England, I would say England

were not okay in the first half. I don't think Scotland played well at all. But England exploited and that's all you can ask from your team. But in the second half, a completely different team from Scotland were a lot braver and sat a lot higher up the field and really took the game to England and I think you're right. I think they could have

they would have been unfortunate to go out with that with a loss. They could have seen the draw at the end. Well, we know that Phil Neville, the England manager, was, well, dischuffed, I think, at the performance of his team. Rachel, England could and should,

arguably, have done better. They are professional, after all. Scotland are part-time players. No, not all of them are. All the English players are full-time, but there are, the majority of the Scottish team do play in the Women's Super League in the England Domestic League, which is fully professional. But with regards to the performance, I think England really dominated in the first half as far as how much output of energy they actually used. Think about this as either three games in the group and then last 16, quarter-final, semi-final,

England expect and want to get to the final. So it's about managing the energy of the girls, but it nearly cost them. As Gemma said, Scotland were outstanding in the second half and did really cause England a problem and it was uncomfortable to watch at times. Yeah, well, bearing in mind that England's next game is against Argentina, how do you rate their chances there? Well, they should, based on rankings

and on previous record, England should, it should be a relatively straightforward win. Argentina haven't won a game at the World Cup before and they rank significantly lower than England. But we do know that they will more than likely play very defensively. There won't be a lot of space to be able to play the ball in between the Argentinian players and I think England will have to be very, very patient in their build-up. It might take a long period of time before they can break them down, but I have no doubt that they have

the skills and the game plan to be able to do so eventually. And Scotland are not out of it. We should point out these are group games and you can progress. And in fact, you can progress, I think, even if you're in third place. Is that right, Gemma? Yeah, it's the four best third places. That's quite hard

to say. Yeah, and so Scotland have got Japan up next. Japan who won the World Cup in 2011, got to the four best third places. That's quite hard to say. Yeah, and so Scotland have got Japan up next. Japan, who won the World Cup in 2011, got to the final against USA in 2015. So they've got pedigree in this competition. However, it's a really young team. I think it's the second youngest team that's at the competition.

And they've openly said that their target is the Tokyo Olympics. That's what they're building for. That said, Japan are an excellent, technically gifted team who, in attack, are, as you'd expect, very precise. However, defensively, they do lack stature and any sort of ball into the box with a bit of a height in it is an opportunity, I think, for Scotland.

Great stuff. Thank you both very much. Really appreciate you both spending the time with us this morning. Not easy from the baggage arrivals. There's always a nightmarish experience getting your bag back. It doesn't matter where you've been or where you're going. I can't stand that element of fear. Will my bag be missing or not? Gemma Fay

at Glasgow Airport. Before that, Rachel Brown Finnis. Both former goalies for their respective nations and full coverage across the BBC of the Women's FIFA World Cup. Wouldn't it be something if one of our home nations got to the final?

I'm not sure I'd bear to watch, but it would be amazing if one of them did. Tomorrow on the programme, our guests include Jack Munro, who is the cook, of course, and anti-poverty campaigner. Tin Can Cook is her new book of recipes.

Stuff that you can tasty stuff, you can conjure up just with the gear you've got in your store cupboard if you're lucky enough to have a store cupboard I'm now the proud owner of one and yes I do have unused jars of capers littering the place and sometimes falling over and needing mopping up

also tomorrow you're doing your pelvic floor exercises wrong apparently so that's something to look forward to on Woman's Hour tomorrow morning. Now to news from a cervical cancer charity, which says that we don't always know or fully understand that treatments for abnormal smear test results can have side effects. Now, the charity in question is Joe's Cervical Cancer Trust, which says that some women do have really heavy bleeding, pain and can lose interest in sex, perhaps not surprisingly, after going for follow up procedures.

We're about to talk to Rebecca Shoesmith, who works for the charity. Also with us is Adeola O'Leighton, who's a consultant gynaecologist and oncologist at UCL. Welcome again. And Charlotte Brook, first of all. Charlotte, you were diagnosed with what precisely when you were really very young just 26? Stage three precancerous cells and I was also told I had a tumour. Right I mean that's pretty devastating and you were very young and it was after your very first smear test. Yeah so my first smear I had around the age of 26 and that was my first ever kind of, you know, where you have someone in that kind of sensitive area. So that was a bit scary and the results came back not ideal.

No, to put it mildly. How was that news delivered to you? What exactly was said and did you fully understand it at the time? I was actually on holiday at the time so my mum got the letter and she opened it on my behalf and phoned me up and she didn't really understand what it was either because she had not had that sort of result so she gave it to me as best she could and then I just broke down really in the middle of a cafe and started crying. She sent me a copy of the letter and I was researching, you know, googling these really long medical terms and I just had no idea what any of it meant. It shouldn't happen, should it, Rebecca, what happened to Charlotte, clearly. But the last thing we want to do on this programme is to deter any woman from going for a smear test. That's the most important thing I've got to say. Absolutely. absolutely i mean the release of this report is really so that we can better understand the needs of women and to see where the gaps are

in information and support so essentially screening and treatment for cells for abnormal cells is they play a vital part in preventing cervical cancer which is a really devastating disease and it's a very necessary treatment but it's also a surgical procedure and actually as such women should be given the right amount of information for them to be aware of what what they might feel like afterwards what they might be facing for the vast majority of women know, many women have a very straightforward procedure and everything's fine. But this report has shown that actually there are women who do struggle with side effects and it's important that they're addressed. Those side effects can include some really quite significant bleeding. I mean, how heavy was it at its worst, Charlotte? So I had maybe filling up a pad an hour,

but like a heavy flow pad after the operation. So I ended up going back into hospital to have them assess it and they kind of stuffed me full of tissue paper. And sent you on your way. No, they kept you there for the night at least. They kept me in observation overnight and then the next day they released me

and it was all fine after the sort of 16 hours that I was there. Right. I mean, you're amongst friends here. You can talk about this stuff. But it's not, I should say, it's not easy to talk about it. So thank you for being prepared to do so. Adeola, what do you think about this? Because these messages are so important. First of all, go for your smear.

But then young women in particular need to have stuff explained to them clearly, don't they? Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think the important point is cervical screening saves lives, saves about 5,000 lives a year. There's no surgical procedure that does not have side effects. And the more interventional it is, the higher the risk of side effects. We recognise that bleeding happens after a loop excision procedure, that women can get pain, and that women can have a slightly increased risk of miscarriage. I think it's important that this is communicated to women. What do you mean a slightly increased risk of miscarriage? So what happens after a loop excision procedure, and just to

explain, it's removing the tiny area of the cervix where abnormal cells arise to protect women from developing cervical cancer. Now, the vast majority of women will be absolutely fine, especially if less than one centimetre of tissue is removed. In a very small minority of women, the cervix becomes weak and under the weight of a growing pregnancy, it can start to open up and increase the risk of miscarriage and increase the risk of premature labour. It's important that women know this because it's not inevitable.

And what we say is tell your obstetrician because they can put a stitch in to reduce those risks. So tell them as soon as you go for... As soon as you're pregnant, you say, I've had lupic session. And that's why knowledge is important. If women know what to expect, if they know that bleeding after the procedure is not abnormal, that they can bleed for up to a month, that they should avoid tampons and sex until the bleeding stops, all of this standard information, should be communicating and i do think that we do and i think that sometimes there is recollection bias because i know myself i speak to my patients i consent them they come in for surgery and i see them on the morning of surgery and i say right

what are we doing today and they go i have no idea because when you're terrified well I was going to say I mean we've all most of us have been through medical experiences of one sort or another I don't think you always appreciate you consultants just how terrifying you can be and I mean that nicely I'm sure you're charming I don't think I'm at all scary not right now you know because I'm in control but But I've been on the receiving end of, at times, mind-boggling information about medical conditions. And also, there's a streak in all of us. We don't want to say we don't understand. Entirely, entirely.

I mean, you know, it's important to explain things in terms that women understand and also to give them written information to back it up. I mean, not everybody reads the written information. I'm guilty. I don't always read it. But clarity of information is important. And also understanding what women want. So giving them the chance to ask questions so you can address their individual needs because people are different. They sure are. And Charlotte, we should say that you are perfectly fine. Yes, everything is a-okay. I've had four smear tests in the last year to absolutely confirm that and I wonder how

all this has gone down with your peer group of presumably women around the same age what have they taken from your experience um so a lot of my friends obviously we're around the same age and they haven't or hadn't have been for their smear already and I've kind of pushed them, shall we say not forced, forced them to go. Because they, when they got, well, they saw my results, they felt fear for themselves, understandably. But even though what I went through wasn't, you know, the most pleasant experience, I still completely accept that I had to go through that. And it wasn't that bad. And especially when you look back on it, because you forget how how you feel on the day, don't you? Like women, we kind of just have to deal with everything that we go through and we put through a lot.

So, you know, when you look back on it, you're like, yeah, you know what? I would still go and do another. I would do it all again because the other option is just not not something that I want to test. What we should say, of course, is that the vaccination now exists. And because of that presumably Rebecca we won't have to have conversations like this will we in 20 years time well that's the hope actually the the vaccination is is proving very effective there's been some great news coming from Scotland who who launched the vaccination first and they're seeing a reduction in the rates of cervical cancer so So vaccination, again, similar to screening,

plays a huge role in the prevention of cervical cancer. And we have discussed on this programme, we seem to have discussed cervical cancer or various factors surrounding it a lot relatively recently. We keep being told the test itself will change and will become less invasive. What's the latest on that? So the UK is moving to um hpv primary testing which means

hpv is the virus hpv is the virus that causes cervical cancer um or the majority of cervical cancers so by testing if you have this virus in the first place if you don't then you are not likely to have cervical cancer so if you have got a high risk hpv strain then you will not likely to have cervical cancer. So if you have got a high-risk HPV strain, then you will go on to have a smear test and check for cervical abnormal cells. So it's a hugely powerful test. It's much more accurate than the current way of screening. But I think it's probably important that,

amongst the excitement of it being a less invasive test and actually being more... The excitement. Because actually... Put it in perspective. I know, I don't have any hobbies. No, it's a big one for me too. I think we do have to take on board the fact that actually that will probably present us with a new range of potential issues

around women's anxiety, around HPV and their understanding. Right. So we know that a lot of women, once they find out that they've got HPV, they feel dirty, they feel embarrassed and ashamed. That's got to go all that stuff, hasn't it? And we have to be better at communicating around HPV. Well, that's what we're here for. Thank you very much indeed. Enjoyed talking to you all.

Rebecca Shoesmith, Adiola O'Leighton and Charlotte Brooke. Thank you, Charlotte. Thank you. And thanks for being so patient with us this morning. Now to the brilliant Indian writer Arundhati Roy, who won the Booker Prize for Fiction back in 1997 for The God of Small Things. Her latest publication is a series, a collection of her essays,

My Seditious Heart. This is a collection of essays she's written over two decades, really. Now, they've been much praised, but they've also been criticised for those forthright views she expresses on land acquisition, on environmental degradation, Indian government elites, in fact, global government elites, and the impact on the very poorest and most marginalised people of her own country. I did put it to her that her life would be so much easier, really, if she just stuck to the writing fiction. Well, in truth, you know, I got into a lot of trouble with the God of Small Things as well. You know, court cases, all of that.

So in actual fact, it's a bit of a myth that the novels would have led me to have a quieter life because there isn't that separation in terms of the way I look at the world. Whatever I do, life would not be quiet. And because you happen to be female, are you always going to have more criticism than a male writer? It's a double-edged thing, you know. So sometimes you get a lot of attention, perhaps, because you're female, but then you get a lot of flack as well. And when I started writing the political essays, at the beginning I had all these men who were telling somebody who had just written a book that sold so many copies.

And won any number of prizes. How to write, how to think, what tone to take, what subjects to write about, what subjects not to write about. It was almost corny, you know. What did you do about that? I just laughed. But, you know, in India today, any woman who stands up and criticizes the Hindu right, it's just, you know, rape threats, death threats. It's unbelievable the kind of misogyny that they face. In this country, when we hear about the Indian elections, and we did hear about them, it's always the headline is always it's the biggest exercise in democracy in the world. Hundreds of millions of people will vote. And we marvel at that. And if I'm honest, I'm not sure we really look very much more at it in any greater detail. What should people in this country know about what happened in the Indian election? Well, you know, I mean, I've been writing about it for some years now. And the fact is that, first of all, the problem is that democracy has been reduced to elections.

Every institution of democracy has gradually been compromised. And now the institution of elections itself has become completely controlled by big money, more data. They had booth by booth targeting of, you know, castes and populations. They had millions of WhatsApp groups through which to transmit this kind of propaganda where they could combine 21st century technology with a medieval understanding of a feudal society. And so it was incredible that it leapt over the fact that there are so many Indians who are either illiterate or semi-literate because you had these videos going out on WhatsApp. And it was very hard to counter that kind of propaganda with this one person as the cover story, you know. You mean Modi?

Modi. So this selling a brand of toxic Hindu nationalism and an election in which the millions of Muslims were demonized. And as you know, India has more Muslims than almost any other country, including any Muslim country in the world. Wow. When you put it like that, that is astonishing. Is there any place for women in Modi's government? Does he have prominent female colleagues? Yes, there are women who have been elected. Amongst them, notoriously, a woman called Sadhvi Pragya, who was accused in a bomb attack in which six people were killed in a place called Malegaon.

She's under trial for terrorism. She goes around with a cow and claims that its urine has cured her breast cancer and if you stroke its hide backwards, it will reduce your blood pressure. I don't know if she's going to take it with her into Parliament. But she might. She might.

And she is a prominent female politician. She's a member of parliament now. You've written a great deal about sexual violence and it is clear that it is still, it's a problem everywhere, it certainly isn't confined to India. Has it got worse? Well, that's actually hard to say because you don't know whether it's got worse

or whether more and more women are now coming out and reporting it. It's hard to say. But in India, because of caste and because of the numbers of geographical areas that are under military and police occupation, there has been one form of sexual assault that has been culturally acceptable, you know, which is that the upper caste men have felt that they can walk in and rape a Dalit woman.

Why? Because they are upper caste and they are entitled. So in villages, this has been a traditional thing. And therefore, it is not culturally as outrageous to people as, for example, when the famous protest happened about the girl when the girl was more women are in the workplace. So tradition and modernity has its own recipe for assault. And then you have the fact that one of the greatest issues in India is the displacement of masses of whole populations. By development. By development. And, you know, this is what I keep saying, that feminism has now been sort of taken over by the language of the NGOs, and they decide what is feminist and what is not. But if you see a vast population

displaced from its hereditary land, from its ancestral properties by development. And sometimes the cash compensation just falls into the hands of men. Women are cast on the waters, you know. So it's a form of regression, an attack on women that just goes under the radar. And of course, whilst all that is happening, India is an international powerhouse. I suppose some might argue it's a price worth paying. Many people, you know, speak about slavery, the genocide of Native Americans, the massacre of and the rape and pillage of populations under colonialism and say that, you know, all these countries that progressed

have these dirty secrets and we will too. You know, the thing is that India is now actually colonizing itself. So it's eating its nether parts in this journey, hoping to become a superpower. But I actually don't think that there are going to be such easy achievements because you're living right now in a situation where nine people, according to Oxfam, own the combined wealth of the bottom 500 million, you know, so that's not going to be sustainable for long. There's going to be huge problems, environmental problems, water problems.

All of it is going to break down in very, very serious ways unless we stop thinking in these ways without any thought to the price that the poor as well as the land is paying for it. And you're not a lone voice, but you are one of the most prominent voices, one of the relatively few people prepared to say these things. There are many people who say it, but there are very few people who have a platform where they can say it and be heard, you know. But yes, I mean, 20 years one has been talking about this, you know, and now you see, for example, one of the great political lessons, the foundations on which my political thinking was built was when I wrote about the huge dams that are being built on the Narmada River in central India.

Now that big, the biggest of them is built and everything that the anti-dime movement has said has come true. You know, it's like this huge beast that's brooding over this dead river. There's no water downstream. People are protesting. The people who were promised water haven't got it. So, you know, the alternative for every one of these decisions, there's another decision that could have been taken, which was proposed with great detail. You still have, well, hundreds of millions of people who are desperately poor and illiterate. Who speaks for them? Not only that, but you have, look at what's happening to the literate. You know, today, unemployment is at a 45-year high, according to the government's own figures. All that anger that is being harvested and pointed in the direction of Hindu nationalism and let's build a temple where we demolish this mosque. Yeah, you can build a temple, that's not so hard, but you cannot provide employment,

including people with PhDs and postgraduate degrees applying for a few jobs as a clerk in the police service where the only qualification was that you needed to ride a bicycle. Right? That's a graphic illustration. Your mother was a powerful voice and an activist as well. Thinking back, did you ever have any alternative or were you always going to be this person? Well, my mother, I don't think she even would recognize the meaning of the word activist. You know, she's a remarkable person who, of course,

you know, separated from her husband and then came to live in this little village in a very traditional society that was very, very suspicious of her as well as us and started a school, which is a remarkable school. And she comes from a small community of Christians in Kerala who are called Syrian Christian. And according to the law, a woman was allowed to inherit one fourth of the property, or the equivalent about 50 pounds, whichever is less.

Right. So she challenged it. And women now have the right to inherit equally from their father's properties. Although, you know, it doesn't work out that way in the end, because the fathers make wills to make sure they don't. I'm not aware of taking off. In fact, my mother and I are very, very different. But... Does she worry about you? Yeah, all the time she does. She tries not to show it, but she does. But to have had such an unusual parent, single parent, but such an unusual parent, it wasn't always great, but it certainly has a great, great influence on who I am and how I think today.

Actually, I'm not surprised your mother worries about you. Do you worry about you? To be honest, you know, until this election, I worry about many of us, not just about me, you know. So I don't like this, oh, I'm so brave and I'm in so much danger thing because there are lots of people and people have been killed. Like the journalist Gauri Lankesh was shot in 2017. Other people are killed all the time and writers and, you know. I mean, that really does sound terrifying. Let's say you write a third novel. Oh, okay. Sorry.

You're going to write a third novel set in the India of 2050. What do you think it will be like? Well, we are once again looking at the mass of the human population not required to participate in economic activity. So in a way, they will be seen as surplus people. And we know how dangerous that is. And all the tools that we've used to try and understand the era that we live in will not work. I think we are heading into a time that we have not known before, that we will not be able to use our usual tools of left and right. We'll have to come up with a new algorithm. Did we actually establish, are you writing a third novel or will you?

I hope I will. I mean, maybe I do need to stay out of trouble until I finish it and then get into even more trouble. The incredibly impressive Indian writer, Arundhati Roy. Now, to your emails. This morning, mostly, not surprisingly, about getting back to work,

Elizabeth said, I left work as a nurse to look after my son who was born with a disability. My friends are all retiring now with a good pension. Sometimes they manage to work because I looked after their children when needed. I tried to get back to nursing, but the course was very inflexible, so many of us couldn't finish it. I now work as an HCA, a healthcare assistant, and I will have to work well into my 60s.

I am frustrated, says Elizabeth. From Ingrid, I've been listening to your show, wanted to tell my story. I lost my job at the age of 59 after 20 years at one company. I was in HR at the very top end of my career and was suffering complete burnout. The first year I was in a fog but needed to find work as I'm also a woman born in the 50s. So, of course, I had a few years before I could get my state pension and my private pension wasn't enough to pay my bills. It took me two years but I eventually found a job. I tried all the usual tactics when submitting my CV, even lopping off

the first 10 years to make it appear that I was a bit younger. But even then I was still too senior for the role which was mentioned on more than one occasion. I was more than willing to take a role at a much lower level and pay but so many companies doubted I'd stay the course or that I'd be willing or able to do the menial jobs. Technology has changed, even in the period that I was out of work, but again, as your HR lady mentioned on the show, HR is about people and fundamentally that hasn't changed. The biggest help I found was getting my social media LinkedIn profile updated. This, I discovered, was the first thing any potential hiring manager will look at before they make contact.

So yes, the CV is important, but it needs to be backed up by a good social media profile. And that didn't exist when I was last looking for work in the 1990s. Anon goes to show what a complete waste of time CVs are if she can't even get a job. Yeah, that reference to Tonshi, who was an HR wizard herself. I've never had one, says Anonymous, never needed it.

There are many other ways to get that same job. Learn to think outside the box. From Kathy, I'm 50, out of work for five years after a breakdown. My confidence shattered and mental health quite poor. Two volunteering experiences, one fantastic, the other not so much. Multiple applications and not a bite. Valued and successful. Very resonant words, I thought, from your guests.

I have four nieces. I want them to look up to me and I don't feel of much use in general. Thank you for talking about this. We are out there and we have lots to look up to me and I don't feel of much use in general. Thank you for talking about this. We are out there and we have lots to offer, even me. Cathy, I don't doubt that for a second. And I'm glad that you, well, I hope you did get some comfort, at least from hearing those resonant voices on the programme today. From Caroline, a really good way of getting back into the workplace

is going through an agency. Most government work now is through agency. Money not bad. Conditions better than before, says Caroline. Rachel says, I returned to work five years ago after a 10-year break for child caring. I lost loads of confidence and I was struggling to get back into work. Luckily, my previous boss was looking for someone to work on a three-day-a-week, three-month contract. And five years later, I'm working four days a week. What's more, I've just run a returnship project

and have four returners who are a month into their job and they are all fabulous. It's the most rewarding project I've worked on as these women have so much to offer. Drive, ambition, experience. However, the barriers for returning to the workplace are immense. I am so grateful to my boss who offered me a toe in the water role, which helped build my confidence and change my life for the better. Rachel, that's fantastic. And it's good to know there are bosses like that out there doing really great stuff. From Emma, I'd like to offer a positive experience. I was an author and a freelance journalist for 15 years

before wanting to get back into the workplace, and I decided to retrain as a teacher under the Now Teach scheme, specifically launched to help professionals who want to retrain. I've now done half of my NQT year, having qualified last year, and I'm taking a break to do supply teaching to find a school in London. Hope that goes well, Emma. Jo says, I'm a senior HR executive, age 50, and I've applied for 72 roles in three months.

I cannot work at a lower level as nobody wants me. I'm overqualified. And the attitude recruiters take in generic responses is insulting. But thank you for talking about this this morning. Alvina says she has a positive story. I'm 59. I've had several career changes through my life, but the most recent was qualifying as a UK mountain leader in 2017. I wasn't sure I wanted to work in the sector, but I've slowly made the transition from being a teacher in an FE college to working with holiday companies,

leading walks and teaching navigation and camp craft skills for Duke of Edinburgh students. Far from being dismissed as being too old, my previous skills from being a project manager in the IT industry and a qualified teacher were embraced as positive additions to bring to the role. Even my age was commented on as positive, if only because my driving licence covers more vehicles than those people much younger than I.

Well, you see, there you go. Liz, the interview today really chimes with me. I tried 18 months ago for six months to get back into work at an older age. I'm 59 after a long break at home, four children, etc. Agencies in particular were really bad. They didn't respond even after being keen for me to attend interviews. I really do wish they were checked up on as they're parasitical, says Liz. At the moment I'm looking at going self-employed like many others of my age. All the factors you've mentioned with regard to a lack of self-worth really apply to me. Jane says,

you asked for positive stories. Here's one. I qualified as a social worker in 1972 and I've worked all my life taking maternity leave when my two sons were born, despite it not being usual at the time. I was made redundant in 2013, but I've been delighted to be able to use my skills on a part-time basis with fostering agencies. They had an excuse to sack me last year when I moved house, but they all still welcome me. I should think so too. From Sarah, your piece on women in the 40s and 50s really resonated with me. I left work in a supportive workplace with voluntary redundancy,

but also suffering with the impact of the menopause on the premenstrustrual dysphoric disorder which had affected my mental health all my adult life. I'm looking for work now but I'll be having surgery soon so it's difficult. I'm also volunteering as a trustee of a mental health charity. I recently trained in coaching and I'm about to work with my first client and I'm writing. No income is the worst, though I am in a long-term relationship. I feel the pressure on my partner, but I'm not really able to get back to work straight away. The culture of any workplace is really important for me, so I'll probably have to piece some income together for myself

from some kind of freelance jumble. Exciting, but very scary, points out Sarah. Tina, listening to one of your guests saying it's like a prison, well, that was Emma, really resonated with me, says Tina. I gave up my job to look after my mum who had dementia and she lived with us for the last three years of her life. I did feel like a prisoner when she was alive as leaving the house was problematic.

Four years on, still no job, denied my pension, not eligible for benefits and thus not eligible for free retraining. I can't find work. I'm still a prisoner. Going out costs money I don't have. And it's depressing not being able to even buy a cup of coffee. If this is the way I've got to spend the rest of my life, then I have to ask, what's the point? I am without hope, says Tina. Oh, Tina, that's devastating. And I'm

very, very sympathetic to that, particularly as you, of course, did one of the most important jobs any of us will ever do, which is looking after your mother when she was going through her dementia. You deserve enormous credit for doing that, because I'm telling you now, there are many people who wouldn't. And I really, really hope things improve for you. I'm both encouraged that you were listening and that you felt that you weren't alone. But I hope you can step on from the position you're in right now. Madeleine, I've been at home looking after my children for the last 10 years. I left my job because we were struggling to conceive our second child.

And the 2008 recession meant that I was able to get voluntary redundancy. Well I got pregnant with my second child five months after leaving my job so it was worth it but I've been struggling with what to do ever since. I completed a millinery course while I was pregnant and when my second child was one year old I embarked on an open university psychology degree. Six years and another child later I graduated with first class honours. That was two years ago. Doing the degree helped me to maintain a sense of self while being mummy. Since then, I've been trying to rebuild my confidence by volunteering and I'm now at the point where I feel ready to start applying for paid work. Leaving my job 10 years ago sent me on a journey

of discovery, which has been difficult and enlightening at the same time. My journey continues, says Madeleine. It certainly does. And millinery, I mean, you've done such a lot, millinery courses, first class honours degree in your psychology, Open University. Whenever we do this subject, and we've certainly done it before, it just means that we find out so much about your lives and about your skill set. It's just extraordinary. There is absolutely no reason, apart from a lack of confidence, why you can't be offering those skills in the 21st century workplace. It just does not seem fair. I know returnships are now more widely available, but it's not a given that you'll be able to get one in your chosen sphere of work. Anyway, thanks to everybody who contributed today.

Really appreciate it. Tomorrow, Jack Munro is here. Her book of recipes is called Tin Can Cook, and she's going to make... I've got it here. I've done a bit of... For once, I've done a bit of research. And tomorrow's show will feature cannellini beurre blanc,

which does include white wine wine or maybe cider vinegar jack says um and she says it makes an unctuous and subtly powerful sauce well i think what my cooking has consistently lacked my vegetarian cooking has been that unctuous and subtly powerful sauce ingredient so we'll see what we can do tomorrow jack is brilliant so um she might be able to offer me some assistance also tomorrow pelvic floor exercises and why we may all have got them wrong that's tomorrow two minutes past 10 or whenever you choose to listen to this podcast i'm simon mundy host of don't tell me the score the podcast that uses sport to explore life's bigger questions covering topics like resilience tribalism and fear with people like this we keep talking about

fear and to me i always want to bring it back to, are you actually in danger? That's Alex Honnold, star of the Oscar-winning film Free Solo, in which he climbed a 3,000-foot sheer cliff without ropes. So, I mean, a lot of those, you know, social anxieties, things, and certainly I've had a lot of issues with talking to attractive people in my life, where I'm like, oh no, like I could never do that. And it certainly feels like you're going to die,

but realistically you're not going to die. And that's all practice too. Have a listen to Don't Tell Me The Score, full of useful everyday tips from incredible people on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody.

Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby.

It's a long story, settle in. Available now.