Woman's Hour - 'Battle of the Sexes' 2025, Irish nurses, AI & age-related diseases

Episode Date: December 29, 2025

Yesterday, the women's tennis number one, Aryna Sabalenka, faced Nick Kyrgios, ranked 671st in the men's game, in a match that was dubbed the new 'Battle of the Sexes'. She lost in straight sets. The title references the 1973 game when the best women’s player in the world, Billie Jean King, beat Bobby Riggs in straight sets. But how relevant is this for the game now and what if anything has it achieved for women's sport? Clare McDonnell is joined by BBC Sport journalist Jonathan Jurejko, and Flo Clifford, Sports Reporter for the Independent. From the very beginning of the NHS in 1948, Irish women were actively recruited to staff British hospitals. By the 1960s, there were around 30,000 Irish-born nurses - making up roughly one in eight of all nurses – yet their contribution has often gone unrecognised. A new book aims to change that. Based on dozens of interviews, it tells the story of Irish nurses in their own words. We hear from co-author of Irish Nurses in the NHS: and Oral History, Professor Louise Ryan, who spent years researching Irish migration. And from Ethel Corduff, who grew up in Tralee before coming to England to train as a nurse, a career she spent 40 years in.We discuss the women stepping onto the dohyo - the sacred circle used for Sumo wrestling. There has been a surge of interest in the UK—so what’s drawing more women to this ancient sport? Especially as in Japan they are still banned from competing professionally. We’ll hear from British competitor Toraigh Mallon and from Lance Wicks from Southampton Sumo. Did you manage to switch off from work over Christmas? Is your mind already turning to setting some big life goals for 2026? If you struggled to strike the right balance in 2025, we have just the thing to help you reset your relationship with work and success for the year ahead. The Woman’s Hour Guide to Life features a whole episode on ambition, burnout, and how to stay driven while also being kind to yourself. TV chef and author Lorraine Pascale and Dr Claire Ashley, the author of The Burnout Doctor, discuss.Could AI be the answer to treating age-related diseases – or could it reinforce gender biases that sideline women’s health? Dr Carina Kern is a geneticist and biotechnology scientist who specialises in ageing. She joins Clare in the studio to discuss the potential risks and benefits of using AI in medical research and ageing. Presenter: Clare McDonnell Producer: Kirsty Starkey

Hello, this is Claire Macdonnell and you're listening to the Women's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to Women's Hour. Now, are you thinking of taking up a new sport in the new year? Well, maybe sumo wrestling wouldn't be top of your list, but after today's program, it might just be. The inaugural British Isles Sumo Championships is happening in Belfast next month and an increasing number of women are taking up the sport. We're going to be speaking to one of them.

So let me know today if you have already dipped your toe in a male dominated sport or pastime, how did you fare? And what words of wisdom would you pass on to other Women's Hour listeners thinking of doing the same in 2026? You can text the program. This is the number you need, 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. On social media, we are at BBC Woman's Hour, and you can email us through our website, or you can send a WhatsApp message or voice note using the number 0-3700-100-444. There's also a brilliant new book out that documents Irish nurses in the NHS

and the huge recruitment drive, which meant that by the 1960s, one-in-eight nurses in the NHS were Irish. We're going to hear this morning from the book's author and personal testimony from one of the nurses featured. The homesickness, the prejudice, the illicit visits, to dance halls and also the breakfast in bed served once a week in nursing halls. Very nice. And finally, could AI be the future when treating age-related diseases? Or could it merely reinforce harmful gender biases? We're going to hear from a geneticist and biotechnology scientist, Dr. Karina Kern,

who's dedicated her professional life to answering that very question. And it was after witnessing how her grandmother was written off by health professionals once she hit her 70. So all that on the way here on Women's Hour this morning. But we'll start here yesterday. The women's tennis number one, Arena Sabalenko, faced Nick Kiroz. Now, he's ranked 671st in the men's game

in a match that was dubbed the Battle of the Sexis. She lost in straight sets. The title references the 1973 match when the best women's player in the world Billy Jean King beat Bobby Riggs also in straight sets. How relevant is this for the game now and what if anything has it achieved

for women's sports? To discuss this, I'm joined by BBC sports journalist Jonathan Eureko and also Flo Clifford, sports reporter for the I newspaper. Welcome both of you. Hi, Clow.

Good to have you both on the programme. Jonathan, let's start with you. What happened yesterday? Talk us through it. Yeah, well, this was an exhibition match, which divided opinion when it was announced. It divided opinion in the build-up, and it will continue to divide opinion. Some saw it as a bit of harmless fun with a focus on entertainment, which would attract new eyeballs to tennis, but critics believe that it could damage women's sport and leave it open to belittlement.

You know, whether people like the idea or loathly idea, there's a lot of attention on the event, but ultimately it kind of lacked the energy, entertainment and X-Factor really that had been promised because of half-fit Curios won relatively comfortably. I mean, we spent time working together, Claire, at Wimbledon, which is the pinnacle of the sport, you know, which showcases the very best of the sporting talent,

of the tennis talent in both the men's side and the women's side. This failed to do that really. Yesterday, it was a bit of a damp squib, really, and it was just played out exactly in the manner of what it was, which was an off-season exhibition event. It looked peculiar as well, didn't it, Jonathan? Talk us through how they attempted to sort of equalise the court for the different sort of physicality of the male player and the female player. Yes, the court did look on actually visually

because the court was modified to handicap Kiroz and create a more level playing field. So Svalenko's sign of the court was 9% smaller in the dimension. So when you saw the court, it kind of looked like the screen was warped and there was kind of kink right across the middle of it. And also, each player only got one serve each. So there was a bit of debate in the buildup who just having one serve apiece instead of the usual two would benefit.

Both actually struggled on serve. But Sabalenko in the past has struggled with her serve and in the crucial moments, she failed to land a first serve, which meant Kyrios won the point, including some break points in the first set. So, yeah, it was quite an odd spectacle, and many people criticised the event for not being on a level playing field and not being on a normal court to have a true representation of both players' talents. A little bit peculiar because, as we were referencing going into this, the original battle of the sexes, it was just played on a regular tennis court.

So that's an odd juxtaposition, isn't it? Yeah, that's right. I mean, despite this battle of the sexes, Monica, this match had very little in common with Billy Jean King's seminal match against Bobby Riggs in 1973. You know, that was a time when women were denied equality in tennis and wider society, and King was at the forefront of trying to change that. You know, Billy Jean King spoke to the BBC in the build-up to the event, and she was quite withering about the match, which kind of told you a lot about what she thought. And, yeah, this won't change tennis in the way that match did. You know, that was such a huge moment. It's pivotal for change in women's tennis and women's sport.

And, you know, 50 years later, it was immortalised in Hollywood films. So that showed the impact that it had. This clearly won't have that kind of resonance. I mean, controversy not just about the court size and the changes that were made, but also, and the rankings of the individual players, but also about the Kirios himself. He's a controversial figure on and off the court, isn't he? He is.

So, you know, critics were lining up to, you know, denounce this. They didn't think it was a suitable event to be having, you know, primarily because they think, well, there's no reason why the women's number one has to lower herself to playing a man whose best days are seemingly behind him after some career threatening injuries. But not only that, it's because it was Nick Kiroos. He's a man with a check in history on and off the court.

Off the court more seriously. He's admitted assaulting the next girlfriend in the past. He's seemingly endorsed Andrew Tate and later had to apologize to that. And he's also made a series of misogynist comments in the past. So if it was anybody other than Nick Kiroz, you feel they would be less criticism. But like I said earlier, you know, whether people loathe their idea or like their idea, it did get people watching it.

Let's bring in Flo now, Flo Clifford Sports Reporter for the Iron newspaper. What did you make of it, Flo? Yeah, I agree with Jonathan. I think, you know, the original Battle of the Sexes, which this took a lot of its kind of imagery and its kind of promotional material and language from, that was a real seminal moment in the sport. And this just didn't have any of the same kind of gravitas.

It didn't claim to have any sort of higher purpose than entertainment. But I think it also sort of failed on that front as well. I mean, they had to close off the upper tier in the arena in Dubai. I saw, I think, around a third of the seats in the arena. I think at one point the camera sort of panned to a small child just asleep, which I think sort of unintentionally quite funny camera choice. But, you know, it didn't really kind of, it wasn't a great advert for the sport. For a lot of reasons, the quality of the tennis wasn't great,

the quality of the serving, the fact that it was the women's world number one, playing a man who's been unfit and sort of largely irrelevant for a couple of years, it just didn't have any of the same, either it didn't have the importance of the original match, and it also didn't have the real sort of entertainment factor that was sort of promised. Didn't have the jeopardy, I'm guessing, either. And Sabalanka said in a press conference, this is all about raising the profile of the women's game. Is that what's needed? because obviously women's tennis and men's tennis

has been sort of co-platformed for many decades now. What did you think to her explanation of why she was involved? Yeah, I don't really buy it personally. I do think out of all the major sports, tennis is one of the best in terms of gender parity, and that has a lot to do with Billaging King and her efforts in the 70s. So I don't really feel like this was sort of contributing to that in any way.

And in actual fact, I think the kind of gender politics around sport the moment, and especially online, you know, her loss yesterday is more likely to actually encourage people to belittle the women's game by saying that, you know, she couldn't measure up against a man who is, you know, he's played six competitive matches in the last three years. So that's not a great advert, the fact that she lost in straight sets on this sort of strange gimmicky court. I don't really think that's going to help at all. And I think Kiraos made a comment afterwards, which sort of summed up, he was saying, you know, this has proved that she can compete with somebody who's beaten the greatest in the world

because he's previously beaten Nadal, Fedra and Drokovic. But she didn't need to prove anything. She is the number one, the women's number one. She's the best player in the world. She's won four grand slams. She had nothing to prove in this case, you know, especially against a man who's ranked in the low six hundreds. So him saying that, you know, she's proved she can compete with someone who's

beaten the greatest. It's not, that's not kind of where women's tennis is sort of measured. It's not against, you know, you don't have to measure. measure up to the men's game. It is a separate product. It's a separate, completely separate sport and it's brilliant in its own right. It's nothing to do with kind of you don't need those comparisons to the men's game. And I think that's actually going to sort of diminish the sport. So overall, I think if that was her intention to kind of raise the profile, I do think it's backfired. I guess it was also about the money. Who made money? Yeah, we don't know. Both of them have claimed that the money wasn't anything to do with it. And we don't know specifically how much they've earned from it. if there was the kind of winner takes all prize as well or just appearance fees. But I think the fact that this match was organised by Evolve, which is the agency that represents both players,

you know, they will stand to benefit, handsomely from it. It's an off-season exhibition. It's a little warm-up before the season starts. I do think money will have been a heavy factor. You could just be right, Flo. Thank you so much for joining us. Good to have you both on the programme. Flo, Clifford there, sports reporter for the I newspaper,

and BBC sports journalist as well. Jonathan, Eureko, get your text coming in. You certainly are. 84844 is the text number you need. This from Gerald in Nottingham. Thanks for this, Gerald. Why are you even discussing the tennis? It was farcical from start to finish,

only equaled in its stupidity by the TV technological shambles. They should have just played a normal game on a normal court if it was meant to mean anything. Nice relationship between them. That was the only positive. Thank you for that, Gerald. 84844 is the text number if you want to get in touch with me on Woman's Hour this morning.

I'd love to hear from you. Now, let's talk about Irish nurses in the NHS. From the very beginning of the NHS in 1948, Irish women were actively recruited to staffed British hospitals. By the 1960s, around 30,000 Irish-born nurses were working across the service, making up roughly one in eight of all nurses. Many left home in their teens, trained here in the UK, worked long hours on the wards and built lives in Britain. Yet, their contribution has often gone unrecognised. Now, a new book aims to change that.

Based on dozens of interviews, it tells the story of Irish nurses in their own words, from the discipline of hospital training to life outside of work, to dance halls, friendships, homesickness, and making a new life in England. Delighted to say, joining me in the Woman's Hour studio, our Professor Louise Ryan, who has spent years researching Irish migration and co-authored the book, and Ethel Kordoff, who grew up in Tralee before coming to England to train as a nurse, a career. She spent 40 years in. Welcome both of you. Thank you, Claire.

Thank you. Thank you so much for coming in. Louise, let's start with you. From the very start of the NHS, Irish nurses were actively recruited. and you tell how that happened in the book quite famously, almost in the way that the military would recruit people. Talk us through it. Yes, it was a very targeted campaign

because there was an urgent need to staff hospitals. So the NHS was placing advertisements in newspapers, not just national newspapers, but provincial papers throughout the length and breadth of the country. And members of staff were travelling over to Ireland to conduct interviews, in hotels, in towns across the country. And this was a way

of really reaching out into rural Ireland to recruit tens of thousands of teenagers. And so they were not qualified nurses. They were school leavers who were coming here to train as nurses. So they were coming as student nurses. And it

was the beginning of a wonderful career for many of them. Ethel, how did you first come upon the idea of being a nurse over here? Well, actually, I had left school at 15 and I had worked as a shop assistant and in about four different jobs in Dublin, in Trilly, in Killarney. And the last job I was in, I was given an extra, I was going to ask for an extra pound a week. And did they give it to you? No.

Okay. He wouldn't give it. Even though he said I'd recruited, I'd increased his business by 50%. So that made you think. It made me think. It was like a light bulb moment, really. And how did you make the connection with, did you see an advert? What happened?

Well, everybody I knew was going nursing at that time. So I went out. It was just an overnight decision. went out in both the universe and there were two advertisements in it and one was for Stoke and Trent and the other one was for Eastburn and I thought

whoever replies to me first I will go and who won and it was Stoke and Trent Not a bad place, the pottery is very... Well it was but it was very industrial It would have been very different to Eastburn It certainly would I mean this is a common theme

isn't it in the book And also, just to go back, Louise, to why the pull of the NHS was so attractive, if you wanted to train to be a nurse in Ireland, it wasn't that straightforward and it would cost you, wouldn't it? Yes, that's right. So it was completely oversubscribed in Ireland. There just weren't enough places for the demand of students wanting to train as nurses. And you also had to pay. You had to buy your own uniform. So it was expensive. Whereas the NHS offer was very enticing.

They not only paid you while you. trained, they provided uniforms, but you also had the fantastic lure of accommodation in the nurse's homes. And for many Irish families who were letting their teenage daughters, sometimes not quite 18 years of age, leave home and head off to this unknown adventure, the guarantee of accommodation was tremendously reassuring because it was really run almost like a boarding school, so you felt that your teenage daughter would be well looked after. And as an extra bonus, the NHS also paid your travel to come over. So it was a very enticing offer.

A safe environment. Tell me about the breakfast in bed. Well, I think that was a story that Ethel has. Yeah, once a week we had breakfast in bed. And it was a cook breakfast, bought to our room by the maid in the nurse's home. That's a nice extra. Yeah, it was a nice extra. It was an environment you felt safe in when you came over.

Yes. I mean, to be honest, I was quite homesick first, you know, even though I was 22 because I was quite mature compared to some of the girls, you know. But I think it was just been in a different environment, in a different country, you know, and also in a very industrial area, which was totally unfamiliar to me, you know. Yeah, and a very brave thing to do, because the first time you've left your home country, tell us about the matrons. They kind of ruled with a rod of iron. didn't they? There were expectations on nurses about going to Mass, about maybe not going to certain dance halls.

Yes, it depended on the matron. I mean, a lot of the matrons were Irish and our matron was Matron Brown who was a cousin of the Bishop of Galway at that time and she was very, very religious and she went to Mass

every morning in the local chapel and also she would see if any nurses were there or if you weren't there. So you couldn't have fib about that. You couldn't say, yes, I went. That's right. And also we had to go to Mass in the hospital chapel, at least once a week at 7 a.m. before going to work. And how about the dance halls? They didn't really approve of that kind of carry on, did they?

No. I mean, we didn't have, in Stoke and Trench, you know, there weren't many Irish people, you know. So there weren't any Irish dance halls, which was quite different to London, you know. That's another point you make in the book, isn't it, about the integration of weather. the Irish nurses came to? Because I guess in London, there's a big Irish community and you could end up socialising with other Irish people. That's not always the best way to integrate though, is it? Well, one of the things we were very keen to do with this project, which I co-authored with Gronia MacPol and Nehidoshi, was to ensure that we weren't just looking at London, because it would have been very easy to just tell the London story. And as you mentioned there, Claire,

the experiences of nurses in other parts of the country, such as Ethel in Stoke-on-Trent, were very, very different. So in the book, we have nurses who were in Liverpool, who were in Leeds, in Scotland, around the Glasgow area, in Wales, and some of them were in small towns in quite remote areas. And I think it's important just to maybe some of your younger listeners won't be aware. But in those early days, even very small towns had their own hospitals. There were cottage hospitals all over the country,

many of which now no longer exist and you tend to get bigger hospitals in, cities, for example. So a lot of these nurses were in quite small towns, as Ethel has described, maybe they were in a place where they had really no idea where it was and didn't know anybody there. So they were really starting to build their lives from scratch. And of course, Ethel, as we moved through the sort of 60s and 70s in England, given what was going on in Northern Ireland, there was a certain amount of prejudice that certain Irish nurses encountered. Did you ever encounter them? Never, no. I never did. No. That's good. But in that book, Louise, you say that certain people would, you know, when a nurse had an Irish accent, they would say, I don't want this nurse to treat me.

Yes. So particularly around the time of the troubles, when bombs were going off and there were some horrific bombing incidents, which some of your older listeners will remember very well. And for Irish nurses, many of them spoke very powerfully and very emotionally about how that impacted on them, where you would even have victims of the bombing. coming into a hospital, having Irish nurses treating them, and where they would experience quite a lot of antagonism and negativity. But even in situations where people were not directly involved in a bombing incident, there were several stories in the book about nurses who were, for example, healthcare nurses or community workers who were out on the district, and they would be going into patients' homes.

And maybe in the immediate aftermath of a bombing incident, which had gotten a lot of media attention, and patients would turn around and say, I don't want the Irish nurse coming to me today. So for these nurses who were wearing their uniforms, doing a job, being professional, providing health care, essential care, they were being rejected on the basis of being Irish and therefore somehow being guilty by association.

Ethel, you made a career, I think I'm right, over 40 years in the NHS and you've stayed in the UK and had a family. At what point, maybe it doesn't even feel like that now, but does this feel like home to you now? Oh, yes. It's actually felt like home for quite a long time, you know, because even before I came nursing, I'd always wanted to come to London. And even though I didn't actually train in London, you know, I haven't gone to Staffordshire first, the reason I came to London was actually we had a neighbour in Ireland called Mrs Maloney and her daughter had trained in Michigan. May Day Hospital Croydon, and she said to me one day, when I was on holiday, when she heard I had been nursing, she said, Mayday Hospital Croydon is the best hospital in England, which is not actually true, but, which is not actually true. And she put it into my head that when I would leave, Stoke and Trind, that that would be where I would go. And you're still in Croydon.

And I went there on the words of Miss. Maloney, yes. You've got a lot to answer for. And I'm still in, I'm still in Croydon. Yeah. But May Day Hospital, I mean, I did work there, but I worked in other hospitals as well, you know. But I did actually eventually end up in May Day Hospital because the other hospitals all closed. Right, okay.

And they all closed gradually. And you married here and you had your children here? Yes, married here. Yeah. And now we don't. I'm sorry to hear that. and brought up a family here as well. Yeah.

I'm quite happy. That's fantastic. It really is. And of course, we now talk about, I mean, this is Irish migration in this book, but we now talk about the need for migrants to help in care here in the UK, in social care settings in the NHS. How do you reflect on your experience of being welcomed in as a migrant, I guess, to this country and to those settings?

What can we learn from your experience? Well, I think, you know, we were welcomed and, you know, definitely appreciated. And I think it's essential for, you know, to have migrant nurses, really. I think it is. Yeah. Absolutely. And what would you say to other people now? Because obviously it's a profession that we need more people in wherever they come from.

What have you got out of nursing down the years? Well, I think I've got friendship. a lot of friendships and a lot of you know patients have been very appreciative and you know it's actually been a very rewarding career yeah fantastic for anyone and of all the people you know alongside this wonderful woman here you've spoken to is that what they say to you they you know it's such a detail of fantastic book and there's a lot of negatives and there's a sort of homesickness and prejudice and all of that but what is the overriding message you got for?

from this oral history of these women? There's an overwhelming sense of pride, I think, that they felt tremendous pride in their nursing career. And I think one of the really key things about nursing, particularly in the 50s and 60s and through to the 70s, is that it allowed women to continue working after they got married and had children, which was almost impossible in many other careers because of lack of childcare, lack of nurseries and creches,

which we kind of take for granted now, albeit very expensive, But in those days, that wasn't an option for many married women. They had to give up their jobs. But nurses were able to continue because of shift work. So many of our nurses had this long career like Ethel, 40 years, many of them longer than 40 years, because they were able to work around their family commitments as well. So there's a tremendous sense that they gave a lot to nursing,

but nursing also rewarded them. Well, listen, I just have to mention Ethel. You've also got a self-published book, Ireland's loss, Britain's gain, about the thousands of Irish nurses who help create and sustain the NHS. So we'll give that a plug as well. Alongside this fantastic book, Irish nurses in the NHS and oral history

and some fantastic pictures. You're in here as well, Ethel. She is looking mighty fine, I have to say, as you are this morning. Thank you so much. You look absolutely wonderful and festive. I've been absolutely wonderful to meet the two of you. Thank you so much for coming in.

Thank you. And have a happy new year. Thank you very much. Irish nurses and oral history is available to buy. Now, already a huge hit in Ireland, I have to say. I know it's in the top ten bestsellers list. You've been listening to Professor Louise Ryan, who is one of the co-authors of that book,

and Ethel Cordoff as well. Thank you so much, both of you for coming in. Thank you very much. Now, on Wednesday's programme, the last of the year, we're going to be talking about your women of the year. The final days of December are always a good time to reflect on the inevitable ups and downs that any year can hold for all of us.

But what about the people in your life who have particularly impacted you in the last 12 months? Who have been the women in your life, close to you, maybe not close to you, who have been significant to you and for you. It could be a friend, it could be a relative or a public figure, who has impressed you with something they have done or achieved, or it could be a celebrity who has captured your attention by something they've said or a couple. Well, to discuss their women of the year, Carly Pentelow is going to be joined by Baroness Catherine Granger, chair of the British Olympic Association and the first woman to occupy that role, and who amongst her many achievements was the first British woman to win her five Olympic medals at five successive games for rowing. Also, alongside Catherine, Helen Lewis, staff writer at the Atlantic and a familiar name and voice on Radio 4 will take part. And joining them, Natalie Haynes,

author of six novels and, of course, a broadcaster in her own right. But, of course, we want to hear from you. Who is your woman of the year and why? As you know, you can text us. This is the number 84844. Texts will be charged at your standard message rate. Check with your network provider for exact costs. Or you can leave a voice message on social media.

It is at BBC Women's Hour, and you can email us through our website as well. And keep your text coming in this morning, 840. 844 on anything you hear you'd like to comment on. Do get in touch. This next one could well be just that. Forget the treadmill, forget the spin class. If you're looking for a new year fitness challenge for power, tradition and a touch of the unexpected, how about sumo wrestling? It might surprise you to hear that more and more women are stepping into the ring. There aren't official figures yet, but clubs in the UK say they are seeing a growing number of female participants. And next month, a group of them, will be competing at the inaugural British Isles Sumo Championships in Belfast. For some, a love of Japanese culture has sparked their interest and, of course, Sumon originated there. But in Japan, women are still banned from competing professionally. Here, though, the doors are open.

Delighted to say, Tori Mellon started training in Belfast earlier this year, and Tori joins us now. Welcome to the programme. Hi, yeah. And also joining us is lovely. Lance Wicks, who runs Southampton Sumo, which has a growing number of women joining. Hi, Lance. Good morning, how are you?

Very, very well. This is a fascinating topic. And honestly, I didn't know much about it until I knew I was doing this. So it's great to sort of open the doors to the Women's Hour listeners. Tori, let's start with you. When did this first come on your radar? When did you think, I like the look of that. I'm going to give it a go.

So last February, I was just sitting on my sofa, scroll on through your Instagram. and an advert came up and it said Belfast people do you want to try sumo and I don't know much about I didn't know much about sumo to be honest

didn't really know anything about the sport but I'm just somebody who likes doing things and getting out of the house so I just went along and I really really enjoyed it and were you quite sporty

before were you doing anything else I was playing Gaelic football before and before that I was playing just normal football quite a tough woman then by all accounts Gaelic football is not for the faint hearted and when he went along

Were you the only woman there? Tell us, you know, set the scene for us. So at the time I brought my friend with me for a bit of moral support. She didn't stick it out. But apart from that, I'm the only female. So I'm training against all the men. Right.

What did you find hard to get your head around? What did you like about it? Talk us through your initial response to the introduction to the sport. So the matches aren't very long and the premise of it is quite basic. you just have to push someone out of the ring or make them touch the ground with any part of their body

apart from the soles of their feet. So it's easy in that regard, but it's difficult to do. Yeah, I actually enjoyed that it was against the men and getting the men out. And you could do that. Yeah, of course. Good, of course. I'm sorry, so you even question it. But there is a weight issue.

Let's bring Lance in. There is a discrepancy, isn't there, between male and female fighters? Lance, what got you? into it? What got me into it? Well, I'm a long-time judo player. So I've done judo since I was knee-high to a grasshopper.

And judo and sumo, both Japanese. So sumo's always sort of sat there in the background. And then it was this year, basically, I don't even remember how, but I ended up contacting British Sumo, the Federation. And they said, actually, there's nothing down your way. But, you know, come up to London. and there's a club there, you can have a try. So I went up there and had a try and it all grew from there.

Yeah, and why, you know, you're now trying to bring more women into the sport. So how do you have to modify it or do you have to at all? Because the first thing that comes to mind, if you could talk to the garb that the men wear, because that's what mostly people will think of when they think of sumo. So what do the women wear? So, yes, the famous outfit of the professional sumo players is topless and they just wear what we call a mawashi which is a huge long canvas belt

is the best way I'm describing it for the guys in Japan it would be eight meters plus long really heavy cotton canvas and we wrap that around our waists and it sort of acts as a bit of a think of it as a loincloth it's hard to describe on radio that's the traditional clothing for the professionals that's what we saw at the Royal Albert Hall earlier in the year For amateur sumo, which is what Tori and I do, we generally will wear shorts underneath, sort of like compression shorts, you know, like cycling shorts, underneath that.

And then woman, and Tori's probably better to speak of this, will wear, is it a Unitad? Yeah, like an all-in-one sort of suit. Yeah. Okay, so you don't wear the kind of traditional stuff, but don't you have to wear that to say there's something to grab onto? Yeah, I still wear them awashy, but underneath. I wear the Unitarred, but the men may go topless, so whenever I'm training against them,

it's a lot of men sweat on me. You're really selling this. I can talk to you as a guy. It's not that comfortable either for a lot of us. Right. A lot of us also have that issue. What we do at our club now is we basically wear T-shirts all the time. Right.

Okay. My friend who coaches in Norway, he will change T-Short of. shirt halfway through the session just because you get hot and sweaty and it's not that much fun. No one wants to be grabbing that. What about let's Lance briefly the weight, the size to take part if you're a woman, what do you have to hit? And do you have to be weighty? Because I'm, you know, Tori, you certainly aren't. Dispel some of those myths for us. Yeah. Sumo, amateur sumo around the world, except for the pro sumo, the grand sumo. Japan has got weight classes. So we have men's categories and women's categories. The woman's

lightest one if memory serves is under 50 kilos. So it's not particularly heavy. It's not super light either. And then it's basically five kilogram categories from there. So 50, 55, under 60, all the way up to 80 kilograms. And then there's an over 80 kilogram for women. And we generally have an open weight, which anyone can go in. And for men, it's the same. But the weights are slightly different, so it's under 70 kilos, under 77, 85 and so forth. And the irony is, obviously, women cannot compete. They're banned from competing professionally in Japan. Here the doors are open.

Tori, we have the inaugural British Isles sumo championships in Belfast next month. You must be quite excited about that to kind of compete against more women, basically, because you're generally competing against men, aren't you, in your practice rounds? In training, yeah, it's just men. I was in a competition in Scotland. August, so it was good to compete against women there. But it's going to be, it's exciting that it's in Belfast as well, because it's home turf. So there'll be a lot of support and a lot of other people coming to visit the city. And to women listening to this, because let's be

honest, we're all thinking new year, new me, what shall I take on? Why would you say give Sumo a go? You just have to be so determined. It's so good for strength and fitness. And it's a bit of fun. Like, it's just really good fun. We wish you well in the championships next month at Alsea University. We'll watch with interest. Thanks so much for joining us this morning. That is Torrey Malon and you also heard the voice of Lance Wick. So if you're down on the South Coast and you're interested in giving sumo a go, he runs Southampton Sumo and there's a growing number of women

joining that. Thank you both so much for joining us on Women's Hour this morning. Now, did you manage to switch off from work over Christmas Or is your mind already turning to settling some big life goals for 2026? Or maybe you've ended the year feeling frazzled and burnt out. Now, if you struggle to strike the right balance in 2025, we have just the thing to help you reset your relationship with work and success for the year ahead. And it is the woman's out, The Woman's Our Guide to Life. It's available to listen to now only on BBC Sounds and features a whole episode on ambition, burnout and how to stay driven.

whilst also being kind to yourself. Nula was joined by TV chef and author Lorraine Pascal who shared her experience of burnout. I did take on too much. I had a patissary, a bakery in Covent Garden. So that was a staff of 10. I was also finishing my master's degree, raising my daughter.

And then I started to do the TV shows and all the cookery books. And I think I just wasn't very good at saying no. And I think if I talk about boundaries, I think that is the key. It's boundaries and knowing when to say no. But of course there's all the pressures, isn't there? And you're riding the wave, right?

You had this massive success that I'm sure you wanted to capitalise on. Yeah, keep going, keep going. You don't want to upset people. So you just keep going. My main issue was I didn't want to upset anyone, but it's all down to myself. I can't blame anyone else. But also, I was testing all my own recipes.

So my agent was like, well, Lorraine, you know lots of other people, they just write the recipes down and somebody else tests them before. I'm like, no, no, no. I have to get this Victoria Spund right myself. Do it three times, four times, five times, six times. And then one, I know it's perfect. Then I give it to someone else to see if the recipe is easy to follow.

I don't know, perfectionism. I was just about to say that. That was the word that was coming to my head. I mean, incredible achievement and obviously attention to detail. But tough personal cost. Do you cook it all now? Not so much anymore. Not so much anymore

And it's a real shame Because it took me a long time After I did have this burnout Actually to even go into the kitchen To cook something And I still really haven't got it quite back I'd get really anxious It sounds really ridiculous

But there you go It doesn't I'd like so okay I'm going to make like a shepherd's pie And I'll be chopping the onions And I'd get really stressed If one tiny thing Wasn't going smoothly

Which obviously happens When you're cooking Or even going into like The baking shot where I used to have so much joy. You know, I did a degree in Petissary, for goodness sake. I just got really stressed. I think that's a good way of saying it. Just really anxious. How did you see it in yourself? What were the symptoms? I didn't know it was burnout. I just thought I wasn't doing something properly or something like that. You were

finding faulted yourself. Yes. Everyone around me's like, come on, you're doing great, keep going. And I just, I didn't realize it was anxiety. I didn't realize it was stress. I didn't realize, I just blamed myself. I almost started to feel a sense of resentment. Physically, it was like an all-body, almost reaction. But it was a feeling you hard within you. It was a feeling in my chest, the tines in my chest, almost like not wanting to go near the cakes. Yeah, like a physical reaction. You were repelled. Yeah, visceral reaction. It's like, what are you doing? Don't be silly. You love this. You know, this is you. You love it. It's so rewarding. But arguing with yourself. It's like arguing with myself. But then I was.

like it's your fault come on everything's going so well what are you doing so a lot of self-blame like a lot of guilt a lot of tiredness before I could juggle a million balls in the air you know and then I realized I wasn't able to do that so much and I just didn't want to do that I wasn't waking up excited anymore the way I used to so it was that kind of thing um I think my burnout may have come from issues from childhoods of trying to be the best trying to be loved you know I grew up in foster care and I was adopted and fostered again. And so I think there was always a voice in my head of, you know, you have to do more. You have to do more to be lovable. You have to do more to be loved. So I think often we're driven by messaging, cultural messaging, being a woman,

me being black or from your friends, from your family to succeed, to achieve and that it's not okay to say no, but it is okay to say no. It is okay. Great interview. And there's more from Lorraine Pascal in the full episode, which features so many great takeaways from our experts. Dr. Claire Ashley is the author of The Burnout Doctor and Squiggly Careers co-founder, Helen Tupper. Adult ambition can come from expectation. It can come from comparison. And I think that becomes harder in the world that we're working in today because other people's successes are sort of more visible than ever. So visible. I mean, we just have to pick up our phone and we can see it. It's scrolling through LinkedIn or Instagram or wherever you are

and everyone looks shiny and successful. And I think if you are externally oriented, you're likely to question why are they there and I'm not? What do I need to do differently? And it is something that we can chase. And I think that's quite an unhealthy place for ambition to come from. You would say drop comparisons. Yeah, it is.

And I would say what we want to do, I kind of talk about this idea of running your own race. I think when you compare, you end up running someone else's race. I think what we really want to do is sort of ground in what's important to us. But then I think the flip side of that is where we overplay our values at work. So, for example, you might have a value of achievement or you might have a value of control. Your value of control means you have strong attention to detail. Your value of achievement means you can manage many things at once.

But there's sort of a tipping point when those values start to work against us. They become relentlessly driving. And we end up with sort of this thing called emmeshment, which is where you become what you do. So kind of an unhealthy attachment to our job. How can you find out if your values and the workplace values align? An easy question to start reflecting on is what's most important to you about the work you do, who you do it with and where you do it. Three separate questions and just reflecting on that and writing your answers down

and you tend to start seeing some consistencies in those different answers that can help you just spot what your values are. what you want is a relatively close alignment to the things that motivate and drive you to what your workplace values. So for example, one of my values is freedom. If I am working in an organisation that respects and needs that, that's a good fit for me. If I'm working in a very process-driven organisation where there's a very simple way to do it and it's that way, then I'm going to find that quite hard because I'm going to have to sort of fake it to fit in and that's going to create a lot of stress on me. So I think really it's sort of two points of

data, what motivates and drives you and what does your organisation value? They don't have to be completely overlapped, but you do want a sense of fit. The less fit, the more you have to put into faking it and the more energy that's going to take. You're nodding, Claire. Yeah, absolutely. So working in misalignment with your values is one of the six workplace factors that can lead to burnout in the context of prolonged stress. On the flip side, in burnout recovery, again, one of the steps to recovery is to look at your values. Because burnout is a big life event. It's like a bereavement, a divorce, having a child, getting married, all of these big life events change sometimes what is important to you and burnout is exactly the same. And interestingly,

the one thing that most people value the most after they go through burnout is their health and they will do everything within their power to try to protect that value. I'm just thinking, Helen, like if you're in a workplace and many people can't change jobs that easily, if your workplace doesn't fit with your values, what power do you have? Yeah, so I think Part of being aware of what motivates and drives you helps you to be more conscious, I think, about how you're feeling. So let's say I understand what my values are and I think, gosh, this isn't a very good fit for me here.

Actually, even coming to that awareness is better than just feeling rubbish and not knowing why. Then trying to find what is in my control where else I can find fulfillment. We're not all in a position to say, this job doesn't fit me, I'm going to leave it and do something else. There's lots of reasons why we might be in this situation and might have to stay in it for a bit longer.

So looking for, well, who can I spend time with? What else can I put myself forward for at work or outside of work? When you're feeling tired, that can feel hard because we're saying go find something else to do. But connecting with your values helps you to find more fulfillment, to be more energized. So I would say, first of all, awareness of what makes you you and the acceptance of what you're doing at the moment isn't giving that to you and trying to find other ways to get that fulfillment. Are you suggesting write them down? I'm just trying to think, how do I find out what my values are? Well, yeah, I mean, there's lots of exercises.

Actually, I found a really good free resource recently called values. com, which will help you work out what they are. It's very useful. But I almost have it like a compass. So I have four values. And I read Amber Green them for how fulfilled I feel at work right now. And I get a really quick visual of what's working for me at work and what isn't working for me at work. And then I can decide the action that I take.

And it gives you back a bit of control when actually think a lot of things at work and sometimes feel out of your control, and that compounds the feelings of stress. That is a must listen going into the new year. That was Helen Tupper and Dr. Claire Ashley there. You can listen to the full episode on Ambition and Burnout for more brilliant advice, including the two words you need to know

to master the art of having boundaries at work. To find it, just search Woman's Hour Guide to Life in your web browser or go to the BBC Sounds app, search for Woman's Hour, and click on the Guide to Life link at the top of your regular podcast. podcast feed. Thank you to everybody who's been getting in touch with the program, talking about Irish nurses, migrating to the UK for work. Fidelma says this. My mother came from Ireland to train as a nurse in Guildford, aged 18. She said she did experience racism, making fun of her accent and making fun of her poverty. This one, it was nice to hear the discussion on Irish nurses this morning. My stepmother named Martha Glorney, or Glomie, from County Cork, spent her nursing years in Pembrokeshire, where she concluded her career as matron of a small hospital.

My childhood memory is that she was held in the highest esteem by her colleagues. She was an incredible force of nature. Thank you for those texts. And also thank you for people who've been texting in on entering into a kind of male domain in the sporting world. We were talking about more women getting involved in sumo wrestling. This texter says, I've been playing both ice hockey and basketball for a few years. I'm now in my mid-30s. I'm the only female member of my basketball team.

I'm one of just a few in my 30-strikes. ice hockey team. It took a lot of courage to walk through the door for the first session, especially as a complete beginner, but it was more than worth it. Thank you so much for that. Hopefully that will encourage other women to do the same going into the new year. Now, AI, artificial intelligence. It's a feature of everyday life now from your smart speaker at home, generating a presentation maybe for work. A few weeks ago, Women's Hour discussed the use of AI in schools. And my next guest has been looking at whether AI could be the answer to treating age-related diseases

or if it could just reinforce harmful gender biases. Dr. Karina Kern is a geneticist and biotechnology scientist and CEO of Link Jevity and she joins me now. Welcome to the program. Thank you. Delighted to be here. I mean, I'm fascinated when I read into this about, you know, your interest in this and how ageing affects women may be in a more detrimental way to men,

how women are treated by the health service. It was all to do with your grandmother, wasn't it? it? Absolutely. I mean, you know, when I grew up as a child, it was very close to my grandmother. And I was baffled when I was young, when I saw her age. And just the lack of methodologies to intervene this whole spiral in health decline that I saw in her loss of human dignity. And yet the doctors, you know, they weren't even trying to do much about it. That to me was baffling. And this was in India, wasn't it? This was in India, yes. And they kind of just sort of wash their hands and said, well, she's old.

These things happen. Absolutely. I mean, think about it. It wasn't until 1994 that even the World Health Organization looked at something like menopausal osteoporosis, osteoporosis, a degenerative bone disorder, and considered it pathological or negative rather than something normal or natural. And I think in general there's this misunderstanding that all of these debilitating diseases later in life are somehow natural and normal and should be accepted.

Well, we'll talk about the aging process and then talk about your cutting-edge company and who you're teaming up with and how AI could possibly help with the aging process in women. But when it comes to medical research on aging, what kind of conditions, biological processes are we talking about? Well, that's the difficulty because you're talking about understanding a process from the level of the gene and molecule to the cell, to your tissue, to the medical changes you see later in life. I mean, think of the sheer complexity. Yeah, it is. Necrosis is the word that is used when we talk about this field. Explain to us what that is. So if you think of the fundamental unit of biology, it is the cell. And necrosis is bad cell death. So you have two types of cell death. Very simply beneficial, which takes out cancer and you need for development. And then purely negative detrimental cell death that underlies degeneration. And really our work over here was shattering the status quo, which was the assumption you cannot take out just this purely negative form of cell death

and therefore target tissue degeneration. And is this specific, you're looking specifically at women then? Because there's obviously in this field, as in many others, as you've just said, you know, the kind of examination of the physical effects of the menopause not really recognised all the 1990s. Do women age differently to men? And is there enough research into that? Well, there's not enough research into ageing in general.

but the difficulty with women in particular is you take your aging process, which isn't linear, and on top of that, you lay these hormonal shifts. Think of the menopause. You have increased risk from liver disease to kidney disease to cardiovascular to dementia. So women are far more complex, and historically there has been a bias where most of the work has been conducted in men. Now, you were talking about AI. In order for AI to operate effectively, you know, need good data sets. And you lack these data sets in general when it comes to aging, but far more when it comes to women. The solution isn't to only focus on women or only focus on men, but to appreciate the fact that this is a complex problem where you have to understand the changes

across different sexes. You have to understand the fact that it's a systems level challenge. And what is different with our approach is we apply the systems level solution accounting for these differences. That's fascinating because you kind of think this is the problem with AI, isn't it? It's massive database that can only kind of draw conclusions from the information that's fed into it. So if we've already got the kind of skewed information, how do you get the right outcomes for women when you ask AI to solve it? What are you doing? So AI alone is not the answer. What you need is structure for your AI. And I often use an analogy here, which is it's like playing a game of chess where you give AI none of the rules of the game, no data sets and

you expect it to make a good prediction, versus fine, you don't have the data sets, but you give it the structure, you give it all of the rules of the game, and then you can make very powerful predictions. And in fact, proof that you can make powerful predictions with such a structure is from the discovery we made of first-in-class drug to block degeneration. This sounds like I'm into Walt Disney territory now where we're all going to take something and live forever. But what does this mean? Talk us through your discovery. I mean, look, I'm not scared of death.

For me, it's not living forever. But I am scared of this loss of human dignity, of this spiral in health decline, what I saw in my grandmother. I wouldn't wish that upon anyone. And I think the crux is, can you find an intervention to hit the system so you can protect it as a whole

and you don't get that loss of human dignity. And for me, the power with hitting necrosis, hitting tissue degeneration is it is applicable across so many different diseases. I often use the analogy, it's like the Swiss Army knife of drugs. If you manage to get this through, you wouldn't just have one drug for one disease. You would account for multiple diseases and you wouldn't have this problem of, oh, perhaps it'll work in men but not in women. And what have you, so tell us about what you've discovered that you think might be

the key to unlocking this? Yeah. So what we've managed to do is find a way to shield cells. And it came from a prediction we made in terms of which targets to actually hit within the cell. And what we're finding, you know, you have to test a prediction. But what we're finding in a lab is even where you're seeing close to 100% of tissue degeneration, with this drug you're able to shield cells to the point where 90 to 100% are still alive and still functioning normally. And so the key is if you can translate this to different diseases in humans. And the crux is because you are hitting something that is not subject to these genetic differences.

It's unregulated cell death. It's undesirable cell death. You're far more likely for it to actually translate and show good results in humans when we take it into clinic next. And is that the stage you're at now? You've done other kind of testings. What's the next stage?

Absolutely. So the next stage is clinical trials. For me, I wanted to take this down the most rigorous scientific route. So to date, not a single drug has been approved for ageing. In other words, there is no longevity drug. And the ambition is to get this approved as the first. My word. And you're working with NASA as well?

Yes. So you see in space, you get accelerated degeneration, accelerated aging. And so the power of this is you could use it to shield astronauts as well from the stresses you get in space. And often when you think about space, you think of the hardware, the satellites. But the crux is, would the human body even survive long-duration missions?

And so are there areas, of course, pushing newer frontiers such as space exploration? I guess lots of people listening to this might say we already have an aging population that is causing immense strain on society. Would your argument be if we unlock this whole system to protect people from this kind of degenerative age, they would leave a healthier, live into a healthier old age?

Absolutely. In fact, it would have benefits to the economy, right? You would increase your economically active group. And I mean, in our case, we're starting, you have different indications or diseases you can start with. And one of the ones we're starting with is kidney disease. Think about the cost. There is no treatment.

All you have is dialysis or transplants. If you look at the U.S., it costs Medicare 24% of its annual budget. You mentioned NASA. That's five times the budget of NASA. And in Europe and the UK, the numbers are similar. So, you know, it's these diseases that take a toll on the economy and society. Just a final question then. How do you make sure it stays on that track?

And it just doesn't bleed into exploiting people's desire to stay young? well I guess look there's nothing wrong with wanting to stay young inevitably if you take out these diseases you will live longer lives and healthier lives but I guess the question is how do you ensure that you can hit as many people as possible and it doesn't become a drug just for the rich and that comes from the leadership and the ambition to make it available and accessible to as many people as possible so it's not just helping a select few And that's one of the other areas I really am passionate about. It's fantastic having you on the program. Thank you so much. Absolutely fascinating. Dr. Karina Kern there, geneticist and biotechnology scientist at CEO of Link Jevity. Join me on Woman's Hour tomorrow if you're coming out the other side of Christmas

and you've been with an adult reverted who reverted to acting like a child when they're at home with their parents. You might want to tune in and get some advice from psychotherapist Julius Samuel. Talk to you then. That's all from today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hello, I'm Nula McGarverin and I want to tell you about a BBC podcast called Send in the Spotlight. The number of children with special educational needs is increasing. Too many parents are having to fight to get those needs met

and councils are spending money that they do not have. Against a backdrop of government reform, I bring together families, teachers, experts and decision makers to reimagine the system. Listen to Send in the Spotlight on BBC Sounds.