Woman's Hour - Beyoncé the billionaire, Adults regressing at Christmas, Girls' political confidence

Episode Date: December 30, 2025

Beyoncé has been declared a billionaire by Forbes, making her the fifth musician to join its list of the world's wealthiest people with 10 figure fortunes, including Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Bruce Springsteen and Beyoncé's husband Jay Z. Clare McDonnell speaks to Jacqueline Springer, music journalist and Curator of Africa & Diaspora: Performance at the Victoria & Albert museum, about what makes Beyoncé such a successful businesswoman, and the challenges along the way.Why can adults seem to regress to childhood or teenage behaviours at Christmas? We discuss family dynamics and the kinds of behaviour that can re-surface with everyone under the same roof again. Guardian columnist Elle Hunt shares her own experience alongside Woman's Hour listeners, and Psychotherapist Julia Samuel offers advice. Madelaine Thomas works as a professional dominatrix. When her own images were shared online without her consent, she decide to develop a tool that could allow images to be tracked, and abusers identified. Image Angel was the result, offering forensic image protection for platforms, and she's now trying to get businesses in the adult entertainment industry on board. Do we need to re-think our attitudes to ageing, as we age? As we approach 2026, we consider how to shed a negative attitude towards ageing, and embrace growing older and wiser, by revisiting an episode of the Woman’s Hour Guide to Life: How to make ageing your superpower. Therapist Emma Kirkby-Geddes shares how she’s been struggling to accept the passage of time. Gerontologist Dr Kerry Burnight, and Jacqueline Hooton, a personal trainer and ‘ageing well’ coach, offer advice. Research tells us that girls tend to disengage from politics before the age of 16, just as boys seem to grow in confidence. Academics at Roehampton University have looked into this and have created a programme aimed at Year 9 students, in an attempt to re-engage teenage girls in issues that matter to them and boost their confidence to speak politically. Professor Bryony Hoskins has created G-EPIC (Gender Empowerment through Politics in the Classroom) and Rachel Burlton is a teacher at Mulberry School for Girls in London who has been teaching the programme.Presenter: Clare McDonnell Producer: Helen Fitzhenry

Hello, this is Claire Macdonnell and you're listening to The Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to Woman's Hour. Great to have your company this morning. Today, we'll hear from one woman who decided to protect herself after intimate images were shared online. She's Madeline Thomas. She works as a professional dominatrix. But when her own images were shared without her consent, she developed a tool that can track anyone who misuses or shares them online. Madeline will join me in the studio. Now that we're out the other side of Christmas, how were things if you went home as an adult

or if you welcomed your adult children home? Was it happy families? Or did you or they return to those family dynamics of childhood and teenage years? If you did, don't worry, you're not alone. Regression is a very common thing and we have experts on hand this morning to help you spot the signs

and avoid falling into the same old behaviour traps in the future. So tell me this morning about your Christmas family dynamics that you caught yourself or your adult children doing. Did you pile that washing up up in the sink knowing that someone else would eventually do it? Or could you just not stop yourself from interfering slash directing the dinner prep at your adult child's home? You can text the program. The number you need is 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. On social media, we are at BBC Women's Hour, and you can email us through our website. You can also send a WhatsApp message or voice note using this number, 0300-100-444. Also this morning, we're going to be talking about

why girls disengage from politics far earlier than boys. Research has shown that by the time boys hit 16, their political confidence starts to run. but with girls age 16, it stalls. Well, now a new program pioneered by Roampton University aims to change that by engaging teenage girls in the classroom in small discussion groups on topics that interest them. We're taking a look at that as well this morning here on Woman's Hour. But first.

Beyonce, what a wonder it is hearing her this early on a Tuesday morning. She has been declared a billionaire by Forbes, making her the fifth musician to join its list of the world's wealthiest people with 10 figure fortunes and they include Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Bruce Springsteen and of course her husband Jay-Z. Earlier this month, Forbes predicted Beyonce would join this elite group after it estimated her net worth

to be almost a billion dollars. That followed the success of her 2023 Renaissance World Tour which grossed $600 million. A short time ago, I spoke to, Jacqueline Springer, music journalist and curator, Africa and Espora performance at the Victoria and Albert Museum to find out what makes Beyonce such a successful businesswoman. I think what this announcement, and I'm always a little bit cynical because it's other organisations speaking on behalf of somebody else, what is important is for us to really think about this journey that she's had because it hasn't been an overnight. It's far from it. you know there was a time when destiny's child her first group could not catch a break i used to work freelance for sony records in the uk and i remember colleagues trying to book them before they

won their best r and b group um at the smashest poll winners party in 2005 i remember colleagues trying to get destiny's child booked for that gig and it's been an exciting musical journey that she's taking us on but it hasn't been overnight and it's been you know she's paid her use and I think what this means is that we tend to think of her as a soloist but there's been a longer journey that's been chartered through the machinations of the music industry that she's challenged the when she released her when she quote unquote did a radio head and released an album in lemonade without any and pre-publicity without any announcement it came full packaged it came with its visual and markers its music videos and then she'd be

became far more politicized within subsequent releases, you know, taking on issues relating to police brutality and fatal contact with the police, looking at descendant racial identity and how that pans out at a time of acute racial violence, as well as looking at and celebrating gay club culture. So all of these are steps that have taken more than 20 years to actually land on the floor. And the fact that it's marked was celebrated, through her becoming a billionaire tells us something about how we look at the end result rather than much of that journey.

I hear what you're saying. So she's put in the hard yards and she's learned from the ground up. We actually interviewed Beyonce's mother, Tina Knowles, earlier this year, a very successful businesswoman in her own right. Surely that was a major influence on her business now.

Yep. She paid tribute to her mother in more than one song. But, you know, there's a music video for Bills, Bills, Bills, and it set in a very plush hairdresser. Her mother was a hairdresser. Her mother became the group stylist. You are the company that you keep, and her parents were integral, the sacrifices that they made.

They all but adopted Kelly. So what we're looking at here is a level of self-sacrifice, a professional protection that parents who become, you know, managers can actually provide. And even when those relationships alter, as Beyonce's did with her father, you still have that familial connection. And the fact that Tina remains quite prominent within that room, remember, Cowboy Carter is dedicated to Beyonce's uncle, Tina's brother. So I think what we tend to do with celebrities is detach some of the things that we know to be true of ourselves. That families can be, not always, but can be involved in our professional assent. And what

that does to those relationships and how some of those relationships strengthen and become more acutely prized. And so it no surprise that her mother and her father were involved. But just like you're mentioning, and the fact that Tina had at her book out, it gives testimony to something that wasn't supposed to quote unquote succeed. Yeah. I mean, she fired her father as manager and she self-managed from early on. How key was that, do you think, to the success we're talking about today? When we say Early on, he was integral to Destiny's Child's vision. He also went on to have a record label himself and charter the direction of Destiny's Child

during that period that I mentioned early on with Sony trying to put them for the poll winner's party. But you become an adult, don't you? You're no longer nine years old. You have a way of saying of looking at who you are as a political, sexual, marital figure, a maternal figure. And often you don't need to negotiate

how you actually express that. And that album, whether it's B-Day and then later Lemonade and subsequently Renaissance and Cowboy Carter, you need to do those albums alone. She has this incredible ability to say something surprising and original and take her music in new directions that keeps her fresh. You mentioned her 2024 album Cowboy Carter. It celebrates and contextualize the black roots of countries. music. There was pushback, but the music, you know, stood on its own, didn't it? It was a very

successful album, one album of the year at the Grammy Awards. How much does that ability of her as an artist and that kind of level of her originality and bravery mean that she has, you know, she's kind of pushed herself to this position, hasn't she? She takes risks that many other artists don't in her position. They give people what they expect and what they want. Well, I think what we need to do is make it less polarising against artists can and can't do, is what artists are permitted to do because they're contractually obligated. And Beyonce was part of that machine and extricated herself to a degree from that. And when you mention pushback, I think what we mustn't do is minimize what that actually means.

Since having won for Cowboy Carter, the Grammy Academy has changed. They've altered the qualification criteria for what concerted. a country album. And that's telling us something about who is supposed to be culturally, visually, sonically seen and perceived as a country artist, despite growing up in an arena where that music was very, very popular. And what we're talking about here is having to constantly navigate places, spaces and people and expectations. And the fact that we mark this by, oh gosh, you're a billionaire, that that's the acute success when this is really about autonomy. But when you become declared externally by Ford as a billionaire, there is also,

again, to utilize your word, a pushback, an expectation that you're going to give back. And Beyonce has throughout her career shown up and shown herself to be somebody who acknowledges elements to do with racial injustice, to do with sexism, misogyny, etc. And she continues the innovation, doesn't she? There was a special half-time show for Netflix's first Christmas Day NFL game, that amassed apparently a $50 million fortune. She spreads her influence wider than just music sales, doesn't she? Well, you have to. I think we're in a really absurd and obscene period where the people who make music are paid so

little for that through distribution platforms that wouldn't exist without the talent that people like Beyoncé possess. And when we see that they are making money through other means by touring incessantly, by having associated brand endorsements, creating their own brand in many respects, you end up thinking that it's not enough, quote unquote, to be a musician, to be a singer, to be a rapper, to be a producer, that you have to have all of these additional income streams simply because the making of the art, you're not financially rewarding enough. Jacqueline Springer there, and of course Jacqueline is meaning an awful lot of musicians out there don't make a lot of money

these days and have to diversify, not necessarily referring to Beyonce, who has been declared a billionaire by Forbes. Now, did you go home for Christmas or perhaps you hosted your adult children? What kind of behaviour or family dynamic surface with everyone under one roof again? Do text me 84844 with your stories? Did you find yourself regressing? Did you see others around you regressing? Was there a fight for that spot around the table that you always sat at and you're still going to sit there even though you're 35? That kind of thing. 84844. One phenomenon

that occurs with everyone home is the adult children in the family reverting to their child teenage behaviours. Regressing is away and it's a very common occurrence but why does it happen? Why do you otherwise socially cohesive? adults unleash their most basic selves upon their families during the holidays. We're here to discuss this. Guardian columnist Elle Hunt joins us now. Good morning, Elle. Good morning.

And a psychotherapist, Julia Samuel. Welcome to Women's Hour, Julia. Thank you. Morning. You've got some great advice coming up. So let's start with Elle. Elle, you wrote a piece for The Guardian, a piece in which you do confess to being prone to regressing when you return home. How does it manifest? I think in the ways that it manifests for a lot of people. I sort of

veer between petulance and behaving as though I was 14 or 15, not cleaning up after myself, as you described, just being irritable and snappy with sort of any kind of imposition put on me by my parents, or the other way of being a sort of performative adult sort of being declaring, I have stack the dishwasher and waiting for my thanks or offering to cook them a meal and saying, look, look at how functioning I am. I am no longer 14, 15, or I'm very mature for my age. And I was reassured that this is not just me. Apparently, a lot of people do it, particularly around the Christmas time. Why, have you analysed yourself? What is motivating you into this behaviour? Well, I'm in an unusual situation where my parents live in New Zealand, so I only see them every two years.

And I think that makes it especially pronounced because we have a short period of time together and the regression is so quick. It's almost as though when I cross the threshold of the family home. And it's not even a home I grew up in. It's a new space. It's just that family dynamic of I am that eldest daughter and I will behave this way and they behave that way. And I suppose we're both responsible for creating that where my parents obviously still think of me as younger than I am. whereas I'm living on the other side of the world and think of myself as a competent adult kind of handling things.

And then we messed, you know, that all gets brought up around the table and then I don't do it again for another two years. It's a really interesting combination because in one sense it sounds like you're freeing yourself to be that child again. But on the other sense, you're saying, look, I'm a functioning adult. You're showing them all of your sides, aren't you, when you go home? I guess the childhood one is there.

just that exists with them. So it kind of, you know, for one of a better word, is triggered by the presence of my parents. And then there's the adult side where it's wanting to impress upon them. I'm not a child anymore. Like, I have this life and I am this adult. And talking to my friends about their experiences over Christmas,

it seemed that that was the sort of common theme among the adult children where it's this desire to impress upon our parents. Like, we're not how you remember us. We actually have these lives. and we don't necessarily express them in the most positive way. Let's bring in Julius Samuel now. I heard you kind of humming in agreement, Julia,

through Elle's retelling of her life back at home. It sounds very familiar. I know you've got four children. We'll get on to that. But how do you reflect on what Elle's just described there? Well, it's just so interesting. I mean, I think Christmas is a particularly emotionally loaded time. You know, and it's freighted with memory and tradition.

and rituals. So, and that gets, as she talked about, triggered or ignited by our senses that work, zoom is back. They work a million times faster than our thinking. And they're ignited by our senses, sight, sound, touch, smell and taste. So as she said, the minute she walked through the door,

it's like time travel going back to her teenage self or even her eight-year-old self. So there's the embodied body memory sense. But also there's, we know, we're pattern-making. beings and so the old family network dynamics those patterns get created the minute that all of us are in the room so her parents become the kind of parent that they were when she was 14 even though she's you know living a very independent life you know across the world and she becomes her

14 year old self who expects everyone to clear up and sucks if she's asked to do anything I'm not sure you did that but you know what I mean oh I did Julia yeah see how I've loaded the dishwasher. So the thing is, in some ways, though, Julia, is this not kind of freeing for adults to sort of go back to their childhood selves? And in much simpler times, I'm not saying that's great because it causes conflict. But there's something quite comforting of that, isn't there? I think there's something, you know, we like the safety of familiarity.

And I think that's what you're kind of recognizing is that we feel safe with, the family, our family of origin and those patterns. And there's a kind of connected, embodied sense of who we are through our ages that we really enjoy. I think, as you're saying, what's difficult is when it's the back and forth of our adult version of ourselves, that comes into conflict with the younger version of a sibling, and then you can have a big rupture or, you know, the two siblings, you can play the roles that you always played. And there can be fights. And if you add lots of food and alcohol and expectation into that,

then that can create too much intensity that isn't comforting, but is actually quite discombobulating and upsetting. Listen, I want to read lots of Women's Hour listeners getting in touch with the program. Oh, good. So I'm going to run some of them by you, Julia. Do text this 84844. Family Dynamics reared their head with vengeance. I'm the oldest child and the expectation is that I will.

will care for everyone and put my needs aside. My dad was his usual bullish self and my mum was her usual indecisive, anxious self. My younger sister, 49, played her role of irresponsible but allowed to get away with it because that's just how she is. I could ramble on about it but won't bore you. It was awful. I can't wait to get back to my home from Wendy. And these are people in middle age now. What would you say to Wendy, Julia? Well, I'd say to Wendy that first well, awareness is the first step, that when we kind of just keep doing it without noticing what we're doing, we'll fall back into it. So awareness is really important. And then her naming her pattern, that she was the one that was meant to look after everybody. Then name what she feels, that really helps because that allows you to kind of slightly disengage from falling into it. And I think, you know, there's things that you can do before Christmas. So don't have text messages with family. members about what you'd like or what you need. But you could have a preparation zoo, maybe with her sister or possibly with her parents as well, where you kind of look at what's likely to go

wrong and maybe ways that you can kind of do something different. In some families, that's possible. In other families, it isn't, in which case, for her, it would be having her own tools that she carries, of sort of circuit breakers. It could be breathing in for four and out for six, or you can feel your body the jaws music as it kind of loads in your system and your shoulders are up to your years and you can just feel yourself explode just before that moment stand up go outside take a glass of water walk around and then come back slow down to sort of to your your adult self and I think that helps you from exploding or just keep going walk out and keep walking L there's lots of other text I'm going I'm going to throw at you

Julian, walk home. We'll just walk home. Elle, I think you came up with the idea of potentially a buffer guest. Is this correct in your article? Well, I mean, this is actually from my own experience where because my parents live so far away, I often spend Christmases with my friends' families. And it's such an interesting experience where obviously I don't get triggered by the same family patterns because they're new to me. But I get to see my wonderful, mature, sensible, you know, wonderful. wonderful friends, regress in front of my eyes, where I'm just the happy guest, happy to be there,

and so grateful for the meal and the hosting. And, you know, very interested in their parents and aunt's stories. And meanwhile, my friend is sort of slouched halfway beneath the table, arms folded, kind of about to, you know, blow up in that way that Julia described. And I think as the buffer guest, it means that those family dynamics are kept a little bit lowered or people are keeping an eye on them because, you know, there's a stranger at the table. And I think everyone should have one now. And I'm very available to be at your next Christmas dinner. Yes, please. Buff a guest for hire. Julia, here is another one. I'm Ben, a 42-year-old man. Yesterday had an argument with my 48-year-old sister whilst I was visiting for Christmas. I was so incensed

that I stormed out of her house after shouting, driving from the Midlands back to home in London, a whole day earlier than planned. It was definitely a about our sibling relationship rather than the actual matter in hand. I haven't contacted her yet and my older father doesn't want to be caught in the middle of his very grown-up but somehow very childish children rowing. So I guess you would say to Ben that maybe there should, knowing that what was coming, that there was, he's recognizing, Ben is recognizing this is good, which is good, that this is something that is from their past.

But what could he have done differently, do you think? Or maybe he could do now? I think often conflict is sometimes inevitable. And the big thing about the conflict is him recognising it as he does. And it's repairing after the fight. It isn't the rupture. It's once he's calmed down and he's not wrong, you know, not furious anymore. And he can see it really wasn't about who stacked the dishwasher this way or that way,

but about some old power dynamic with his sibling. that he can kind of, I would video call his sister and talk about what was really going on and repair and maybe make an arrangement to meet up and go for a walk together and reconnect. Because if you just sit in your righteous egregation that she's wrong on your right, then the next time you meet the fight is still in your bodies

and you just will play it out again. Simmering away. I'm interested to know, Elle, you recognise what happens in yourself. What are your techniques? I know New Zealand is a long way to go home and there must be an awful lot of pressure when you do go home. But do you have any techniques that you employ

because you know that there are certain things that are going to trigger you? I think not going home before Christmas actually does alleviate a lot of that pressure because it is just, I witness it, you know, on the streets around me, the level of anxiety and frantic stress that everyone's operating at

and this great sort of key moment of the meal and the preparations, presents, so forth, that just exacerbates anything that might be going on to the surface or historically. So not going home at Christmas just allows me to spend and enjoy time with my family. And also sort of going for a long enough period. And I guess, you know, there's one option of going for just being able to spend time with your family for shorter periods and then leave when you want to and before it kind of compounds. But also the opposite is going to longer periods where you do get into that day to day.

rhythm and I do find that any kind of frustrations do sort of easy like you find a kind of workable level with it and also just kind of getting to know my parents better as an adult and then getting to know me better as an adult and sort of changing the relationship away from you know you are our child and we can parent you still I've really enjoyed that and on my last visit back to New Zealand it was a noticeable improvement on my previous visits where I did regress And the last one, there was that sense of, oh, no, we're all adults in the room here, and we don't have to fall into the eldest daughter or, you know, the first child dynamic. So it can, it is possible to change, but both sides have to be willing to see each other differently, I think, and behave differently.

Absolutely. Can I come in a second? Of course. Just to say, I mean, what that is beautifully described is that transition into adult child where you both let go of control, but maintain connection. And that's a difficult dance to dance. 12,000 miles between each other helps. I think that can happen in any family, even if they leave out the street.

Maybe I could move a bit closer. And basically, don't meet up at Christmas seems to be the overriding advice. But it's been fantastic having you both on. Thank you so much for joining us on Woman's Hour this morning. Guardian columnist Elle Hunt and psychotherapist Julia Samuel. coming in on 84844. It's been lovely hearing from you this morning on that one. Now, intimate image abuse, sometimes called revenge porn, is something we've discussed a lot on Woman's Hour. It's the sharing or the threat of sharing intimate images online without your

consent and the overwhelming majority of this kind of abuse targets women. It's illegal, but once images start to spread online, it can be hard to prove where or who they came from. This is why my next guest found when it happened to her. She's called Madeline Thomas. She's been a professional dominatrix for over a decade. But the experience of having her own images shared online without her consent made her realize how few protections there were. In response, she developed Image Angel. It's a tool that can put invisible forensic watermarking on digital images to track anyone who misuses or shares them online. Delighted to say, Madeline joins me in the Woman's Our Studio. Welcome Hello, thanks for having me.

Well, thanks for coming in. So you decided, we'll get on to this innovation you've come up with. The reason you did it, though, was you were a victim of intimate image abuse. So tell us what happened to you. Yeah, so it's a mix of copyright infringement, but also intimate image abuse. It kind of sits in the intersection of the two. Images of me sent in private communication were shared on WhatsApp groups. You know, oh, I know that girl.

You know, I went to school. with her sister and stuff like that and they would be sent to me and people would say, oh, did you know these pictures are here of you and things like that? You know, lists of me, information about me, critiquing me and my body and

all sorts of humiliating and defamatory stuff out there. But also it's a copyright infringement. You know, this is my workspace. This is my private space to earn money and I'm not protected. And these were images used in your work as a dominatrix? Yes, they were. Right, okay. Let's get on to the fact that non-consensual,

intimate image sharing is a crime in the UK and it carries up to two years in prison. In your case, was anyone ever prosecuted? Oh, no, no. Unfortunately, I never could find who did it. And the way that they've used them against me has continued to kind of haunt me. They keep recirculating and coming back and, you know, I just never had that moment of justice. Even to be able to say, right, that's it, that username can never interact with me again or that phone number can be blocked or banned, nothing. There's nothing I can do. And just so we're absolutely clear,

these were intimate images you shared as part of your work. Yes, yeah. Right, okay. A lot of people listening to this will say if those images are out there on the internet, there is a risk that this will happen. How do you respond to that? Yeah, of course, there's a risk.

You know, there's a risk if you drive a car, you might crash. There's a risk if you're doing something that something may happen. But I am a adult choosing to do something that I'm freely able to do and enjoying. And unfortunately, I was not treated with the respect that every person online deserves. And to know when you found that out that these private images in your workspace had been leaked in very public forums, how did that make you feel? it was the absolute worst of the worst. And, you know, I'm not naive. I know that these things happen

and that these things could happen to me. But I didn't quite understand the scale of hurt that these people intend to cause to others around me, not just me. You know, to me, fine, I can deal with it, but to others around me to have potentially, you know,

my family and my friends seeing these imagery, these images in ways that is intended to hurt them. that's just, that's not, that's not right. Did it change your relationship with certain people? I don't think so, no. It made me more cautious. I mean, I was always very cautious. Perhaps it made me more cautious.

But I don't think it changed my relationship with the people I consider clients or friends. No, I don't think so. You decided to do something about this then, didn't you? And you didn't feel, obviously, having gone through that, you didn't feel there was any protection. Tell us about Image Angel. How does it work?

So Image Angel adds a very small and undetectable to the human eye signal into an image, but it also adds it into every single frame of a video or a live broadcast. So it adds this information in so that if something is done with that image, we can trace back the account that that belonged to and therefore the identity of that person, considering what sort of information is held on them on the digital space. Did you have any kind of tech background before this happened to you? So how on earth did you go about setting this up? Yeah, it's been a journey.

I've learned an awful lot, but I guess being a dominatrix gives you a certain sense of power and an experience in communicating boundaries and expressing what you need. And I really feel like that helped me get ahead. I was able to ask the right questions and I'll be honest, I'm not taking no for an answer. Something needs to be done. And I did communicate with platforms and spaces and, you know, social media spaces and say, hey, you know, have you thought about using this certain type of system? And I didn't get any response. And I thought, you know, what, I'm done.

I'm going to do it. If the, you know, the systems are there and can be made to help people in this space, well, if it takes me to do it, I'll go ahead and do it. You've won several awards for this, including the Innovation in Tech Safety Award. at Refuge's Tech Safety Summit, which of course is dedicating to tackling technology-facilitated abuse. Excuse me. Can anybody use this then? Yes and no. So when we were making Image Angel,

we knew we needed it to be intersectional and accessible. So we don't want people to be defined as safe if they have access to an app, technology knowledge, or can afford to download an app. So what we do is embed this system in the platforms themselves. So it's free for a user to use, but it costs the platform. And with that money, we then reinvest in more structure, more safety, more systems to support victims of both intimate image abuse and copyright infringement,

in whichever way it's presented. And what kind of response have you had from the adult entertainment industry then? The adult entertainment industry is incredibly supportive. We've just signed a really big platform and we're having great conversations with the leading platforms. Social media spaces are less interested and arguably, yes, there is more harm happening in adult spaces because there are more platforms that are sending more intimate imagery. But if we consider, you know, dating sites or if we think about apps where young adults send, imagery, that's also an element that we haven't quite got into. I'm using my connections in the adult space to meet with those pornography platforms,

and they are desperate to use this kind of technology. Yeah, I'm really surprised at the amount of people who are just gunning for this. Like, yes, this is about time we had this. Yeah, a lot of people, again, listening to this would say these are sort of profit-making industries might feel quite uncomfortable about, you know, monetising something like this. So does it encourage people potentially to share images? Or would you say it's just a protection? It's not really about making money.

How would you argue that? I think it's about protecting people's dignity and right to do what they want with their bodies online. It's important that spaces have, yes, protections should the worst have happened to you. But also preemptive protections. So protections that can trace back who has done the harm to you. Yes, you've experienced it. It's been the worst thing ever, and we'll support and help anyone that's gone through it. But it's important to educate the wider public and people in general around the harm that doing this as an act is causing. So if someone who is willing to non-consensually share someone's intimate imagery in a way that either harasses them or hurts them emotionally, they need to be taught accountability when it comes to their actions online.

also we know that pornography is not wonderfully safe and we know that there are harms happening what we are doing as a society is creating protections around those platforms like age gates and a bit more safety infrastructure which means that when people are consensually consuming pornography it's done so in a safe space the the imagery that is then taken from those sites and put in spaces outside of DMCA protection where they cannot be taken down where there is no attribution whether that person consented to be in that piece of content or not that is where the harm is happening okay and this is a way of tracing those images a lot of women though they may send an intimate image to someone they absolutely trust would

they even think about something like this in advance well this is why we didn't create an app and that's that's important that people are protected regardless of their knowledge or regardless of their belief that someone is, you know, the absolute best of intentions. If you have no ill will, no bad intentions, then nothing changes. But what this does do is add a layer of accountability if you're planning on doing something nefarious with those imagery, that image. Yeah. Tackling intimate image abuse, it's a multi-layered response, isn't it?

Yeah. So you've put this out there. What action are you hoping to see from government, from other sectors you've already touched on? Yeah. So this technology is not. something that I own the patent to. This is open source tech. This is just something that I have moved from one area of Hollywood and put it into other systems. So this is not a

closed economy. There are possible solutions out there that haven't even been built yet. What I need from the government is to say, adding in a layer of accountability as well as a layer of safety for a user is vitally important when it comes to user safety. And not just just our system, although I would encourage the systems that we use to think of the user experience. If you're sharing an image on a dating site, for example, in New Zealand or in Australia or in the UK, wherever you may be, how do you know which platform you send it on, when you send it and to whom you sent it to? You just don't know. You may have sent the same image to three or four different people whose names you don't recognise or know. So what victims

need when we were discussing with them, what they need is one centralised place, where they they can go, I don't know where I sent this, but I know I need help. And with that one centralised place, Image Angel provides the one solution and the one answer to that person's query of where did I send it, who did I send it to. Thank you so much for joining us, Madeline Thomas, discussing that tech-based preventative company. And if you have been affected by any of the issues discussed on today's program, you can visit BBC Action Line for victim support on that. We have this statement from the government.

Sharing intimate images without consent is an unacceptable violation and leaves victims traumatised under the Online Safety Act. Platforms must proactively remove intimate image abuse on their platforms. We have gone further and criminalised the creation of deep fake intimate images without consent. Adofcom has recently consulted on the use of hash matching. That's a type of forensic watermarking to help services identify non-consensual intimate images. so that these images can be automatically removed. Our thanks to Madeline for dropping by the studio.

Now, what bad habits are you hoping to leave behind in 2026? Maybe it's saying goodbye to a negative attitude towards ageing so you can start to embrace growing older and wiser. Well, we have an episode of the Woman's Hour Guide to Life that can help you with just that. The whole series is available to listen to now on BBC Sounds and here is a taster of our episode on how to make ageing your superpower. Nula was joined by 57-year-old therapist Emma Kirby Geddes,

who writes on Substack as the aging psychologist, and she shared how she's been struggling to accept the passage of time. The difficulty really has come around, I think, changes to how I look. I think that's where this kind of inner ageist, this kind of this narrative that's not quite so empowering and fun, actually. So, for example, all this idea about erasing the signs of ageing, finding myself kind of frantically Googling how to fix my turkey neck fervently one night. I always think of Nora Ephron, the fabulous late, great Nora Ephron, who wrote the book, I feel bad about my neck. I read it in my 30s and fell around the place laughing.

Now I realise she's the Oracle. I think it does make a good point, actually. Kind of ageism and ageing kind of happens to other people over there. And then my point is that actually it creeps up on your. suddenly it's you that's the ageing person. And I think that's when all that narrative really starts to land quite differently. I think as well there's things like invisibility. I think that's the other thing that feels the juggle.

And you mentioned they're frantically Googling. And it's a funny image in some ways. But there is a culture that is obviously pushing your buttons. Yeah. Somehow I know, don't I? Somewhere I've learned I've got to hide this. And it nudges into sort of shame. It's not a nice thing to go and look for.

it feels like I've got to hide it. I talked to a lady and she said that she'd just turned 50 and she got not one but three neck scarves, three scarves. Did she think it was intentional? Well, she kind of put her hands to her neck like this as she was telling me. And it was almost like, have they seen something I haven't? There was this kind of shame about.

They've seen my turkey neck and I haven't seen it. I think the point is I don't think the people were doing it to be unkind. I think there's just this really kind of normalized idea that we were supposed to hide these things. Have you felt invisible? Yes. I think it's fascinating.

And this is happening more and more, and I'm noticing this as I'm looking older, or thinking I'm looking older. I was just in a restaurant the other night, and we went to say goodbye, and I went to say goodbye to the waiter, and there was just a split second, almost imperceptible, but our eye contact really didn't match what I was expecting. There was a sense of being looked past. So he may have had all sorts of reasons for doing that, I don't know, but what was interesting for me was the narrative that then started in my head about what that meant about me, that I was invisible. And then what happened then is you get caught up in your own story or in your own head and you're not really present in your life. I was busy, I was physically in the room, but my head was all. With negativity, that little inner ageist on your shoulder talking to you.

Well, we put Emma's dilemma to two experts, Jacqueline Houton, a personal trainer and author, an ageing well coach, and also Dr. Kerry Burnite, who's a gerontologist and author of Joy Span. Step one is that recognition that we have internalized this aging messaging and that our thoughts are impacting us and usually impacting us in not a good way. There's a study out of Yale University that showed that those who held the belief that aging is all decline live on average 7.5 years short. shorter than those who can overcome that voice and see that there's both decline and growth in aging. It is not a small voice. It is a powerful voice, but the great news is that we have the ability to choose how much power that voice has in our lives. How? There used to be a time when people would think, oh, women can't work outside the home. Women can't be these roles or be leading.

or all these things. And happily, together, we collectively said, that is not the case. Watch us. And I think it is a similar mindset shift that is required. And it's not going to come from other people. It's going to come from each of us, putting our shoulders back and saying, watch me. Watch me get out there and do the things that I can still continue to do while I'm alive. because we each have just a limited amount of time here and to be wasting it, in my opinion, by giving into this you are less than thinking is a tragedy. Jacqueline, many people as the age will understand

looking in the mirror and not delighting in what they see. I think it really comes back to do you feel grateful to be getting older? For me, I feel very grateful to be getting older because I'm sure many of us at our age have no. friends, relatives, work colleagues who haven't been so lucky. They didn't make it. And my own brother died when he was 18 on active service with the Royal Navy. And I was 21 at the time. We're not here forever. So I think if you come from a place of gratitude, you're actually able to get beyond a lot of these more shallow feelings, if you like, about growing older. So of course, I can look

in the mirror like anybody else and notice the changes in me. But I just feel incredibly grateful to be growing older. And also I think it's a time of opportunity. So I don't see it as a time of everything getting smaller and restrictive and not so exciting. I think there's a whole new level of joy. It sometimes feels quite challenging to show up as a 62 year old woman who I think I clearly look 62. But I actually feel there's quite a responsibility to that as well because when we see it, we can be it. We need to have role models as women who are thriving at different ages. And I love it when I discover women who are 10, 20 years older than me. And they're doing really well. And they're enjoying their career or they're traveling or whatever it happens to be.

Recognizing our own internalized ageism is absolutely crucial. And that is a turning point for all of us, I think. When we seriously address the internalized ageism, we can start to unpick a lot of like, why do I think that? Why do I say that about myself? Why do I find that uncomfortable? And we can explore that and then have a new relationship with aging. And go, actually, this is not a terrible thing. This is a natural process of life. We're actually aging from the minute we're born. That's the other thing.

So many people have got this idea. Well, you hit 50 or you hit 60 or you hit 70 and suddenly you're aging. It's a lifelong process. When we start to understand what's actually happening to our bodies, it makes such a difference. And I also think when Kerry picks up on that research study that shows that people tend to live shorter lives when they have very ageist ideas. I think it's because people don't take action then. And when we are managing to challenge our internalized ageism, we can actually take action to support ourselves and increase our health span,

which comes into that being fulfilled and having a purpose and doing physical activity to support our health and making those good social connections, all those things that we know really support health span. I think it has to come from us. So I think when someone says you look good for your age, I think you can stop it right there and say, I just look good. Or when people say, oh, you don't look like you're 58 years old. You can say, this is what 58 looks like. So I think that like the little kind of ageist zingers that we get all day long, half of them are from ourselves, half of them are from other people, I think it's possible to proactively decide each day, I am going to, make a difference so that the people who come behind me, our daughters, won't have as much of a struggle as we have had,

that we can start to change this narrative for people who follow us. Just some of the advice we heard there from Dr. Kerry Burnite and Jacqueline Houton about how to make aging your superpower to find the whole episode. Just search Woman's Hour Guide to Life in your web browser, or you can go to BBC Sounds and search for Woman's Hour and click on the Guide to Live. link at the top of our regular podcast feed. Now, why do girls disengage from politics at the exact time boys seem to grow in confidence at around the age of 16?

Well, academics at Roehampton University have looked into this and have now created a program specifically directed at Year 9 students, typically 12 to 13 year olds, in an attempt to re-engage teenagers in issues that matter to them and also help girls. build and boost their confidence in order to speak up and develop their debating skills and their political nowce. Delighted to say Professor Brani Hoskins from Roehampton University, who created G. Epic. That stands for gender empowerment through politics in the classroom.

Joins us now. Welcome, Brianie. Thank you. And just to say, it has now reached 1,340 Year 9 students across 45 schools and five countries across Europe. and Rachel Bolton, a teacher who has been a teacher, is still a teacher, at Mulberry School for Girls in London, who have been rolling out the program. Rachel, welcome. Hi.

Great to have you on Woman's Hour. Brianie, let's start with you. This program underpinned by your research. So let's talk about what you found, why girls are disengaging at the exact time boys seem to be growing in confidence. What did you discover? Well, it's happening actually a bit earlier, between the ages of 11 to 16. we see this pattern emerge. At age of 10 and 11, you don't see a big difference in levels of confidence or interest in politics.

But between 11 to 16, the gap grows and becomes a significant difference. And the reasons can be is the political socialisation process. At 10, 11, young people start to understand the world around them and start to understand the world in a political way. but they are also seeing that they're being treated differently in the classroom. For example, in the classroom, on average, you'll find that boys occupy more space within the classroom and their peers are much more supportive when they're speaking, and alternatively, girls answer questions less,

and probably because when they do answer them or do speak in the classroom, they're undermined both by other boys and other girls. So we see on average this process playing out. And also we can see materials used in the school. There's many more empowering stories regarding men and boys, etc. And so it's about changing this, changing these different dynamics within the classrooms through the material and through the different methods in order that everybody is feeling equally confident in politics

by the time they become 16. And we'll get into how you're doing that. But Rachel, I guess a lot of what you've just heard there resonates with you. What have you seen? What is the gender politics seem to start very early at school? I mean, it's not really a surprise because the classroom is a microcosm of society. So young people are experiencing being encouraged at home to be loud and be aggressive and be rewarded for that behaviour if they're a boy, whereas girls are being encouraged to be quieter,

more gentle, more caring in their family. And then that behaviour comes into the classroom. And then we replicate that reward and that expectation of behaviour in schools and in the education system. So when you're having political debate in the classroom, boys naturally expect to be heard, to be listened to, to say their opinion and to be confident in their opinion. And then the opposite is true for girls. And so thinking about, and this is why this project is so fantastic, thinking about how our teaching methodology can be more inclusive. can be more encouraging for girls, for more empowering for girls,

is really important as well as giving them a space to explore issues that matters to girls and women, like period poverty, the gender pay gap, sexism in the curriculum. And also giving boys a space to experience the world through girls' eyes because most of the curriculum is experienced through the lens of boys and men, you know, the monopoly in the curriculum. And so having that space to think about politics, seeing female politicians as role models,

and that was a key part of the GEPIP project, having MPs. They did little videos for the classroom talking about their careers, that a career in politics is possible, really changed the game. Brian, this was sort of set out in small groups as well, wasn't it? So talk us through the methodology

and why it was important to start with small groups. Yes, we had the small groups of four throughout the five lessons. So the whole program is five lessons in total. And yes, what we did is that in each of these groups there was a different role like the project leader or the influencer, etc. And these roles were rotated. But the idea of working in small groups is it gives girls or shy students the confidence to try things out, try their different arguments, opinions and to get positive feedback within that small group. And then this builds the confidence that when you go into a whole classroom

discussion, then you feel more able to speak. And that we built up from these small group work all the way to doing classroom presentations at the end. And how did you see it, Rachel, borne out in the students? Did you see confidence grow? Did you see people who previously couldn't have stood up in front of a classroom and said, I'm going to tell you about this? Did you see that change? Absolutely.

I think there were two really important things. in the GEPIP project that made that possible. The inclusivity of the classroom space. So the GEPIP project has got some specific expectations around behaviour. So stay quiet, don't interrupt, be focused, make space for everyone. Which encouraged inclusive behaviour in the classroom. And we were rewarded students for listening. So there were active listener stickers.

So that encouraged others to listen rather than interrupt and listen to other points of view. and to be more inclusive. And yeah, we saw a difference. So that helped students who were normally a bit shy or a bit underconfident to speak, share opinions. And then when we got to the presentations at the end of the five lessons, Lesson 5,

every member of the team of four was expected to share their part of the project. So we have students at the front of the room in front of their peers talking where ordinarily they would try and do anything other than that. And I think, you know, a measurable of how well it worked was Briney and a group of students

presented to MPs in Parliament. Yeah. And we had some of the shyest girls in our school speaking in front of 50 assembled MPs and policy makers in one of the committee rooms in the House of Commons. And every single one of those students said that Die Epic built their confidence and that was in their voice,

their ability to articulate their opinions and to say what they think, but also to understand how they fit in politics, you know, how their opinion fits in with party politics and how they could work with the party to create change. And they talked about the fact that they felt that they were change makers. So, you know, for students who ordinarily wouldn't say booed to a goose in front of MPs in Parliament, massive, massive impact. I mean, this is huge, Brianie, with these, you know, it sounds like an incredibly successful pilot scheme here, but I guess

you've got to change the boys' behaviour as much of the girls. Was any of that factor in as well? Yes, and this wasn't just a pilot, just to reinforce that we did a pilot and that we run this out with a full process with control groups and it's been rigorously tested. But it was, yes, we had behaviour expectations, which explained clearly to everybody, boys and girls explicitly how to do respectful listening. What is respectful listening? And then rewarding the active listening. This we saw was a really important part of this is that boys and girls, if you do listen, you'd think quietly, it's okay to have a different opinion.

And when the person's finished, you put your hand up and you give you a point of view. If you follow this process, you're rewarded. Are you hopeful this will get a rollout nationally then? Yes, this is our ambition is that this project will become part of the revised national curriculum on citizenship education, PSHE. We're working to increase the number of teachers who are engaged in it directly online at the g-epic, g-epic.eu website, all the material is free. So if there are teachers listening now, they can, or at heads of school, you can go to

this website, download all the material. We're working with associations like the Association of Citizens, teachers to develop the programme further. And also working with APPGs, all party parliamentary committees do. There's so much information there. I think you've sold it brilliantly. Thank you so much for joining us, Professor Brini Hoskins from Roehampton University and Rachel Burleton.

Thank you, Rachel, for coming in. Thank you. From Mulberry School for Girls in London as well. That is it from Women's Out for today. Thank you so much for your company. Tomorrow, Kylie, it's going to be here talking about your women of the year. year, who have been the women in your life, close to you or maybe not, who've been significant to you. Olympic rower, Dame Catherine Granger, chair of the British Olympic Association. The first woman to

occupy that role and Helen Lewis staff writer at the Atlantic will join her. Who is your woman of the year? Woman's Our Tomorrow. That's all from today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hello, I'm Robin In. Sat next to me is Brian Cox, but I don't want him saying anything yet because I am so excited by our new series of Infinite Monkey Cage where we're talking about timekeeping, brain computer interfaces, fusion. We're talking about the romantic and sexual behaviour of monkeys and clouds, but most importantly, Brian, what else are we talking about? Eels. We are, aren't we? Eels. It's one of the most fascinating programmes, if not the most fascinating. Eels. I don't want to talk about anything else, to be honest. So basically there's news of infinite monk cage,

but on Brian Copp's advice, don't listen to any of them, apart from the episode about Eels. It's because we don't know much about them. Don't tell them that. Listen first on BBC Sounds. Thank you.