Woman's Hour - Body hair, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe speaks out, UK ambassador to Ukraine, Actor Ruth Wilson, Kinship care, Duvets

Episode Date: March 26, 2022

TV shows go to huge lengths with their sets, costumes and wigs to make you feel like you’re looking back at the past but why – given hair removal is a fairly modern development – is body hair so rarely seen? We hear from historian Dr Marissa C Rhodes. After Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe expressed her opinions at a press conference this week, 'ungrateful' started trending online. Reaction from Gina Miller who took the government to court and won over how it tried to implemented Brexit without approval from Parliament and Emily Thornberry a former shadow foreign secretary.Best known for The Affair and Luther, and more recently playing her own grandmother in a BBC drama, actor Ruth Wilson on her two latest roles – on the London stage in The Human Voice and on screen in True Things.Melinda Simmons on her role as the British Ambassador to Ukraine. She left Ukraine on 7th March 2022 eleven days after the Russian invasion and is now in Poland. Woman’s Hour understands that the Independent Review of Social Care in England is set to recommend that there should be a renewed focus on alternatives to care with a major focus on kinship care. The Chief Executive of the charity Kinship, Dr Lucy Peake, and kinship carer Meyrem discuss.Journalist Sally Peck on the joys of swapping one duvet for two in the bed with her husband.Presenter: Chloe Tilley Producer: Dianne McGregor

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme. Peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Chloe Tilley. Welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Hello and welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour. On the programme today, we hear from the UK's ambassador to Ukraine, who's now in Poland, and the value of kinship care. We hear one woman's story of taking in her sister's three young children. The actor Ruth Wilson on her latest work, Anne shares her views on egg freezing and why marriage isn't for her.

With Bridgerton returning to our screens, one historian laments why there is no body hair in period drama. For most of history, in most times and in most places, ordinary women would have had underarm hair and leg hair. I really think that period appropriate body hair wouldn't really turn people off. I don't think we give viewers enough credit. And I think most people would say, oh, you know, I never thought of that. I suppose women wouldn't have removed their underarm hair. And the big question, single or double duvets when sleeping with your partner?

This week, Nazanin Zaghari-Radcliffe faced a room full of journalists and cameras. She knew what she wanted to say and what she didn't want to say after six years away from home. She didn't want to talk about her experience in prison, her guards or what solitary confinement was like. But she did give her opinion about the way five foreign secretaries dealt with her situation. The journey back home was like. But she did give her opinion about the way five foreign secretaries dealt with her situation. The journey back home was tough. I grant what Richard said to thank the foreign secretary. I do not really agree with him on that level. I'm going to tell you that because I have seen five foreign secretaries changed over the course of six years. That is unprecedented given the politics of the UK.

I love you, Richard. Respect whatever you believe. But I was told many, many times that, oh, we're going to get you home. That never happened. So there was a time that I felt like, do you know what? I'm like, no, I'm not even going to trust you because I've been told many, many times that I'm going to be taken home. But that never happened. I mean, how many foreign secretaries does it take for someone to come out? Five? Well, Nazanin has received a lot of praise for her composure and clarity. But there's also been some backlash. The word ungrateful was trending

after the press conference on social media. Despite the trauma she's been through, why do some people feel she needs to express more gratitude? What are their reasons? And how surprising is it to see these comments? One woman who's responded to the backlash is Gina Miller. She also spoke out, just like Nazanin, and took a stand. She took the government to court and won over how it tried to implement Brexit without approval from Parliament.

I was so extraordinarily impressed by her composure, her ability, her eloquence, her ability to really get across what she wanted to say, her strength after everything after six years of wanting to speak out against what she felt had been repeatedly promises that were broken and let her down. I felt almost though sorry that she felt had been repeatedly promises that were broken and let her down. I felt almost so sorry that she felt she had to do it so soon. I have to say, I thought, you know, it was a little early, but I mean, I thought she was extraordinary. And, you know, I treated her and I thought she was absolutely composed, eloquent, resilient. All the things we should admire in women speaking up in our society.

And yet, as I've mentioned, there was this trend about gratitude, ungrateful, the word that was going on social media, and also a variety of responses to what she had to say about the political handling of her situation. I started feeling very, very shocked and concerned for her because in my experience over the last five or six years, the toxicity on social media is not something she would have experienced having been behind bars and, you know, suffering the cruelty and treatment that she was. But this is a different sort of cruelty. And she would have been unaware of it. And I'm very aware of it. And the links that happen around ungrateful immigrant woman of color speaking up, you should just go back to where you are, you know, all the silence, be, you know, know your place, all the tags that are being thrown at Nazanin,

I have to say, I'm so used to now after five or six years, but I felt that I hope she's not hurting too much and understanding that this is a tiny minority who used to be on the fringes, but somehow social media has now allowed them to be much louder voices and mainstream. And I think we all have a responsibility to call it out. And I don't think enough people are. But it is this thing about, I mean, I got included in a lot of the barrage against her overnight, saying that she's now deposed me as the most hated woman in Britain. I mean, this is just completely absurd. What I did, what she did, I mean, gosh, I can't even compare it. But, you know, being able to speak out and speak truth to power is a very powerful right in our democracy. And it's also very important that we inspire others to speak out. So to get this backlash and the threats and

the derogatory comments and the name calling is just shameful. And I really, really hope that people start almost doing the opposite on social media to drown it out for her. Because there will be those listening, and we've had many messages come in around what people think is driving that. There will be those listening thinking, well, just ignore it. It isn't the majority. And actually, don't give any airtime to it. Don't give the oxygen to it. But I know that you, having had some of the experiences you have had,

think that we need to actually be tackling this and talking about it. I do think that, because if not, you know, if you think about it, somebody who stands up on a platform, which is this is a viral platform, a social media platform and shouts hatred and nastiness and misogyny and racism. If we just walk by and let them carry on shouting, then they think they're permitted. It's allowed. So I do think you have to call it out. I'm not somebody who thinks we have to this discussion. And there's a message that's just come in right at the top. And I wanted to get your view on this. Perhaps Nazanin may have started with her comments with regards to the Iranians. She may have directed her comments towards the Iranians and those who locked her up, again, expressing a feeling that there is a lack of gratitude. What's your response to that? I think my first reaction is, how dare people tell us what we should think and how we should express ourselves. This is a woman who's just escaped a police state and now she's come home to be told that she has to think in a particular way.

And I think there is a level of misogyny in it and I think there's some racism too. And yes, you know, there's nothing more popular than a woman playing herself as victim. And Nazanin Zaghari Radcliffe, after six years in's nothing more popular than a woman playing herself as victim. And Nazanin Zaghari Radcliffe, after six years in Iranian jail, is not a not a victim. That's the message I got from that press conference. And I cheered her on. I suppose at the heart of this, which, you know, without it being political, and of course, there is a lot of politics in here. We had the foreign secretary on on the programme on Thursday, and I asked her a great deal of questions, a number of questions about the approach, how the government had actually treated the Ratcliffs, the Zagari Ratcliffs, and also about some of the errors that had been made. But just coming away from the politics for a moment, as a woman in the public

eye as well, yourself, do you have a concern about the stifling effect this can have on people actually saying how they feel about things? I've not had anything like as much abuse as Gina, but I've had my share of abuse and I've had my share of people telling me that I should be quiet. But I've got a lot to say and I'm not going to be quiet and neither is Gina. And we just have to keep saying it. But know that when we walk into the public realm, that there will be a minority of people who just can't bear it. But the best way of dealing with them is to just keep on keeping on. And in terms of the response that you have seen, of course, again, stressing that this is a minority.

But do you agree that actually ignoring it isn't working anymore, that the denouncing of it, the calling out of it is what's necessary? I don't know. I wrestle with this because what I don't want is for any 15-year-old girl thinking about going into politics to think that she can't because life is too awful for politicians. It isn't. I'm doing the best job in the world and I wouldn't want to encourage any 15- old girl to to come and join us in politics because we need bright, ambitious young women getting involved in politics. So I want them to look at Emily Thornberry and go, she's having a ball. She makes a difference.

I want to be like Emily Thornberry. Yeah. Or maybe, you know, you're not doing such a great job and they want to do a better one. Just got to present the other view, Emily. That's possible. It's possible. I know you can take it. That's certainly one of the characterisations of politicians if they're going to get through this, man or woman. But I mean, I think that also, can I just say,

I think it would be doing a disservice to Nazanin if we didn't deal with the substance of what she has been saying. And, you know, I mean, Alistair Burt yesterday is a former foreign office minister, raised it. You know, I raised it as well. I mean, there is a question about why it is that it took so long. And we all knew that it was necessary for the debt that we owed to Iran to be paid. I had many conversations with foreign office ministers about it, including Alistair. And, you know, I don't know what the I don't know what it was that was getting in the way, whether it was the

Ministry of Defence, whether it was senior people in the Foreign Office, whether it was, whether it was, whether it was the Americans, you know, I mean, you've got to remember who the American president was at the time. We just don't know. And I think that Alistair and Nazanin are probably right that we need to have an inquiry into it as to why it was that it took six years, because it clearly didn't need to. Gina Miller, just just to come back to you, if I can. A message here that's just come in. Where's people's compassion? Having followed Nazanin since she was first arrested, she must be furious.

After all, she went through the debt which released her was a debt we as a country owed and it could have been paid years ago. I completely admire her wonderful dignity and composure, says Mary. But then there's one here which says this is really simple with regards to Nazanin behaving so ungratefully. Don't go to countries that are known to be unstable when you're on your own. I slash this country have spent millions trying to free her from a situation that was totally self-made. What is your response to that? Because I can't, you know, I can't sanitise that that's coming in. And that is a view. Yeah, there are lots, there are lots of those sorts of views being expressed. And I think it shows the lack of understanding. It's the shouting without reading

or finding out the details. And because it's actually as the as the Foreign Secretary now admits, it was a legitimate debt. This is not a ransom. This is a debt. And the fact that, you know, she was going to visit her parents. So people now jump on whatever the newest trend is without finding out the facts. And I think it's about pausing to find out what is going on, on whatever the issue is, rather than just shouting. And it is one of the things that social media does it's the piling on effect um and actually going to the online safety bill it's something that's included in the bill and i'm really pleased about because i've been campaigning about two things in particular that anonymity should go and piling on should be made illegal so those are now i mean there are

lots of other flaws with the bill but anyway well there's lots of other details as well that we're i'm pleased about those two but you know we of other details as well that we're going through. I'm pleased about those two. But, you know, we have to, in my view, I understand what Emily said about wanting to attract bright, brilliant, passionate, independent women into politics. I absolutely agree with that. I say that, you know, we need to womanise politics

much more than we do at the moment. But at the same time, I don't think we can ignore as well, because, you know, being a woman of color in whatever walks of life, in business, in politics, in social media, in campaigning, wherever it is that I've been, there is a problem. We have to accept that we haven't done enough. And we thought that ignoring it would go away and it hasn't. So I think now is the time to call it out and stamp it out, not just call it out, but stamp it out and say, these are unacceptable behaviours, that women do not have to dim their light. They do not have to stop speaking out if they have every right. This is not about one voice louder than the other. This is about everybody having the right to speak up,

male, female, whatever gender, you know, whatever you are, you have a right, as long as you do it with intelligence, with compassion and with dignity, and you have an intellectual point to make, you can respect each other's views without resorting to this bile that we are seeing on social media. That was Gina Miller and Shadow Attorney General Emily Thornberry. Well, Susan got in touch with us on this story. Anyone considering that she needs to be grateful has obviously no idea of what has actually happened to her. So many times on reading articles or seeing the news on her unfolding imprisonment, I was in tears of frustration for

her. Patricia also writes, I'm totally baffled by the backlash on social media, which I haven't read, about Nazanin's press conference. I felt so emotional and overawed by her composure after such a terrible ordeal. She has every right to be angry with the government and in her shoes I would have been more vocal in my criticism. All kudos to her for being so restrained. Now when you try to pin down the roles that actor Ruth Wilson is best known for, it's a tough call. Alice Morgan in Luther, Alison Bailey in The Affair, playing her own grandmother in the 2018 BBC drama Mrs Wilson, and more recently Marissa Coulter in His Dark Materials, to name just a few. Well, she's busy at the moment. She's

on stage in a one-woman play, The Human Voice, that's just opened in the West End. And in her latest film, True Things, a film out on April 1st, she plays Kate, a single 30-something who has an intense, adrenaline-filled fling with a nameless bloke she meets at the benefit office in Ramsgate, where she works. Here they meet for the first time while she interviews him. Can you confirm your marital status? Married or single?

Single. Married. Very. confirm your marital status married or single single very oh sorry computers going out computers come and right okay so it usually takes about three to five weeks for a claim to be processed. And if you, you know, don't hear from us within that time, you can just contact us via phone or email. Do you have any other questions? What are you doing for lunch?

Uh... Uh... Uh... Well, I usually just eat a sandwich in the kitchen. They don't give us very long. Sounds like some bloody prison. You want to go out? Sit on a bench? Well, I will keep that in mind, thank you.

Well, Tom Burke plays the nameless bloke referred to only as blonde it's based on a book by Deborah Ray Davis which Ruth bought the rights to it was like eight years ago that I bought the rights to this book um so quite a while now but at the time there weren't that many shows that were really subjected through the female lens of an experience like this. This was like the onset of a relationship, the very first throes of an infatuation. And I didn't feel like there was much drama that sort of specialised in that or even saw it through that female lens that closely. And we've since had sort of I May Destroy You or Phoebe Waller-Bridge's Fleabag. But at that time, there weren't that sort of many roles like that. And I thought it was really fascinating. It was a kind of very acute description of a woman at that stage of her life.

And I thought it was really funny. She saw the world in a very kind of clear, honest, raw way. But I just thought there was something really interesting to explore in that about the inside of this woman's mind and why there's this feeling that overtakes the body, which is almost, as the director calls it, is almost like a Midsummer Night's Dream effect. You know, that this magic dust drops and you become in love with a donkey and then the veil lifts and you realize you know it's just a donkey so i thought it was a really interesting thing to explore and that we've all been there there's like it's like the relationship you look back on five years later and think why on earth was i involved in that and yet and yet when you're in it like you say it's it's everything It's completely all consuming. And it's almost, it doesn't necessarily feel like this, but it is toxic. Exactly. And it overtakes your brain. You can't see clearly, you're blind to the realities of

what it really is. And what I thought was really interesting is it's also, it's about her. I mean, he's called Blonde, but you don't find out much about him. He's really an object in the piece. And it's her projections onto what she wants from him or what she thinks he is and how she sort of imagines what he could be is that's incredibly powerful. And I thought that was a really fascinating thing to dig into and to explore. You've also been drawn in your work to the relationships between those often men and women and how they play out. And you've spoken about marriage not being for you and that the idea of being with one person forever, you're not sure it's natural. Tell me about that. Was that influenced by, I did mention the fact that there's been bigamy in your own family. I didn't know if

that had left the impact. Yeah, probably. I mean, realising my father, my grandfather had, you know, four wives, made me think maybe it's, you can't just have one. I watched that drama, by the way, not knowing it was your family member. And I thought it was an extraordinary thing. And then to find out it was actually your relation and you were playing your grandma was also just extraordinary. Can I say that?

Yeah, no, it was an amazing story to kind of unfold in our family. And it only came out 20 years ago, but I think there was, it's just fascinating to me. I don't, I suppose, I mean, my parents are very happily married and have been for years and all my brothers are married. And it's, I don't judge people that do. I think it's an amazing thing to achieve actually. And I see my parents and they're really happy in their 70s. I just, I suppose for me, unless I don't see the need for it, I don't feel a need to sort of attach to someone and have a permanent attachment.

And I don't understand the strong desire to do so. But that's me. I mean, i don't people are different and people need different things i suppose and i suppose also of course it reflects that women don't need to anymore i mean that that's also the massive change and and i was so struck the other day we were talking about changing your name and how it was still the majority of those who are in uh who are in heterosexual relationships then get married. They do change their names.

Women change their names. And we were talking about it actually after Lewis Hamilton said he would take his mother's name as his middle name. That was the reason. But that is still the norm. Yeah, and it's interesting to me. I mean, I think, you know, I have my own flat. I'm economically independent.

I have a career that I love. Like I'm just in my I don't feel I need a man or that thing to support me in those ways. So, yeah, it's strange that still a social setup that we all kind of live by and we expect from our life. And I think often expectations are where things fall down. We expect too much from a relationship and from a man or from a partner. And they can't supply all those things that we think we need. And I think, you know, initially also marriage was economic, economic, you know, for women. It was a way to survive. And these days we don't need that so much,

so then it becomes really just about love. And then you question, okay, can love survive that length of time? So that's an interesting debate. It is. It is. And also, of course, you have spoken a little bit about this, there is a different tempo for women dating in their 30s because of the situation with if you may want to have children and that clock ticking as well,

which is a well-worn path in terms of people having to think about that. But I know you also have thought about that and are trying to keep your options open. You've talked about egg freezing. Yeah, I had my eggs frozen a few years ago and um it was a really easy process I did it in the US and I just thought actually as it's an option that's available it's there it's amazing that we have these options now as women and if I ever choose to have a child that that I could go down that route. It's still really difficult, of course.

And I think whether the success rate of that isn't necessarily very good. But I think it is extraordinary that we have these options available to us, which means that we can continue a career or we can go down a different path if we want to. And we can delay potentially having kids into our 40s if we want to and we can delay potentially having kids uh into our 40s um if we want to and later um but there's other options if you really want i always feel like if you really want a child and it's unavailable to you to have naturally then there's adoption and there's all sorts of other options so to me i think that's an amazing uh privilege we have actually at the moment it's those choices.

I just wanted to come back to, of course, I mentioned you're on stage at the moment and you're alone, which I imagine you're in a box cut off from the audience. It sort of comes back to that independence element that we're talking about. And I was going to say with some people listening, you may not like the institution of marriage. They may not be before that, but they want companionship. You know, it's a lot of the time what ends up happening. You seem like somebody, I'm not with you in person, I should say. We've not met before, but you seem very comfortable in your own company. Does that extend to being on the stage?

It's much nicer to have someone with you on the stage, I'm realizing. But this is such an extraordinary piece. It was written in the 1930s by Cocteau. And talking of phones and relationships through phones, the whole thing is a conversation with an ex-lover over the course of an hour. And so, a bit like True Things, they feel like companion pieces in a weird way.

The man is sort of absent. He's not heard, he's not seen, he's not written on the page. So this isn't just the woman speaking and having a one-sided conversation in a way. I'm in a box and I'm isolated from the audience. It's quite an unusual experience. It's quite voyeuristic for the audience. They're observing this woman in a

moment of crisis. But what's really interesting to me, and actually about both the film True Things and this, it's about sort of isolation. It's about loneliness. It's about the need to connect and the inability to connect because both those characters aren't really present. They're lost in their own mind. They're lost in their own mind. They're lost in their own obsessions and thoughts. But yeah, to answer your question, it's nice. It's sort of interesting being on your own. It's sort of weirdly empowering and it's strange. I am isolated from the audience as well. So that's quite weird, actually, and unusual. Usually you're connected to the audience.

I feel even disconnected from them. The actor Ruth Wilson there. Now, when you go to bed with your partner, is it a battle for the duvet? Do you get that sharp, cold breeze down your back as they roll over? Well, one solution is getting separate duvets while sleeping in the same bed.

Recently, the journalist Sally Peck swapped one duvet for two in bed with her husband and now she can't imagine going back. What simple difference has this choice made for her marriage and where did the idea come from? It was a German friend who was aghast when I told her that we shared a duvet. But I think, you know, it's a lot like the way

we conceptualise honeymoons and they have to be uber romantic. And then you go and you feel this pressure. I think, you know, five years into marriage, we saved up some money. We bought our first bed that we'd both chosen. And it was a double bed because I thought, why would you ever want to be far away from your husband? Of course, you want to snuggle all night. This is great.

And I really regretted that purchase about a year later because my husband is quite warm at night. I'm quite cold. We have different temperatures. So 15 years into marriage, we made the duvet swap because this German friend of mine said, that's barbaric. Why do you need to be under the same blanket? You should be comfortable, you know, in the same way that, for example, I choose my own pajamas and Giles wears his own, right? You don't need to make exactly the same choices. And I think having your own duvet means you can regulate your own temperature. And it doesn't mean that you're somehow estranged or on the opposite sides of the bed. It just means that as you ease into sleep, and as you get older, sleep is really more crucial than ever, you can be comfortable. How did you broach this subject with your partner i mean i came home and i said barina says that we are barbaric because we have

the same i mean frankly that's what happened you know um but but i also i mean his his wonderful father listens to woman's hour i don't want to offend him you know they're a hot family right they just they sweat a lot um and so so this is a subject that's on the table. And so, yeah, so I said, why don't we try it? And then when we were moving house a year and a half ago, it seemed like a logical time to make the switch. So we did. And honestly, he's been an awful lot happier as well, because I prefer linen sheets. I mean, this all sounds very frivolous. He prefers cotton, but been an awful lot happier as well, because I prefer linen sheets. I mean, this all sounds very frivolous. He prefers cotton. But it isn't that frivolous, because if you don't have a good night's sleep, that is actually has a horrible impact on your marriage, on your ability

to parent and all of that. So I feel, you know, and as you're the person who wrote in and said, you know, if we don't do this, we're going to have to have separate bedrooms. And honestly, I don't judge on that either. People need a good night's sleep. If you find that you want your own bed, great. I mean, I'm not there. But I think having control of your own space and your own comfort is really important. The message which has come in here, single duvets for a couple are a godsend. The perfect way to regulate heat and deny duvet robbery. I was introduced to this concept by my Jewish girlfriend, sorry, Swedish girlfriend. No looking back here. And by the way, we also introduced the Scandi

system of putting hand holes at the top side of the duvet cover. Makes life so much easier. Is that something you know about? I'm afraid I have not found this yet. Well, maybe that's a tip for you going forward. So on a practical level, are we talking about two single duvets next to each other in the bed? You haven't got a double duvet each? We have not. I think if I were even colder, I might have pumped for one of those. But, yeah, generally they tend to be single duvets.

And if you go to any, I think there's wedding hotel reviews across Austria and Switzerland, and very often this is what you get anyway. It's the norm here. And I think that we're missing out in the UK by not having this as more of a regular thing. What do your friends make of it? Because I can imagine there could almost be a sort of, oh, is there a problem in your marriage?

Is there a problem in your relationship? Yeah, yeah, complete cultural divide. And I think my parents thought it was a bit peculiar too. But all of my German, Austrian, Swiss friends say, well, yeah, of course, what else would you possibly do? You know, so it's just, yeah, I think from the UK side, it's, oh, that seems a bit sort of grown up, a bit estranged. You know, there's another element of this, which is that if you're controlling the proper temperature with the right level of duvet for you, perhaps you don't need pajamas as much anymore. So, you know, maybe you have a bit of a space to be more intimate in that way. Well, that's what I was going to ask,

whether it is a barrier to intimacy. I mean, even if it's just a cuddle, if you're, you know, sometimes, you know, a cuddle just to keep warm when you first get into bed, but if you snuggle down in your own duvet, you maybe don't need't need that yeah but you're balancing and waking up in the middle of the night because your duvet's been stolen and your phrase is is a balance i'm sorry a barrier to intimacy as well i think so let me read you some more of the messages which are coming in double bed single duvets best thing we ever did saw this on on the continent and thought it was a bit odd but during the dreadful sweaty nights of the menopause we bought single duvets and it's transformed our sleep quality so much for the

better that's from sue sue thanks for getting in touch we've had single quilts for years and it certainly saved our marriage i like a thinner duvet and i also steal the quilt if we share one with single quilts harmony reigns my question on a purely practical level because i do like things to look nice in my house. How do you make two single duvets look nice with your cushions and the 7,000 cushions I have on my bed? Do you know what I mean? To look pretty. Yes. Well, you're going to have to change your mind ever so slightly.

No. But you could fold them, you know, a long way, fold them over. So they can be very neat, but it is a slightly continental practical look. But you could put something over them, perhaps a little throw over the whole shebang yes and more expensive because i guess you're getting two single duvets that's more expensive than a double duvet i'm just being very practical here you can hemorrhage money on sheets and duvets if you want to it all depends on where you buy well so many of you have got in touch with us on this subject, which was raised there by the journalist Sally Peck.

Christine got in touch to say, my husband used to steal the duvet, causing me to have to stay awake holding on to it. We cured it by changing to sheets and blankets. It works well. If we get too warm in the night, we can peel off one layer, or if it's too cold, we have a folded one at the bottom of the bed, which can be pulled up.

Happy. Well, Sam also says, I'm folded one at the bottom of the bed, which can be pulled up. Happy. Well, Sam also says, I'm astonished that the concept of single duvets seems to be so alien. This is pretty standard across most of Europe and eminently practical. There's nothing particularly romantic about duvet wars in the middle of the night. And Laura's got in touch to say, my husband and I have had two duvets for about 10 years. It has changed our lives. He's a restless sleeper, I'm not. We put a big bed cover over the top so it doesn't look so separate. My parents have even

copied us recently too. Well, if you want to get in touch with us about any of the stories that you hear on the programme, or if there's anything you'd like us to cover, do get in touch on social media. It's at BBC Woman's Hour, or of course you can email us via the website. And remember that you can enjoy Women's Hour any hour of the day if you can't join us live at 10am during the week. Just subscribe to the daily podcast for free via the Women's Hour website. Now, she's the British ambassador to Ukraine, except she isn't in Ukraine anymore, a country that she has called her home since 2019. Melinda Simmons held out in Ukraine until the 7th of March,

11 days after the Russian invasion began. But then she joined the women and children, blankets wrapped tightly around them, queuing to cross the border to Poland. Ten million people are now said to have fled their homes since the war began, either internally displaced or now outside of Ukraine. She saw some of those scenes

and was part of it. Emma spoke to her on Monday's programme. What was it like to witness? We passed thousands of people, many of whom had left their cars because the queues were so long and were walking and it was bitterly cold. And of course, this is the case with many borders, it's quite exposed. And so were wrapping them things around them that they had in their backpacks and we were watching this long long line of people make their way to the border and um and it was incredibly hard to process we spent some time talking about it together as a group after we crossed the border because we felt the need to put words to to what we had seen and most of us talked of it as things that we remembered reading about

or hearing about from World War II, that the extent of that exodus, that was the clearest picture we could come up with. There is actually a lot of that, I have to say, in the papers today about history repeating itself, some of the particular images coming out of Ukraine, not least the ones that you're describing. And yet, as we've just been hearing in the news, Ukraine has rejected a Russian ultimatum offering people in the besieged city of Mariupol safe passage out of the port if they surrender. Under the proposal, civilians are said would be allowed to leave if the city's defenders laid down arms, but Ukraine has refused. Do you have any sense of how long Ukraine can hold? I think the point about Ukraine and Ukrainians

is that this is the biggest miscalculation that President Putin made. And the thing that people who don't know Ukraine can be forgiven for not knowing, which is that Ukrainians will fight for their country. They'll fight hard. They've had to do this over generations and they're doing it again.

And I can't tell you what it would take for Ukrainians to voluntarily give up or cede or capitulate or leave, but I can tell you that it would go a lot further than anyone else can imagine. So on the one hand, I'm so taken aback and so inspired by the bravery of people who were living with this incessant, deliberate shelling of civilians, who else would, you know, would do that, would stay on?

And part of me, of course, finds this heart-rending for the danger of the situation that people find themselves in. So I can't give you a timing, but I can tell you for as long as they take that stand, we'll be as close as we can geographically to try and help them. Is Putin a war criminal? I've commented on social media before now about the apparent deliberate targeting of schools and hospitals. And along those lines, I would say yes, he has committed war crimes in this invasion. Because of course, that's the language that the President of the United States chose last week, President Biden. And it was striking, we had Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary, on the programme at the end of last week, who said, wouldn't go as far as that,

but said that evidence was going to be provided to The Hague, but along those lines. But I think also striking, the Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine says she believes genocide is being committed against the Ukrainian people. She's accused Russia of abducting thousands of Mariupol residents and taking them to Russian-controlled territory to be used for propaganda. What do you make of that and the use of that word? So I think we're going to have to understand all these different accounts that are coming out of Ukraine. And one thing that I experienced when we were in Lviv was that

there's a cacophony of stories, of course, because this is a big country. It's the second biggest country in Europe with a lot going on in that invasion in several cities. And so you have to bottom out those stories and you have to get as good an understanding as you can of what is happening. But I can completely understand why Ukrainians would perceive it as an attack on them because they are Ukrainian, given that in each of those centres where this has been happening, civilians have been targeted, whether it's in humanitarian corridors or whether it's in domestic residences. So I understand it. It's the thing that several countries are, of course, deeply interested in, deeply engaged in investigating. And we need those investigations to happen, would be your point, before we can say exactly what's

gone on. You talked about our support and your role now. What does that look like? And do you think we're doing enough as the UK? So the UK has been involved on every level of this response. There is military support, there is humanitarian support, there is the diplomatic engagement, there is the scheme to take in refugees as part of a family sponsorship. There are so many different levels. I think the challenge for all of us, not just the UK, but all allied countries, everyone in the world who's helping is that this is an exponential crisis. So the challenge is to be ready at every stage. And so, you know, in humanitarian engagement, you can be ready for a certain number of people

to be leaving the country. But these will come in waves if the invasion continues and say, for example, potentially moves westward or uses bigger and bolder weapons. So this is a challenge that we're going to have to continue to rise to and potentially over months and years to come. I'm reminded that you're a woman in Ukraine and you are in Poland. And as you say, not an easy decision to take. You stayed a lot longer than some perhaps would have had it. What was the reason in the end that you decided to go? What prompted that? Well, when we were in Lviv, we were working full time, and indeed we are now. We were working around the clock in Lviv to identify where people were

and help them move to positions with safety, etc. And when we first arrived in Lviv, it was, to be quite honest, a pretty comfortable place to be. But we were there just before the invasion began. And just a couple of days afterwards, martial law was declared. And that made an instant change to Lviv. There were checkpoints which then spread to every major road. There was an increase in people carrying weapons. There was a general air of aggression, even though it wasn't a specific, you know, specifically targeted or even culminating anything. There were air raid sirens that were going off fairly frequently. There was at least one occasion where we had to take measures to protect ourselves in case an air raid warning became an actual attack. And after a couple of weeks there, we took the decision

that we probably needed to do the work that we were doing in an environment that was both more predictable and safe and calm. But also we were getting increasingly worried that if something happened to Lviv or Lviv's surroundings, we would potentially become a burden on the Ukrainian armed forces who would need to provide some way of helping us move out. And I didn't want to be that burden. Ukrainian armed forces and other authorities need to be able to protect their own. So we took that very difficult decision to move to the other side of the border. And we have been, and I'm commuting back and forth now between Warsaw and the border. We have been based there ever since doing the same work. And I realise this is not the only thing that will be going through your mind at the moment, but it must have been

incredibly worrying for your family outside of the Ukraine that you were staying there, because you're not with all of your family, I understand. You were with your husband. No, my family has been based in the UK throughout this posting. My kids are of college age. My husband works in the UK, et cetera. But they've travelled out frequently and grown to really love the country. So they themselves have been devastated by this. But of course, they've been worried about me,

as all my colleagues' families have been worried about them. I was able to make a whistle-stop trip back to the UK over the weekend. I went there for a day of business and then saw my family and they were all incredibly relieved to see me. It's really hard to imagine any relative being caught up and particularly in a place that even if it's not a threat itself feels like it's part of a very kinetic moment. So yes, of course they're worried, but they also understand

what I've been doing and what I continue to do there. And I think they're very proud of it. And you have a connection going back, don't you, within your family to Ukraine? Is that right? Yes. So it's back three generations. My mother's great grandparents were from Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine. I'm sure that, again, deepens the sense of feeling and commitment that you already have perhaps on top of that. It does and made me feel particularly devastated to see Kharkiv being carpet bombed and people being deliberately attacked there. It's a city that I had a particular affiliation with for that reason. And I'm also reminded to mention that you're part of a generation of British female ambassadors and I wonder with looking at the numbers, the rising numbers of

women in those posts, do you think women bring anything different to these roles? No, I think they can do every bit as good a job as men do. And that is well overdue to show that that's possible. I think what's particularly interesting about this is there is a growing number of women, me included, who have interest and experience in tougher environments. And although I signed up for a job in Ukraine, not imagining that it would get this tough, having people who are Ukrainian speakers or Russian speakers who understand Eastern Europe, who have a conflict and security background, that's an area where traditionally there have been far fewer women. So for me, it's much more interesting to see people come up through that

sectoral interest and begin to take these leadership positions. And that being the route that perhaps people hadn't thought about and that also now having more women in this as well. Yes. When do you think you'll be able to go back? To Ukraine? Yes. I can't wait.

I have to admit that there's a psychological element to being based where we are, right? I know of colleague ambassadors who have returned to their capitals. I'm not returning to London. We are the British Embassy in Ukraine and we're going to have a presence as the British Embassy in Ukraine wherever we need to be as close as possible

until we can go back. I do not know when that is, but until that is, we are functioning as the diplomatic representation to that country. In Poland? For as long as we can in Poland, yes. That was Melinda Simmons,

the British ambassador to Ukraine. What is the best way of looking after children who can no longer stay with their birth parents when a family, for whatever reason, breaks down? The Independent Review of Children's Social Care, which was commissioned by the government, is due to make its recommendations about the future of the care system in England in the next couple of months. Woman's Hour understands that the review is set to recommend that there should be a renewed focus on alternatives to care, with a major focus on kinship care. Well, kinship care is when someone, maybe a grandparent, a friend, an aunt, uncle, sister or brother, takes in another family member's child usually in a time of crisis when they can no

longer look after them in a report out this week the charity kinship is setting out its vision of what needs to change for kinship carers emma spoke to mayrem who's a kinship carer five years ago she took in her sister's three young children when her sister and then her sister's partner were unable to look after them. Also with them was the chief executive of the charity Kinship, Dr Lucy Peake. Many kinship carers are stepping in to do the right thing and keeping children out of the care system. What they find is they are left high and dry without eligibility for support. We are calling for some urgent changes. We want to see financial allowances which are on a par with the National Fostering Minimum Allowance. We want information and advice for kinship carers right from the beginning, legal advice about their options, and then through their entire journey

when they're looking after those children whose needs will change. And we want practical and emotional support for the children and for the kinship carers. The children that we're talking about are the same children as would have gone into the care system if their family and friends hadn't stepped in. But at the moment, there is no fairness in the system. They are denied the support that is there for other children. So we want to correct that unfairness. We want to see more rights for our children and kinship carers.

And then long term, we need to build a system that is right for kinship care families. In many cases, they have been tacked onto the end of fostering provision or adoption services. They have unique needs and we want to work with the government and with local authorities to really make sure that we build a system that meets the unique needs and challenges of the families that have stepped into raised children.

Well, indeed, I don't think many people will know a lot about kinship caring at all, if they know anything. And I've certainly learned a great deal since knowing that we were going to be talking and hearing about your recommendations. Mehran, I mentioned your circumstances and what happened. And is it right you had a call on a Friday saying, if you don't want your sister's children to get split up and go into care, then you can act now, but you have to act now.

Yeah, so I was at work on Friday evening, got a call around 4pm and the local authority and my sister rang me and said, Mayram, the children are potentially going to go into the care system. There's a call on Monday. If you want to come and save the children from going into the care system, please come to court on Monday. It was an overnight decision. And I was meant to be going to work on Monday. I had a holiday booked in two weeks. So much changed in such a short amount of time. It was just crazy. and you have your own children as well yeah I was a mum for two kids teenage children so within a couple of days I had become a parent

to five children and they were younger your your sister's children yeah I had three under five and two in nappies it was tremendous like our shopping had gone for double in price and there was no financial support and I wasn't getting the money from work anymore because I had to take leave I wasn't entitled to benefits I was just using my savings and you then in the same home as well and and I understand that was a challenge in terms of sleeping arrangements I slept with my niece on the sofa for around six months before we could get a triple bunk for them and like yeah just having no space in your own home losing your space losing um not having the finances that you need not having the

support that you need was very hard going and it was a lot of sacrifice for me and my children but I wouldn't change it because I love my niece and my nephews well that's what's underpinning all of this isn't't it? Yeah. The love that you have for these children, I think anyone would do it. They would just literally give up everything for these kids to just make sure they don't go into the care system and get lost because you love them, and I think that's what pulls your strings and your heart, and that's why they know that they can get you this way.

It's a cheaper alternative for kinship carers, and, yeah, I didn't know at the time how much I had to go through. And we're still campaigning and fighting to get what we need to get. To have some of those changes. And their relationship with you, I mean, what do they call you? How do they kind of view your relationship after this? My niece and nephew, like, they loved me. They knew that I was auntie at the beginning.

And I remember I was sitting around the dinner table with my niece and my nephews and my nephew said mum and it was such a surreal moment I actually cried and I was like oh my god he's actually calling me mum now and I was like oh that's my little boy and when I spoke to the therapist they said that they finally felt at home and that's why they started calling me mum. I mean it's an amazing thing that you have done also with your children. They're just amazing. My two oldest have sacrificed and helped me and supported me and we were like a family like I had teenagers in the house anyone that knows that teenagers just go into their room but don't have a meal with you like on the dinner table and stuff. When these

kids came to get came to live with us it kind of completed our family and we started having meals together and my teenagers supported me so much and it just binded us together even more and the are you able to say i mean i'm very aware of limitations but the relationships still with your your sister and and her partner is is there something there they did the children have face time with my sister um my sister and my relationship is it's challenging but it's really really like i love my little sister and she loves me it's just the circumstance i just think there should be a little bit more support in regards to that yeah because it's not just about the

financial it's about the emotional support that you have to you have to try and find somehow when the other thing like the key thing of when i took my niece and nephews and we had to have It's about the emotional support that you have to try and find somehow. The other thing, the key thing of when I took my niece and nephews on, we had to have some family therapy. And my family is a family of six. But when I went to the family therapy, I was only allowed to take my sister's children. So it kind of secluded us as well. So it's like, how do you expect us to move on as a family if we're not getting the right support?

And there's like a separation between my children and my children my kinship children so were you able to keep working because so much happening at home I was off of work probably for like a couple years I had to take a career break um no financial support whatsoever for a good six to seven months wasn't entitled to benefits wasn't getting maternity pay or adoption pay shall I say so I just used my savings for a good six to seven months, wasn't entitled to benefits, wasn't getting maternity pay or adoption pay, shall I say. So I just used my savings for a good six months and then it took ages for everything to be rectified. Ended up in debt, to be honest with you, at the beginning and then managed to sort it out. Back at work now, though.

Are you? Yeah. Well done, you. Thank you. On every level. Thank you for talking to us, Mayrem. Lucy, listening to that, you will have heard stories like that and very powerful to hear what has happened with Mayor M.

And important to see and hear that it's a positive as well, that there is a positive to her family by doing this, because as we've just, when we started this discussion, talking about that review of social care commissioned by the government, we understand that there is going to be a recommendation to have a renewed focus on kinship care. And do you want more people to hear about it in this respect? Awareness really matters. I mean, it matters in policy terms, it matters in terms of services, because people like Mayrim will go to the housing office or to a GP surgery or the school and find

that nobody understands what kinship care is. So awareness matters there. But what's really critical for us is that the care review have recognised the value of kinship carers. So people like Mayrim who have kept three children out of the care system. It's really hard to find foster carers who would take three children, but Mayerum did that overnight and her own children have wrapped themselves around in terms of supporting those children. And the care reviews also recognise that there is a lack of support. So I think what we've got is a huge opportunity here, which is being recognised to keep more children within their family if their parents can't care for them. What chances, and I'm mindful we're speaking after the Chancellor's Spring Statement, there has been criticism of not enough being done about cost of living in families right now. What do you think the chances are of the government

parting with some money for this? So there is a challenge for us. What we're saying is actually there's an opportunity to save money for the public purse. So this is investing in kinship care makes sense. It's better for children's outcomes. It's better because we're keeping them in their families. And it's also better for the public purse. So that's the way to think about it, not extra money. If fewer children are in care, then we can reinvest some of that money in kinship care,

which is better for children's outcomes. That was Dr. Lucy Peake and Mayrem speaking to Emma. Well, one listener had gone in touch with us to say that 30 years ago I persuaded my husband with difficulty as it was such a momentous decision to take on a baby member of my family who would otherwise have gone permanently into the care system I was in my 40s and had to give up my career I agree with your previous speaker without my amazing three teenage children who took this child to their hearts, I could not have coped. When my husband saw me struggling, he too gave me terrific support despite his initial reservations. I am now a proud granny to this baby's first child. A very happy outcome and well worth the decision. Now, a few days ago,

and with Bridgerton back on our screens a historian tweeted this urgent question why in period dramas do women never have armpit or leg hair when surely they would have is it really just a shallow attempt to make historical women more sexy in our hairless times well emma spoke to that historian dr marissa c roads a postdoctoral fellow at Arizona State University. She's also a co-host of a podcast called Dig, which looks at the past through a feminist lens. So where's the body hair? I don't know. I'm not sure. You know, and after tweeting that, now I know that it's not only me that had that question on my mind.

I tweeted, you know, where's the body hair? And a bunch of people said, I've always wondered that, you know, so it wasn't just me. It's not just historians. It's also, I think, ordinary folks, too, who are thinking, wait a minute, wouldn't these women have leg hair and armpit hair? Julie messaged in to say hair has been removed since Egyptian times, various chemicals and tweezering, as she puts it. Read the Marquis de Sade. Yeah, no, that's totally true. Hair has been removed, especially for ritualistic purposes and as well for aesthetic reasons, usually by particularly fancy people, upper class people. But for most of history, in most times and in most places, ordinary people would have had underarm hair and leg hair.

Ordinary women would have had underarm hair and leg hair in most times and places. Yes. And I think that's what you're getting to here, isn't it? That we spend a lot of time or rather the people making these programs spend a lot of time on the accuracy of lots of different things. They are called out, aren't they? If there's, I don't know, a random remote control in the background or something. But why? Reddit goes wild. But why not this? Why do you think it matters, though? You know, I've been thinking about this. And I think the easy answer is that, you know, our contemporary aesthetic is hairless, you know, for the most part, underarms and legs for women. Right. And so I think a lot of people very cynically, especially on Twitter, too, have said that it's because they

want ratings and they think that underarm hair or leg hair will will turn people off. I mean, that's an option. But I've actually been thinking more about this. And I really think that period appropriate body hair wouldn't really turn people off. I feel like most people, I don't think we give viewers enough credit. And I think most people would say, oh, I never thought of that. I suppose women wouldn't have removed their underarm hair, whatever. I think most people, I don't think it would turn people off too much. But I do think that there's an element now, I think nowadays that there's some celebrities who are kind of experimenting with having underarm hair and kind of showing it in public. I think that there's an element of it being sort of it's transgressive

and it's sort of feminist and almost like a power move. And so I wonder sometimes if producers just kind of want to sidestep that whole thing entirely or they think it won't, that that sort of, you know, power move feminist sort of approach. Could be off-putting. Yeah, for the particular character.

Have you seen any TV or film showing a true representation? So I've seen it only on The Great, which is by Hulu, about Catherine the Great. But only, I think, one of the women on there had some very sort of chaste armpit hair. And then 1883, which I haven't seen,

but I think it's about a sort of pioneer women. And the lead character on there has plenty of armpit hair. So both sort of American shows, I think. I can't find it anywhere else. Well, yes, and also just about, you know, how people's teeth would have looked and also body shape in different times.

Is that accurate, would you say, as a historian? No. For the most part, no. I can remember watching the movie Joan of Arc and the English had horrible, terrible teeth. And then the French had beautiful white pearly teeth. And this is, you know, and I was like, wait. And I asked my dad, why is that? And he said, oh, they're just trying to make the English look extra bad and extra villainous, you know. like cinematic purposes um but i think for the most part we're not getting an accurate representation of of dental hygiene or of hair removal i will say though that shows like the

last kingdom have done a really good job of um portraying sort of how dirty folks would have gotten at these sort of menial jobs that they that they performed. No one ever looks clean in there except the king and the queen, basically. Of course. And that might not even be that accurate. Perhaps not. I think if you're putting it through the lens of today, but you're making everything else accurate, it probably is a fair question to have in your mind

as you watch these sorts of things. Does it put you off or are you still going to watch them? I mean, I'm still going to watch them anyway. But yeah, I'm always expecting body hair because I'm sort of in this trance of, oh, we're in the ninth century, you know, and I sort of get, you know, enveloped in that sort of trance. And then as soon as there's no body hair, I think, oh, man, this person is just a contemporary person. It sort of breaks the spell, I think. And that was Emma speaking to the historian,

Dr. Marissa C. Rhodes. Don't forget, you can join Emma on Monday at 10am here on BBC Radio 4. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody.

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

The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.