Woman's Hour - Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall and Diana Parkes, Ukraine, Unmodified bodies, Joanna Scanlan, Margaret Atwood

Episode Date: February 26, 2022

In an exclusive interview, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall and future Queen Consort talks to Emma about her work with domestic abuse survivors. They are joined by Diana Parkes whose daughter Joanna Simpson was battered to death by her estranged husband in 2010.Olena Symonenko tells us about her escape to a safer part of Ukraine only to find out that her apartment that she had lived in all her life had been hit by a bomb.The actress and writer Joanna Scanlan known for her many roles in TV shows such as Getting On and The Thick of It, talks about her BAFTA nominated film After Love. Do we change our bodies because we want to or because we are being pressured to conform by society? Cambridge Professor of Political Philosophy Clare Chambers considers this question and concludes that the unmodified body is under attack, particularly for women, who are constantly given the message that their body is not good enough just as it is. Her new book is Intact – A Defence of the Unmodified Body.Margaret Atwood's latest collection of essays, Burning Questions, gathers together her essays and other occasional non-fiction pieces from 2004 to 2021. The literary legend talks culture wars, feminism and grief. Presenter: Andrea Catherwood 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 Andrea Catherwood and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Hello and welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour. In a moment, our exclusive interview with Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall. We'll be hearing one woman's story of fleeing her home in Kiev, hours before it was destroyed. We'll meet the philosopher mounting a defence of the unmodified body. Also, the actress and writer Joanna Scanlon

is known for her highly memorable roles in TV shows such as The Thick of It, but she's just been nominated for a BAFTA for the film After Love. And the literary legend that is Margaret Atwood. On Thursday we broadcast a special edition of Woman's Hour. Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, first met Diana Parks in 2016 at a meeting of the domestic abuse charity Safe Lives where Diana shared the story of what happened to her daughter Joanna. Joanna, known as Jo to family and friends, was battered to death in 2010 by her estranged husband, with their two children within earshot. He was later imprisoned, and Diana, in her early 70s, immediately took her two grandchildren, who were nine and ten,

to her home on the Isle of Man, and began parenting all over again in retirement. Camilla heard in great detail that story, sitting in a circle with Diana, and in the years since has worked to lift the shroud of silence around domestic abuse, becoming patron of the charity Safe Lives, and making several speeches saying she will do anything to help survivors of domestic abuse. In our exclusive interview, we reunited the two women and, as you will hear, Diana has done an extraordinary job in raising her grandchildren who are now adults. It's also Camilla's first interview since it was announced she would be Queen Consort when her husband, Prince Charles, becomes King.

She gives her reaction to that and explains why, when Queen Consort when her husband, Prince Charles, becomes king. She gives her reaction to that and explains why, when Queen Consort, she'll continue to support victims and survivors of domestic abuse and their families. A warning here that the details of the violence in this interview could upset some listeners. Emma began by asking Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, about the time that she met Diana back in 2016. I was so deeply shocked. I don't think in those days I really knew that much about domestic abuse because it was something that we were all brought up to be. It was a very hush-hush subject.

It was a taboo subject. So to actually sit there and have somebody talking about it with the mother of who it had happened to sitting beside, well, I'll never forget that moment. And I don't think I would be as involved in it now if I hadn't met you. Thank you. You were the one that started my passion. Thank you so much. And I remember saying to you dweud wrthych chi ar y pryd, dwi ddim yn gwybod beth yw'r pethau,

ond rwy'n hoffi gwneud rhywbeth i'w helpu. A dwi'n meddwl o'ch cofnodiad, wrth gwrs, bod yr hyn sy'n cael ei ddisgrifio yn anhygoel, yn anhygoel ac yn ymddygiadol i chi, ond yn amlwg, y stori rydych chi'n ei wybod yn dda iawn. Beth oedd hynny, rwy'n credu, yn eistedd gyda'r cynulleidfa hon, wrth gwrs, a ffrindiau'r teuluol, yn gwrando ar hyn, oherwydd rydych chi wedi ceisio gwneud hynny'n gwaith eich bywyd ers hyn, i gael rhyw fath o effaith yn y maes hwn. Wel, roedd Joe wedi cael ei ddiweddar yn 2010, felly roedd hyn yn ddiweddarau. Felly, mae'n amlwg, mae'n dod â teiriau. Ni allwch chi ddim i gyd-drych y grif ond rydych chi'n dysgu i ffordd ymlaen â'r grif. Ac wrth gwrs, pan fyddwch chi'n clywed y

stori eto, mae'n dod â'r holl beth yn ôl. Ond ni fyddwch chi ddim yn cael y dydd yn mynd i'w byw pan fyddwch chi ddim yn ei roi pethau o'r syniad, ac yn enwedig yn edrych ar y plant a oedd yn fy nheulu. Wel, rwy'n credu hefyd, beth sy'n arbennig iawn am ein bod yma gyda'n gilydd yw, dwi ddod i ymweld â chi ac fe wnaethon ni rhagor, roeddech chi'n fy edyter ar fy rhagor radio ar Five Live, yn ôl y rhan cyntaf o'r cyfnod o'r cyfnod, ac roedd yn dal i fod yn amser anodd iawn yn y wlad. Roedd yn 2020, mewn ddyn, os ydw i'n cofio'n gywir. Roedden ni'n siarad am ddynion rhai o'r achosion rydych chi'n eu cefnogi, ac fe ddechreuom gyda chyfrwng amgylcheddol, oherwydd roedd we were talking about themes of some of the causes you support. And we started with domestic abuse because lockdown really put the spotlight on when your home wasn't safe. And when we were on air together,

Diana, while I was here, the next room, I believe, you actually texted in. I know, but I don't know why. I just thought, Oh my God, she's talking about Jo and me. So you were listening to Emma live? Yes you see the radio or the wireless. You call it the wireless we're calling it the radio but both of you I know are big fans of the power of that and that's in part why you did the programme to reach people and I think what was so extraordinary and I remember you saying this was that you spoke in that message about taking in your grandchildren and you have raised them you know you were 71 when this ac rwy'n cofio eich bod yn dweud hyn, roedd eich bod wedi siarad yn y neges hwn am cymryd yn eich mab-barn a chi wedi'u gael nhw.

Roeddech chi'n 71 pan ddigwyddodd hyn ac rydwch chi nawr 82, os ydw i'n cael ei ddweud. Ac maen nhw nawr yn y brifysgol yn eu blynyddoedd olaf. Ac rwy'n cofio, Mam, fe ddywedodd, dwi ddim yn gallu cymryd yn ymddiriedol sut fyddai cymryd yn eich mab-barn. Ac rwy'n cofio eich bod yn dweud hynny fel cyd. And I can't relate, I can't imagine how it would have been to have taken in your grandchildren. And I remember you sort of saying that as a bond. Well, I do. I remember thinking, I mean, mine were a little bit younger than yours. But I thought to myself, if it was me and suddenly aged the same sort of age to take in grandchildren, it's not easy. It couldn't have been easy for you.

Well, it just was the natural thing to do. I never gave it a second thought. I just thought, well, I said I'd even stay with them in their house whilst they finished that, you know, year really. And they said, no, Granny, we want to come back to the Isle of Man. We love the Isle of Man. But you probably saved their lives. Well, they saved mine, that's for sure. I just love them to bits. What did they make of you coming here today?

Well, I mean, they were delighted, obviously. They said, good luck, Granny, you know. Can I just ask Diana some? Please. Diana, what I wanted to know was how it affected your grandchildren. Do you talk to them about it? Katie was much more able to speak about it this was they were just near they could hear her being hit and this is not a gunshot one bullet you're dead this was 14 strikes on her head with a claw hammer.

And when I had to go and identify her, I couldn't believe what he'd done to her. I really couldn't. And it's the children who suffer so much. And the sad thing is that when you talk about domestic abuse, if children are in a family where there is domestic abuse, they grow up thinking that that's normal behaviour. I think hearing those details are really important. ac os yw plant yn teulu lle mae yna ddiffyg yn ymdrin, maen nhw'n tyfu i fyny'n meddwl mai dyna'r ymdrech cyffredinol. Rwy'n credu bod clywed y ddewisiadau hynny'n bwysig iawn a'r effaith ar y plant, ond mae'n ddewis i chi eu bod yn lle maen nhw nawr.

Wel, mae'n ddewis i'r bobl hefyd, ond, roedd Jo yn ddewis, roedd yn ddewis, roedd yn ddewis, roedd yn ddewis, roedd yn ddewis, roedd yn ddewis, roedd yn ddewis, roedd yn ddewis, roedd yn ddewis, roedd yn ddewis, roedd yn'n ei ddod yn dda i'r cyntaf. Roedd hi'n gwerthu'r ddynion yn dda iawn, ac roedd hi'n You've spoken several times since about this. You've continued with your many other causes to shine a light on this. Do you feel that lockdown did change perceptions?

How do you feel it is at the moment? I don't think it's got any better. I think lockdown was terrible because people actually couldn't escape. They were locked in, you know, some of them in very small buildings, probably with an abusive partner, children, you know, it must have been, I mean I can't imagine the horror of it and obviously it did increase because the pressure on people not being able to get out and you know do the normal things they do in life. Obviously if you were inclined towards abuse it was going

to get a lot worse and you've seen the numbers have gone up but on the other hand it's drawn a lot of people's attention to it. I think it's talked about much more now and lockdown I think did funny things to all of us didn't it but it also brought out things into the open that we wouldn't have necessarily talked about before and I think with domestic abuse this is exactly what what happened yeah yes I think in 2010 when Joe was killed everything was swept under the carpet people knew it it was going on we're not even talking about that long ago, are we? No. It's not even a decade. Do you feel, I was looking back at some of the things

and some of the speeches you've given since, because I'm also minded of the fact it's nearly a year since Sarah Everard was kidnapped and murdered at the hands of a serving police officer. There's been other women too, Sabina Nessa, of course, as well. You actually spoke in October of last year, ma'am, where you said you're a patron of Safe Lives Now, I should say, which trains people how to support those going through it. You said, we need to get men involved in this movement. We do not in any way hold all men responsible

for sexual violence, but we do need them on board to tackle it. You went on to say rapists are not born, they're constructed, and that it takes an entire community to dismantle the lies that foster a culture in which sexual assault is seen as normal, in which it shames the victim. How important do you think it is to get that message out there, that we need a whole culture change? We do need a whole culture change, and I think we have to start at the beginning.

I think children at school have got to be taught respect and I think if you can teach boys respect for girls and vice versa, we would be at the beginning of trying to solve this problem. How it's going to happen, I'm not quite sure. How long is a piece of string? But I think we have got to go back to the beginnings and start with the smallest and just build up this idea that you have to have respect for human beings. It's sort of lack of respect.

It's, you know, treating women like chattels, really. And people thinking they can get away with it, thinking, I'm sure a lot of people do it and think that, you know, there's nothing wrong, you know, this is what used to happen. I said to Emma earlier, I'm going to be very controversial, but I do wish the soaps like Coronation Street, EastEnders, Emmerdale, they wouldn't show so much violence and arguments and, you know, it's making the abnormal normal, as one of my friends said. And it also triggers something in a person's brain. They see it on the television or they see it on a video.

Exactly. You know, some of these very violent videos, I'm sure, give people completely the wrong idea. Exactly. I say something that's been lurking in the background is then, you know, set light to. Exactly. Diana, I just wonder, from your perspective,

how do you think you get more people involved or to care about something if it hasn't touched their lives? O'ch safbwynt chi, sut ydych chi'n meddwl y byddwch yn cael mwy o bobl yn ymwneud â'r cwbl neu'n gofalu am rywbeth os nad yw'n cymerio eu bywydau? Mae'n rhaid i chi siarad amdano'r peth a ddweud wrth bobl, fel y stori rwy'n ei ddweud am yr hyn a ddigwyddodd i Jo. Mae hyn yn digwydd i lawer o bobl eraill. Nid ydw i yn ei ddweud yn ddewis. Y peth pwysig yw ei fod yn gallu digwydd mewn unrhyw teulu, yn gallu digwydd mewn unrhyw... Unrhyw un. ...sefydliad hefyd, nad yw'n un unol fath o berson neu gysylltiad.

Ac rwy'n credu hefyd, rydyn ni wedi gweld newidiadau yn y llaw gyda chyfnod cyfnodol nawr, gan... Dyna'r hyn a wnaeth Joe'n cael ei ofyn yn y mwyaf. Rwy'n credu, chi'n gwybod, mae'n un peth i'w wybod, bod Joe wedi cael ei ddynu'n fwy brwt, ond mewn gwirionedd, y cyfnod i hynny... O, mae'n hynod o ddifrif. ...wnaeth hynny. Yn fawr. Y. Really horrendous. Again though I suppose some people don't yet know what

that means you know we're still learning we're still teaching people aren't we? It was something again I didn't understand about and you know as you say you put violence on these soaps and things but then you get the other side of radio where you get something like The Archers which had this brilliant storyline of Helen and Rob and I think more people I talked to afterwards said, God we had no idea. And it was still lurking at the back of her mind. Do you remember when that phone call, do you remember seeing that man and she thought, God has he come back? And that's of course how we're going to feel, exactly, when he's released. It's going to...

Sorry Emma. It's going to all watch it. No, no. We've diverted into the Archers. What I absolutely love is, I'm going to say, I'm going to do my big confession as someone who works for Red and Fall, I don't listen to the Archers. I know, I can't believe it. And I love that I could just leave the two of you completely alone to talk about this.

So I'm going to go to archers' side. Archers' side. Well, definitely. I would pretend to keep up, but I'm going to lay my cards on the table because we're being honest here. I just wonder, in terms of the ability to tell people your story,

how powerful is it to have somebody in Her Royal Highness's position talk about this because it has been so taboo? Marvellous. It just gives it such headlines. Do you feel that it's shifted or do you still feel that there is still that feeling around it? Because you've not been talking about it for some years. I think it has shifted because I mean I meet a lot of people. I've talked to a lot of women all over the country and men I have to admit there are men there especially when coercive control there's a lot of men who suffer too but obviously the majority are women but talking to these women and saying

to them look if you can speak out you know talk to friends, talk to anybody who wants to listen, because the more you talk about it, the more people are going to be able to unburden themselves. Because I think what happens is that they feel guilty, they feel the shame, they feel it's their fault. So if they can talk to others who are experiencing the same, they can get up and say, look, you know, this has happened to me and her and him, her, and just talk about it to other people because it just relieves the burden from others. Sadly, so much of it is they're going to leave their husband or partner because they know that they're being abused. But that's when it's the most dangerous time when

they're actually going to go that's when all the the damage comes and then sometimes the partner will buy them something to you know to keep them a bit longer with your ability to shine a light and you know you have many causes that are close to your heart but this does seem to have been particularly uh something you've you've really zoned in on if i may say is that correct it is Mae gennych chi lawer o achosau sy'n ymraen at eich cerdd, ond mae hyn yn ymddangos i fod yn rhywbeth rydych chi wedi'i ddod o hyd i, os ydw i'n dweud hynny. Ydy hynny'n iawn? Mae'n iawn iawn ac rwy'n credu y byddaf yn gwneud hynny yn y byd. Ie, fe wnaethoch chi ddweud y byddwch yn dal i ddod â'r cwrdd â'r cwrdd. Dwi ddim yn gallu rhoi'r cyfnod i mi. Rwyf wedi cyrraedd pwynt nawr lle mae pethau'n dechrau symud ychydig o fach, ond os ydyn nhw'n gallu symud ychydig ychydig, byddant yn gallu symud ychydig yn fwy. Felly, wyddoch chi, byddwn i'n debyg i'n hir

wrth i rywbeth ddigon wych digon digon digon digon digon digon digon. A wrth gwrs, bydd yna amser pan fydd eich rôl yn newid. Mae'r Gwertheg gyda'i adnabod diweddaraf am eich rôl yn ffordd o wneud y gwaith rydych chi'n ei wneud, with her recent announcement about your role, in a way it's endorsing the work that you do, all the difficult areas too. How important is that for you and your causes? Well of course it's a great honour, it couldn't be anything else, but it does help it, it does, I'm going to keep on with these causes, you know, I am passionate about them and you know if it can get a bit of attention, the right sort of attention, I will keep on doing them. You know if I start something like this I'm not going to to give up mid-channel, I'm just going to keep going to do, to try and help the likes of people like Diana who suffered so much and her family has suffered so much and there's so many people out there like Diana who had the same awful

terrible things happen to them. So you always see yourself giving a voice to these women and and keeping going with that? I hope I should be doing it for a lifetime. Well that's commitment Diana. Amazing to hear. You can hold her to that. I should say that one. Wonderful. I should say, of course, Her Majesty also talks about looking ahead to the Platinum Jubilee, a sense of hope, optimism. You know, we are coming out of very strange times. How important do you think that is for the country at the moment, that we sort of have that to look forward to? It's always lovely to have something happy to look forward to, isn't it? I mean, we've all been through hard times.

We've all been locked away from our family and friends. And now we can all get together again and celebrate. Yes. Are you making any cakes? Are you doing any recipes? I haven't really thought about it. I have spent a lot of my life cooking, I have to say. Maybe you can have a rest now. You've done a very good job.

You are quite wonderful. Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall and Diana Parks speaking there. And you can hear more of Diana's story on the programme by listening back on BBC Sounds. Now, many of you got in touch. Angela writes, Diana Parks is an amazing woman and the conversation between her and the Duchess of Cornwall was a joy despite the horrendous subject.

A. Elliot writes, I just want to thank you for that amazing interview with Diana and the Duchess of Cornwall, and the further talk with Diana herself. It was moving, enlightening, challenging and inspiring. It brought back memories to me of my sister, a social worker, helping children of families in domestic abuse, and the huge emotional impact it had on those helping in the aftermath.

Keep on raising our awareness on this issue. Now, millions of people across Ukraine are making choices they never dreamed they'd have to make. Thousands are trying to flee cities, including the capital Kiev, seeking safety over the border in Poland or Romania. The US ambassador to the UN is warning that up to five million people could be displaced. Those vast headline figures are hard to take in. It's the stories of people travelling with their babies in buggies and their cats in baskets. The teenage girls wheeling suitcases stuffed with their clothes. It's the children with stickers on their coats, giving their phone numbers and blood groups that tell the real story

of what's happening right now in Ukraine. Elena Semenenko lives in part of Kiev, which is very popular with young families. But she left her home on Thursday to try to get to the border. It was, however, too late. She spent the night with friends in an area of the city called the Right Bank, which she thought would be safer. I woke up at five o'clock in the morning because I hear the very horrible sound like the fireworks. But it doesn't sound like the fireworks.

But it was quite long. I don't know, a few minutes. And look at my son he was sleeping and for for a second i could not understand what is going on and then when i realized what is going on i it was just in my head. It started. And then we decided what to do with my husband. We tried to take, we took the emergency back. We woke up my mom. She lives in the next apartment in the same building. We took all our stuff. It takes, I don't know, half an hour.

All these days we kept our car just in front of the house it was full of gas didn't go anywhere and we just sit down with the car and try to move to the right bank of kiev and actually it was a horrible traffic jam like three hours i standed with the kids inside we didn't have any any you know breakfast breakfast, nothing. Where were you hoping to go when you got in the car? We hoped to go to the West. I have a friend of my father. He was waiting for us in Uzhgorod.

He has the house and he has that you can come and stay here as much as you need. Also, I had a friend in Poland who also told me that I can come and stay for a while. And as well, my company where I work, they support me. And they said that we can take you out of the border. We will come to the border and take you. But it was totally crazy situation on the road. And we were not even moving on the road.

We were just standing, still standing with even, you know, switched off engine. But we stay here all night. And we as well hide in the shelter when we hear bombing. Like now, probably you can hear or not, it's a bombing in Kiev already for a few hours. And I woke up today at four. I received a phone call from my uncle. And he told that our house was destroyed in Kiev. It's a house with six entrances to the building.

So just imagine, this is the house where people live. We live on Poznyki area. Poznyki is the area where you have the concentration of population of kids the biggest in Ukraine. They're all families with the kids living. So the rocket, I don't know what

exactly happened, but our house destroyed totally. So we don't have a home anymore. Elena, you sent us a photograph of that. You sent it to one of our teammates. Yes, that's our house. And that's your house. It's an apartment block.

It's on fire in the photograph. Yes, it's an apartment block. Yes, that's the building where I grew up with my son as well. We live there. When my mom lives there, we have two apartments. But now we have no place to go. And do you know if anybody else was in that apartment block last night or was everybody in the bunkers?

Our neighbor, he was sleeping and then he heard the sound and he immediately jumped under the bed and he survived. And I know that a few people were injured. All windows blew up and there was a fire that was taken out by the fire brigade. Elena, it's really hard for us to imagine what you're going through. What is happening in Ukraine, this is like the worst, I don't know, movie

we could ever even imagine and see in our life. This is not appropriate. This is impossible. This cannot be done to our kids. Elena, I can hear your pain and I really feel for you and for your family. Where are you now? Are you safe at the moment? Well, we think that we are safe. We are hiding in a house on the right bank.

We have here a very small shelter, but that's enough at least to sit there. At least in case of the attack from air again, we think, we hope we're safe. Olena, your child is just six years old. Yes. How is your child getting on? He's a brave boy. He survived post-COVID syndrome last year. And he is kind of mature after that

situation, because he was in a very difficult situation. And now again, difficult situation with this. And that's very bad. He's trying to be okay. First we didn't tell him, we told him that we're going for a trip but then obviously when he heard all the planes and he see the people and he heard from the news from the car that we switch on you know for five minutes here he said you don't think that i don't understand anything i understand everything and he's six yes and you know exactly what he said. He said yesterday, before we went to sleep, because we could

sleep that was quiet, and we said, okay, we need to sleep at least for a few hours, because we don't know how the night will be. And we told him this, and he's very active boy, but he said, okay, yes, we will go to sleep. And he said, I didn't, I never slept in this house before. I said, you know, there is the saying in Ukraine

that if you sleep in the first house for the first time, you should make a wish. And he told his wish. You know what was that? He said that he wants the war to stop and he wants for the president of Russia to become a good person. This is my son. He's six and he's saying this himself.

Just imagine. Elena, it's really hard for us to imagine. Thank you so much for sharing this with us. It's very hard to understand just how upsetting this is but thank you for telling us about it can i ask you can i ask you how how your mom is this is the apartment that she's lived in her whole life and and it was destroyed last night well uh i don't know how it's going to be because i mean this is exactly that the place where she lives all her life and she's a teacher and was the teacher and now she's retired and her salary is affordable only you know to pay the the electricity fee and stuff and that's it

we don't know where to go after that Elena I know that this only happened to you last night but I just wonder what are your thoughts now on what you do next what are your what decisions are you making today first of all I'm staying here for for this day when they're trying to get Kiev so we will stay in this shelter we're monitoring the traffic jams and the situation trying to talk to our friends when it's reception available and talking to them if we can gather together and move with the column at least to the west of ukraine so as i said i have few people there to stay there probably i will move if that's possible for four months or two with my family and of course mom to to poland where my company has the office and they ready to support us

they wait us there but we cannot get there right now olena smienko talking to me on friday now many of you were very moved by Elena's story. Sarah says, the situation is terrible. Thank you for giving this woman a voice. And Kay says, so distressing listening to this brave woman speaking about the war and its real-life impact. Much love to her, her family and everyone in Ukraine. Well, Women's Hour plans to stay in touch with Elena and her family and we very much hope that we can update you on her situation next week.

Now, you can get in touch with us on anything you hear in the programme via the website, on Twitter, on Instagram. It's at BBC Woman's Hour. And remember, you can enjoy Woman's Hour any day of the week if you can't join us live at 10am. Just subscribe to the daily podcast free via Woman's Hour website. Now, do we change our bodies because we want to or because we're being pressured to? Claire Chambers, Cambridge professor of political philosophy, has considered this question at length and concluded that the unmodified body is under attack, particularly for women, because we're constantly given the message

that our bodies aren't good enough just as they are. Claire's new book is called Intact, a defence of the unmodified body. It's not part of my argument to say that everything we do to our bodies is bad and that we should refrain from any kind of body modification. But we know that we are living in a culture that places huge emphasis on how we look.

And this is called what psychologists call an epidemic of appearance anxiety, and it's doing serious harm to our mental health. So many of us live with a permanent sense of shame and inadequacy. So one large study found that 70% of women feel media pressure to have a perfect body, and two thirds of men feel ashamed of their body. And we see this also with young people and with girls in particular. So the most recent Girl Guiding Survey found that the majority of girls find that images of the perfect look make them feel insecure. So in my book, In Intact,

I analyse all the ways in which our bodies are designated as not good enough. And I think this spans a wide variety of practices, not just hair and makeup, but also I think about examples like bodybuilding and disability and the idea that we should get our bodies back after pregnancy. And the idea of the unmodified body that I think needs to be defended is the idea that we could allow our bodies to be good enough just as they are. That's what I mean by an unmodified body. And that we ought to be able to say collectively, to say stop, not stop to all practices of body modification, but stop to a culture of pressure and shame that makes us feel that we have to change our bodies. Getting your body back after having a baby is quite a good one to take a moment on,

because I think it allows you into a window. And something that you do write about that I thought you put extremely well is the idea that you've got one body that has to stay the same the whole way through your life. Where does that idea come from? That's right I think that phrase is so interesting so that phrase getting your body back is something I think we can all recognise. We know what it means it means that after you've had a baby you have to return your body to its pre-pregnancy state. Or even if you've put on weight, for instance, and you're like, I want to get back to how I was. And I know, you know, weight's not healthy. I'm not, you know, it's not something if you've put it on, you necessarily want to keep. Of course,

there are lots of people who have the weight and are feeling a lot more positive about that. But it's not always post a baby, you can have any change and still feel you need to get it back. That's right. But the phrase get your body back isn't you should get slimmer or you should look better or you should feel sexier it's you should get your body back so the implication is that the body you have is not your real body not your authentic body and that your real body is this particular kind of body which is what is it it's a body that's post-puberty. And in the getting your body back after pregnancy phrase, it's getting the body that you had before pregnancy, but post-puberty. That's a very specific part of a woman's life. For most women who live a full life, that would be a minority of their life. So why is it that that is supposed to be the body

that is our real authentic one? And it's an idea, I think, that makes us feel that any way in which we deviate from that idea is shameful. And I use the word shaintenance to talk about all the ways that we maintain shame around our body. We think that the ways that our bodies deviate from standards are shameful, and we do a lot of work to keep those deviations secret and private. And that ranges from really obvious examples of shame, such as menstrual shame, where we all put a lot of effort into concealing our menstruation and those of others,

but also less obvious examples of shame. And one case I discuss in that context is natural makeup, which is the idea that we should be wearing makeup, which looks as if we're not wearing makeup. And that idea of natural makeup, again, gives the implication that how our faces look without makeup is shameful because our dark circles, our red patches, our wrinkles are things that we should be concealing. So whereas overt makeup, adornment, makes it very clear that what we are doing is decorating ourselves, natural makeup suggests, no, we shouldn't necessarily focus on adornment, but we shouldn't let our bodies be just as they

are because there's something wrong with them. Although it's interesting, isn't it? I saw the other day, I think there was a brand for male makeup called War Paint. I was having a small smile about that. But I was thinking women sometimes feel lucky compared to men that we do get to improve ourselves quote unquote that there is that option and I am seeing a you know a sort of whole trend of messages here I mean the first one we received when I asked the question linked to yours from April said blimey if I made no changes I wouldn't feel at my best underarm shaved hair dyed nails painted if I was unmodified people would run away now you know you know, you can sort of

laugh at that and there's good humour in there. But truly being unmodified, I know it's not just about nails painting, but sort of what you're saying there about that natural makeup does lead to some people just not feeling as good and men sometimes want that option. Absolutely right. And so in the context of all this constant pressure and judgment and ranking of bodies that I've been talking about, it may well be that changing our bodies makes all of us feel better in the short term. It may be that changing our bodies is better than leaving them alone. And it's the best way to feel good about ourselves and to have others feel good about us, which is why it's not an individual problem to solve. It's not that each of us individually should stop doing what we need to do to feel good about ourselves in this context. But I do think that when everybody feels bad about their bodies, we might think that it's not the bodies that are

the real problem. It's the social context that makes us feel bad. And I think we have the right to try to change our bodies, but we also have the right to live in a society that doesn't constantly tell us that the bodies we have are wrong. What would have to not be there to live in that society, do you think? What's that utopia, according to you, if we could be intact? So that's a very difficult question, and it's not part of my analysis to say that I have the full answer of how to get there. But if you were to imagine some things, yes. Yeah, so one thing that seems to make a big difference is actually very simple, which is having a much more diverse range

of images of bodies to look at. So, you know, we're all constantly surrounded by images of each other. We are talking to each other in ways that are often emphasising our own image. We are posting selfies. We are constantly seeing a barrage of images of perfected bodies. And if those images that we saw were much more diverse,

that would have a strong effect on undermining the idea that there's only one particular way to look. Because it's a very visual culture that we're living in now. I mean, I'm looking at you. We're doing it over a video call. I mean, do you make any modifications yourself? Or have you changed some something about yourself? Having answered this question? I respect it's not about

the individual, it's about the culture. But But have you had an awakening about anything you were doing to modify? Well, of course, absolutely. I do lots of things to myself, none of us could act in such a way that we don't ever change our bodies, everything we do, you know, eating, drinking, exercising, not exercising changes our bodies in some way. One thing actually that I did change in thinking about this was my attitude to makeup. I was always somebody who didn't particularly use makeup in my, you know, in the academic context, that's quite an easy position to have. And I think I had a view that actually, if you were going to use makeup, you know, that I would prefer to use the natural, more subtle makeup. And in thinking about the ways that that natural makeup actually is about maintaining a

sort of secrecy and a shame about the body, I actually felt that if I was going to wear makeup, I might wear it more overtly and actually have sometimes worn, you know, more bright lipstick and more obvious makeup than I might otherwise have done. So it's not always about thinking that a response to understanding these pressures is to stop doing things. Sometimes it's about recognising what we're doing and, you know, recognising that our actions in response to this pressure are just there to be accepted and to be made more visible. I think it's interesting as well. Culturally, recently we've had Sex and the City come back and a Friends reunion. And it's amazing to have seen individual actors that you saw at a certain age come back.

And some of the responses to how they have looked, those individuals, haven't been good. You know, whether it's, I'm so surprised she's aged so much. Well, what do you think happens in 20 years if you still, you know, continue as you were going and don't modify that much? Through to, I did mention, Courtney Cox has spoken about doing injections and stuff to her face that she realized, you know, that she was chasing youthfulness and she realized it left her looking strange. And, you know, talking about that can only be helpful, I imagine.

I think that's right. I mean, for women in particular, aging is so profoundly fraught and women are absolutely criticized no matter what we do, whether we do or don't do modifications. And again, that's another part of the problem when we have an ideal that we're supposed to meet, but actually it's not possible for any of us to meet it without feeling ashamed. Most people, if I said to you, you know, which body part would you most like to change? I think most people could have a ready answer to that, right? We know what we would say. But then if I said to you, well, imagine that you changed that body part, how would you feel then? Would everything be perfect? And I think most of us probably would then think, actually, then if that was fixed, then I've got the next thing on the list. And it's not that there's any kind of body that we can easily achieve that will then stop us feeling anxiety about our bodies. This anxiety is built in. And particularly for women who are ageing, that is part of the process. And

at some point, we just perhaps need to recognise that, again, as I say, if we feel bad about our bodies, maybe it's not the bodies that are the problem. Claire Chambers, Cambridge professor of political philosophy. Anne says, I am not a great one for body modification. However, I realise I have always removed the hair on my chin. Otherwise, I'd have a beard. I'm 84 now. And because of the pandemic, I paid far less attention to modifying in terms of a bit of makeup to cover the sun damage and patches of brown rough skin on my face. I keep a razor and foundation powder in the car so I can correct neglect before becoming public. It makes me feel better.

Another listener writes, I am very unmodified, except having a melanoma mole removed. No makeup, hair dye, etc. My young teenage son brought me hair straighteners for Christmas to help me get a boyfriend, she says. Where did he get the idea that women should modify their bodies in order to attract men? It certainly wasn't for me. The actor and writer Joanna Scanlon is known for her highly memorable roles in TV shows such as Getting On, No Offence and The Thick of It.

Well, now she's just been nominated for a BAFTA Leading Actress Award for the film After Love. Set in Dover, she plays a woman called Mary Hussein, who converted to Islam when she married, but following the unexpected death of her husband Ahmed many years later, uncovers a secret about him across the channel in Calais. Emma asked her about the character of Mary and why we don't often see people like her depicted on screen. It's the sort of character who's normally on the side or, you know, in the back of shot. And we suddenly get to see somebody in their full emotional complexity. And I think that's the joy. Well, that was the joy for playing the character.

And that's come out of Alim Khan's brilliant writing. He's a writer, director director first time uh writer director and he wrote something that i think he just wrote out of his spirit out of his inner kind of vision of the world and he has lots of particular things including coming from a family where his mother was a white working-class woman who met her then to be husband when they were in their teens, and she converted to Islam. So he's writing with full knowledge in the sense of somebody who is perhaps overlooked by the rest of society. And that's meant it's very fresh. It's very unusual. You don't get to see people like this very often. But she, of course, there's nothing generic, there's nothing

about all the tropes that we have around the ideas of converting into Islam or any of those things, because you're looking at a very specific individual woman. And then you get to see the level at which she is made invisible by society, because that's an absolutely crucial plot point. Well, I think also another element of it, talking about the conversion side, is that her faith is tested and yet she still keeps her faith without any spoilers. How did you relate to that? Yes. Yeah, I love that aspect of it. I mean, there is no such thing as faith without doubt.

Doubt is an element of faith. You can't. It's a bit like, you know, courage and bravery. The two things are interlinked in very subtle ways. And, you know, faith is I mean, I come from a Roman Catholic family, was brought up with all the devotional practices. I went to school in the 1960s and still participated, of course, in those days with all the, you know, pre-Vatican II, sort of the Angelus Bell at 12 and everything else that went with that. So I have always found faith both as a practice and as a belief, a very, very interesting place to sit in our society. And of course, we live in quite a secular world now where those considerations are not, if you like, primary to, I think, to our predominant culture. So it was really,

really interesting to be in that. And of course, for her, faith is hope and faith is love and faith is respect. So she doesn't want to let go of those elements, even though much of the architecture of it has to fall away. People should say it's called After Love. Let's say no more. I think they need to see it now. We've done as much as we can without spoiling. I've got to ask you about a former role, Partygate going on at Downing Street at the moment. You've played head of press in the thick of it. You've been in charge of how to channel the message. How would you feel about being in charge of some of what's been going on in Downing Street?

Well, do you mean Joanna or do you mean Terry Coverley? I mean, Terry Coverley. mean terry coverley well you could answer it as either but i i do i do think of the thick of it sometimes as someone who covers politics yeah well i think terry she was formerly head of press at waitrose so i think she would have had a deal uh you know already for many cases of discount good good quality wine. I think she would have put those into action and she would have justified this. You know, it's very important that the wine is a good quality. She would have justified it on the basis that everyone else in the country was downing bottles and bottles in their own homes. And effectively, she could call number 10 home at this point because she was never getting

to go home and sleep. This is how she would have justified it. Of course, you know, not a joking matter, but there was that detail about the amounts of wine, I think being dragged in in a suitcase of some description. And, you know, the Prime Minister has been given this questionnaire of which there's a reported leak of to get an insight into but I think your your linking of her working at Waitrose as you say it could have been a very good plot line in the thick of it and could have been covered very well I believe you're speaking to us from rural Wales at the moment uh where you're where you're filming how's your Welsh oh it's improving. It is improving. I'm playing a Welsh character and I was brought up in Wales and all my family are in Wales. And I have indeed in the past tried to learn Welsh.

And I'm now getting a lot better with a lot of help. But this character has been a wonderful thing to play because it really, really gets underneath some of the language issues. I've had to ask, you know, precisely, well, how does this, what does this work? It's almost like an extraordinary form of a grammar lesson. I recommend it for learning a language, play a character. But I read you were finding it hard and you were about to pull out and your husband apparently sensibly talked you down. That's correct, actually. About three weeks before, I said, listen, I need to pull out right now because I need to give them a chance to cast somebody else. And he said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Hang on, hang on, hang on. What you really like doing is basically giving yourself a hard time.

And you feel better when you've done it. So go and do it and you'll feel better on the other side. And we are very close to the other side now. And I can actually concur with his view now. But it has been the most wonderful thing. I love being in Wales. I've had the most wonderful time during this production. And I have loved learning Welsh and I will continue to do so.

And I can tell you, you know, one word that I've had to repeat is clodhreth, which is murderer. So, you know, it's a... So should I encounter any crime, I've got a vocabulary. Joanna Scanlon. And now to a literary giant, 82-year-old Margaret Atwood, author of more than 50 books of fiction, poetry together her essays and other occasional non-fiction pieces

from 2004 to 2021. It's called Burning Questions, and Emma caught up with her at her home in Canada. In one of her essays, she asks, am I a bad feminist? And she shares her concerns about the Me Too movement. So this goes back to a case at the University of British Columbia in which people

piled on without knowing anything at all. So I got in trouble for signing a letter saying that UBC should examine its process. you're a rape enabler. So that's what happened. It must have been quite a thing to have been called that. You know, I'm old. I've been called lots of things. But, you know, calling people names, it does not mean that you're going to stop looking under rocks and stones. And when there's a name calling thing like that, you really want to know

what is behind it. If I may, just coming, you know, away from that case for a moment, I think what you're describing is also a phenomenon that we're seeing more and more, you know, not just in the cases of women versus men or otherwise it's more that people are not necessarily going to find out what really happened and that something can be said and then that person something can happen to them they lose their job or they're shamed and then that's the story that stays with them forever it's very true but it's not new emma this has been going on like forever, but with different groups of people being the targets or with different individuals being the targets. So it's nothing new in human history. It's a different medium, namely the internet plus

social media, but the actual phenomenon is not different. It is singling out of an individual and starting a story. Let us pretend that it is an untrue story. And sometimes the stories are true, you know? Yes, but I suppose people are even more aware of it now because it can last online forever and be seen within the click of a button. Yes, that's true. But so are the counter facts. So if an allegation like that is made and then it is proven, that too will last forever. Do you ever get bothered by any of the names you've been called or attempts to ban your work? I wonder if it ever gets to you, because I'm just minded to mention the bestselling author Anthony Horowitz has said in an interview in a UK publication that writers are under siege from cancel culture and should be able to express their views without the world falling in on them. He was actually responding about his fellow novelist, Sebastian Fawkes, who'd said that he had left physical descriptions

out of female characters from his latest novel. I don't know if you saw this, because he was concerned about being accused of objectifying women, and also this trend for you're not allowed to write about what you aren't. And I just wonder if you can relate to any of that. Does that ever get in your head? It causes one to think. I follow these kinds of conversations, as we're supposed to call them. Sometimes they aren't conversations at all, they're just shouting matches. But I followed that, and it's a wave. So waves have peaks and then they have troughs. The fact is, if you followed all these strictures to the letter, you could not write a novel at all unless it was a kind of inner monologue

without any people in it. You're very good at taking a step back and seeing where we are, sometimes also saying where we might get to in the future. I think some think you're a prophet, Margaret Atwood. No, no, no, no, no, no. Let me finish this point. Let me just understand, have you, though, been affected by this latest wave? Have you changed things you may have written or thought twice

and perhaps not censored yourself, but changed what you're writing because of the time we live in? You know, I think I am in the area of embarrassing older person who doesn't know that you're not supposed to any longer say fill in the blank. I think it's more likely to be men, I have to say, who get into the older man position. Well, why can't I say fill in the blank anymore? We always used to say that. I think it's being aware of the ways in which language changes and also what the accepted politeness is. So I don't know if you've noticed in your emails, you always have to begin,

I hope you're well. It's sort of a Jane Austen thing. It's like what the Jane Austen characters say to each other. I trust you're well, and the little Mrs. Burnaby are well, too. Oh, yes, thank you. And what about, and then you inquire after the health, and then you make some comments about the weather. So we've sort of done away with the weather, but we're doing the health big time because of COVID.

And these are manners. And you'll probably have noticed yourself that if you start an email without saying that, you'll probably go back and put it in because it seems too abrupt. Unless you say, I hope you're well well it's been it's been shown in certain studies that women put a lot more caveats in their writing as well to to soften requests certainly in the workplace you know I'm terribly sorry to ask you know but could you and and I don't suppose and they do make those excuses it's been said more as well to soften language. I think so. And I think Naomi Alderman in her novel does a very good job of that because she envisions a future in which women have the ability to electrocute people by pointing at them. Be careful what you wish for. And in this future, a male writer is addressing a similarly polite and deferential letter to a female one. So she gets the drill and just reverses it. I've never much been like that, Emma Emma I think it's because I wasn't properly socialized

so I've tended not to be like that at which point people think I'm a powerful evil old witch. Well you do read hands though you did do that the last time I met you in person. Yeah that's not witchy stuff it It's just renaissance science. Well, you have also said it's your party trick. I did go back and actually watch what you said to me. And you said, there's more woo-woo in me than I like to admit, which did make me laugh. But do you actually believe all of that stuff? It kind of doesn't matter whether I believe it or not. Well, you sounded very knowledgeable you even

corrected yourself as you made an error. Absolutely yes I'm very knowledgeable but that doesn't necessarily mean you believe it. Will you not tell me? No I'm not going to tell you. Let us say that it's it is it is a very interesting way of getting to know somebody. Well, because people want to hear about themselves, don't they? Of course they do, yes. You're quite hard to get anything out of, though, about you personally. I'm an old clam. Do you still have your place or an association with Norwich?

Well, we never owned a place there. We used to come over in February, and if you looked out the window here you would know why. You just told me about having snow drops. I'm so jealous. Yes, we used to go over in the teens of this century and spend February and part of March there because we could go for walks more easily. When you say we though, of course I imagine talking about your late husband, Graham Gibson. Yes, he loved it. He loved going to Norwich.

And he actually died when you were here in the UK in 2019. I know, wasn't that a shocker? I'm again so sorry about that. I remember writing to you not long after. But there was something very powerful that you said about that, that you carried on with your tour and some people were surprised by that, but you wanted to avoid the empty chair at home. And I just wonder how that has been now these years on about what that was like to confront and how you are about feeling on that. Well, wait for it, Emma. So I seem to know quite a few widows at the moment. And we seem to have a kind of little widow's circle, which we send each other emails, visit one another. And I would say it's much the same for all of us. We're kind of too old to say, oh, well, you know, that's that one, and now we'll get another.

It's a bit old for that. Let me say that there's a big difference between being depressed and being sad. Those are really different things. So, of course, we are sad. How could we not be sad? Do we pull ourselves together for social occasions? Yes, we do. We're all pretty tough old boots. We know that we don't want to boohoo a lot in public and make other people feel terrible. So that is one of the obligations of being a social animal, or at least it is in this Scottish-influenced culture that we have in certain parts of Canada. Yes, pull yourself together. So like that.

So that's about what it's like. And what else can I tell you except that may you live a long and happy life. The inimitable Margaret Atwood. Well, do join us again on Monday just after the news at 10am. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Once upon a time, there was a man who lived in a house that wasn't on any map. The man lived in his house with his adopted sister, Nikesha, his friend, Sebastian, his aunt, Lily, and his faithful housekeeper, Mrs. Boone.

And then, one day, after years of living in peace and harmony, those sneaky tow rags in British intelligence sent a young lady to find the man. They'd filled the unfortunate girl's head with all sorts of nonsense about the man. He's a thief, a smuggler, a killer, a liar. The Themis group has tendrils everywhere, through governments, intelligence services, law enforcement. An organised crime syndicate so powerful that no one's ever heard of it.

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A new five-part series by Julian Simpson on BBC Radio 4 and available on BBC Sounds. 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.

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