Woman's Hour - Champagne, Autistic & Pregnant, Single at Christmas

Episode Date: December 21, 2019

We find out about the so-called Merry Widows of Champagne as well as the women making champagne today. Francoise Peretti, Director of Champagne Bureau UK and Joanna Simon, drinks journalist tell us more. We hear about the difficulties of being autistic and pregnant from an anonymous listener and from Lana Grant a mother with Asperger’s who's the author of From Here to Maternity: Pregnancy and Motherhood on the Autism Spectrum. Are beauty pageants still OK in 2019? To discuss is Salma Haidrani, a journalist who documented her experiences as a contestant in Miss England 2018s, Leanne Levers who's a political scientist and the journalist, Tanya Gold.Since the election last week more than 1000 women have signed up to 50:50 Parliament, registering their interest in standing as an MP. We discuss why with Lucrece Grehoua who's signed up herself and Frances Scott who set up 50:50.Single at Christmas? How do you feel about it? We talk about the benefits of the single life as well as festive dating trends with the journalist Lizzie Cernik and Rachael Floyd from eHarmony.And the big Boxing Day film will be Little Women. We talk to its director Greta Gerwig. Presented by: Jenni Murray Producer: Rabeka Nurmahomed Editor: Siobhann Tighe

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. Good afternoon. In today's programme, for the first time, the world's five major beauty pageants have been won by women of colour. How much does that fact change their value? In Jamaica, for instance, education is one of the few ways in which people can access an elevated status. And I think pageants do perform that job. And they do provide a certain level of access to things that

most black women don't have, and most minority women don't have. Obviously, that's at the cost of being objectified. There's a lot of excitement about a new version of Little Women opening on Boxing Day. We talked to the director, Greta Gerwig. The single person at Christmas, how do you deal with family asking you why there's no love in your life? As the new Parliament has a record number of female MPs, how long before it's 50-50? We need more mothers in Parliament. We want to draw upon the widest possible pool of talent and experience. And politics makes a great second career. And so we really would urge women who've had some life experience to consider this

because we need women's wisdom at Westminster. And one of the great champagne houses is called Verve Clicquot. Verve is French for widow. Why were so many widowed women involved in putting the bubbles into wine? Earlier this month, we received an email from a woman who didn't want to be identified, but wondered if we might be prepared to discuss the experience of pregnancy and early parenthood for women on the autistic spectrum. She told us she was diagnosed with Asperger's in 2012 and is more than 20 weeks pregnant. She said she can't cope with touch, has a high pain threshold

and explained, my experience of pregnancy has been very different from my friends. She told Siobhan Tai what her plans are over the next few months. Well I was diagnosed with Asperger's about gosh five years ago and I recently fell pregnant and every time I google autism and pregnancy almost everything that comes up are articles on how to prevent yourself having an autistic baby which is somebody who I quite enjoy elements of having Asperger's or as it's now called autism. I find that quite frustrating and a little bit insulting.

How is your autism, how does it manifest itself as an adult? For people who don't know you, how would you describe it? I think one of the biggest things is hypersensitivity. Noise and lights are really difficult. Coordination. I bump into things a lot. I don't like eating in front of people because I drop food constantly. Things like needing predictability and certainty, a real intolerance of change of plan, needing to do things in specific orders. You know, I've got sort of a master's, but my brain can't process using the wrong mug at breakfast I

just get a complete blank wall if I'm presented with the wrong mug things like Christmas meals with colleagues are really hard yeah I tend now just to avoid the the big events even with my family I eat Christmas dinner in the other room they're very good about it so you reached a stage in your life where you decided you wanted a baby. Yes. And because you've told me before on the phone that touch is also uncomfortable for you. Yeah, absolutely. I want to say first of all, which is I think a really important point, is there's as many different autisms as there are personalities. And so my experience is just my experience.

I'm sure there are women out there who've had very different experiences. But for me, I find touch really, really difficult. And so conception was quite a challenge. My partner and I were lucky enough to have a very supportive GP. We ended up using a kit, which actually worked really well. But initially, that was the big hurdle because it was not a traditional way to go about things. I was single for most of my 20s,

and forming a relationship was very difficult. So you're pregnant now, due next year. Yes. What's the plan? So the first plan with delivery is, for us, we've decided a C-section is the easiest route because of the predictability and the certainty. And I find stages and systems very calming. That's the route we've decided to take. Again again I think a lot of autistic women have very successful vaginal births but for for us we thought c-section was easier. What about the hospital environment because you've mentioned before about your sensitivity to sounds and to strong light? Yeah we are I'm very worried about that and that's something that I'm in discussion, conversation with the midwives at the moment.

I think staying the night after the C-section are the big worry, particularly if it's a shared ward, which it might well be. Moving lights and small noises. I mean, I was saying to our midwife yesterday, it's the equivalent to asking someone with vertigo to sleep the night after giving birth next to a cliff edge. You know, you're just in fight or flight the whole time and actually our midwives have been hugely supportive and with us every step of the way but a few of them have said yeah we've never dealt with this before which to me seems extraordinary because statistically there must be a lot of women on the autistic

spectrum going in and having children I'm sure I'm not the only one. What happens when the baby's born have you thought about touch in that circumstance and also breastfeeding? We're going to give breastfeeding a go but I'm very realistic that for me again I think lots of women who have Asperger's or autism breastfeed very successfully. I'm not sure how I'll find it so we're open-minded about it. But how well are doctors and midwives prepared for helping a woman with autism get through a pregnancy, birth and caring for a child? Lana Grant was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome in her late 30s. She has six children and works as an advisor to other autistic people.

She's the author of From Here to Maternity, Pregnancy and Motherhood on the Autism Spectrum. She had five children before she was diagnosed. How difficult did she find those pregnancies? It was only through looking back and processing it when I wrote the book that actually made me realise that I had found labour in particular incredibly difficult. It was fight vital flight. I struggled with the anxiety. I think I got anxious around not knowing when my babies would be due.

And basically, I think because I'd spent most of my life feeling as though I was a failure at most things, I just guessed that I was probably a failure at pregnancy as well. But I knew that actually when I had my babies I was a really good mum so I think I didn't process it as being a difference because I didn't really know much about autism in women and I think it was a case of realising actually after I'd had my diagnosis I have to try and do this differently I have to put some plans in place I have my diagnosis now so it was incredibly difficult to understand why I found labour so horrific because I panicked I panicked about not knowing what was happening

I panicked about the lights the sounds the smells, all of those things that the other lady just discussed. Now, you said you found caring for your children, that you were actually very good at that. Yeah. How difficult is it if you have a fear of being touched and of touching? Well, as the previous caller said, everyone who is autistic is different. I only have an adversity to touch when i'm highly anxious other times and lots of other autistic people quite like deep pressure or they seek out so they're they're tactile seeking as opposed to tactile avoidant

which is what the lady before was discussing so So I think with my children, I was very tactile seeking. So I could hold them and I could care for them and cuddle them. But I do know that lots of other women aren't in that position because obviously we're all different and we all experience our sensory needs differently. Now, you train midwives to help women with autism. What do you actually teach them? Well, I've done one lot of training.

I said yesterday I've done one lot of training with midwives in Birmingham. But unfortunately, the NHS is under so much pressure that I think it's not a priority. And I'm not criticising the NHS. It's not a priority because actually we're a minority group, so to speak, a diagnosed autistic woman. We're in a minority group so to speak a diagnosed autistic woman we're in a minority group so although I've done training for midwives what I tend to do more is to try and empower women through supporting them with their birth plans through talking to them about how to communicate with their midwife because it is a very personal experience so I've kind of moved away from because you can yeah you can train midwives i train midwives teachers etc um but what we need to do is we need to empower autistic women

to be able to talk about what's working for them what's not working for them so i talk about talk them through their birth plans and remind them that the standard birth plans that you might get with with the maternity books don't necessarily focus on their needs as autistic women so they need to remember their sensory needs and they need to not be scared to talk about that to say look i need a single room if i'm having an emergency section or i struggle to be in a ward with four people I find that really hard I mean myself when I had my last child even with my diagnosis I was in a ward on a room on my own but then they wanted to move me to a four-bed ward and I had a complete meltdown and wanted to discharge myself from hospital because the thought of having to be in a ward with other people's babies crying, with people speaking, lights, etc., was just too overwhelming for me.

So it's empowering women to be able to talk about what they need. Now, obviously, some women will worry that their children will have autism too. How common is it for the condition to be inherited? Well, we do know that it's genetic. I mean, I've worked with hundreds and thousands of children um over an 18 year kind of career in in education um and very often one or both parents are undiagnosed but you can tell that they're on the autistic spectrum and very often their diagnosis comes after their child and that's what happened with myself and they've just thought that you know they they find things difficult they don't get on with

people they struggle with all the sensory needs so I think what I would say to women is it's not it's not autism that's the problem it's the world that we're trying to fit into and it's much better now than it was 10 years ago 15 years ago when I first became involved with autism we've got much more awareness but we need to keep that going I was talking to Lana Grant and Lucy sent us an email and said I was diagnosed autistic when I was 38 two years after my son got his diagnosis. At first it gave me an identity crisis as I'd always thought I knew myself well. I became depressed for a while. When I came out the other side I embraced it and it's really changed my life for the better. Now I understand

why I react in certain ways and I can set better boundaries and take care of myself better. It's helped me be a better mother to my second child. I truly believe that autistic people are a natural variation of human. We've always been here and we're often at the forefront of innovative thinking,

invention and the arts. I think we're only just starting to realise how many of us there are and I hope the awareness and understanding continues to grow. For the first time, five major beauty pageants, Miss Universe, Miss World, Miss America, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA, have been won by women of colour. Some people around the world have described it as a milestone in representation, but to what extent have such competitions gained a new respectability as a result? Jane spoke to Salma Hedrani, a journalist who entered Miss England in 2018, and wrote about it for Cosmopolitan.

Tanya Gold is also a journalist, and Leanne Levers is a political scientist. First, we hear from Miss South Africa, Zozivini Tunzi, who won Miss Universe early this month in Atlanta. I grew up in a world where a woman who looks like me, with my kind of skin and my kind of hair, was never considered to be beautiful. And I think that it is time that that stops today.

I want children to look at me and see my face, and I want them to see their faces reflected in mine. Thank you. And if you hear all that applause and you feel the good stuff in the room there, Salma, this is positive, isn't it? It's clearly a positive thing. I want to say it's positive, but I'm not 100% convinced. I feel like where I think obviously it is a milestone, it should be heralded as some kind of celebration. But why aren't we seeing women of colour, particularly in kind of more

leadership positions and that deserves the same kind of reception why is it only through the prism of beauty say why do we regard that entirely as a milestone when there are so many other ways that we can celebrate women beyond their physical appearance but the first part of that statement where she just acknowledges that her appearance and she is absolutely beautiful would not have been recognized or was not considered the ideal whatever that is surely that's worth celebrating yeah 100 i think it's incredible when i was growing up i certainly didn't see anything like that so to see that now for millions of girls across the globe to see that i think that is definitely a step forward but it only goes so far you've got to tell us you entered miss england i did um and it was was it purely to write the article yes but

there was a sliver part of me that really was so intrigued about what led these women to actually enter i've always been fascinated by pageantry beauty pageantry what motivates women to actually enter this and put themselves on such a kind of national kind of stage really and I really want to investigate are what's their motivations is this financial is this for kind of Instagram fame do they want to elevate their prospects I certainly saw that with a lot of women from kind of more working class areas of northern England that was for them with kind of from places with very small opportunities that is absolutely the case but when there are so many different ways of getting fame now and I say fame very loosely be it through Instagram or Love Island or many other different channels like I don't know a viral kind of video how does it still have such a hold over the British public I think

more women than ever before applied this year well yeah that's astonishing in's astonishing in itself. Can you just explain some of the mechanics? What happens when you enter this sort of competition? It's a very straightforward process to begin with. So you literally fill out about four different questions, which is your age, you can't enter if you're above 25. So I was literally on the cusp. Yeah, well, so am I. Carry on. I think you list your occupation

and obviously you have to attach a headshot. And a fun fact, I have an identical twin sister, so I think that's definitely strengthened my chance. And then I got told in an email maybe a few weeks later that I got through and I was like, that can't be that easy, surely. Anyway, I went there. There's three rounds.

One is the little black dress round. One is the eco round where you make something from scratch scratch and the third one is the evening dress round and you literally have to sashay down this catwalk and it feels like the 1980s all over again I wasn't born in 1980s I can imagine that's what it was like well I've got a dim view a memory of it I'm sure I can tell you about it later um Leanne when you hear that what what does it make you feel? I think there is a contextual aspect to this, which is that I think when you look at countries which are non-Westernized or countries which, like Miss South Africa, where there are issues surrounding colorism and aspirations to a certain standard of beauty, which is aligned with whiteness, that pageants do provide

a platform for people who have limited access to, you know, elevating their status, as Selma said, whether it's, you know, in Jamaica, for instance, I think education is one of the few ways in which people can access an elevated status. And I think pageants do perform that job. And they do provide a certain level of access to things that most women don't, most black women don't have and most minority women don't have. Obviously, that's at the cost of being objectified. But I think you have to look at where we are along the journey and celebrate that in its space, but then still continually ask for more. And I think there are shifts being made. So I know that I think it was Miss Universe or Miss World USA recently, a few years ago, took out the bikini portion of the pageant, for instance. And I think there are also instances locally, you know, there are national pageants that take place in countries like Jamaica and in countries like South Africa that focus on things like your contribution to the community and your awareness

of Jamaican culture, your awareness of the culture. But on an international scale, I think that definitely needs to be pushed forward. So I think it's a tool, but the way in which it's currently being used is obviously hugely problematic in the way in which it objectifies women. Okay. I mean, of course, it is essentially you had to include a headshot. And I if if you didn't look the way you looked you wouldn't have got in salma would you you know that i yeah i'm going to take a very negative view of this a lot of it is centered around your physical appearance i won't didn't i won't believe otherwise there are a lot of for me quite negative aspects to the competition there were girls that were more curvier that were more frowned upon it's very subtle so you cannot

you cannot place it but for example and i wrote this i think in the article a girl who was much curvier and had more kind of um more of her weight on show she did not get as much applause say as a more kind of very tall quite slim woman and that was quite obvious that's you couldn't the applause actually i'd actually forgotten there'd be an audience. Who was in the audience? Family and friends, but it literally felt like everyone was just ogling you as you were just walking down. It was like a relic. And I do think, as you mentioned,

I think the competition goes to great lengths to say, oh, we've scrapped the bikini competition, we've moved forward with modern times, but there is a new level of objectification that's still kind of central to the process. You're still walking up and down a catwalk being judged on your physical appearance. And there is an element of mismind, but some of the questions are, who was Mr England in 2001? Something like that. That was one of the general knowledge questions.

That definitely was. Tanya Gold, have you changed your view of beauty pageants generally, would you say? I mean, I used to watch them when I was younger with my mother when I was a child, like a child, and saw these beautiful dolls walking across the stage. So I was curious enough to ask the Observer if I could go down last week to meet some of them. And I mean, they've definitely changed since Miss World's definitely changed since it was established in the 1950s when it was out and out sexism bikinis nudge nudge wink wink wink absolutely appalling yeah what

I found really curious when when I spoke to the contestants last week is it's it's not just a beauty contest anymore it seems to me to be a sort of goodness and benevolence competition um curiously stripped of sex in any way like a purity cult because what these girls do all the time uh sorry women is is is good works and charities charity works and you can't get into this world anymore unless you have a charity from your home country they don't only need to be beautiful girls in scare quotes they now need to be benevolent girls yes you know that's not that's not supported i'm just putting it out there and the other thing i did want to say that about instagram one thing i was told is that is that women like the contestants at miss world if they go on instagram they can be

subject to most appalling misogynistic abuse and it's very hard to build a modelling career or a profile out there and there is some level of protection within Miss World. I mean I would certainly argue I think it's less sexist than Love Island where these people are actually enticed to have sex with people they only met 10 minutes ago.

Go on, Leanne, because we were talking about Love Island earlier. Yeah, I was going to say well it's interesting because I think recently there was a miss uk contestant who was on love island and then subsequently yes right and then subsequently the competition uh you know owners uh tried to remove her from the or disbar her from the competition as a result of her behavior on love island so i think to say that one is less sexist than the other is problematic because clearly they're quite interconnected. Yes.

I mean, the idea that we've abandoned, the BBC doesn't broadcast Miss World anymore, but the notion that women are no longer judged on their appearance every single day of their life, whoever they are, whatever they do, that is still real, isn't it, their appearance their behavior yeah it's still real i don't think there is a lot of difference between love island and miss england you're still putting yourself in a platform to be scrutinized and you're still expected to look a certain way yeah but i would guess i suppose that the young men who take part in love island are also judged i'm not

saying that makes it okay of course but we still have a very reductive idea of what should be considered beautiful, and that's still perpetuated in both Miss England and Love Island. And the difference with Love Island, you can make a lot more money, I find. I do think that there is a distinction, though, highlighted by the fact that five black women have won the major competitions, whereas I don't think that that would ever take place on Love Island. There's no way that a dark skinned woman with 4C hair would be seen as attractive in a space like Love Island. Whereas at least I think, again, I'm not saying that beauty pageants don't have their problems, but there is a distinct shift that is being seen in

terms of what we define as the standard of beauty, which I think is important to recognise. Leanne Levers, Salma Hadrani and Tanya Gold were talking to Jane. And Sally emailed, watching Miss World in the 70s, the vital statistics seem to be at the heart of the competition, 36, 24, 36 appearing to be the ideal. Has this phrase disappeared from use? I do hope so. The MPs who won seats in the election recently have been signing up to Parliament in the past

week and 220 of them are women, a record number of female MPs, but still a long way from equal numbers of men and women. It's 34% female and 66% male. An organisation called 50-50 Parliament was launched six years ago in 2013 and they now report an influx of new members since this election. A thousand women have signed up with a clear interest in standing next time. While Frances Scott is the founder and director of 5050, Lucrez Gahua signed up during the election campaign a month ago. Why? I knew about 5050 Parliament quite a while ago. I'd seen it on Twitter, but I didn't really see myself in the House of Parliament. A lot of the time we see it's just very, you know, manly. And when we see it on TV, it looks extremely boring. Politics looks boring, especially as a

young person. And so when I saw at 5050 Parliament, we're including women and including young women and including a diverse range of young women, I thought, wow, this is really for me and it can be for me. So I decided to sign up to stand and ever since I've just been excited at the prospect of me standing for parliament but what made you decide politics might not be boring well I think everybody has a politician within them because we all get anger about something but unfortunately when we see it it's all jargon um it's not very it's it's not words that we can understand as um even just as a working class person who hasn't you know been to a private school and who's come from a disadvantaged

background and so I realized you know politics is for absolutely everybody it's just the way that you speak about it that has to be tailored to everyone. Frances what are you able to offer I mean we're talking here about young hopefuls but I know there are some older hopefuls as well. What can you do for them? Okay, so when a woman signs up to stand with us, we are sort of putting in place a new girls network of buddies and we're creating a personal profile for each woman with a kind of guidance notes about the steps that they need to take.

And we're buddying each woman up with a buddy to effectively cheer each other along the way. So that's the kind of support that we're offering and starting to implement. Lucrezia, there was a lot of abuse directed, particularly at female MPs in the past year. Why were you not put off by the fear that's been expressed by some of those who actually stood down? You know, I totally appreciate that it is such a harmful thing, social media trolling. But at the same time, I find that it's extremely childish

and it's nothing to do with who I am. It's just about that particular person. And so I don't think that that should put me off from standing for a wider cause. And so, unfortunately, or fortunately for me, it doesn't put me off at all. Have you had experience of it though? Because I mean, even school children have had terrible experience of trolling. I have, yeah. I've had so much experience of trolling. And so for me, it's, again, it's childish.

It's not something, it's something I'm experienced with and it's something I can, I know how to brush off now. How do you brush it off? I think you just ignore it. You know, it's so frequent now that it's like, okay, you know that these people are so low and so for us as a generation as a young generation we just know that this is just a way of life for some people and unfortunately it's one of those unfortunately in fact it's one of those things

you just put aside and you just move on from what do you do to help with this abuse question? Which clearly, you know, we have had one MP, Joe Cox, who died and lots of people being threatened. Yeah, absolutely. I think this has to be taken very seriously. And obviously, it's great that the police are supporting female MPs and MPs in general. And I think we do need to call the social media companies to account, Facebook and Twitter, etc. I'm very interested by what Lucrez says. I do think that the younger generation have kind of learned to live with it. I'm not suggesting that's good, but I think there's a sort of cultural change there.

And I hope Lucrez hasn't actually received threats or vitriol since she's been part of 50-50. I think it came when she was younger. I think our kids are learning to live with it. But I have to say that Twitter has also provided us with fantastic opportunities. It was through Twitter that I met Rosie Duffield in 2015 when I was talking about 50-50 at Canterbury University. And she DMed me via Twitter and said, hey, can we meet for a coffee? And we met, and she was a young woman, a single mum, a teaching assistant who clearly knew a lot about politics.

So I said, you know, Rosie, you should stand. And what do you know, two years later, we kept in touch, and she was selected and elected. And that was kind of the start of our Ask Her to Stand campaign. And she's now been a fantastic ambassador for our work and kind of proves that it works. Women need to be asked three times, apparently, before they will consider standing for elected office. So I'm afraid I would love people to go to our website. If you know a woman who you think would make a good MP, ask her to stand, just click on the button. And it's not just about young women. I mean,

obviously, we're delighted that we've got young women like Lucrez signing up. And it's important to get on the path as soon as possible. But we need more mothers in Parliament. We want to draw upon the widest possible pool of talent and experience. And politics makes a great second career. And so we really would urge women who've had some life experience to consider this because we need women's wisdom at Westminster. You're 24. I am. And I've seen pictures in the papers this morning of three of the new MPs all holding their babies as they were signing in. Stella Creasy being one of them. But what reaction have your peers had to

your sudden enthusiasm for politics? I think that they've always known that I've had this fervour for politics, but they have never, ever seen it as a thing that would actually manifest. And so now that I'm actually doing it, they're extremely proud, but they're also extremely shocked. And they don't know what to expect. I know that it's going to be, you know, a positive and a great journey. I mean, I guess I'm going to prove to them that this is something that you can do. How keen, Toronto, are you on women-only shortlists? I mean, the Labour Party is now 51% female. They had such shortlists in 1997. Well, I think throughout history, we've lived with all male shortlists. And I think it would be to be expected statistically, frankly,

with female talent coming through that we will get all female shortlists. For example, Canterbury, the conservative shortlist there was all women. So I think we have to understand that, of course, sometimes in some cases, the most talented candidates might all be female. And that ain't such a surprise. I think at the very least, we ought to have 50-50 shortlists, because I think that the selection committees need to get used to seeing women on the platform. So personally, we, you know, 50-50 Parliament are not dictating the change. It's a bit like when you're setting off on a journey, you need to put your destination into the sat-nav. There are many different routes to achieve this. And the parties have to decide. And we're taking the only action we can with Ask Her to Stand and Sign Up to Stand.

Now, Boris Johnson has said that he's committed to bringing the Conservatives to 50-50 candidates at the next election. How likely then is it for a 50-50 parliament to be achieved as you want it in a decade? Well, I mean, I think it is likely. You know, I think we live in an age with social media and all the technology that we have where change can happen quickly. And we need to grab this opportunity. We need to sort of seize the moment with these wonderful women signing up to stand and support them as best we can on the way to Westminster. Frances Scott and Lucrez Grahua. Still to come in today's programme, Greta Gerwig on the film we're all looking forward to on Boxing Day. She's the director of Little Women. And Verve Clicquot kind of gives it away, the widow who founded a famous champagne house. But why were there

so many of them? And a reminder that you can enjoy Woman's Hour any hour of the day. If you can't join us live at two minutes past ten during the week, all you have to do is subscribe to the daily podcast. You can find it on the Woman's Hour website or you can go to BBC Sounds. Now, if you're single and you're heading off to stay with your family this Christmas, how much do you worry about how many times relatives will ask you why there is no love in your life? Well, how do you answer them? Or do you just curl up in irritation or embarrassment? Well, Jane talked to Rachel Lloyd from eHarmony and Lizzie Sernick, who's a freelance journalist. Personally, I think Christmas is a pretty good time of year to be single. My thoughts are that it's basically the same as is a pretty good time of year to be single. My thoughts are

that it's basically the same as being single any other time of year. I'm personally, I'm 35. I would like to meet a partner at some point. That would be nice if dating ever lets me do that. But I think... We've got Rachel here. We can find out what's wrong with all this. Yeah, I'll do my best. Yeah, go on. There's a lot wrong with dating, but I'll get into that later. There's so many good things that you can do at Christmas. You can spend time with your family you can spend time with your friends you know you don't have to trek up to northumberland to see your boyfriends there's nothing wrong with northumberland well no that's true but you know you don't necessarily want to spend your whole holiday trekking around going to see different family members basically you don't

have to bother with other people's relatives exactly some would say your own are quite bad enough right okay um rachel um we've had a little bit of a knock there for the dating industry this Basically, you don't have to bother with other people's relatives. Exactly. Some would say your own are quite bad enough. Yeah, exactly. Rachel, we've had a little bit of a knock there for the dating industry. This is your world. Lizzie would say she's been somewhat let down by it. So go on, put up a spirited defence of the dating industry. Well, it can be tough, especially at Christmas dating,

because actually most people go offline in the dating world at Christmas because they're busy doing other stuff. In terms of just defending the dating industry, around one in three people meet online nowadays. And that figure, we did a study with Imperial College London, and by 2037, more people will meet online than offline. So whether we struggle with that... You can knock it all you like, it's the future.

Yeah, exactly. And it's the modern reality for many, as you say. Yeah. I know that, Lizzie, you've had some tough dates. Well, almost everyone listening will have had one of those. But share some of your best anecdotes with us. I very recently went on a date, actually, with a raging misogynist

who didn't believe in the Me Too movement, really. He thought women were lying 20% of the time. That was his figure. I didn't speak for the first hour because he was so busy talking about his own accomplishments. But when I finally got a word in edgeways, it turned out, you know, we weren't going to be a match. So I decided, you know, I'm just going to up and leave.

Very politely told him I was going to go. He hurled a load of abuse at me, called me disgusting, said I had no empathy for men. So it was quite the date all right a real catch yeah a real catch tell you it was a meal nice um we didn't have a meal we had some cocktails which were absolutely beautiful oh there you go okay now what about the bloke with the norovirus oh yes so that was several years ago now um that was just before Christmas that we went out on a date and it was actually I think it was was, we were a few dates in and I'd actually had a nice

hotel booked. It was a bit of a, I think it was a press trip at the time and he joined me on it. And yeah, he came down with this awful stomach ache and I was just there sort of mopping his brow, just kind of moving away in the hope that he wouldn't vomit all over me. It was quite, yeah, traumatic. Okay, I hope you can almost hear the violins playing, can't you? Absolutely wonderful. Rachel, there are people who would say that to play the dating game successfully you have to be a certain way, you have to behave in a certain way. Have you got any rock-solid advice?

Well, dating can be a brutal business, but I would always say try and enjoy it. And it always has been, by the way, long before online dating, you know. But I would say first dates, keep them simple. So you can always meet someone for a quick coffee or just say, I've got to go on somewhere. Keep it light. Don't bring in your whole history. Meet somewhere public, obviously. And just think to myself, when I go on this date, it doesn't have to be the love of my life. I don't need to work out whether we're going to have kids and a dog. No. You know, just go in lighthearted. And if they are a bit of a, shall we dare say, freak,

or they've got a serious virus. Well, we're all freaky in a way, aren't we? Yeah. I mean, and the thing is, keep a sense of humour about it. And Lizzie, I'm sorry you've had these battles, but I mean, they do make for great stories, don't they? They really do. Yeah, you've got those and they're worth bottling.

Here's another one from a listener called Constance. I ended a three-year relationship three months ago, which actually I've come to realise was emotionally abusive. I have never felt so liberated, empowered and free in my life. The truth is it can be tough to be in a relationship at this time of year too, Rachel. I think it's misleading, especially when we go on social media. Christmas is about connection, about families. It's very easy to go down an Instagram hole and think everybody's having an amazing time in relationships. They're not.

But as you say, in reality, it can be extremely stressful. And people often who are in relationship, you know, difficulty limp through to the new year. And we know from eHarmony that actually traffic to site in January spikes massively. So it drops off during Christmas and then people sort of come crawling out and once new year starts, people are rushing to date again. It's a Christmas carol.

I think a Christmas carol is the BBC's big production being shown on BBC One over Christmas. So it's high time we mentioned Scrooging and Marleying. OK, so Scrooging. And Scrooging is when people are a little bit tight and in the run-up to Christmas... Oh, no. No, not regardless. Oh, please.

They potentially break up with someone just to avoid buying them a Christmas present. And Marleying is when, like with the Christmas Carol, the ghost of a Christmas present. And marling is when, like with the Christmas carol, the ghost of a Christmas ex appears and they sweep you off your feet just for the festive period. People go a bit doolally sometimes at Christmas, I must say. Yeah, I think we all definitely... There's definitely proof of that. What about the notion, and this will be a reality,

it's certainly been my reality in the past, actually, of going home to sleep in my childhood bedroom as a single woman in my 30s is that something that's happened to you lizzie or something you've been concerned about um yeah i used to quite like it actually my parents actually moved house when i was 26 so it's not got the same uh it's not quite anymore it's not the same wallpaper yeah but before that um i definitely used to quite enjoy it there was i quite like going home and being spoiled my mum still gets me a stocking, which I know is really sad, but it's also, there's a niceness to that at Christmas as well. So, Rachel, if somebody is feeling really down in the dumps,

and I am thinking particularly about people who've lost someone who is actually very dear to them, they haven't just been through a rough relationship, they've perhaps been married for 25 or 30 years, what advice have you got for them? I would say stay connected. So have a, you know, phone a friend tribe, make sure there are people you can reach out to during the day, maybe other single people, other people in a similar situation so that you don't feel alone. Keep busy. Yeah, I mean, some people will be single within a family

setting surrounded by couples of varying degrees of happiness. And then the people who are literally on their own. And that that is a very, very different thing. And then the people who are literally on their own. And that is a very, very different thing. And of course, some people would choose that. And I get that too. Some people love that. But it can be incredibly tough if you are alone. And I think it's, again, about don't over-isolate mentally.

Make sure that you do have a tribe of people that you can stay in contact with. You know, we've all got phones and computers. Think about it's only a limited period it's really it's over really quickly we all we always say that every year so you say that but it's the longest day of the year christmas days can be there's always wine though there's always wine and mince pies but but always also think what am i going to do on christmas day to gift myself the best possible day if i'm on my own what do i like you know what do i want to watch

am i going to you know who am i going to speak to? Could I volunteer maybe if you're worried about being alone? But other people have a duty too to remember those people and to invite them. And also, by the way, sometimes people just want the invitation. They don't want to come. I agree. They want to be able to say no thanks. I would just say that actually the best thing, because I've had this situation where I've been single at Christmas before and worried about being alone. It's quite nice if you can go and spend an hour or two at someone else's house. So you're not committed to the whole day. Yeah. But you just have that human contact and it can be lovely. And then you're quite relieved often to just go home and be alone.

That can be quite nice. Rachel Lloyd and Lizzie Cernick and Fiona emailed for many years, married siblings would invite me for Christmas telling me that I shouldn't be alone every year I had to come up with an alibi to defend myself from their kindly meant but patronising poor you attitude. I spent Christmases

in Sweden, Kathmandu, Marrakesh and Bali and some years I told a little white lion I actually stayed at home to enjoy a delicious, relaxing day all to myself. Many people are single because they want to be. There's a lot of excitement in the air about the new film of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, which opens in the cinemas on Boxing Day. It's the eighth time the story of the March Sisters, published in 1869, has been filmed. In the new adaptation, Saoirse Ronan plays Jo,

the inspiration for so many of us who wanted to become writers, and the film is directed by Greta Gerwig. Jane asked her why we needed a new film version of the novel. When I reread the book when I was an adult, and it had been a book that I had loved when I was young, and the character of Joan March was the character that made me want to be a writer and made me feel like there was a kindred spirit for me in the world. But when I read it as an adult, I was just completely gobsmacked by how modern it was and how pressing it was. And it felt like the entire undercurrent of the book, the themes that were running under it were about authorship, ownership, women, art, commerce, money, and ambition. And those are the things I'm thinking about. And those are the

things that the world is thinking about. And I thought I wanted to re-look at it with those things in the foreground. Okay, take us to your, I don't know, was it your adolescence when you read Little Women? What were you like? Well, actually, I was younger than that. I read Little Women as a kid, like a kid. I was, I was kind of like Joe. I mean, maybe somewhat less of a tomboy, but I was, I was artistically inclined. I was, I had a temper. I was competitive. I was, had a lot of energy. I think I, I was kind of too much in all of, all of the ways. Did you have siblings? What was that? Yes, I had older, older brother, older sisters.

So my brother was eight years old and my sister was ten years older. So I didn't have like that group of sisters the way the March family does. But I had a girlfriend group, which I drew upon pretty heavily for this movie. Okay, now Jo March is the character that so many young girls pin their hopes on. And who plays her is really significant. She's been played by Winona Ryder, Katherine Hepburn, and now Saoirse Ronan. And how did that, did you pick her? Did she pick the film? Did she pick you? What happened? Well, she, the order in which everything went was I actually wrote a couple of drafts of Little Women before I made the first film we made together, which was Lady Bird.

And then after Lady Bird came out, the studio approached me and asked me if I wanted to direct, which I was thrilled because I'd always intended to direct it. And then we were at an awards show and Saoirse said, I know you're working on A Little Woman and I'm going to play Jo. I'm going to play Jo. Yeah, that's right. And she later told me she's never done that before. She's never gone after a part like that. She said it was more polite, like not wanting to be so aggressive with something. She said it was Irish and her never wants to like step too far out of her own bounds.

But then she said something just told her like, go after it. And I felt the same way when I went to go talk to them about how I wanted to write and direct it. So we both have decided that it was the spirit of Louisa May Alcott slash Jill March speaking through us. I just, I just feel, I just feel like women, they, they have minds and they have souls as well as just hearts and they've got ambition and they've got talent as well as just beauty. And I'm so sick of people saying that, that love is just all a woman is fit for. I'm so sick of it. But I'm so lonely.

Well, this is a story about women, and essentially it's also a story about women getting their stories told, which back in those days, this is the 19th century, women had almost no agency at all, something that's made really, really clear in this film. Right. There's a speech that the character of Amy gives about the limited possibilities for women,

and I think, given that, it's extraordinary what Louise May Alcott did. And it's extraordinary that she wrote this book, that it was such a success, and that she did actually keep the copyright and negotiate a higher back end for herself. So she made a good living out of this Little Women. This was, you know, she was a smash success as an author. She was like J.K. Rowling or something.

She was, this book sold out in two weeks when it was first printed. And then eventually it was translated into 54 languages and it's never been out of print since. And she took care of her entire family. She took care of her entire family. She took care of her sisters and their kids. She sent her sister May to Europe to study painting, who is the model for Amy. She helped her father get his books published. I mean, she was pretty extraordinary and certainly unlike any other female author of her time. So the fact that you start with Jo as an older woman, she has left the family home. The film goes backwards and forwards in time, doesn't it? And we see her for the very first time trying to sell her story, which it makes me squirm to remember it, actually. Yeah. Well, I wanted to start with Joe trying to sell a story because I wanted to find the author all the way through of this movie. I wanted to find the author of

Joe March. I wanted to find the author of Louisa writing Joe. And I wanted to find the author of me writing Louisa writing Joe. This sort of kaleidoscope of authorship. Not the entire scene, but the bulk of the scene is actually taken word for word from the book. And when I read it, I just isolated the dialogue and I thought this could be me talking to a studio head yesterday. Trying to get my film made. Yeah, and they're telling me morals don't sell nowadays. Have they told you that?

Everybody says that morals don't sell nowadays. When I saw that in her book, I thought, oh, I guess there's no days in which morals would sell. What does sell? What do they think sells? Honestly, I don't know. I don't know. But I think the wonderful thing about authors and taking chances on films and taking chances on new voices is that often there's a lot of room for surprise and there's a lot of room for you know I think every every year there's

films that people say oh I didn't know people were interested in that and I think that that's that's why it's good for for studios to take risks does it matter that only one woman has won the best director Oscar and that was that that was Catherine Bigelow for The Hurt Locker, which was a couple of years ago now, wasn't it? Well, I mean, I'd love to see more women win things and be nominated for different awards for directing because I think the work is so worthy and so beautiful. But I do think that where I try to focus on

is the fact that the work is getting done, the work is beautiful, it's going to keep getting made. And they released a study this year by the Annenberg Institute that this year the number of films in the top 100 films that were directed by women is vastly higher than it has been any other year.

So progress is being made. Progress is being made. Progress is being made. Can I ask about the subject of sisters in the film, which obviously this film and the book, of course, are very dear to people, particularly to women. How do you get that sibling dynamic right on film? Because it's actually rather a subtle thing. I've got a sister. It's quite hard to play. Well, the thing that I wanted very much going into it was I wanted it to be very loud. Because when I think of four women together, I think of volume, really. And I thought I wanted it to feel like a cacophony. And I wanted it to be both I wanted to be loud, and I wanted it

to be physical. So a lot of it was actually rehearsals and getting the timing of all of these lines coming in over each other, right? And then once we had it up to speed, then adding this movement. So they're constantly hitting each other, pinching each other, hugging each other, kissing each other, that it was this constant physical interaction that they were having. Because I wanted them to all be strong characters individually, but that when they got together, it was like a four-headed beast. Greta Gerwig and Little Women opens on Boxing Day. It's only four days to Christmas Eve, and you may be planning toasting family and friends with a glass or two of champagne. The champagne industry is very much a feminine affair. The great houses were often begun by women who appear to have become known as the Merry Widows. Only one, Verve Clicquot, wears her marital status on her bottles, but Verve, of course, is widow in French.

Why were so many widows involved in putting the bubbles into wine? Joanna Simon is the editor of the Waitrose and Partners drinks magazine. so many widows involved in putting the bubbles into wine. Joanna Simon is the editor of the Waitrose and Partners drinks magazine. Francoise Piretti is director of the Champagne Bureau UK. Who were these women? Well, they must have been formidable women because they didn't choose to run those emblematic houses, they inherited them because their husbands died. So I would have loved to have met some of them because they must have been extraordinary. Joanna is going to talk about a few. I will just mention a couple, especially Louise Pomeroy and Mathilde-Emilie Perrier, who both loved England so much that they were instrumental in developing the most popular style of champagne we know today, which is, when people loved sweeter styles of champagne,

these two formidable widows invented, or at least were instrumental, in catering for the British market, creating those drier styles. Joanna, who would you choose? Oh, I have to choose Madame Clicquot, Veuve Clicquot, in fact called Barb Nicole Clicquot, and then I'd have to choose Lily Bollinger. Yeah. Why Lily Bollinger? I think everybody loved Lily Bollinger.

She was charming, but she was very astute. She was widowed when she was 42, and she took on the business. She married into Champagne. She married a Bollinger, whereas Madame Clicquot didn't marry into Champagne. It wasn't a Champagne family. And she was famous for cycling around the vineyards on her bike. And she made for Bollinger one of their signature styles called RD, Recently Disgorged.

And she was at the helm for, must be 30 years. What does Recently Disgorged mean? Oh, well, when you're aging champagne, you're aging it on its lees, its yeasty dregs. That's what gives the sort of depth and flavour. That's what makes champagne so different from other sparkling wines. But these dregs have got to be got out of the bottle. Madame Clicquot was very important in actually working out

actually what we still use as the modern method. But recently disgorged is when you age the champagne for years and years and years on its lees, it used to be that those champagnes that were kept like that for much, much longer were just sort of given to family and friends. And Lily Bollinger launched it as a commercial style. So, Françoise, what would you say they were most well-known for developing? I think the style of the bottle, for one thing.

Well, I think all these emblematic widows were famous for being instrumental in riddling, which is also one of the steps that Joanna is talking about, about the one before disgorging. They were instrumental in the shape of the steps that Joanna is talking about, about, you know, the one before disgorging. They were instrumental in the shape of the bottle. They were instrumental in a drier style of champagne. So they were quite formidable. But what strikes me is that how competent they were, because at the time, you know, especially in the 19th century, you didn't find many women, widows or not, running businesses.

So they were formidable businesswomen. They were also very much instrumental in exporting champagne. When we go to Champagne and visit the cellars, we see the names of the markets that go back, the export markets that go back to the beginning of the markets that go back, you know, the export markets that go back to the beginning of the 19th century. So they very much, you know, gave an impulse, you know, to go towards the international markets. Who are the women running labels now? Because I think it's still very feminine, isn't it? Well, the Champagne region is very feminine and is becoming increasingly feminine. In the past year, out of cellar

masters, winemakers who were appointed, 50% were women. 60% of oenology students in the Champagne region are women. I couldn't give you the whole list because there are hundreds of women who are CEOs, owners, wine growers, cellar masters, winemakers in the Champagne region. And, you know, I'd like to believe that the future in Champagne is feminine. Now, you have brought a bottle with you. You, Françoise, have expertise in opening Champagne bottles. I'll try. I'm sure you've done it once or twice. I'll try. Joanna, what are you recommending for this Christmas? Well, I have to recommend Ayala

because it belongs to Bollinger and is one of the champagne houses that has a chef de cave, a chief winemaker who is a woman. I would recommend Augusta, Deveaux's Augusta. Very good value. I have to say that Waitrose's current vintage is an absolute bargain. Of course you do. You work for them. Exactly.

The co-op's own range, Les Pionniers, always good value. And I have a personal favourite, a little house called Alfred Gracien, and they supply the Wine Society's champagne. That's lovely. Françoise, let's have a pop. Shall I open it? Yes, and it does sound very, very good, and we will taste it later. And I was talking to Franise Peretti and Joanna Simon,

and of course we never drink alcohol whilst broadcasting. Now on Monday you can join Andrea Catherwood as we mark the centenary of the legislation which allowed women to enter the legal profession for the first time. She'll be joined by, among others, Cherie Booth QC, Dana Dennis-Smith, the founder of The First 100, Abby Silver, who worked at a large city law firm

as an associate and is now a legal consultant, and Beth Collett, a barrister in her second year of tenancy. That's Monday morning, two minutes past ten. Join Andrea Catherwood from me for today. Have a lovely weekend. Bye-bye. 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 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.