Woman's Hour - Elizabeth Strout, Hooked, Drag

Episode Date: November 12, 2019

Elizabeth Strout won The Pulitzer Prize in 2009 for her novel, Olive Kitteridge. Ten years later, with three prize-winning novels in between, Elizabeth Strout has written a sequel, OIive, Again. The main character Olive is now quite elderly and still living in the American state of Maine. She's still cantankerous, judgemental and rude but also kind, honest, and as hard on herself as she is on others. And perhaps a little wiser. Old age, small town life, loneliness, tenderness, failed marriages, sickness and death: these are all themes that Elizabeth Strout tackles.Jade Wye and Melissa Rice are the first ever winners of the Rachel Bland Podcast Award. Rachel was one of the presenters of You, Me and the Big C, a 5 Live Podcast about cancer and after she died the podcast competition was set up in her memory. Jade and Melissa's podcast is called Hooked: The Unexpected Addicts. It talks honestly about addiction and recovery and wants to debunk myths and stereotypes. They share their story with Jane.The TV show, RuPaul's Drag Race, is half way through, so what do we think about drag queens these days? Do women see them as misogynistic or pure fun ? Historian and performer Rose Collis, drag king Adam All and artist Victoria Sin discuss.

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. This is the Woman's Hour podcast. Good morning. My guests today include the incredibly successful and brilliant novelist Elizabeth Strout, who's here with me live. We'll talk about feminists and drag. If you, like me, grew up being, well, I guess, force-fed an entertainment diet of the likes of Dick Emery and who else was there? Edna Everidge, of course, more recently, Lily Savage. Les Dawson did a bit of drag as well. What do you think of it?

If you are a feminist, or maybe you're not, what do you make of drag, particularly in the light of the real success of RuPaul's Drag Race here in the UK? And you'll also be able to meet Melissa Rice and Jade Y, they're hosts of a new podcast called Hooked, I'm sorry, Unexpected Addicts. And they are unexpected addicts. Melissa was a teacher, Jade was a mental health nurse, but addiction can affect anybody, any family. And many of you listening will know a great deal about it. And I'd love your thoughts on what Melissa and Jade say this morning on the programme at BBC Women's Hour

on Twitter and Instagram. Elizabeth Strout, good morning to you. Hi, how are you? I'm very well, thank you. Brilliant to see you. Just in case you don't remember, you won the Pulitzer Prize

for your novel, Olive Kittredge. Then you've written three other prize-winning novels including My Name is Lucy Barton, which I was fortunate enough to see on the stage. Oh right, with Laura Linney. With Laura Linney. Lovely. Absolutely incredible. Just for anybody who didn't see that, that was Laura Linney on her own on stage, just recounting

Lucy Barton's story. Right. And how did that come about? I'm not actually sure how it came about. I think at some point, I must have told a reporter, I believe I told a reporter that I thought Laura Linney would make a good Lucy Barton. Somebody must have asked me. And then months later, Laura and I had lunch together, and we didn't quite know why, but we were very pleasant to each other. And we had a very nice time. But we were sort of bewildered by why we were having lunch together. the agents had set it up. And then obviously, they knew what they were doing, because then she was offered the part of Laura Linney. But I had no idea that that was in the works, and neither did she.

Well, it was quite incredible. It was one of those unforgettable theatrical experiences for me. Olive Kittredge is obviously the central character in the novel, Olive Kittredge. She is now back with Olive again. And I think a lot of people thought this woman had left your life and left. Yes, I thought she had left my life. I really did. Apparently she had not. What happened? Well, about 10 years later, well, not quite 10 years later, I was sitting in a cafe in Norway, checking my email, and she just showed up. I just saw her absolutely vividly nosing her car into that marina. And then I saw her get out of the car and she now had a cane. And I realized, oh, my words, you're back. Olive Kittredge is a retired teacher. She is very cantankerous. She is extremely judgmental.

She's hypocritical. She's capable of being extremely nasty she's also capable of being very kind and very thoughtful and she's very hard on herself yes yeah as well as on almost everybody else right exactly um so we're just going to hear an extract from olive again and this is about her relationship really with her son christopher and his family here we go they were late all of kittredge hated people who were late. A little after lunchtime, they had said, and Olive had the lunch things out, peanut butter and jelly for the two oldest kids

and tuna fish sandwiches for her son and his wife, Anne. About the little ones, she had no idea. The baby must not eat anything solid yet, only being six weeks old. Little Henry was over two, but what did two-year-olds eat? Olive couldn't remember what Christopher ate when he was that age. She walked into the living room, looking at everything through the eyes of her son. He would have to realize as soon as he walked in. The phone rang, and Olive moved quickly back to the kitchen to answer it. Christopher said,

Okay, Mom, we're just leaving Portland. We had to stop for lunch. Lunch, said Olive. It was two o'clock in the afternoon. The late April sun was a milky sun seen through the window over the bay, which shone with a steely lightness. No white caps today. We had to get something for the kids to eat, so we'll be there soon. Portland was an hour away. Olive said, Okay, then. Will you still be needing supper? Supper? asked Christopher, as though she had proposed they take a shuttle to the moon. Sure, I guess so.

In the background, Olive heard a scream. Christopher said, Annabelle, shut up. Stop it right now, Annabelle. I'm counting to three. Mom, I'll have to call you back. And the phone went dead. Oh, God, free. Olive murmured, sitting down at the kitchen table. Olive's relative peace is about to be shattered by the arrival of her son, his wife and their children. And I found this an excruciating episode in Olive's life, actually.

She isn't very thoughtful. She hasn't got the right breakfast cereal for the kids. No, she can't quite do it. It all quite do it belly up doesn't it right how do you how do you conjure up these episodes are they from your real life no they're not from my real life but i've worked with all of you know for years now she isn't real by the way i keep no it sounds like she's real i mean she feels real to me but she's not she's a made-up person. But I've worked with her, and I've known her in my head for so long now, through the first book and now the second book, that I can just understand that she's trying. She's got the peanut butter sandwiches out, but she just doesn't know how to do it.

She doesn't know about little children, and she can't quite figure it out, and they, of course course don't like her and it just is sad in an episode in this chapter that a lot of people relate to she has made a scarf for her grandson yes her biological grandson about henry right and well what just describe what happens to that scarf well at the end of the visit where things go awry naturally, she finds the red scarf under the couch. They didn't even take it. They didn't even take it. This is all about the really difficult ambivalence between grown-ups and their adult children. And it's quite commonplace,

but it doesn't crop up that often in fiction, does it? It's interesting. I have never found somebody like Olive in fiction, you know, with her particularities and her particular problems with her children. So I don't think so. But we would like to believe, wouldn't we, that as you get older, you come to a new understanding of your parents and actually you just get on better than ever. Well, I mean, I think that, well, by the end of the book, Olive and Christopher have progressed. They have. Well, Olive progresses in both books, doesn't she? Right. She does progress in both books. And I do think that, you know, it occurred to me with this book that there's a myth that people reach a certain age and they just stop. It's just not

true. I just don't think it's true. I think that if you have been growing, even slowly, then you continue to grow until your last breath. And Olive does continue to grow. For me, though, it was absolutely at the heart of everything you write about her. She had to be a retired teacher. She couldn't have been anything else, could she? No.

And a math teacher. And a math teacher at that. I don't have been anything else, could she? No. And a math teacher. And a math teacher at that. And this is big. I don't know whether teachers listening understand always the impact they can have on people. Yeah, she's had half the town. Through her hands. Through her hands. Yeah. And she continues to meet them. Yep. And just describe the chapter in which she meets a person who, I'm not sure, I can't remember whether she directly taught this individual, but the woman has gone on to become the poet laureate Yes she did

Olive did have that young woman in class years and years ago and she thought almost nothing of her and then the woman became a poet laureate and Olive sits down across from her and has breakfast with her at that marina

the very first time I saw her return and she has a conversation with has breakfast with her at that marina the very first time I saw her return. And she has a conversation with Andrea and it comes back to sort of bite her. Yeah, you need to read that. Because they're not short stories. They are connected chapters in this book, aren't they? You are 63, but your understanding of and your interest in older people is really at the heart of your work. Yeah, you know, I grew up with older people. I grew up on a dirt road in Maine, and my great-aunts all lived in different little houses along that road, and there were no other little children around.

So there were these older women, mostly. There was an uncle as well, a great-uncle. But I think it was just the music of my childhood, they're very dry, droll, main voices. And I did end up getting a degree in gerontology. Why? I don't know. I mean, I think it must have had to do with the fact that I had just grown up with older people around so much. And so I was therefore interested in them. And they were sort of my first vision of the world in a way. And you write about the indignities of old age, that there's an issue about incontinence in this book.

And again, you just never, who writes this stuff apart from you? Well, I don't know. But it's real. But it is real and it does happen. And there's also, Olive eventually goes into a kind of sheltered housing facility in this book. And to me, it's like starting again. It was like the first day at primary school. Yes.

Yes, exactly. So that never stops. No. And, you know, the first meal that she had and nobody would sit with her. I mean, she does eventually find her way. We know that. But yes, exactly. You're not a political writer, but there are little hints about politics in this book.

Well, we live in the world. You know, we all live in the world. And Olive lives in this world and she confronts the various issues, you know, in this world, whether it's the home health care worker who has that bumper sticker of, you know, what Olive considers that horrible orange haired man. The Trump bumper sticker of, you know, what Olive considers that horrible orange haired man. The Trump bumper sticker. And then there's a Somali woman who comes over as a home health care worker as well. And there's tension between those two health care workers.

Olive, we should say, is firmly on the side of the Somali lady. Absolutely. She is. Which is why Olive is one of those characters who actually, no wonder we were talking about her as though she's real, because you are such a brilliant writer that to me she is real, but she is capable of both good and bad. Right, absolutely. Pretty much the same sentence. Right, exactly. She's very, very complicated.

Has Olive, has she ended her days? No, I mean, well, I mean, will I write about her again? Yeah, that's kind of what i'm asking yeah um i you know i i mean i i just don't know what to say because i never thought i would write about her again before and i did so i just now i'm scared of saying anything about her her future but she's certainly not dead okay well no i actually didn't want her to die no no no no i would never kill olive oh my goodness gracious please don't um you are here um really i think i wanted wanted to end with just you offering hope to the many writers sitting at home right now who think, you know, I'm not going to be a Pulitzer Prize winning novelist, but I wouldn't mind having a go. Right. When your first novel was published at?

I was 43 years old. Okay. And I had been writing for, you know, 40 years. Did you get rejection after rejection? Oh, yes. I had boxes of rejections in the basement. Boxes, literally. Nothing but rejections. Almost nothing but rejections. Why didn't you pack it in, Elizabeth? Because, you know, I honestly think that I understood inside myself that I could do this if I just kept trying. And every story that I got rejected,

I would think, okay, look, let me try it this way. And I just understood that they were not yet good enough. And then I just kept on trying, I could find my voice actually, is what I think I was trying to find. That suggests a real strength of character. Well, thank you, but... Or you're just stubborn. I'm just stubborn and obsessive or whatever. Well, it really has paid off. Thank you so much. Thank you. People will think... It's really nice to meet you. People will think that I'm barking mad for thinking that Olive is real. But trust me, if you've already met Olive Kittredge, you'll understand why I feel the way I do about this character. Elizabeth, thank you so much. Thank you. And Olive, again, is the name of the latest novel by Elizabeth Strout. Now, Jade Why and Melissa Rice are here.

They are the hosts of the podcast Hooked. You can find it on BBC Sounds. The full title is Hooked, The Unexpected Addicts. Now, Melissa and Jade were the first ever winners of the Rachel Bland Podcast Award. Rachel, many of you will know, was one of the presenters of You, Me and the Big C, the Five Live podcast, in which three women shared their stories about their cancer. Now, following Rachel's death, her husband, Steve, launched the competition to find a new podcast in her memory.

Jade is a former mental health nurse and is in recovery from drug addiction. And Melissa was a primary school teacher and is in recovery from drug addiction and Melissa was a primary school teacher and is in recovery from alcohol addiction and you two met well Jade tell me where were you when you first clapped eyes on this other woman here so yeah we were both in a treatment centre I'd been in there probably a couple of weeks, I think, prior to Melissa coming in. That said, I wouldn't say I was remotely settled by the time you got there. Were you in a place to meet? Were you interested in making new friends? You've got no choice. Well, you are more or less locked in there, aren't you?

Yeah, I mean, it's by no means like a prison, but it's all very, well, for me anyway, it was very new. It was the first time I'd been in treatment. And you're encouraged to sort of, everything's communal, like you're not really allowed. It's peer-led. Yeah. What does that mean? So it's based on, so it's a community so everybody that's in there we have to support each other challenge each other be each other's strength

call out people on the behavior it's it's about promoting accountability and taking responsibility and when they said it was peer-led i was mortified like a bunch of other addicts and alcoholics like you can't get me wet yeah well is there a kind of hierarchy in these places Melissa um don't get me wrong when I when I was in there there was a bit of a snobbery you know you've got it's like the first time I went in there well within the first couple of hours that I was introduced to the community after the tears stopped um it was like someone said to me are you a bed wetter or a junkie and i was absolutely horrified i was excuse me and he said you know where are you what's your poison and i was just like vodka and then that's when i realized okay

there's a bit of a divide here and i think when you first go in you you see that snobbery but as the as the weeks progress and the time progresses it you know we're all in it for the same reason we all ended up in the gutter we all ended up broken but yeah the the i think there is a bit of a there is a bit of a hierarchy and i think there's both in a setting like a rehab and also in society because i think for a long time i thought, you know, I'm not really an alcoholic. I don't drink cider in the park. I don't look like one. I drink spirit, you know.

There's all of that. And you had a proper job. Yeah, yeah, I had a career and, you know, I can't, you know, not me. You know, I'm an intelligent educator. But all of that is just arrogance, really. Arrogance and denial. Massive. What you do in the podcast, I've heard quite a bit of it,

is that you really do talk, frankly, about your worst points. And the very first episode is called Rock Bottom, isn't it? Just for anybody who hasn't heard it, Jade, what was your rock bottom moment? So my rock bottom, I had found myself in a really desperate situation as a result of a place I'd gone to because of drugs. And it felt like everything was crashing down around me and I was losing all these things externally um I'd been reported to the nursing council um and I thought I was going to lose my job at that point and lose my nursing registration um plus a whole load of other things um going on for me and my mental health just really deteriorated and I um I made the decision to to end my life and I found myself, I woke up

I look back now and I'm thankful for that but at the time I really wasn't and I couldn't understand why people couldn't just accept that that was where I was at and I didn't want to live anymore and I think the real rock bottom, when I look back now, was the fact that I was still using drugs in that hospital at that time. My reasoning was, well, I'm in a really dark place.

It makes sense for me to be using drugs. I couldn't understand the enormity of that and where my drug using had taken me. Describing it like that, that was really desperate, wasn't it, that period of your life? It sounds, the picture you paint is a truly desolate one, actually. Yeah. Who, if anybody, is best placed to help somebody in that situation? I mean, I look back now and there was a whole number of people around me that I could have turned to.

I've got some amazing people in my life. But I just felt so desperate. And I think it's really hard to distinguish a lot of the time between addiction and mental health. And they're so intertwined. And my mental health really was poor. But because I knew all these buzzwords, being a mental health nurse, I was saying to people, my catchphrase was, I've got capacity. I'm making an informed decision. And you would parrot all this stuff.

Yeah. I don't know from personal experience, I've been very fortunate, whether addiction is always the same. So do you think, Melissa, there are similarities between alcohol addiction and drug addiction? Or is it all about the individual?

What would you say about that? I think what I've come to realise is that the pain, the behaviours, a lot of the behaviours are are so similar and since doing this podcast and and speaking to other people with with other addictions have realized that regardless of the substance we're you know the powerlessness the lengths we go to to to get that fix if you will to put it in a very crass way or the you know the hiding and the reasons why it it it's it's all the same it's all the same and i don't well that's my opinion and i think other people may have you know the physical you know how it affects our bodies physically might

be different but it is all about what's in your head and your heart. You have to lie in pain, isn't it? Yeah, I haven't met one single addict of any respect who hasn't got either previous trauma or mental health problems or an incredible amount of pain. I haven't met one. In the clinic, were you drawn to each other partly because you were both respectable, professional young women? I should say you're only in your very early 30s, aren't you? Yeah, yeah.

I've just turned 30. I knew you were going to say that. That is very early 30s. I did say very early 30s. I think that on that first day, as much as Jade likes to say my first response was, I'm just so happy to see people. When I first met Jade, because I was kept in the house

I was locked in for a long period of time but I think the first time we met it was the first time that I'd met somebody with the same catastrophic thinking and the same thought process and then when it was like I found out that this this girl with the same head as me is also you know supposed to be this upstanding member of society and almost a role model like where did it all go wrong um but so that was really important for me because it was like a it was like a triple identification met from a mental health perspective from an addiction perspective and from a professional perspective and it was just like wow okay i'm not alone yeah because you as well when you're

working in that sort of profession um you have to it's like for a long time I was leading a double life yeah I know that Melissa said that she felt the same and and you put on this facade and you and you have to wear a mask sort of at all times and then when that starts to slip um the shame that then comes with that so the identification that i found within melissa um and others in there there was a lot of that um and people that weren't in in the same professional capacity there's identification to be found in everyone's stories of addiction really well i know that later on in the series which is available now via bbc sounds you're going to talk in the series which is available now via BBC Sounds you're going to talk about food addiction

which is a really tough one because we all need to eat and it's out there and I gather you both learnt quite a lot from doing those interviews. I think first of all we wanted to ensure that we were looking at the whole of addiction so we look at gambling, we look at food

and we also are going to be looking at the you know the impact on families and friends as well but in that food episode that we recorded it was you know it was really eye-opening because I had a I well I had a really narrow-minded understanding of what food addiction was and I had the stereotypes and that just weren't true and I think for me what really stayed with me if our guest says you know I let the tiger out the cage three times a day and if someone was to say to me you can have vodka because you need it you can't abstain from it you need it to live but you can have that vodka three times a day I don't know if I'd have the strength to do that

We tried it, didn't we? We tried and failed, that's why we ended up well I ended up absolutely pickled so you know, I tried the three times a day to control the measure, I tried it all I do want people to listen to the podcast the very first edition you talk about the day you went into rehab

and your mum had to pour your last vodka before you went in. And she had to do it because actually at that point you were alcohol dependent. Yeah. So that was in August. I didn't go into treatment until October. But yeah, on that final drink, it was my mum pouring it out. And I think that's what I really wanted to bring to the listeners, is that before, you know, I went through what I went through,

I did not know that an alcohol detox or an alcohol withdrawal could kill. You know, I did not know that and I was chemically dependent and the fact that my mum knew that she had to give almost the poison that was

killing me to prevent me from having a seizure and causing potential neurological damage It is utterly brutal Melissa Melissa. Yes, brutal. I really want to wish you both the best. The podcast is fantastic and I hope we've opened it up to some more potential listeners this morning.

It's about you, but it's about much more than you. You're both brilliant broadcasters. Thank you very much for coming on with us this morning. I really appreciate it. Thank you. It is called Hooked. It's available now via BBC Sounds. It's a five-live podcast and the presenters are Jade White and Melissa Rice. Good to meet you both. Thank you very much.

Now, earlier in the year on Woman's Hour, we asked a very simple question. Have you had an abortion? What did you think about it at the time? What do you think now? And what became only too apparent was that there are lots of women out there who have indeed had abortions and have never been able to talk about them. So we have been sharing some listeners' stories. Last week we heard from a woman who got on a bus in her school uniform to have an abortion 30 years ago when her contraception had failed. She remembers the whole thing like it was yesterday.

It was much quicker than I thought. It was much less painful than I thought. And then I was kind of helped out and given paper towels and paper pants and everything kind of rustled. And the nurse who had been looking after me when she brought me in came back and she saw that I was looking a bit wobbly and she gave me a hug and she said,

you know, it'll all be better soon, love. It'll all be better soon. And she gave me a hug and she said you know it'll all be better soon love it'll all be better soon and she gave me a massive hug and she was lovely and I think about it now I think I think about it now and think about her saying it'll all be better soon and I think I'm so much older I'm so much braver I'm so much stronger but yet it just makes me feel so awful because I feel ashamed of the way I ought to feel about it but I knew it was the only thing I could do. It was the only thing I could do and I couldn't possibly have had that child. I couldn't possibly have. Another listener had a termination 18 months ago. It was a twin pregnancy. She already had three children and had had postnatal depression.

Her response to anyone who would question that decision is clear. They can't say what I did was wrong because they weren't me and they've never walked a day in my life. They've never been in my shoes. They don't know what it felt like to realise that you're pregnant when you don't want to be pregnant. I mean, I can't imagine what it's like for anybody who's not in a loving relationship to go through that, because that was hard enough. And I had someone there the whole way. I had my partner, I had his mum, I had my mum, I had my sister. I had everybody there for me. I had so many friends that were behind me. Imagine doing that on your own. I don't think anybody has the right to say that what you've done is wrong or wicked. Well, today we're going to hear from a woman of 63 we're calling Alison.

She got pregnant on her honeymoon 40 years ago when contraception didn't work and she decided to have an abortion. She told our reporter Henrietta Harrison how she felt when she found out she was pregnant. Oh, God. Shock. It can't be. Just horror. Horror. I'd just got my first teaching job, but my new husband had just got a new teaching job, very good teaching job. We were given a house by the school. It wasn't centrally heated. We paid a peppercorn rent. It wasn't suitable for a child. How did you come to the decision to terminate the pregnancy? I seem to remember at the time that it was like a back-of-the-envelope job,

where I wrote down, can I or can't I? I have the child. I didn't involve anybody in the discussion at all. I didn't involve anybody in the discussion at all. I didn't involve anybody in the conversation, apart from me and a pen and a piece of paper. And I came to the conclusion that it would be something I couldn't deal with, both on a practical level and an emotional level. It was almost a dispassionate

decision it has to be done that's it job done you wrote in your email that you remember the the day that you went for the termination very vividly i remember getting the train it was uh it was in brighton it was a private clinic it was a very nice day, cold, but very clear. Got to Brighton. And then I remember it was a dingy little waiting room. I do remember that. And the radio was playing Video Killed the Radio Star by the Buggles. I remember that clearly. What was the procedure like? In those days, it was a complete DNC. And it was the first time, the one thing I do remember is I'd never been in hospital before. And so for me, it was my first experience of being in a medical environment

and my first experience of being anaesthetised. It was all very clinical. After the termination, after the procedure, do you remember how you felt when you woke up from the general anaesthetic and subsequently in the next few days and weeks? I mean, I thought after I'd wake up after the anaesthetic, I was going to feel sick and horrible. Actually, I felt absolutely wonderful. In terms of physically, I thought, oh, I feel all right. You know, that second when you wake up and you think, oh, everything's all right with the world.

And then everything crashed. And it was raining. The sun had gone, I remember this. And I got back to St Albans probably around about three in the afternoon, must have been, because my husband came to pick me up from the train station from work. So it was an hour. I had an hour of sitting at St Albans station. I just remember sitting there and feeling um not very good about myself it was that time of day so there were

children around I felt kind of relieved on one hand that it was over and done with and that my life could now carry on in its projected path and then just lost I don't know what I was anymore. I'd kind of done something that I knew was going to fundamentally stay with me forever. You know, I couldn't, I couldn't put the clock back. I couldn't undo what I'd done. I just felt very lost and very, very alone. Do you think that you got a sense of the gravity of your decision afterwards rather than before? Yeah very much because I knew I couldn't put the genie back in the bottle and that I had fundamentally done something that was going to be very difficult to come to terms with. So yes, it was afterwards, definitely afterwards, not before.

Did you take anybody with you? No. No, I took nobody with me. You were married at the time. Yes. You've actually not mentioned your husband in any of this decision-making or indeed on the day that you went for the procedure. No. He was not somebody that you would confide in he was he still is an amazing

raconteur incredibly funny amusing you know you like being in his company but he's not somebody you share your personal feelings with he would dismiss oh stop being silly. He was not somebody that I could talk to. So did you tell him that you were pregnant? Yes, I told him the day before. I was going to Brighton to have the termination. And what was his view then? I think I became soiled goods. You know, I kind of, it kind of rocked his world.

I've never, you know, I really thought about it we never really talked about it even afterwards we never ever talked about it now I don't know whether I shut down or whether it was just a way of self-preservation it was just I'm not going to talk about it and therefore it it happened but it didn't happen so I kind of locked down on that, I think, when I look back on it. When you say he saw you as soiled goods, I mean, could that just be your interpretation? I felt like soiled goods and I may well have projected that onto him. It's not as if he blew up, he't blow up he just went quiet I just remember the quietness a bit oh do you think you did the wrong thing

oh do you know that is an incredibly difficult question I did the right thing at that time but I never know and this is the bit. I never know whether that event triggered in me some of the behaviours that I then went on to enact. Does that make sense? The divorce, did it lead to the divorce? I had a bit of a wild, not wild, wild lifestyle. No, I don't mean that, but I mean I was a bit self-destructive. Promiscuous? Yeah, oh yes. I had a very healthy interest in sex. But you're saying you see a connection between making the choice to have that termination and subsequent risky behaviour.

Is that what you're saying? I'm not sure whether the way, the fact that I did that and then felt so bad about it, realised I couldn't talk to anybody about it, you know, not my parents, not my husband. You know, if you don't have a very good opinion of yourself, and I didn't grow up having a very good opinion of myself, I don't know whether that act kind of confirmed in me

that I was really quite a nasty horrible vile person that could do something like how could somebody do something well that's because that's the person that i am so i don't know whether it you know if i'd not done it and i'd had the child would it have softened me would it would i have had to meet other women with children and i would have been a state you know would i have softened me? Would I have had to meet other women with children and I would have been a state... Would I have been a different person? Or... I don't know.

That's the unanswered question. I don't know. I only know that when I had my son, three years after the termination, and it was not an easy pregnancy, it was not an easy birth, not an easy birth it was a plan cesarean because he was breached and he didn't breathe for five minutes so when i came around from the section he wasn't there i remember screaming at my husband where's my child where's my child then i just that was it i was off on's been, oh my God, this is my punishment.

This is my punishment. And I just remember just crying. And then, then he was, he was all right. I kind of believe in that karma. You do a good thing, you'll be rewarded with a good thing. You do a bad thing, you know. I had two miscarriages much later, both at 14 weeks. And that, again, that was, you know, the wrath of God. That was it. I'm not any more.

And that's exactly how I viewed it. You say that you're ashamed of the termination. Do you think that was related to the fact that you actually married at the time? Yes, I think it was very much, I think it would have been possible for us to have lived in a nicer house. You know, I could have reached out for support. And I think had I had the conversation with my husband, I think maybe, you know, he would have allowed him to look after me maybe I wasn't you know maybe I was a prickly little pear how has your attitude to the termination changed over the last 40 years have you come to terms with it no because I still don't talk about it I still feel shamed

I still feel it was almost a it was a very selfish decision that I didn't really allow myself to think it through, that it exposed things that I wished hadn't been exposed. I still see it as not something, not my finest hour. Even though when I look at it, it was handled, I handled it. You know, there were no histrionics no drama it was all it's all very calm you know I could have had four children four children that's what I regret I think and that's why I think I'm quite hard on myself because I think that being a parent is a very precious commodity it's the most important job in the world. Why do you want to talk to Woman's Hour about your experience?

Because I think I just wanted to get it down on paper, send it somewhere and think, right, now, what happens if they get back to you? Well, maybe it's time. Maybe it's time to just put it to rest. Some fascinating accounts. I think you'll agree over the last week or so on the programme, and there will be another one later this week on Thursday. If you need support, go to bbc.co.uk forward slash action line. Now, RuPaul's Drag Race has been a big success in the States,

and it's been quite a big racing success for the online-only BBC Three channel as well, and a second series has been commissioned. If you haven't seen or heard of it, it's a competition over eight weeks or so to crown Britain's best drag queen. Now, drag is certainly not new, but we're asking this morning whether it can ever be empowering for women

or is it really misogynistic? Let's talk to historian and performer Rose Collis, drag king Adam All and artist Victoria Synn. Now, Rose is in Brighton. Rose, what do you think of RuPaul's Drag Race? I've only actually seen bits of the show. I just find the whole concept incongruous and baffling, to be honest with you.

And I astonish that the BBC thinks it's okay to put on a program that uses such derogatory terms for parts of the female anatomy. You know, the Drag Race Dictionary includes terms like fishy, big pink furry box, seafood platter serving fish. I mean, seriously, it's 2019, guys. Well, I think many listeners will agree. Adam, do you like it i watch it not quite the same thing and you watch the american version too yeah i have done yeah um is it only for drag queens there are no drag kings in either there are no drag kings and is that a problem um to an extent yeah yeah it's it Yeah. It's difficult because what people will see in this programme

is what they then assume is all of drag. And it's absolutely not. It's just one branch of drag, one kind of drag, just one cookie-cutter example of what drag could be. And it's quite limited. In fact, it's limiting in terms of who it allows on the programme. Very limiting. Victoria?

I think that drag can be an incredible tool that broadens our ideas of gender and the spectrum of gender. And I think that the fact that the show only has a really particular demographic on it, it narrows things a little bit um i think it's great that there are people who have never met a gay person who can see that kind of queerness is being normalized in this way but at the same time as a member of the queer community i think that you know drag is so much more than the show um so personally i don't watch

it though i'm very happy for the contestants that are on it and that are having success with it. Rose, what would you say about that? Well, you know, I mean, I have been out for 41 years. I've seen these arguments so many times and heard them. You know, you see, I've seen people, men and women saying, oh, well, RuPaul's Drag Race, you know, it's just a bit of fun and it's helping gay men express themselves. Well, you know, honestly people, if encouraging gay men, particularly a younger generation

of gay men, to dress and perform in a way where women's physical traits and shapes are mocked not praised, not celebrated then perhaps some of these gay men really ought to be taking a good look at themselves in the mirror and I don't mean to check their appearance because as the saying goes if you don't recognise

the problem of misogyny and sexism that they're protected from by dint of being men then you're part of the problem, end of Well there's a tweet here from a listener who says it's teenage girls who are watching RuPaul, you have to ask their opinion Adam, is it teenage girls?

Do you know? I think it's quite a broad spectrum of people, to be fair. But I would say that it is probably more women than men who watch the show. I think a lot of... I mean, definitely in the American show, a lot of the people that I see, you know, having performed at shows with some of the queens on RuPaul, most of the audience is teenage girls. But I think it's really important to note that drag can be a really important space of play

in terms of gender for everybody. Well, really briefly, if you can, can you outline what you do? Well, I mean, drag is definitely a part of my art practice, and I think it's a really important point to make that actually it was through a process of doing drag and really purposefully putting on and taking off my gender that I realized I was non-binary and I think that there's a kind of a similar process for a lot of people who have kind of realized that they were not they're not the gender that they were assigned at birth. And Adam for you drag kings don't take part in drag race do they no but i think that it's um it's something that i talk about a lot through my drag is that a drag is often a performance of how you have been

othered and i think a lot of the time we forget that um it's it's the same for drag queens as it is for drag kings some of the time a lot of the time perhaps that we're taking something that we've been ridiculed for our entire lives and we're turning it into something so fabulous that you have to cheer. And I think that for my masculinity, that's what it is. And I've met many drag queens that it's for their femininity, that is exactly what it is.

From Rose's point of view, for example, it will be the view, I suspect, of many people listening. Drag kings, you don't mock masculinity in the way that some drag queens mock femininity. We mock toxic masculinity. That's probably a different thing. It's a very different thing, yeah. Let me just bring in some emails from listeners.

I'm 73, says Liz. I'm white, female, and I adore RuPaul's Drag Race. It's in the great tradition of cross-dressing performers. I find it hysterical. Alyssa says, I have been wondering why is it OK for men to dress up and imitate women in a sort of parody of femininity,

but it isn't OK to dress up and imitate, for example, black people, quite understandably, in my opinion. But it does raise an interesting question about how women's identity is not a sacrosanct. And another viewpoint from Rosalyn. I had an interesting discussion with my two millennial daughters after trying a bit of RuPaul's Drag Race.

I couldn't stand it. I've never liked drag. My point was this. How is this OK? What if this were a parade of extreme racial stereotypes set up for entertainment purposes? Well, there you go. Those two listeners essentially making the same point and i guess you'd agree with them rose well you know the the thing is it's all drag is traditional drag is traditional you know men have been playing women's roles since shakespearean times yeah but that was of course then which is true allowed to play them but it's it's it's at what point i mean yes there is, there is a tradition. There's the comic Danes. There were people like Dan Leno and Dougie Bing and Jack Tripp

who always played the Danes. Interesting in panto, you always had the principal boy being played by women, but they didn't have as big a role. But they have stopped that now, haven't they? I don't know about that. I'm not sure. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't go to panto anymore. But the point is that sort of musical drag style that gave rise to people like Mrs. Shufflewick, that was a fully formed character who was a cockney charlady that wasn't actually sort of about demeaning women. It was a comic character. And that in itself gave rise to people like Edna Everidge.

And then also on the pub scene, Regina Fong and Lily Savage, who, of course, is better known now as Paul O'Grady. Now, I saw Regina and Lily at the Black Cap in London many years ago, and they were very acid. They're very acerbic, but it wasn't aimed directly at women. It was anybody that they decided to go at. And also you had the theatre group Blue Lips

who took the whole drag thing and stood it on its head and they did what was called radical drag. They were creating these comic personas that weren't about demeaning women. And so when people talk about traditional drag, there are different traditions. And just because something's a tradition, that doesn't mean it as always has to remain

untouched and unchallenged otherwise where would we be i think i i agree that um we should not you know hold traditions uh as this thing that you can't touch but i just really want to say that gender is fluid in a way that race is not and therefore you know crossing those lines is unacceptable in a way that is more acceptable with gender. But I also want to say that, like, you know, a lot of drag is really misogynistic in an incredibly unacceptable way. And we should definitely challenge drag queens and platforms that are promoting misogynist drag. The thing about drag is that it's often poking fun at something. And it really

matters like what you're poking fun of. Like I've often said, you know, like, often the butt of the joke in drag is women. And that's not useful to anyone because it's punching down. The butt of the joke of drag should be gender, we should be using it as an art form to deconstruct like what it means to be gendered in this gendered society. Can I just bring in, Adam, I know you work as a drag king, and Gemma says, I thought it might be nice to mention the incredibly vibrant drag king scene here in the UK, where female identifying performers create fabulous male stereotypical performers. One of the UK's lead drag kings, Max Ryder, a.k.a. real name Elizabeth Real,

is headlining the Austin Drag Festival in the States this year. Yeah. And can you tell me more about Max Ryder? Oh, we've been friends a long time. They were a Boy Box regular. Boy Box is the 90s. Boy Box is the drag king show that I run. Very empowering platform. Thank you.

I've been running for six years. Max is part of our fam, so we're absolutely very proud of Max. They went to Austin last year and are going back as a headliner, which is really fantastic news. We're very proud of him. And I must confess, I don't know what a drag king does. Well, I'm just...

It's honestly my failure. I really want to get to the sort of... I don't like your laughter very much, Rose, by the way, from Brighton. I can hear it. I think all drag is about deconstructing gender. It's about expressing gender. But I do think it's is about deconstructing gender. It's about expressing gender. But I do think it's often about reclaiming something that you have been ridiculed for.

I was ridiculed for being too masculine. A lot. By? By school friends, by family members, by anyone in the street. Often I'm very much a confusing entity to a lot of people. They can't work out what my gender is when they look at me. Then they either just stare or they make some sort of ridiculous rude comment and that is beginning to change particularly in london that's nice when i do drag what i do is i use my

natural masculinity exaggerate it hugely and then i i use that to express a maleness which is actually non-toxic beta male adamal and he's he's a friendly happy-go-lucky sort of guy who likes to entertain and I enjoy doing that it massively empowers me and it empowers the people who relate to that or enjoy that show and it threatens nobody no Adam is very very non-toxic yeah but also I think that like drag is doing this really important thing of like um taking essentialist notions of gender like you know like women have to be feminine and men have to be masculine i think with drag queens often apart and that's really important many of them are people who have been ridiculed for being too feminine and they actually are empowering

themselves to embrace that so there is there is that side of it that we're not talking about. But what we are talking about, one of the reasons we're having this conversation today is the RuPaul drag race thing. So once again... One branch, yeah. Yeah, one sphere of a particular form is dominating the space and that is a male version of...

I mean, this is what Women's Hour is all about, providing a safe space for women and girls to have their voices heard and their stories told. So what do we do to change the narrative then? I think many of the people who are entering into this platform now are actually trying to use it to disintegrate the rules. I think many of them are talking about non-binary identities and talking about female, inverted commas, performance artists doing drag. And I think that they're trying to use that platform as much as they can to break it open. And I think that might be one of the only

ways. I mean, it's a very successful platform, what you're going to do. Yeah. I think it's also important to like to note that even though though maybe um people listening might think that um adam and i are are both women we're both non-binary and i think for me that's a as i said that's a that's a that's a journey that i came to through doing drag and me yeah yeah both of us it's really interesting because um i mean it's i i agree with the whole thing about that that there are different aspects of drag which is what i've i've been talking about the not the radical and the not playing with gender and stuff like that that's not the stuff i obviously have a problem with in order other women and it's interesting that it's some gay men are starting to question this there's a i'll just give you a quick quote there's a writer

called jamie tabera and a couple of years ago in the independent he was talking about rupaul's drag race and i'll just quote you very quickly he said rupaul's drag race and its parody of bitchy competitive womanhood does nothing for me i'm of course considered a freak by many for this so i tolerate his existence but i draw the line at the use of fishy to describe suspiciously convincing queens and he says until gay men start recognizing our misogyny problem true equality will elude us forever now that's how you need to address the problem Do you know what has only just dawned on me

that is where the word fishy comes from isn't it? Yeah Thank you Rose I really don't think you and I are getting on very well now so I'm going to cut the line to Brighton. I do apologise for my historical knowledge. No, it's really, really interesting. Thank you all very much. Honestly, I mean it.

It's been a pleasure to take part and hi to the other guests. Hi. Look after yourself, Rose. Thank you very much. Thank you. Bye-bye. Victoria, I know you've got a big trip later on today so thank you for being so patient with us and good to meet you, Adam, as well. Thank you. And just to say again and I know I keep saying this, thank you from the bottom of our collective

heart here at the programme to everybody who has emailed us about abortion. It has been astonishing and there are more today. And so many of you just saying, I think I've got my own version of what happened to me and I think I might have left it too late. It is never too late. If it helps you to get it off your chest

by just emailing us, then maybe that is something. But thanks again to everybody. This lady today says, I've known one or two people who've had terminations. And as far as I can tell, they have no regrets. To me, it's very responsible not to bring a child into the world if you're not able to properly care for it. Join us tomorrow for Woman's Hour. 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.