Woman's Hour - Finding My Voice. Afghanistan. Do you live with a 'man child'? Colourism. The great Christmas Sandwich debate

Episode Date: December 28, 2022

When did you realise you you had something to say or something you want to stand up for. In the first in our series "Find My Voice" Jessica talks to Milly Johnson the author of 20 novels which have sold over 3 million copies worldwide. She’s the winner of the Romantic Novelist Association's Outstanding Achievement Award, as well as Channel 4’s Come Dine With Me – Barnsley edition. But all that success seemed like a pipe dream, until she got her first book deal at the age of 40.As the UN Security Council calls on the Taliban to revoke its ban on women in Afghanistan working for aid agencies - we look at the impact it will have on humanitarian operations in a country heavily dependent on aid. When our reporter Ena Miller gave birth to her baby called Bonnie just over a year ago - she expected to receive the standard comments..."Oh she's so beautiful, aww look at her little nose, she's so cute, aww what a big baby..." she did get those but she also got negative remarks from friends and strangers about the colour of her baby's skin. Ena realised she was not alone and went to meet two other mothers Fariba and Wendy to talk about their experiences and ask for their advice.Plus do you live with a ‘man-child’? Research shows that it’s a real phenomenon, and can damage the relationship dynamic between a man and a woman, typically meaning the woman is less sexually interested. Professor @SarivanAnders joins @JessCreighton1 to tell us moreAnd the Christmas Sandwich. Is it more popular than Christmas lunch? What should be in them? How important is the bread you choose? And can you ever add gravy? Nell Carter who reviews Christmas sandwiches is in the studio to tell us.Presenter Jessica Creighton Producer Beverley Purcell

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Jessica Crichton. Welcome to the Woman's Hour podcast. Thank you for joining us this morning. Welcome to the programme. I hope you've been able to enjoy the festive period so far, but it can be such a busy and stressful time of year, can't it? Particularly if you're living with a man-child. Now, you might have heard of this term. It's a man who relies on

his partner to cook, to clean, organise trips, look after the children, which they're perfectly capable of doing themselves. But, well, they don't. Man-child is a term that's been thrown around for a few years. It's been popularised on social media. But I'll be speaking to a professor who explains it is actually a real psychological term, and it can have detrimental effects on a woman's sexual interest in their partner. Also this morning we'll be hearing from reporter Enna Miller on bringing up a mixed-race child whose skin is much lighter than her own. She speaks about having to field questions from complete strangers like, is that really your baby? And how that's impacted her experience of motherhood. It's a very powerful account. And speaking of powerful accounts, I'll be talking to a woman who found her voice later in life. After believing being a writer was just a fairy tale when she was younger, she got her first book deal at the age of 40 and is now a best selling author. We'll be talking about how now she can hope to inspire others. And also there was a pretty big debate in the woman's hour office this morning.

So I really want to get your thoughts on this too. Christmas sandwich fillings. What are your do's and what are your don'ts? What ingredients do you include? Which are no-no's? Does the bread you choose matter? And what about adding gravy? What's at me? On 03700100444 remember that data charges may apply so use wi-fi if you can text me as well on 84844 text will be charged at your standard message rate now producer Bev told me earlier that the sandwich simply has to be made on white bread after I suggested a more crusty brown malted bread, I thought white bread's quite basic. You have that every day. You need something special for a Christmas sandwich. Producer Kirsty has some very interesting thoughts on how best to add gravy so it doesn't

quite make the bread too soggy. She was talking with military precision about stacking up the ingredients in a certain way. What do you think? We like to ask you the pertinent questions here on Woman's Hour. You can also get in touch with me via social media at BBC Women's Hour, and you can email us as well through our website. But first this morning, five top non-governmental organisations or NGOs have stopped working in Afghanistan after women have been banned from working for them by the Taliban government. It follows the recent ruling by the Taliban banning women from attending university. It's led the UK Foreign Secretary, James Cleverley, to say that the Taliban are trying to erase women from society in Afghanistan. The leaders of CARE International, the Norwegian Refugee Council and Save the Children said in a

joint statement the organisations would not have jointly reached millions of Afghans in need since August 2021 were it not for their female staff. To find out more, I'm joined by BBC World News reporter Azadeh Moshiri. Good morning, Azadeh. Sorry, classic. I forgot to unmute, but I'm right here. Oh, great to have you on the programme. Good morning. Could you explain this latest ruling by the Taliban government? Give us some context around it. Well, the latest move affects women's right to work. They're restricting them from working at NGOs and they're justifying it by arguing that female staff weren't adhering to the strict dress code and the hijab that they've mandated. They tend to use that reason for most of the restrictions that they've put in place. But to your point, this doesn't actually just affect women in Afghanistan.

It sets the entire country back because this is a country heavily dependent on aid and on humanitarian operations. And women are integral to those operations. That's why the NGOs, like the ones you mentioned, Save the Children, Norwegian Refugee Council, Care International, they've suspended their programs because they're hoping that the Taliban may reconsider following some international pressure. And it's also worth mentioning that women are breadwinners in their families. Many families depend on women bringing home aid and income. And this is a country that is already suffering. There's severe food insecurity. The economy collapsed last year.

And so it's a domino effect that will affect both men and women. So there's clearly a lot happening in the country at the moment. And we know that this is just the latest in what's been quite a few announcements on restrictions on women's lives as of today. What's behind all this? Because we heard, didn't we, recently about women being banned from attending university? Absolutely. The Taliban takeover never spelt good things for women. It's been a series of setbacks slowly as they test the international community and test the response. Now, this is all despite the Taliban insisting that they're a Taliban 2.0, different from the ones who ruled the country back in the 90s and stripped women from all of their basic rights. Women have now been living in a world where they can't travel without a male escort.

They can't show their hair and have been told that they can't show their face either. They can't even go to parks or swimming pools in the capital alone or at all, in fact. And that's a restriction that's expected to expand across the country. And now their right to work is being threatened. And most of all, their education is shot. So what's been the reaction, particularly from Afghan women? Because I believe that some have been demonstrating against this. They have. I spoke to girls weekly when Afghanistan fell and when the Taliban took over. And of course, that was a terribly frightening

thing for young girls and women to experience. But the one thing they kept saying every single time, and this was every single woman I spoke to, was that they wanted their education, that they would they feed a future where they couldn't learn. One girl said that when she looked at her future and understood she wouldn't be able to go to school anymore, all she saw was darkness. So it's a profound feeling of loss. These are many generations who never lived under the Taliban in the 90s. They're young women who, for all they've known, they've had those freedoms and those rights to learn and to imagine careers for themselves, and that's all been taken away. And so it's understandable that there are protests,

though it has to be said that women-led protests this past year have decreased and have been rare because of the fact that there are such risks involved. Azadeh, thank you for bringing us up to date and giving us a little bit more of an understanding there. That's Azadeh Mashiri, BBC World News reporter. I also want to bring in now Samira Saeed Rahman, who is a communications and advocacy coordinator at the International Rescue Committee. You're on the ground in Kabul. Welcome to the programme, Samira. Now, I know that you've been working in Kabul for a number of years. What do you make of the decision to ban women from working for

NGOs? And also, how much do you know about why the decision was made by the Taliban government? Thank you. We, you know, it's been a very devastating year for Afghan women in the country. As Azada mentioned, this newest restriction comes after increasing restrictions on the rights of women in this country, including the ability to access university and secondary schools and public space. The space for women has been decreasing over the course of this past year. This latest decision put us in a very difficult situation. While the country is in the midst of one of the worst humanitarian crises on the planet, you know, we have over 28 million people in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. The de facto authorities made a decision where female staff cannot work in national and international NGOs. The International Rescue Committee, we have 8,000 staff across the country, over 3,000 of which

are female. And, you know, it was a very difficult decision for us, but we had to suspend our activities in the country. It is impossible for us to continue our work without women at all levels of our organization, from, you know, the front facing, beneficiary facing female staff all the way up to leadership positions. It is impossible for us to continue our activities the way we have been without our female staff. How difficult was that decision to make, Samira, to suspend services that so many people rely on? Incredibly difficult. Like I mentioned, the humanitarian situation is absolutely dreadful. The humanitarian assistance over the course of last winter is what prevented a famine in the country. We're in the middle of winter right now.

Parts of this country, temperatures drop down to minus 20, minus 30 degrees Celsius. People are deciding between food or heating. It's a very difficult time for Afghans. But at the same time, you know, we cannot access 50% of the country. This is a conservative country. This is a conservative society. We need female workers to access females in line with some of the restrictions of the de facto authorities. Why is that? Why is that so important for people

that are listening and don't understand? Why is it that you need women? Why do you rely on female workers so heavily? I mean, this is a country where men and women do not interact in the public space. You know, women often in many parts of the country prior to the Taliban, do not interact with men outside of their families. So when it comes to aid delivery, the only people that can reach women are women. When we are doing house-to-house assessments, an Afghan woman is not going to open the door to a strange man when we're doing house-to-house assessments. When we're trying to identify beneficiaries man when we're doing house-to-house assessments, when we're trying to identify beneficiaries, when we are distributing our aid, when we are providing

healthcare services. Women need to be an integral part of all of that, but also inside our organizations. You know, when a woman is coming to get her salary, we need women in our finance departments. We need women in our admin departments. It's not just in the service delivery outside, but also within our organization when it comes to our female staff. Many of these NGOs have said this will have catastrophic consequences. What do you think the impact will be of this ban? The impact is going to be devastating. I mean, the humanitarian implications aside, with the collapse of the economy, the NGO sector has been the largest employer in the country. As of August of last year, over 900,000 jobs have alone work for IRC, let alone all the other NGOs. You have over 2,000 NGOs in this country. If there's one female staff working in each of those NGOs, that's 2,000 families that are being supported by that income. So the impacts of this are going to be absolutely catastrophic,

both in terms of the humanitarian beneficiary side, but also the humanitarian status of our employees. How do you hope to restore services? Is that something that you believe can happen? And if so, when? We are continuing to engage with the authorities. Coordination is taking place between all non-governmental organizations, but also the United Nations. We're calling for a unified approach and a principled approach in these negotiations, but these discussions are continuing. I've personally been involved in some of these conversations with the authorities, and we're being told that there may be some

movement on this. And we're hopeful that the authorities can understand that this is not just going to be devastating for the women working in these organizations. This is going to have long term effects on the Afghan population overall. Samira, thank you very much. That was Samira Syed Rahman from the International Rescue Committee. And also thank you to Azadeh Moshiri, BBC World News reporter. Now, if you've been a new parent, you might get used to comments from strangers. Most are probably complimentary. However, when our reporter Enna Miller gave birth to her baby Bonnie in 2020,

she also received questions and negative remarks from friends and strangers about the colour of her daughter's skin, which was lighter than Enna's own. In recent weeks, many people of colour have spoken about the way casual racism impacts them, not least following the comments from a former lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth, who asked the black charity boss, where are you really from? Enna has been speaking to other mothers who have also faced this. Here are Fareeba and Wendy. How dare you comment about my child's skin colour? Sometimes I look at people and I stare them right in the eye

and I'm saying what I want to say in my head, but it's not coming out of my mouth. It's, oh yes, yes, she's very white, isn't she? Well, Enna and met Fareeba and Wendy and their daughters to ask for their advice and experiences. But before all of that, Enna's cousin needed to have a tricky conversation. Enna and her cousin Danielle were walking along the road when baby Bonnie was just a few weeks old. And I'll let you tell them the rest.

You've made it. You look well. Oh no. It smells like lavender. Oh, that's because I tidied up for you. Oh, did you? Well, you know my tidying. Yeah, just shove it in. Shove it, shove it, shove it somewhere.

My name is Danielle Fiamagna. I am 22. What was the third thing? What's your relation to me? How do you know me? I literally can't remember not knowing you. You're my cousin, big sister, part of our family. Can you tell me what you remember of that incident? I just remember us going for a lovely walk. And I can't remember if Bonnie was in the buggy or you were holding her. I just remember a man shouting

loudly but the language he was using was just extremely inappropriate in relation to the colour of Bonnie's skin. I felt extremely uncomfortable. I remember him saying something about why are you with a white man? Why is your baby so white? That's what happens when you get with a white man. I remember the walk home and we never spoke about it and we've never spoken about it until today. To me that's the strangest thing. It happened, this black man coming out of nowhere and for us not to talk about it it must have had quite a big impact because we're so open with each other I knew you were upset we both didn't want to really go there and I feel like just racially both as black women that opens a whole massive thing I remember looking at people watching us,

feeling really embarrassed in front of them and then I think the worst thing I felt was I didn't stick up for us and I remember trying to put Bonnie back into the buggy as quickly as possible as he's circling us, shouting at us. In those situations, there's no handbook there is no way to know when you're going to run into those sorts of things and how you're going to react in hindsight of course you look back and you've got all the words and you're like I would

have said this this this and this we had to escape that situation that wasn't the first comment I'd got how many times has that happened I can sort of list them really there was the first comment I'd got. How many times has that happened? I can sort of list them, really. There was the time when she'd been in ICU for a day and a night, had her back for the first couple of hours, and the person that comes in and asks you what you want for breakfast came in and was like, Wow! Is that your baby? I was like, yeah.

She's really white and her hair is so straight. Is she really yours? And I was like, yeah. There's been times when I've sent photos, one friend came back and went, oh, she's so white. A couple of weeks later, I sent another picture and it was a case of, oh, is she still white? And then you would see friends partners just stare at Bonnie stare stare and then eventually they'd go they'd touch their face with their finger like this and go she's really pale isn't she she's really white and again another random in a shop and then he was like is that yours and I just thought god I just came in here to get plantain I know does your partner get that with Bonnie I know my partner never got any comments and I think what surprises me the most is that the comments

were coming from people of colour from my side so I don't know whether white people thought it and they never said anything which I was delighted by maybe because I was five days on my own in a hospital room it was COVID times no visitors so I went into the dark deep hole of googling this topic and what happens when you're black and your child is a completely different colour to you what is that future like yeah I projected my future with Bonnie it was really bleak oh I can hear you I could just hear this voice bellowing we've got to do this interview outside i thought what should i wear i need to i need to wear everything absolutely lovely to meet

you you too my name is mrs wendy lopez tell me what happened on august 26 1993 gave birth to my daughter olivia i remember the doctor she didn't actually have um overall on but I remember her wearing a brown dress she took this baby out and she was holding her and I'm looking I'm thinking why is this baby so pale and you know what when she handed um the baby to me she's oh you have a girl you have a daughter oh thank you but Olivia had brown hair but she had blonde curls just like she's been to the hairdresser someone's put rollers in her hair and just taking the rollers out and I remember just sitting there just looking down her thinking you sure this baby's mine remember the doctor came in and he was like looking at her and he said um

oh have you got white in your family and I said um, Olivia's father's white. And he goes, no, no, no, no. You've got white in your family. And that's the reason why Olivia's so pale. I'm thinking, why are you telling me all this? I kept thinking to myself, do you go around to all the mums and tell them about their child's colour and their background?

And I bet you didn't. But sometimes I look at people and I stare them right in the eye and I'm saying what I want to say in my head, but it's not coming out of my mouth. It's, oh yes, yes, she's very white, isn't she? She had a COVID jab a few months back. We've gone in, Olivia has special needs as well.

So we had a few problems settling her. She sat down, I have to ask her all these questions. And so she says to me, are you Olivia's carer? I said, no. She said, are you Olivia's mum? And I said, yeah. Did you give birth to Olivia? And I said, did you really?

I looked at her and I thought, well, come on, this is like 2021 and you still have to ask me silliness like that. Reactions from family? Mum said, how come the baby's so white? So I said, look, you know her dad's white and that's the reason why. She went, hmm, hmm. What do you think she meant? Your face is sort of scrunching up. I guess she didn't approve.

You actually told me at one stage that your mum used to call her the white girl. Yeah, and it's not even just my mum. I have a sister that lives in Guyana. And she was like, where's the white girl? Where's the white girl? People just say, is she not getting any darker? I don't know. One friend, she rang the hospital and she just said, is the baby black or white? How about strangers? I was in Deptford, walking along, doing my shopping, on a Saturday as you usually do.

So I'm walking along and I've clocked the pub on the corner. There was three black guys standing outside. Two went inside, but there was one black guy still standing outside. Came towards me as I'm walking past, he goes, is that your picnic? And I said um no you basically disowned your child in front of him okay yes I did because I've seen and heard so many different stories of black women who've been going out with white guys how they're being attacked and if I was walking

along with two black children holding their hands, would you approach me? So should we go and get Olivia? I'll see what she's up to. It might take a bit of time trying to get coats her outside. See you in a mile. Now sit on this one. Look, look, look.

Come sit on this chair. Shall we have a look at these pictures? Who's that? Who's that? Mummy. Oh, yes. Oh, you recognise your mummy. But who's this?

Baby. Who is it? Mummy. Oh, yes. Oh, you recognise your mummy. But who's this? Baby. Who is it? Sleeping. Sleeping baby. Oh, look at this one. Let's see if you recognise this one. Are we just too sensitive? Well, that is what everyone who isn't in this situation is going to say. Oh, you're too sensitive. Come on. We didn't mean anything by it. You've got a chip on your shoulder.

And I'm asking you, are we too sensitive? Should we just chill out? I've got to be Olivia's mouthpiece. If Olivia wasn't special needs, she'd be running around telling people, just leave me alone, my father's white, mother's black, end of story. So why is that so important that you have to do that? Because what you're digging at is what Olivia is.

Before Olivia, I wouldn't say boo to a goose. But because I have to be there talking about this, this, everything about her, I've got a bit braver. Just turn right and then go all the way right. Turn right to the back garden? OK, cool, I will. Well, I thought I'd bring Bonnie just to meet you because we've been talking about our daughter so much. I've been hearing all about you, Bonnie. Aren't you a cutie? So my name is Fariba.

I am 41 years old. I have a partner who's Nigerian. He's Nigerian descent, but also grew up in Nigeria. My background is I'm half Iranian and half English, but I grew up in Canada. And we have three beautiful daughters who are age 10, 8 and 6. Last weekend, we went out to meet some friends. And one of the first things my friend said was, she looks pale. See, it's still happening. We are in the 21st century. You'd think people have moved on a bit. I found you because you write a blog about bringing up mixed race children.

Did something happen that one day you went to the computer and thought, I need to write about it? I think one of them, I was actually in an airport in Nigeria. I was holding my oldest daughter. A Nigerian woman came up to me and my husband wasn't around. And she said something like, your husband must be really dark. I think I was so naive. I thought it was just a matter of fact comment. Well, yeah, he's quite dark skinned. It just kind of dawned on me afterwards that that was actually supposed to be insulting and it was the way she said it. About a year ago, my middle daughter, who was about

six or seven at the time, I was actually picking her up. I walked in, gave my daughter a hug. One of the children who was about nine or ten at the time said, is that your daughter? And I said, yes. And she said, do you still love her even though she's that colour? And my daughter had to hear that. And that's what made me so sad. She was six and she had to hear someone questioning about whether her mother loved her based on her skin colour. Even now that you tell me you look visibly upset by it? Yeah, yeah. That was probably the incident that made me really terrified, I guess,

of what kinds of comments or things that they might come up against. Having three children as well, who are all of different kind of skin tones, I can see that there is a different experience that they will have just based on how they're perceived in society as well I follow a blogger in the states whose blog is actually called are those your kids.com and another one whose blog is called I'm not the nanny.com again you know that's why I worried I worried that they'd say I was the nanny I was like oh, oh, no. Hi, I'm Asha. I'm 10 years old, and this is my mum. We've been reading books about curly hair

and books with, like, black princesses and all sorts since you were little. Which one would you say is one of your favourites? It's about this young mixed-race girl, and she wants to become a ballet dancer. What's happening is that we're educating our own children, but they're still going to walk out into the world and get these comments. It's not just for us to be buying diversity and toys and books and media. It's for everyone.

I'm at the beginning stage. I'm already exhausted by it. You're 10 years down the line with three daughters. Where are you at? I think the fact that I'm writing about it, I feel like that has had an impact on me feeling like I'm not just taking it, I'm doing something about it. You are constantly educating.

It is exhausting, but it's also, it's kind of what you have to do. What I found, obviously obviously apart from last week when I got the she's so pale comment and that was from a white friend all the comments so far I think coming from people of color which I think is why I'm here today speaking to you because I don't know why I just found that more shocking. There's still widely held perceptions about what black should be and look like and who can lay claim to that identity. I think I hope that people like Kamala Harris have helped to question that a little bit. If people do identify as being mixed or being multiracial there's going to be multiple narratives

about what black is and what that means. Your mum was telling me you sometimes described your family in terms of ice cream flavours. I'm caramel, my mum is vanilla, Ella is fudge, my youngest sister is butterscotch, and then my dad is chocolate. And what made you think of using ice cream flavours?

I think it makes it a bit better because when you say oh you're lighter than me or you're super dark and it just seems like you're separating each other. Making it into delicious things shows that people love those things, all of them. Yeah, really brilliant conversation there. And if you want to hear more about the experiences of Enna, Fariba and Wendy, there's an article on the BBC website. Now, our next topic might prove to be quite divisive. I asked you earlier, didn't I, about your perfect Christmas sandwich,

what you put in it, your favourite ingredients. Do you use the Christmas dinner leftovers? Is stuffing allowed? What bread do you use? Should it be toasted, untoasted? And one of the hotly contested ingredients in the Woman's Hour office was gravy. What do you think?

Yay or nay? I've seen quite a few messages come in and I think I'm right when I call this divisive. Some people are getting very hot under the collar about this particular subject. But let's get the opinion of an expert, a Christmas sandwich connoisseur, if you will. Nell Carter is in the studio with me and Nell runs Nell's Kitchen and reviews and makes Christmas sandwiches. Welcome to the program, Nell. Thank you very much, Jessica.

So there's been quite a few people messaging in, which I'll come to, but first I want to hear about your favourite Christmas sandwich filling. I imagine you've already had quite a few already. Well, yeah, you've gone in with the big question there. So, I mean, I've been reviewing Christmas sandwiches for about four years,

but here we're talking High Street brand. And I feel like I've done the rounds with those. so if I'm going to be really narcissistic this year I'm going to say that I have nailed my own okay what's in it okay so I think the best one I managed to come up with this year was a slow cooked ham hock and we're going we did this in some how slow um it took me two days so slow that the first batch i made for friends i did have to cheat and buy a ready-made ham hock so i didn't look ahead at the recipe and see that it took two days um but we've got slow cooked in pilsner and honey then thin layers of uh honey roast parsnips um some brussels sprout slaw and that's my magic ingredient

this year brussels sprout yeah what how do you so tell me more very very carefully on a mandolin you want to slice your sprouts really thin um maybe add a little bit of red cabbage maybe a pear or an apple just for a bit of sweetness um and then a sauce made out of all sorts of the best condiments in the world. So Dijon mustard, a little bit of tahini, bit of cider vinegar, and it also emulsifies and makes this delicious slaw. So I put that in most of my Christmas sandwiches this year. Whoa, you've gone real high end, haven't you? I think you've blown every other suggestion that I've seen out of the water with that. I've had far too long to think about it. So I've come up with a few options but that is that is my best one oh and don't forget the crispy shallots you've got to have something crunchy in there too okay and I'm assuming it was delicious you loved it oh yeah okay oh yeah

um someone has uh tweeted in because I said I like gravy on my uh Christmas sandwich but it you know it has to be in the right way because the gravy can't seep through the ingredients to make the bread soggy because I don't like that. Someone has said gravy is a crime against mankind. They feel very strongly about that. It's a lot of passion. What's your thoughts on whether you add gravy to a Christmas sandwich? So I'm I'm in the gravy camp, but I think you need to mix it with the mayo.

So gravy mayo. This is the new thing as well. If you look at High Street Christmas sandwiches, they're the new thing as well if you look at high street christmas sandwiches they're all doing it but if you make your own it's even better so leftover gravy bisto whatever you've got um mix it with a little bit of mayo maybe a few finely uh finely chopped uh thyme leaves in there as well and that's the best way to make sure you can get the gravy flavor in there without making all of the rest of the elements soggy, especially not the bread.

Yeah, it's top-notch science, this is. Someone else has said Christmas sandwiches, or any in general, really, always toast one side of the bread so that the two cooked sides are on the inside. Where do you stand on toasted bread? I prefer a warm Christmas sandwich, filling included as well as toasted bread. So I actually quite like

a mixture of hot and cold elements I think it's sometimes hard to balance all that out it's almost like making your whole Christmas dinner it's a absolute mission on time it's a real operation it really is um I think what I would say on the toasting side of things if you've got really good bread you shouldn't have to toast it but what's a good bread see even that's up for debate really isn't it is this year i have joined the focaccia hype so i've been making my own focaccia first one's terrible dead yeast most recent ones do you know what i think we've got a business going here so the focaccia is good i would say it needs warming through because you often want that crispy outer shell soft in the

middle and fluffy on the inside but if all you've got is naff white bread just toast it see naff white bread see i said white bread is is quite basic you have it every day so you get something different like a a warm crusty malted bread someone richard has emailed to say brown or wholemeal no capital letters white only but proper, not the plastic type. A proper crusty white like cob or as in my case, warm homemade bread. Homemade seems to be the preferable option if you can be bothered and if you have the time. If you can be bothered and if you have the time, I really back the homemade bread. I would say as well, it depends on whether or not you're a big bread connoisseur, because if you're not, then the bread can purely be the vehicle for what's inside it. You know, sometimes you want to put the focus on the filling.

If you've got naff bread, if you've got really good bread, then, you know, elevate the whole thing. So much to think about when I get home tonight. Well, you've brought a sandwich with you, haven't you? Now tell us, let me have a look. What's what's involved here? I see focaccia. I see focaccia. You see focaccia. This is actually a vegetarian one because that's one hurdle I'm always trying to get over is how do you make a really, really good vegetarian Christmas sandwich?

So this one I've gone for brie, some crisped up layers of phyllo pastry to add a bit of crunch interesting um and then some finely finely diced um mushrooms that i've mixed with some thyme some shallots sort of a mushroom duxelle and that makes a sort of pate that you can layer onto the bread cranberry sauce you've basically got all the flavors of a vegetarian wellington in a sandwich and we're not calling it a turkey dinner sandwich of course course. It's not even trying to be that. But it's the flavours of Christmas packaged up in a sandwich. Wow. Now you can't get that on the high street, can you? You mentioned there like different textures, different like savoury plus sweet. Is that the key to bring a mix of everything into

one? Is that not too overwhelming? I think that is the key. I'm a big fan of Max Halley who runs Max's sandwich shop in North London he's been on the telly a few times talking about the perfect formula for a sandwich I try to emulate that as much as I can I do think you need that balance of something crunchy something sweet savoury salty you know getting all of those different flavour profiles in takes the sandwich from just something that you eat quickly at lunchtime to actually a great meal it could actually be a dinner in itself definitely and you said so that's a vegetarian one are there vegan options um yes i actually originally um thought of this one as a

vegan sandwich so took out the brie and just added a few more vegetarian or vegan elements so we had some chestnut stuffing in there as well some slivers of the parsnip in there too um i think there's all sorts did a butternut squash one as well sort of miso roasted squash some sprout slaw so i think there's lots of places you can go with that you can make some quite unusual combinations and can't yeah definitely alternative christmas i suppose yeah and you started reviewing christ Christmas sandwiches about four years ago. You said, why did you, why like a passion? I assumed you enjoyed eating them.

Honestly, yeah, I was trying to pass the time while I was revising for exams at uni. And I actually noticed that my boyfriend at the time could put away a sandwich about three times a day. So I thought, let's make a game of this and we'll go and try and eat our way around all of the different sandwiches that St. Andrews had to offer, which was not that many. It's quite a small place. But now we're in London. We've got a full playground. OK, and you're making and selling sandwiches. You've actually quit your job, not as a result of this, but you're hoping to turn this into a job eventually. How's it going so far? Well, we're two weeks in. So about two weeks ago, I quit my job not to do this. But, you know, I found that I couldn't stay still. So I started making these sandwiches and had such a great reaction from friends and friends of friends

over social media. So, I mean, I'm just going to keep going as I can for now. At the moment, I'm delivering them on my bicycle. It's a one-woman business, so we'll see where we can go. But definitely got some exciting plans. So you've had a good reaction from the people that are buying the sandwiches? I have. I've got some harsh critics out there as well. I know that I need to finesse my focaccia a little bit more. But I've got, yeah, I've got the designs to do that now.

So, excited. It's interesting, isn't it it seems to be a popular talking point I mean has it always been this popular since since you started reviewing Christmas sandwiches four years ago do you feel as though more people are talking about what they put in their Christmas sandwich fillings now than they did before I feel like it's more of a talking point I definitely do and I think it's the rise of food content on social media in particular, because people can see how easy it is to, you know, turn something very banal into something extraordinary.

And I think sandwich is the perfect place to start because, you know, we all eat a sandwich probably five times a week, to be honest. And life's too short to be having plain ham at this point. It's true. I'm not sure how easy your sandwiches are to make because they sound very high tech. Jackie's emailed to say, my sandwich yesterday, she looked in the fridge,

made of all leftovers, maybe a bit controversial, but a pita bread stuffed with a filling, all chopped and mixed in a bowl to blend flavours. So turkey, stuffing, lettuce, coleslaw, beetroot, red onion, chutney. And she says it was a delicious discovery. Someone else says leftover pigs in blankets, brown sauce, hands down best Christmas sandwich. Like those ideas?

I do like those ideas. That's something for you to think about. Definitely. Some ideas for you. I don't think it matters what bread you're working with. So I'm all for the pita, even a wrap Christmas sandwich. You know, I think as long as what you've got going inside is great, you know, you can be very versatile there. And you said you've got a big plan.

So you're a one woman business at the moment. What do you hope to become? Oh, gosh, I do not know at this point. I mean, Sandwich Empire does sound cool, doesn't it? It does. But, you know, we want to keep it simple, keep it delicious. So watch this space, I guess. Thank you.

I've really enjoyed talking about Christmas sandwiches. I didn't realise there were so many options, but now I know I'm going to have to up my Christmas sandwich game. Nell, lovely to speak to you. Thank you for coming on to Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure. Now, how equal is the division of chores in your household?

Does your male partner sit around watching tv while you cook clean look after the children and perhaps organize the family social life as well well if so you might be living with or married to a man-child according to new research the man-child phenomenon is real it's a man who depends on his partner for everyday tasks that he's actually perfectly capable of doing himself. And it found having a man dependent on you in this way can have a real impact on your sexual interest in your partner. One of the authors of the research is Professor Sariette Van Anders from the Department of Psychology at Queen's University in Canada. She told me there's now a real psychological term for man-child.

Yes, so we actually call it perceiving your partner as a dependent or perceptions of a partner as a dependent, which is certainly not as snappy as man-child. I like it, though, because it helps us think about it beyond gender. So we could think about this phenomenon happening in people of any gender sex and having partners of any gender sex. But I will say that Man Child is kind of useful. It really resonates with women as we're seeing. And, you know, naming a phenomenon in that way, in a way that resonates, can help people make sense of that phenomenon and can help people work towards social change and social justice about it. So why did you want to conduct the research then? Is this like partly from personal experience? Like what inspired this?

Yeah, so we were interested in this because I do a lot of research on desire and hormones actually sometimes, but also gendered experiences. And there's a cultural belief that desire is something that is in you. It's innate, biological, physiological, natural. And so then when people have an issue, don't have desire or have low desire, they tend to think, well, it must be a problem that's in them, a problem with their biology, with their hormones, with their psyche. And the fixes are going to have to be biological, counseling and clinical. But low desire isn't always a problem. Asexual people tell us that they experience low or no desire, and that's fine. But low desire could be a symptom of a problem when it's in people who would otherwise experience desire. And we thought maybe it's a symptom of gender inequities. And so we wanted to do research on that and test those hypotheses

about how gender inequities, especially related to household labor, might actually be contributing to low desire in women partnered with men. Okay, so just give us a sense of how you actually conducted the research. How does it all work? Yeah, so as I said, we had a big theory paper where we looked at all the research and lived experiences and anecdotes and stories and developed some hypotheses and chose two to test for this research. With over a thousand women, we asked them a lot of questions, obviously about their desire, but we also wanted to make some questionnaires, including about inequities in household labor,

in part because most of the existing research asks about things like cleaning or laundry, which we know there are lots of inequities about. But as you've probably heard, and I think many women have heard and said themselves, there are so many other ways that these inequities come up, including in planning, things like planning social events, meal planning, emotional labor, life planning, you know, calling about bills. So we wanted a questionnaire about that. And then no one had really developed a questionnaire about perceiving your partner as a dependent. So we had to make one of those. And then we also wanted to ask about perceptions of unfairness, in part because, you know, you can have a difference in who does what, and that doesn't make it inequitable or unfair.

We wanted to know how people felt about it. And then, you know, we had all those data. We did a lot of statistical analyses. And the results really supported, strongly supported our hypotheses that, yeah, gender inequities in household labor definitely contributed to low desire in women partnered with men. Because we've seen other studies before, haven't we, that makes that link between motherhood and caregiving with low sexual desire. But I suppose what distinguishes your research as different is the fact that you're looking specifically at this idea of man-child and that perception damaging a woman's sexual desire in the relationship. Yeah and you know what's interesting is so much of the research that links motherhood to low desire doesn't as you say disentangle the gender inequities part and it's not motherhood that's associated with low desire

or parenting or caregiving it's having to mother those you shouldn't have to mother and it's not motherhood that's associated with low desire or parenting or caregiving. It's having to mother those you shouldn't have to mother. And it's gender inequities in that kind of labor. That's really interesting. And you mentioned that the women often see it as their issue, as their problem. They blame themselves. They go to the doctor. They want to get prescribed some kind of hormone treatment. But actually, it could just be down to this relationship dynamic. That's right. So, you know, in some ways, we often sort of semi joke, it's kind of one of those painful jokes that a pill is easier than solving gender inequity. So I get why people go for them. Unfortunately, they don't work. And they're never going to address the core problem. So one of the things our paper and our research is arguing is that we really do need to attend to gender inequities broadly and in relation to these sorts of experiences.

I wonder as well how the research would change if roles were more defined as they were previously. So if female roles and male roles were more defined as males do this, females do that, would your research have changed? Would it have brought about a different answer? Yeah, you know, gender roles are so dynamic, and they've changed a lot. So we think we know that women, you know, the expectations of people is that people of any gender sex is going to include working outside the home these days, where it didn't always used to. It did for some women, but not for all women. And we know that now the expectations are that they haven't changed so much inside the house. So all that inside house hold labor, emotional labor, caregiving, we still expect women to do that. So I definitely think that things would have changed, would be different

if people had defined roles that they were able to choose. You know, people have talked for a long time about women doing a second shift. So that makes a huge difference. So yeah, I think that we would see all sorts of variation among people who, and historical times and places, depending on whether people were able to sort of freely choose whether we had defined roles and so on. Okay, that's really interesting. Now, many of our listeners will be thinking, okay, this sounds familiar. So what advice do you have, if any, to those that are married or living with a man child? What can we do? Yeah, it's a great question. I think one of the exciting things is that research shows that relationships with higher levels of gender equity, there's actually higher desire.

So that's promising. And decades of research and practice with sex therapy and relationship therapy show how important talking is. So we would think that probably there needs to be a lot of talking about this. But things might get a bit rockier at first because all that work, that's a lot of labor that a woman's going to be adding to her already inequitable load. And there can be a lot of resistance. You know, the people who benefit from inequities are rarely the ones who want to hear about it, are rarely the ones who want to identify it, who want to mitigate it. They're often resistant to change. There's a lot of gaslighting that can happen. But we're hopeful that with loving, caring relationships, these problems can be addressed. And we're talking very much here about heterosexual relationships. What changes with same-sex relationships, if anything? That's a great question. We're really interested in that. And there's sort of two ways to think about it. One is that there's a lot of research showing that similar gender sex relationships are much more egalitarian. So the load, the labor load is distributed much more equitably than they are in mixed gender sex relationships. So we don't expect the same scope. That said, we do know, and we've had some really heartbreaking emails, to be honest about this, that people in similar gender sex relationships can also

experience this. So we're really excited about looking, I guess excited is the wrong word, we're sort of nerdy researchers. So we're excited to see how um whether this phenomenon is specific to women partnered with men whether it happens to women partnered with people of any gender sex whether it happens to people of any gender sex partnered with men whether it's about feminine people partnered with masculine people and we have some research we're launching now to look at that so maybe in a year we can check in and let you know. Okay. So that will be the next step for you guys in terms of research. Brilliant. Insightful. That was Professor Sarian Anders talking to me there about the phenomenon of the man-child. Who knew it was an actual psychological thing? Richard has emailed

in to say, not being a man-child, I cook the Christmas dinner and I'm into my third day of the Christmas sandwich with lashings of mayonnaise. Mayonnaise is a bit of a controversial topping for a Christmas sandwich. I've never heard the description Manchild before and I'm 68, but your description, isn't it just the stereotypical way things were for our parents' generation and before? A woman's place was in the home. She was trained to do everything for a man, even at school, in cookery classes, et cetera, while he went out to earn the bacon i still see vestiges of it in my peer group thank you richard for getting in touch and earlier we spoke to now about christmas sandwiches didn't we

and her hoping to turn her love of making sandwiches particularly christmas sandwiches into a business and we actually have a special program on just that coming up on Monday turning your passion into a business where you can join Dragon's Den, Deborah Meaden, Lynn Franks and three women who have done that as well turn their passion into a business to get some advice on starting up yourself and it turns out there's actually quite a lot of free support and mentoring available all over the UK so don't miss that special programme, Turning Your Passion Into a Business here on Women's Hour on Monday. And now next on the programme, we have the first in our new series called Finding My Voice. We wanted to talk to women about the moment they realised they had something to say or something to stand up for. Millie Johnson is the author of 20 novels, which have sold over 3 million copies worldwide she's the winner of the romantic

novelist association's outstanding achievement award as well as channel four's come dine with me barnley sparnsley edition winner but all that success seemed like a pipe dream until she got her first book deal at the age of 40 delighted to say that millie joins me now. Welcome to the programme, Millie. Welcome. I'm sorry. Yes. Lovely. Thank you for the welcome. It's great to have you. It's great to have you. I've actually got a review here of your most recent book. I think it's called Together Again. Describes it as peppered with the author's down-to-earth Yorkshire flavoured humour. Is that how you would describe your writing voice? I absolutely would, yes. Yorkshire is in all my books, it's almost a character in itself. I apologise for my croaky throat in the week that you're launching your

how I found my voice voice I've actually lost mine no problem it's that time of year don't worry it is so when did you realize that writing about real life and and writing story set in Yorkshire was going to be so successful for you oh for many years I had to write a book um and just couldn't just couldn't find my niche at all um went just before my 40th birthday i got pregnant um as did two of my best friends and we went through our pregnancy journeys together now at this point i'd been trying to write a book for many years and say um it was when I we'd all given birth they were in my

front room my friends and it was like it was like a thunderbolt going off I thought why aren't you writing about this I kind of been looking on the horizon for many years um for what I wanted to write about and it was at my feet all the time so I I kind of embraced my Yorkshire-ness, if you like, and wrote this story about three women on the cusp of 40 from Yorkshire, all having babies. And an agent I'd been chasing for 15 years just turned around and said, this is the one we've been waiting for. Is that when you realised yourself? Was there a point before that where you thought, I can make something of myself here? I can do something that I love and turn it into a living? That's what I wanted to do,

but I didn't think anybody would want to read about the North because the books at the time were quite London-centric. It was the kind of chiclet phenomenon with books set in London um with people in jobs in PR sharing flats and that was a life I knew nothing about so I was trying to ape these books and I couldn't write about them authentically because I haven't lived them so I I hadn't really thought about the Yorkshire thing at all um it was only as I say when um when my hand was forced as it were and I thought I felt this very powerful feeling that this this could just work because for many years I'm um you know I had been People had told me to change my accent.

I think certainly women who got regional accents through the years have been told to change their accents. I've had loads of stories about, well, you'll never get anywhere with that accent. I was actually sacked from a job for not having the right accent. What's the right accent? Well, they told me, because I was working in North Yorkshire, and of course in South Yorkshire we've got much shorter vowels, and they told me that my accent was better suited to the textile industry where I came from.

Right. And so you can either make that into a fuel that powers you or you can crumble. And I did crumble for a while. And then I kind of thought, do you know what? I'm going to use this. I'm going to embrace my Yorkshireness. And it wasn't long after that that, you know, I got pregnant. And the two worlds combined combined the pregnancy world and embracing

the Yorkshireness and I've never looked back I mean all my books are stuffed full of Yorkshire because I always thought if I ever bumped into this woman again I'd like to I'd like to make a sick with the amount of Yorkshireness that's in my books and it's given me everything I ever wanted. We don't hear very often about people, particularly women, making, able to turn their passions into a business, into a living so late in life. Not that it was particularly late being 40, but it's later than perhaps we're taught when we're growing up about when we're going to land that dream job or land that dream career.

Do you think your life experience made you successful? It was the reason that you became so successful. Absolutely. I couldn't have written the sort of books that I write now back then. I think it's two of those. There is a season season I have a theory that God thought okay this bird wants to write books I'm going to give her 40 years of experience and then I'm going to let her loose and that's really what happened to me I you know I didn't have much to say at 20 but at 40 I had lots of life experience I've been kicked around the ring a few times I've had good jobs bad jobs I've travel a bit. I had, you know, lovely men, nice men, wonderful friends. And the friendship is, women's friendship is a massive ingredient

in all my books. And has it changed you, finding your voice, being a celebrated author? I think it's, this is going to sound a bit weird. It's changed me because I don't no longer want to change myself. It's made me content with who I am because these short vowels, this has given me everything that I've ever wanted. I don't want to be anything other than I am. And I'm very happy with my career. I feel in my niche and I think that's a wonderful thing. I don't think many people feel that they find their real niche and I feel very lucky that I do.

Would you inspire others then to follow their passion like you have? Absolutely. I mean, there was a time in my life when i felt you know i was in a rubbish marriage rubbish job and i thought is this it is this it is this all i have and in my books um i write about um women who have very ordinary lives that doesn't mean to say they can't have their happy endings and with a few tweaks to people's lives they can make themselves so much happier as I did it just took a few a few steps out of the world I was in um and a bit of bravery to give me all I wanted and I get so many letters from women saying I've read your books the women in it are so ordinary I can relate to them and because I think the women are so ordinary that women see themselves

in my books they see them walking in the skins of the characters and so that that gives them the hope that they can change their lives as well which is a wonderful thing. You're an inspiration. Millie Johnson thank you very much. Millie's 20th novel Together Again is out now. Still people getting in touch about the perfect Christmas sandwich. Someone here has said bread sauce is a Christmas sandwich. In a Christmas sandwich, sorry, is the perfect example of double bread. Someone else has said, I own Castle Beach Cafe in Falmouth in Cornwall.

We serve Christmas sourdough toasties with a lot of rich gravy to dip them in. The gravy was a huge hit. I love that. Someone else has suggested turkey and red cabbage, but you have to have white bread and proper butter. There you go. The last word on Christmas sandwiches. More Woman's Hour back tomorrow. And that's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hi, I'm Andy Oliver, and I'd like to tell you all about my Radio 4 series, One Dish. It's all about why you love that one dish, the one that you could eat over and over again without ever getting tired of it.

Each week, a very special guest will bring their favourite food to my table and we'll be unpacking the history of it. And food psychologist Kimberley Wilson is on hand to talk us through the science bit. What food reminds you of your child? What's your favourite place to go for dinner? What do you have for Sunday lunch? What's your favourite dessert? Do you say plan 10 or plan 2? What food would you take with you to a desert island? What's your favourite type of chilli oil? What do you have for breakfast? What's the best pasta dish? So if you're the sort of person who's already planning what you're having for lunch while you're eating breakfast,

then this podcast is going to be right up your street. That's One Dish with me, Andy Oliver. Listen now on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Trelevan, 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.