Woman's Hour - Gail Porter, Modest Fashion & Female Friendships

Episode Date: January 25, 2020

Gail Porter, once one of the UK’s most sought after female TV presenters, talks about her life in the documentary Being Gail Porter. From developing alopecia to suffering severe mental health problems and ending up homeless. As the Office for National Statistics releases new employment figures – we look at what sorts of jobs women are losing and what's being done to save them, with the Economist Vicky Pryce and the TUC’s Head of Economics Kate Bell.As well-known high street fashion brands start selling clothes under the ‘Modest Fashion’ banner we find out what "modest fashion" really means from Reina Lewis from the London College of Fashion and the model Amina Begum Ali.Would you sacrifice having children to save the planet? Jane takes your calls and examines the issue with Anna Hughes who's chosen to be child free for environmental reasons and Professor Sarah Harper Director of the Oxford Programme on Fertility Education and Environment.Plus the playwright Miriam Battye and the actor Rebekah Murrell talk about their new play at the Royal Court in London which explores the highs and lows of female friendship. And Lorna Cooper gives us her tips for feeding a family of four on a budget of just £20 a week.Presented by: Jane Garvey Producer: Rabeka Nurmahomed Editor: 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. Hi, good afternoon and welcome to the weekend edition of Woman's Hour. This week we know that many more women than ever before are in work, but we also know that their employment can be insecure and poorly paid. What sort of jobs are women losing, particularly on the high street, and what is being done to try to save them. We hear your views on whether you would sacrifice having children to save the planet, and modest fashion is having a moment, but what is it? People focus way too much of it being outer, so what you wear. So when I think about modesty, I think about the way I speak, the way I act,

and how I carry myself, and how people perceive me as a Muslim woman. But then again, I feel like there's so many other people that could be modest. There could be people who just don't agree with wearing revealing clothing. And we investigate the complexities of the female friendship. I think that sometimes female friendships are shown as though they're soft and kind of fun and simple and kind of cute. And you can kind of put them under the simplistic banner of, like, girl power. And actually, they're the most essential and important relationships we will have in our lives. Female friendship on this edition of Weekend Woman's Hour.

We start, though, with Gail Porter, who, back in the late 90s, was one of the best-known presenters on television in this country. She'd started her career in children's telly and then went on to Top of the Pops. She married and had a daughter. But then a naked image of her, taken for a men's magazine, FHM, was projected onto the Houses of Parliament without her permission. She'd long had anorexia and went on to develop alopecia in 2005. She suffered severe mental health problems, used drugs and alcohol, self-harmed,

and was sectioned under the Mental Health Act and at one point was homeless and sleeping on a bench on Hampstead Heath. You can see a documentary about her life, Being Gail Porter, on BBC iPlayer. Jenny asked her if it had been hard for her to look back over her life. I must admit there were times when the director or producer would bring a DVD or some footage and say, look, that was you with your hair, that was you when you were young, that's when

you had a flat and when you had some cash. Never had huge amounts, but I had enough to keep me comfortable. So there was, I'd say now, maybe half and half, you know, half really happy to watch it and half kind of sad. But when I first watched it, when they handed it to me, when we started doing the documentary, I think I was about 98% broken hearted thinking, can we not just go back to the 90s for a little bit? But I learned a lot and had a great time and I'm still having a great time just had a bit of a quite a big wobble in between. You met old friends in Edinburgh. I did yeah. Also your father your old boss on top of the pot. Why was it important to discuss with them what they thought of you? The whole point of meeting up with them is because I thought that I was hiding everything extremely well. So if I did a photo shoot, as you mentioned before, I self-harmed. So I would cover everything up, thought no one had noticed.

If I was not eating, I thought nobody was noticing because I'd take the food and then I'd manage to get rid of it. And so I thought I was completely in control of this entire situation. And so going back to see these people, it was quite interesting to see that they were saying, well, actually, we knew something was wrong, but we didn't know how to discuss it with you and how to bring it up. So I think that was a really important part of the documentary to say to other people out there you know maybe you should talk up if you think something's wrong with someone because I think I probably would have pushed them away if they'd said you know why are you not eating or why have you hurt yourself or are you okay um I might have pushed them away but I think now looking back on it if they'd asked me a couple of times I might have

opened up a little bit more. So I think that's one of the things I'm really happy about with the documentary, is that the amount of people that have reached out to me. And I apologise right now because I've got so many emails and messages on social media. I'm trying to get back to everybody. The amount of people that have gone through similar sort of things as me and don't speak to anyone so I think we've done a great thing and hopefully other people will be able to open up

It seems the FHM photo was a real turning point why did you agree to be photographed naked? Well, yeah that's always a good point it was the 90s and I was getting carried away.

My moods were all over the place. You know, I didn't think I was good enough. And then I thought I was great. And then I was terrible. You know, I was all over the place. And then I got asked to go in and do this photo shoot. And, you know, at first it was sort of dresses. And then we'd had a few drinks. And then they said, you know, we'll take a little picture of your bottom. It's not going to be good. And I and I you know I was a bit flattered I was in one of my high moods thinking yes this is great you know and I saw the picture and obviously they'd edited it and they showed me a tiny little polaroid and I thought oh do you know what I'm going to show that to my nan and just look you know it's only my bottom and I showed my grandpa and he said oh I seen that bottom when you were little it's no problem so I didn't know that the whole country was going to see it because it was just going to

be a little piece in the magazine and so I didn't think anything of it I thought you know nobody's going to see it and it was quite flattering for me and I thought you know I'm going to look back on this in a few years time and go I remember when my bottom was that pert. What was your response when it ended up on the House of Commons? Well, as you mentioned, I wasn't told about it. So, you know, I'm not a stupid girl. I knew the photograph was floating around somewhere. So I just was watching the news in the morning, going to do my teeth, came out,

and there was my huge frame on the Houses of Parliament without me knowing. So someone sent me a message the other day, and he said, oh, is it just because you weren't paid? Is that what made you angry? And I said, well, I wasn't angry. I was just very shocked. And also I wasn't prepared

because I think if I'd been asked, I would have obviously said no because that's just a ridiculous thing. It was in 2005 that you developed alopecia. What actually happened? Did the hair fall out all at once or was it slow? Four weeks it was. I was working in America

looking for dead people, as you do I was doing a programme called Dead Famous and I just noticed clumps were coming out and my daughter was two at the time, so I was thinking it could be my hormones, it could be mum stuff, because I know that a lot of new mums can lose their hair and then so I didn't think much of it and then it was just

getting more and more and I was having a shower and the water was coming up to my ankles because the bath was filling up because all my hair was in the plug hole and it was it was everywhere and then I had just a few strands and we were filming and the lovely makeup lady um said do you want me to shave the rest off and I said just please yes because it was just it was just crazy now in the documentary you wear the most fabulous eyelashes which I know have been added yes they have been yeah you've you've never tried to conceal your hair loss with a wig. Why not? I think because it was so instant, I got such a shock. And my daughter handled it extremely well.

And I thought, OK, she's fine with it. I was quite uncomfortable wanting to cover it up. And I just thought, well, if I'm going to be good at something, hopefully people who are going through chemotherapy or who are losing their hair and don't want to talk about it do you know what this is it and I'm just going to take it so um I kind of thought is this the best idea I've ever had and I thought yes I think it is a pretty good idea and so I think it took a couple of months of people to get used to me and you know paparazzi's taking pictures going on what's happened to her and what's wrong and so that was quite hurtful but then now you know I speak to so many people and ladies and gentlemen stop me in the supermarket or in the street whether it's

as I say chemotherapy or whether it's you know alopecia I get to chat to everybody so I think you know a couple of months of me being uncomfortable made a bit of a difference for everybody else hopefully now in the documentary you go back to the Royal Free Hospital in North London where you were sectioned and even now all this time on it really upsets you just to be there why uh well being sectioned is not the most fun in the world. So it just reminds me of a really low time. I was in a bad place. I was in not the best relationship. I was drinking too much. I had no work.

I had no hair. And I was losing my house because I couldn't afford to keep the rent up. And, yeah, one thing led to another. Got taken in, got told I needed to be sectioned. And I was just in, it was like one flew over the cuckoo's nest. I was just given medication. So it upsets me, the fact that it was just, I was locked up and no one to talk to, apart from the other people that were locked up.

So some of them were absolutely great and some of them could be a little bit scary at times. And then, yeah, it just brings back a lot of bad memories. And as I said, you did end up at one point sleeping on a park bench on Hampstead Heath. But... That was only a couple of times because when I was homeless, I had so many amazing friends that if they had room or time,

you know, I'd get a bed or I could get a sofa but of course they're not always there and it got to the embarrassing stage so there's a couple of times that I just thought I don't know where to go and I can't afford to get somewhere to stay. What did you learn from making the documentary about your mental health and that period of self-harming that you went through? I think the most important thing I learned was that I'm not on my own and I shouldn't have been embarrassed. And, yeah, I think I just learned more about myself and I learned that I'm pretty resilient.

I'm still here. But have you found out what's at the root of the mental health problem? Not really. I think it's just everybody's individual so um my moods can change from one minute to the next and some people like to take medication for it personally i just you know i'm going to be 50 soon so i just i take it as it is just one other thing i noticed throughout the documentary you were wearing a necklace with the name Honey, your daughter's name. Yes, that's my daughter's name, just in case I forgot. And you wore it

all the time. Yes. Why? Well, because she wasn't there with me and I actually just saw it it was a wee cheapy thing so I just had it on all the time and I think she was quite embarrassed about the whole thing but I was constantly just holding on to it just, you know, she was very proud of me. She actually watched the documentary last week because

I wasn't sure if she, you know, she's 17 now and she was quite moved by the whole thing. So she's the best girl. So yeah, I held onto it so much and actually broke on the last day. So I need to go and get myself a new one. Gail Porter talking to Jenny on Women's Art this week and a lot of people were really affected by that interview.

Moira says, I just wanted to say to Gail how amazing she is and how important her documentary is in raising issues around mental health. She's honest, open and warm. Thank you for having her on as a guest. I've seen that documentary and I found it very moving. Long may she prosper. So there's a ringing endorsement from Moira. The programme is called Being Gail Porter and you can find it on the BBC iPlayer. The latest unemployment figures were out this week and the unemployment rate has barely changed. It is just 3.8% and the government, not surprisingly, has made much of the fact that

more women are now in work in Britain than at any other time. We also know, of course, that female employment can be insecure and is often poorly paid. And the high street in particular is doing badly. So what sort of jobs are women losing and what is being done to try to save them? We talked to Vicky Price, who's an economist and the author of a new book called Women vs Capitalism, and to Kate Bell, the TUC's head of economics. I put it to her that surely high employment rates for women were something we all ought to be celebrating. It absolutely is. It's really good news. But what we're finding is that those high employment rates

aren't solving some of the kind of structural problems in the labour market. So whether it's low pay for everybody, or it's the fact that that persistent gender pay gap at the moment not set to close until 2058, isn't going away. So, of course, these figures are good news, good news for women who increasingly want to be in work, but we've still got this huge kind of structural discrimination, and high employment rates on their own won't solve that. I can't imagine that you disagree with much of that, Vicky. Tell me.

No, and it's interesting when we look at the pay gap, of course, because a very large number of women, something like 43% of women who work, out of those figures that you quoted earlier, work part-time. And, of course, very often they work at below their skill level the moment they start working part-time, which, of course, loses a lot in relation to productivity for the UK economy as a whole. But also the gap between the part-time hourly wage and the full-time pay for a man is about 35%. So if we look at the vast majority of women who work part-time actually not earning an awful lot, then you can see that gap being contained and sustained throughout the whole of their lives, more or less, because many women, 43% of them, who work part-time over a period of years,

obviously collect a lot less in terms of average earnings, and they end up with a lot less in relation to their pensions by the end of the day. And some of the increase we've seen in women labour force participation has been because they've had to carry on working, given the increase in the pension age, which has been introduced, yes, rather suddenly for some of them. Yes, OK. So that headline, which looks rather wonderful, actually masks some rather more, well, some darker truths, if I can be so melodramatic. That pay gap of 35%, Kate, that is a worry, isn't it? That's a huge worry. And I think it also reflects the fact that where part-time work is available tends to kind of drive the kind of occupational segregation we see. There's this kind of chicken and egg situation where

work which is predominantly done by women is undervalued, partly because it's done by women. And then women end up in these part-time low-paid roles, which continues to reinforce that gender pay gap. and I do actually think though kind of if we're thinking about a new strategy for social care surely that's an opportunity to say how do we value this properly and that has to start by paying people properly first. Two things I really want to talk about the high street and maternity leave and Vicky your stand on maternity leave is interesting I mean I think fundamentally you just think it's something women should avoid if possible.

Well, that's because the evidence shows that once you go off and take time off from work, you lose out almost forever because if you come back part-time, as many women do, or want more flexible work, and quite often you lose out

in relation to being trained and acquiring those skills that are necessary. And basically, you no longer compete to the same level as whoever stayed behind and continues to do the work. But we've got many, many thousands of listeners, I'm sure, right now on maternity leave. Are you saying to them, frankly, you're mugs? No, it's very important to look after your children.

But what should happen is that it should be shared properly with the men or with your partner and therefore there should be no discrimination in relation to a woman going off so there would be an incentive for firms to carry on upping the skills of everyone and not considering women for whatever reason, maternity being one of them, as being the types that they wouldn't want to hire to begin with and second they certainly wouldn't want to promote because they would be less able to do the roles that they want them to do because they have children and they need to go and continue caring for them

throughout their lives or for a large part of their lives. So flexible working, in my view, and also absolutely subsidised, heavily subsidised childcare, if not free childcare, has to be, in my view, the answer and absolutely sharing with the other person in their lives.

Kate? I think we've got a huge opportunity here because we are hearing increasingly that men want to be spending time with their young children. They might well say it, but it's not actually happening, is it? One of the reasons it's not happening is because paternity pay is still so low paid. So we've got two weeks, the entitlement at the moment is two weeks on statutory pay, which is just over £100 a week. And many men say they can't afford to take that. And that's why we've been calling for a long time for a much higher entitlement to paternity leave and like maternity leave to make sure it's paid at least for the first period at 90% of earnings.

And, you know, this is something we know that works. When we see kind of that being introduced in, I'm afraid to say it's a bit hackneyed, but it is the Scandinavian countries who have introduced that. And their gender pay gaps are lower and they have much more equal sharing of care between women and men. And it's kind of, we've known this for a really, really long time. And I think one of the kind of frustrating things about this debate

is we keep talking about the gender pay gap. We know what the answers are. We know it's around valuing care work more. We know it's about more equal pay for women and men. We know, like Vicky says, it's around big investments in childcare and, of course, about that right to flexible working. And yet we've had inaction on this for a really, really long time now. And I think it's very, very frustrating. We can continue to talk about it forever without apparently making huge amounts of headway but we will plug on I promise. So to the high street which of course employs many many thousands of women and these jobs are going Vicky

and what's the government doing to protect those jobs? There is a real issue there I mean the thing to remember particularly about women is that many have been employed in the public sector and the civil service. And those numbers were cut very significantly during the austerity period of George Osborne and beyond. Many of them then found jobs elsewhere. But the women in the civil service and public sector generally are higher skilled, interestingly, than on average than people who work in retail or people who work in the private sector. So that's the women, OK, the women who work in one area and women who work in another.

The moment they leave that type of employment and guaranteed pensions and so on that they had before, they move into a much more uncertain environment, which is exactly what has happened. And, of course, in areas which are less requiring of the skills that they had before. And they earn less as a result. And those jobs are incredibly insecure. It's not just the gig economy. If you look at the retail sector, where many of them are gravitated to, what you find is that hundreds of thousands of jobs are being cut every year.

The expectation is that something like 170,000 jobs will go again in 2020. A lot of them held by women because of introduction of technology, cutting costs. We've seen what's been going on in the retail sector. To warehouse housing, for example. Up to a point, but it isn't just the sort of online shopping that's taking place. It is also that firms are discounting like mad because the consumer only recently started seeing an increase in their real disposable incomes. And they've been very, very careful how they spend. And they only go for the cheapest things that they can find.

So it's understandable that they would do it. But jobs are going in that area. So where will they go to next? Maybe the care sector we've already discussed, which pays even less. So it is a serious problem for women who have tended generally to be downwardly mobile in terms of their wages, particularly once they have children, but also once they change the way they work. And this trend that we have seen recently actually accentuates that problem.

Is there any, are you optimistic at all, Kate, in terms of what government intervention could do for preserving or at least looking after those women who have lost out in the retail sector in particular? I'm talking about when you think about the car industry, for example, and government intervention there and interest in it. Is it the same? I mean, I think there is a really interesting kind of, you know, gendered kind of aspect here is when we talk about industrial strategy, everyone thinks, as you say, kind of automotive or heavy manufacturing. And of course, those are completely vital. But they think less about, you know, where is our retail industrial industrial strategy how are we making sure we have a kind of vibrant high street and

that's providing decent jobs of course part of that as vicky says would be to be getting pay rising for everybody again we've seen pay today still not hitting its pre-crisis peak and that is of course holding back some of the kind of consumer spending we need to support the high street but i do think we need to look at the kind of retail sector as a whole and I think there's something really interesting happening where you're seeing kind of predominantly female jobs in shops basically replaced by what have been seen as traditionally kind of predominantly male jobs in warehouses and you know we need to kind of look at the quality of those jobs as well because that's often also making that work invisible we've heard quite a lot about kind of conditions in those warehouses, not great in general. And I

think our kind of retail industrial strategy, which is what we definitely need, also needs to look at the conditions in that kind of online sector too. The thoughts of Kate Bell from the TUC and Vicky Price, the economist and author of Women vs Capitalism. Here's a rather bleak assessment from Leslie, who says, Applying bold economic principles to issues like women's pay, I think it's a waste of time. Women are often desperate. They will take anything that pays more than benefits and or which allows them to also look after their children.

They're faced with a perpetual dilemma. Take that boring, badly paid job or another woman will. It's ironic and sad that women are driving wages down to their own disadvantage. Well, we talked there about retail. We should also acknowledge modest fashion is a big part at the moment of the online offering from many fashion stores and operations. It's having a real moment, modest fashion, but many people, even though they may actually be following the trend, won't know much about it.

So we talked this week to Rina Lewis, who's Professor of Cultural Studies at the London College of Fashion, and to Amina Begum Ali, a model with the world's first modest modelling agency, Uma Models. We're told the UK's fashion industry is worth £32 billion, according to the British Fashion Council. But I asked Rina what the modest fashion industry was worth globally. The most recent figures suggest that it's worth US$283 billion in 2018

and predicted to rise to US$402 billion by 2024. So it's a big and growing market. All right. I'm going to ask you, Amina, to define it. What do you understand by the term modest fashion? I think it's all personal. I think what society does, and especially with mainstream media, I think it's people focus way too much of it being outer, so what you wear. So when I think about modesty, I think about the way I speak, the way I act and how I carry myself and how people perceive me as a Muslim woman, essentially. So but then again, I say that, but I feel like there's so many other people that could be modest. You know, like you can there could be people who just don't agree with wearing, you know, revealing clothing.

Yeah. And then you can there's so many different religions as well so like jewish women they decide to cover their hair as well which is the same concept as us so i feel like when it comes to modesty we shouldn't like just say it's muslim women essentially because that's not the case and some of our listeners, perhaps the older people, how would I know that you were modestly dressed? I just think by, well, modestly dressed. What would you cover your arms? I just think overall I wear pretty modest clothes.

Like I cover my arms. Well, this is what I said because when I first saw you, I was like, I actually would wear your outfit, but just with a hijab. So this again is religious, but I think wear your outfit, but just with a hijab. So this, again, is religious. But I think there's other women who don't wear hijab who are significantly modest, too. And I think modesty can't really be defined unless you like if I'm talking about Muslim context or what it says in our scriptures. But then that can go with anyone. So you can consider yourself quite modest and you don't have a religious faith, you know.

So that's kind of where I come from. I think it's all personal yeah okay um are you at all resentful that the big fashion brands are now i don't know encroaching on this area and of course they're in the business of making money we've just talked about how difficult it is out there for retailers are you angry with them or do you just think, well, let them do it? Well, I think let them do it. But also I feel like if you're going to use it, use people who are genuinely modest. So use a Jewish woman who wears, do you know what I mean?

Use us. You mean in the imagery? Yeah, exactly. So use us and promote us instead of, you know, getting a woman for a brand and then putting just a hijab on it because she doesn't understand the meaning behind any of it. But then I also think that we've been doing this before this industry existed. There were Muslim women who curated their outfits to begin with.

So this figure, yes, it's there, but you also need to understand that when this industry didn't exist, there were women who were taking dresses with short sleeves, etc., and making it modest. So what really is the modest industry? Well, that's a good point. Do you see why? Yeah, I do.

Reena, what would you say to that? I think that's a really good point. Women around the world from different religious and faith communities have been dressing modestly on trend for centuries. Can I say, some people would also say dressing practically. Well, I think lots of women, you know, you said earlier what you're wearing could count as modest and indeed it could. And you're not, I'm guessing, necessarily dressing

in that way for reasons of religion or religious community cultural convention. So the way that I would... It's quite cold is one of the reasons. Yes. And you may also wear a swimsuit on a public beach. So, or not. It's's not the garments it's how people are wearing them and why they're wearing them so i think what's different now women from different communities have dressed according to their understanding of modesty for generations what's different now is that there is a commercial niche market which initially developed led by women entrepreneurs from within faith communities who wanted to make and sell what they couldn't find in the shops. Well I suppose this is what

the global industry is interested in. Yes are women who are actually living this life making money out of the current trend or is it the usual suspects making money out of all this? I think that the niche modest fashion brands are seeing a bounce. I think it's an interesting question with any niche. When the mainstream industry, whether it's mainstream food companies doing organic, start to get interested in the niche, it both raises awareness, which creates more market opportunities. And it brings in market competitors who have more money to spend on research and design, on advertising and so on. And I think the other thing I'd say in relation to your question about how would anyone looking at Amna know that she's dressed

modestly? Well, in this case, the fact that she's covering her hair with a headscarf is a sort of belisha beacon of Muslim woman in the street. And that makes you hyper visible. Of course, lots of Muslim women who also dress modestly for religious and cultural reasons don't consider it necessary to cover their hair. And they are invisible both to other Muslims and to people from outside that community. Yes. So it's quite hard to tell sometimes. I'm sure.

I mean, tell me, men and modesty. What about that? Well, I think there are a lot of men, like, for example, Sikh men. They wear turbans, so they have a ruling where they have to cover their hair. And's the same thing there are some Sikh men who you know choose not to cover it so I wouldn't know whether they're Sikh or not but I feel like that never gets talked about you know and it's interesting isn't it yeah it is but then also

within like within my religion there are also there's a hijab for men so there's certain things that they can't show in and we never speak about it because it's never spoken about in society i think women are more we get more picked up because it's it's it's it it's just life isn't it we live in a man's world that's what we get told but i feel like in every situation if if a woman who's you know a public figure, if she takes a hijab off, it's scrutiny. But then you won't see the same happen to a guy. I would come in there and say that many women from within communities where there are conventions of modesty would often say in response to the accusation, aren't men forcing you to do this? You know, of course, not all women can exercise choice around the world about how they dress.

But also many women will say, well, we have codes of modesty and dress and behavior for men as well but exactly as you're saying women bear the burden both of demonstrating cultural authenticity and tradition and also women are scrutinized when i walk down the road i am much more scrutinized and surveyed for how i look than a man walking down the road. Men can turn up looking shabby if they want to. Women get judged in a different way. But I do think that menswear is going to be a new area that the market is going to look at. Rina Lewis and Amina Begum-Alley talking on Women's Hour this week.

If you have just heard, and if you've been listening to Radio 4 all afternoon, you will just have heard, the play by Shelley Silas about the trial of Radcliffe Hall. You might be interested to know that we talked about that on Women's Hour on Friday, and you can find that edition of the programme on BBC Sounds. We talked about the novel, The Well of Loneliness, as well, and got a really interesting cross-section of

views from people who have read the novel, people who couldn't get hold of the novel, although they wanted to, people who thought the novel was terrible but important. So it's really interesting. So if you did hear that play this afternoon, you might well want to go back to Woman's Hour on Friday. And you can get that on BBC Sounds, you can hear a discussion about the well of loneliness. The population of Earth has doubled since 1970 and it's heading for 10 billion by 2050. Could having fewer children be an answer to the challenges that face us? Would you consider having a smaller family for the sake of your planet?

Is that something that came into your thinking when you were planning your family? Or is the real issue overconsumption, not overpopulation? That was the question we put to you on Monday in a phone-in edition of Woman's Hour. My guests were Professor Sarah Harper, Director of the Oxford Programme on Fertility Education and the Environment, and Anna Hughes, who is child-free for environmental reasons. She's also the director of an organisation called Flight Free UK, which campaigns against flying. Now here's a listener called Becky who called in. I wanted to kind of call in because I feel like I'm sort of coming to the point where all of these decisions are going to be sort of

very relevant to me. And I have been for a while now sort of debating, you know, where I feel that on, you know, on the fence in terms of, you terms of should I or should I not, and climate and the impact of bringing another person into the world is very much at the forefront of my decisions and what I'm weighing up at the moment. And I think within that there's a few different things, and I feel very strongly the climate side on one side is pushing me in a direction, but I can't help but deny there is a part of me that would also would like to go ahead and have children, but that there's a part

of me that feels like actually there is an element of selfishness in that in some sense. And probably, you know, some people might hate me for saying that. Okay, Sarah's shaking her head at that mention of selfishness. So, Sarah. Well, I mean, I think what I'm really worried about, although obviously, you know, I really respect people like Anna because they have made this decision, but I would hate young women who would like to have children to feel that they can't have children

because they've got to save the planet, because there are so many other things that you can do. And I think having children, as I say, in this country, it is a choice and it's a wonderful thing. And if you have that child, just make it a low consumption child. And if you really feel so concerned about overpopulation, then give money to NGOs, work for an NGO, set up an enterprise to help African women. I mean, there are so many other things that we can do. But if you really, really want a child, then, child, then I don't think you should be frightened

into not having a child or feeling guilty because you want that child. Well, I guess the thing is I don't know if I do or I don't at this point in time. And yeah, I do appreciate what you're saying. But I think coming back to what some of the people were saying on Twitter, I wholeheartedly agree that there's so many people out there

who seem kind of conflicted on this decision and what and and what they should do and and i think you know this point around why aren't more people kind of considering you know adoption and fostering adoptions i i definitely am you know that's that's actually almost my kind of first port of call i think before thinking about you know having having my own biological children i think it's we live in a society where people are so kind of occupied with having their own children. I think people need to be aware of, well, actually, you can be doing something fantastic and having less of an impact on population if you explore those options. I don't know why more people don't think of those initially

before kind of jumping to the assumption that I'm going to have my own. Best of luck to you, Becky, whatever decision you reach. Joyce, tell us what you think about all this. Well, when I was growing up in the 1960s, my mother said, one thing, don't ever have more than replacement-level children. I said, what's replacement level? She said, well, when the mother and father dies,

two children, so you don't have a net contribution to the global population. And so my sister had one child and I had none, and I feel the discrimination. I don't have any regrets, but there's such a focus on children. The number of television programs about children, every politician says families, not people or individuals. Families this, families that. And yet, when you go to theater, it's much easier to get a nice seat if you're single than

if you have a group. So it's worked for me. And I get really sort of disgusted when I see people having four or five children and then getting angry in the newspapers that their kids can't get into the school of their choice. Well, if they had one or two, maybe they would get into the school. So this talk of consumption, I think it has to be relative to the communities where you live in. Obviously, the huge queues at the hospitals and the schools and all this kind of stuff have to do with population, overpopulation. Okay, Joyce, thank you very much. Let me put that overpopulation point to Sarah. There are just too many of us, says Joyce. Well, I think to a certain extent, if you look at it globally, that is correct. In Europe, however, our population would be

declining if we didn't have migration. Well, Deborah on Twitter says, in this country, we are having or we are reaching a caring crisis. We need more babies. Yes. So one of the reasons why both France and the UK are actually relatively young is because we've always had a very healthy immigration into our country. And we have not replaced ourselves in this country since 1976. So our population would have shrunk without migration. Without migration. Now, obviously, migration causes problems at the other hand, from a demographic point of view, that's how the world could solve this problem, by balancing out its population so that those high reproductive countries, people were free to come to the ageing countries in the Northern Hemisphere.

So when you say we're overpopulated, we're overpopulated because we overconsume the Earth's resources and we clearly cannot continue that. But we could solve a lot of the problems around the ageing population if we, you know, enabled people to move more freely around our planet. Anna? Yes, a lot of people do say the answer to the ageing population is to have more children. But of course, that only defers the problem and it creates other problems. So yes, it's about restructuring. It's about balancing out, as you said. And also, we can't forget that we're in a climate crisis. And one of the effects of climate crisis is going to be

migration, climate migrants. That's going to be a massive problem for us. You know, yes, I've chosen not to have a family, but that doesn't mean that I don't have children in my life who I care about. I'm terrified for the future of my niece and nephews. Marilyn is in South London. And Marilyn, you've had two children, am I right? Yes, that's right. I have had two children. I was reminded of an amazing geography teacher back in the 70s who introduced me to the whole business of overpopulation and on the basis of that, we decided to only have two children, which, and this was a huge surprise to me, I absolutely adored being pregnant. I absolutely adored the process of giving birth and I grieved

all the way through my second pregnancy, the fact that we weren't going to be doing this again but it's something that I felt so strongly about I felt we could only really replace ourselves given the state that the planet was kind of even in those days I was aware there was an issue and it's a sacrifice if you if you having children, you just have to find other ways of being in touch. I went on to become an antenatal, postnatal teacher and I had kind of care of other people, about 500 babies, which was wonderful. Thank you very much, Marilyn. Catherine. I was just really going to say that I'm 57 years old and we decided when I was 28, my husband and I, that we weren't going to have children because we didn't feel that the world was going to be sustainable

and we felt that it was a very difficult future for children. But given that you love your child more than anything else in the world, I felt that I couldn't inflict that on another generation um but instead i was i was i was sterilized at 28 by a doctor who just had a little boy that was a bit a bit of an interesting thing and did the doctor try to persuade you against it? Yes, he did. Yes, he did. But I was so determined. I think it's unusual for a doctor to take the word of a 28-year-old like that, but he did, and I've not regretted it. I've got dogs instead, and I've had a lifetime of teaching,

so I work with other people's children, and it's a great joy. Catherine, Marilyn, Joyce, Becky and our guests in the studio Sarah Harper and Anna Hughes. Now are we always honest about female relationships? Can they be a little more complicated than we might like to think? A new play exploring this issue opened this week at the Royal Court Theatre in London. It's called Scenes with Girls. Lou and Tosh are characters in the play, they share a flat. Rebecca Murrell plays the part of Lou and the play has been written by Miriam Batty. Female friendships have kind of been the most seismic and influential relationships I've had and sometimes I feel like they are somewhat pushed aside or considered not to be

seismic in the way that they're written about. And I wanted to write something that I felt was really honest and showed the complexity and sometimes the real difficulty that can be found in female friendships. What drew you to the part of Lou Rebecca? When I read the script for the first time, I was really struck by its formal inventiveness combined with a kind of unnerving,

I recognised something in a sort of very familiar, unfamiliar, which was very unusual. Did you recognise yourself in Lu then? I think, well, interestingly, when I first read it, I kind of felt a separation between myself and Lu and I felt, oh oh this will be really interesting as an actor to be able to step into a skin which is very real but feels very really not mine um just in terms of her behaviors and the way she speaks and stuff but then as the process

has gone on I think that that space has definitely I felt the gap close and I think that's the point about this play is that it's easy to come and kind of see these women and sort of look at them as items in a kind of petri dish that they're far away from you. But actually, they're all of us. And I think that's the brilliance of the writing. Now, she's the one who talks about sex a lot and gives numbers a lot.

How common do you reckon it is to show off numbers and details of your sex life even to a best friend uh well i can only speak from personal experience but i think that for me i'm really glad that miriam's just um showed what i well something i believe to be true about the female experience which that we're sexual beings as well and I think that um Lou's speaking about sex a lot I mean it's it's it's interesting because it's her and Tosh her best friend they both see themselves as part of a whole they've both rejected the kind of traditional narrative that is heteronormativity which is settling down and finding the one the 2.5 kids in the Volvo right and so her talking about sex and going on

all of these kind of sexual adventures it's it's kind of to her it's a way of rejecting the narrative that's how she does it so I think yeah I think in terms of her talking about her sex life to her best friend what they're talking about is sex but what's really happening in the subtext is two people validating each other's experiences. Lou, it's fine for you to go and behave how you want and have sex with who you want. And Tosh, it's fine for you to not want to have sex. That's absolutely fine. And they validate each other. Why did it feel so important to you, Miriam, to write that aspect of it? There's an idea that there's like a type, there's types of women and they're kind of all butting up against each other and challenging each other.

And I sort of thought I wanted to show I think that that we're complicated and it's not just about the way that we're perceived by a potential desire or a man or a woman. If that's your sexuality, like it's not that we're not simple. And I just wanted to write something deeply complicated I have no answers and I just wanted to basically open up a space to expose some of the conversations that we have but also explore how the kind of expectations of the world come and seep into even a space that you think is really safe you're not afraid to look at their at times irritation yeah with each other. Yeah. And it really surprised me to watch that because it seems to me so often, you know, we've talked about sisterhood

and how we're all good to each other and we're all kind to each other. How brave did you think you were being to show that they might be irritated with each other or they might bitch about each other? It's sort of interesting. I don't think it's brave. I just wanted to be really honest and i think it is really important and particularly

like in plays that you you try or like my aim and my dream is to show something that's true i think that sometimes female friendships are shown as though they're soft and and kind of fun and simple and and kind of cute and and and you can kind of put them under the simplistic banner of like girl power and actually they're to really I think uh show the kind of the kind of wonderful curious potential of a friendship and the life-affirming nature of a friendship which I think I think they are the most essential and important relationships we will have in our lives that's my opinion you have to show every facet of them you can't just show them to be it's not just i don't want to write a play where women are just nice and cute and supportive of each other and active listen i want to show that there's that we're kind of all really trying to be good we're

trying to be good women we're trying to be good feminists i want to show the truth of the complication of that and i think that in doing that, you show people to be human. Rebecca, both you and Tosh are very relaxed. You're wearing flop at home clothes, no makeup, but you're very critical of Fran's lack of taste when she comes in. You're really quite nasty about her. Why? Why?

Yeah. Well, I think, I don't want to give spoilers. I think that what's really interesting about the play is, well, as an actor, it's very interesting to step into somebody who is as complicated as Lou. And yes, is mean. And people are mean sometimes. And she doesn't like Fran because to her,

Fran represents a person who has never had a problem in her life, a person who has never had to think about somebody for whom life is simple because that is just the way it has always been. And whether that is correct or not, that is not how Lou's life has been. And she, I think, feels some resentment over that. And she's only 24 years old. I mean, I remember being 24 and it's a turning point in your life. I think that this play really stages a moment of mutual becoming where all of these women have left the person they once were and aren't quite sure who they're about to become.

But if this play was staged two years earlier or two years later, it would look completely different and I don't know whether they would even know each other in the same way. Miriam, there's no sexual attraction between the women, but would you say Tosh and Lou actually love each other? It's a great question. I'm so interested in this love and what it means. I think we kind of sometimes...

I mean, I've always been troubled my entire life by the idea that romantic, amorous love is prioritised. That's just something I've always found troubled my entire life by the idea that romantic amorous love is prioritized that's just something I've always found to be quite baffling and I do sometimes wish there was more space for different kinds of love to be uh accepted as maybe the most life-affirming love that you could have I sometimes wonder if there should be more space for people who I mean I'm always interested in writing characters like women because I'm always interested in writing women who maybe feel themselves to be difficult to love or haven't felt that they've yeah who aren't maybe like Fran's character seemingly walked into a relationship that has been accommodating to her so I'm kind of interested in that yeah.

Miriam Batty and Rebecca Morel and the play Scenes with Girls is at the Royal Court Theatre in London until the 22nd of February. Now, here's a lovely life-affirming email from Marianne. My friend and I have been friends for 70 years. We met when we were seven at the local church, and this year we'll be 77. There was a long gap beginning in our late 20s when we didn't see each other because of work and family commitments. There was just the old Christmas and birthday card exchange. With that familiar message we must meet up soon. Then in the year we were 60 we decided we would meet under the clock at Waterloo station in London. It was as if the years rolled away and we chatted all afternoon. I know she'll always be there for me and I can just be myself when we're together and know that no matter what, we will always be friends. Marianne, that's lovely. Thank

you very much for that. Over the next month, in fact, on the programme, we're going to be exploring the significance of female friendship and we would love more of those sorts of stories. So if you've got any, and by the way, they don't all have to be 100% positive because as that play acknowledges, this business isn't easy. Female friendships are no easier than any other relationship, it turns out.

But do let us know how those sorts of friendships have helped you during the course of your life. We'd love to hear from you. Email the programme via the website bbc.co.uk slash womanshour. Now it's not easy to satisfactorily feed a family of four. There is a lot of carping just about wherever

you look and it also this time of year can be an expensive business when the credit card bills start to come in after Christmas. Lorna Cooper from Paisley found a way to cut her weekly food shop down from about 100 quid to 20. She is the founder of Feed Your Family for 20 quid a week. I was spending too much money on a weekly shop. I had to stop work because I had injured my back and the finances didn't support spending 100 quid in the supermarket every week. So I started looking at the food budget and brought it down a wee bit

and then brought it down a bit more and then sort of really got into it and thought, you know, this is great. This is a challenge. Well, you weren't someone unused to challenge because your mum died when you were very young. Yes, she did. And you and your sister ended up living together

when you were still teenagers and you were doing all the managing. We were cooking for ourselves. we were basically looking after ourselves our dad was still financially supporting us but we weren't we weren't cooking meals we were heating things up really and that's being generous you know so take me into your world then what would be an average tea time meal in those days i would be you know a crispy chicken fillet with sort of breadcrumbs in the oven with maybe some potato wedges and a tin of peas yeah well that was all you knew and that's that's what you did and of course by the way it would feed you and it would keep you warm and

you'd be reasonably nourished yes yeah fast forward then to today um and i want to know quite simply how much time you have to set aside to make this work because 20 quid over seven days three meals can't emphasize that enough for four people i don't know how you do it so tell me so the the hardest thing is is working it out it's writing the plan it's doing the shopping it's um that's what took me the longest to work out it's planning and that does take time the actual cooking itself doesn't it's not you know i'm not asking you to stand in the kitchen all weekend batch cooking and um although that there is a bit of that isn't it well there is but not not taking any extra time out so what i say is when you're batch cooking i

mean you make a lasagna make two put one in the freezer it doesn't take any more time to do that and you know and it's the same with cottage pie or making a curry you know just just double it up and then put half in the freezer and then that's you get a meal for another night when you know things haven't gone right that day or you're running late or kids have got clubs and you don't have time to stand prepare something you just take it out the the freezer and the oven buying in bulk what about that yes so if you can um buy in bulk uh look at other suppliers not just your standard supermarket so farm shops markets um online suppliers um if you can't afford to buy in bulk, then consider asking your sister, your mum, your aunt, your cousin, your friend from work

or the other mums at the school gate. Effectively form a kind of food collective or club. Yeah, do it together. Go to the farm, buy a £56 bag of potatoes for £3.50. And divvy it up. Yeah, basically. I'm surprised more people don't do that. Now meat, because you recommend, I thought,

an interesting source of meat supply. I'd never heard of this. Yeah, so I was browsing online one day, found an offer for an online, basically a company that butchers, basically they supply bodybuilders and they sell five kilos of chicken breasts and, you know, ten sort of rump steaks and it's all discounted because you're buying in bulk.

They obviously started for the bodybuilders because they focus on protein in their diet. But, you know, I've been using them for years now and I buy 10 kilos of chicken breasts and I divvy them up into twos and put them in the freezer. And it lasts me months and months and months. Fussy eaters, because kids can be a nightmare. What are your tips there? Hide the vegetables. Or just by doing what?

I started making a pasta sauce. I call it my tomato base sauce now but it just started off as trying to replicate the branded pasta sauces for lasagna and then I realised that it was a base and my kids liked creamy

bacon and tomato pasta sauce and I went to the supermarket and I turned it round and I looked and I read the ingredients and I thought I can do that just need to add some herbs or add a wee bit of bacon or add this and I started doing that but the base sauce is basically a couple of tins of tomatoes some tomato puree some stock and a ton of grated vegetables and it gets all cooked up, cooked for a couple of hours slowly and then blended with a hand blender and it looks like red tomato sauce,

passata basically, maybe a bit thicker and that goes in everything now. So any recipe that calls for a tin of tomatoes or passata even gets used as a tomato sauce on on your pizza right okay yes as the base layer for a pizza and i'm interested in what you say about herbs because actually it's a very useful guide in the book to the difference between dried herbs and fresh herbs um i was reading the other day about a woman who puts her dried herbs in alphabetical order which i think honestly is a quite is my little tip yeah because i always find i've got any number of bits of one

sort of herb and none of the other because i keep thinking i haven't got it is that what you do i actually go to the asian supermarkets for my spices and herbs yeah yeah so you know you get your small jars and they're yeah like a pound each even if you buy the sort of supermarkets own ones you're looking at between 50 pence a for, I think it's 85 grams you get in those wee jars. You can go to the Asian supermarket and you get 200 grams for £1.60. In a bag? In a big bag, yeah. That's right, yeah.

And I've got loads of kilner jars that I've bought over the years and they get decanted into them. Do the dried herbs last long enough? Yeah, they do. They do, okay. I've always wondered about that. No, they don't go off. You're doing well as a result of your economy tips, I suppose. Are you still living on the 20 quid a week thing?

Yes. So I don't sit down now and write myself a list. I don't do a shop in the way that I ask people to do it in the book because I feel like if you buy the book, you follow the eight weeks, you've changed, you've re-educated yourself. And now you're in a phase of you're buying, stocking up certain things at certain times. So if you were to add up all my shopping over maybe six months and then divided it up, you would say, yeah, it comes to £20 a week.

Probably less actually now. But I see tinned tomatoes in a supermarket and they're half price i'll buy 24 yeah you know that's that's where i'm at now um when i see something when i need chicken i'll go and buy 10 kilos and just fill the freezer back up again you know if people follow the plan you completely re-educate change your thinking it just becomes second nature lorna cooper the founder of feed your family for 20 quid a week and she has a book as well um which may well be helpful to you caroline says lorna great i used to do a food co-op with friends the issue for me is storage these days and that is a

good point caroline I do get that. I know Lorna referenced buying loads of tins. And of course, not everybody's got the space to store them. Maggie says, I've just had from that conversation a really good memory of the 70s when I and my friend Shirley from next door, we shared a chest freezer for bulk buying. And this does make sense, doesn't it?

It was kept in my house and she paid me 50p a week for the electricity. We this does make sense, doesn't it? It was kept in my house and she paid me 50p a week for the electricity. We carried this on for years. Really good times and I encourage anyone to seriously consider it. Good point and thank you very much indeed for that, Maggie. Join us live Monday morning, two minutes past 10, or of course you can get the podcast. We'll have the third in our series talking about damaging patterns in relationships. Zakiya McKenzie will talk about spending a year as Forestry England's writer in residence. And Marion Dunn tells us about taking up boxing at the age of 50.

Woman's Hour, 10 o'clock, just after, Monday morning. Have a good weekend. 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's 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.