Woman's Hour - Grooming gangs, Eve Muirhead, Lily King, Menopause

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

Two sexual abuse survivors have resigned from their roles on the national inquiry into grooming gangs. Fiona Goddard and Ellie Reynolds both stood down from the victims' liaison panel which was overseeing the process. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced in the summer that there would be a full national statutory inquiry into grooming gangs covering England and Wales. Ellie Reynolds joins Nuala McGovern.Lily King is the award winning writer of six novels. She talks to Nuala about her latest work - a love story set on a university campus exploring early experiences of romance, emotional risk, temptation and loss.  Women’s health academics at University College London are calling for an education programme to combat misinformation and unregulated advice on the menopause.Their study found that millions of women are being exploited by what they call the ‘menopause gold rush’ amid a lack of reliable information. The lead author of the study is Professor Joyce Harper, from UCL’s Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Institute for Women’s Health - she and presenter and journalist Kirsty Wark discuss.'Ice Queen' Eve Muirhead is considered a titan of British Sport. She became the first woman to captain a British team to Olympic Gold in curling and is the Chef De Mission for Team GB at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan. She discusses the significance of this being the first time a British team has reached 47% female participation and she also talks about her recently published memoir.Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Kirsty Starkey

Hi, I'm Nula McGovern, and you're listening to The Woman's Hour podcast. While you're here, I wanted to let you know about the Woman's Hour Guide to Life, your toolkit for the juggle, the struggle, and everything in between. Life is complicated and often incredibly busy, so whether you're fixing a problem, at one of life's crossroads, or just looking to shake things up a bit, this is the guide you'll need to help you survive and even thrive. Each episode brings together world-class experts with women

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but now back to today's women's. Hello and welcome to the programme. Well, Olympic gold medalist, Eve Muirhead, will be with us. She is preparing to lead Team GB in the upcoming Winter Olympics as the Chef Dimmission. I am looking forward to speaking to her. Also today, one of the two abuse survivors who have resigned from their role in the National Inquiry into grooming gangs, Ellie Reynolds will tell us why she felt she needed to take that step.

We'll also hear from the professor working to put a stop to the menopause gold roll. rush, as she's called it. She believes it is exploiting women. She's calling for a national education program. And I'm also delighted my colleague, Kirsty Wark, will join us, who has also thought deeply about this issue. I'll be honest, I knew pretty much next to nothing about the menopause, even into my late 40s. And when I did hear the details while chairing a session for the BBC, I heard about vaginal atrophy and brain fog. And I thought that must but only be in the extremes. And I'm wondering, how did you learn about the menopause? Are you still learning? Do you want to know more? And do you ever feel like you're being exploited by the marketing for

the menopause? I'd love to hear from you. 84844 is one way to get in touch by texting. Social media, we're at BBC Woman's Hour, or you can email us through our website for a WhatsApp message or a voice note. The number is 0-3-700-100-444. Also today, we'll chat about. about how young love and heartbreak can chart the course of our later lives that will be with the American author, Lily King. Her new book is called Heart the Lover, lovely book. We'll talk to her a little later. But let me begin with a story this morning. Two abuse survivors have resigned from their roles on the National Inquiry into grooming gangs, Fiona Goddard and Ellie Reynolds, both resigned from the victim's liaison panel, which was overseeing the process.

The Prime Minister, Sir Kier Starrmer, announced in the summer that there would be a full national statutory inquiry into grooming gangs covering England and Wales. Well, joining me now is one of the women who resigned Ellie Reynolds, who is a survivor of grooming. Good morning, Ellie. Thank you so much for giving us some of your time this morning. Can you tell us about the role off the panel that you were on? Yeah, so we were invited to this panel to, in their words, help shape the terms of reference. And we were led to believe that it was going to be a survivor-led inquiry. The terms of reference were going to be shaped by the survivors.

So overall, it was looking quite positive. And, however, it's about a month that you've been on it. You have decided to leave. Why? The emails that were back and forth, looking back into the wider picture now, you can really see how gaslighting and manipulative they were. being on the panel as well so for example before I left we were actually meant to be on

a team's meeting today with the proposed candidates and we got told and proposed candidates to chair this panel yeah and we got told that we had to submit two questions 24 hours before going on this meeting and we had like a list of bullet points underneath of what we should be asking them and and to me it was very con it was a very

controlled environment like um we weren't allowed to seek support from the survivors on the panel we weren't allowed to seek support from family friends we we were pretty much silenced and um all crowded up together I think ultimately it caused a little bit of a division between the survivors because when the chairs got leaked and survivors then started doubting you know the trust of one another and saying you know who's done this was it you was it you was it you and I think that's what they wanted. They wanted that division

because it made us weak again. But a couple of things, and I'll come back to why they might want that division in your eyes in a moment. But you talk about being gaslit, how, why? I think it's gaslighting

in the terms of being made to feel like you're there for a purpose and then discovering very soon into it because this inquiry, you know, we would like to believe that this panel would be taking place over a minimum of six months and when you like I say when you read back on the

emails and you see how it's all done we signed a confidentiality for the sake of the survivors which we would always do they come first and foremost and then what they started doing was then adding rules into that so basically like in my letter um I referred to either work with us or not at all that's the unspoken rule and that's pretty much what what came out we were ghastly to believe that we were helping and in reality we were just being controlled and silenced again. Okay, a couple of things. Why do you think that the panel or the government, as you may put it, would want division among the survivors? I think when you cause a division, it makes us a lot weaker. We're not united. We're not, you know, we've not really got a voice

at that point. And I think it intimidates the government that survivors. are actually standing up to this now. And I think that the problem here is that they don't want to actually crack down on the ethnicity and the actual subject, which is grooming gangs, which is they try to widen their range and not actually hammer down on the problem. And I think their way of dividing us was their power over us again, which ultimately has failed again. And you talk about that you felt they were trying to silence you. Yeah, with the stuff that was coming out on emails and the way that their panels were so scripted and then they were kind of like putting the survivors to like compete against each of by saying like, well, it's first come first surfer who's on the panel.

So like everybody's rushing to be able to get a say. Nobody really has a voice. And when you do have a voice in that panel, it's almost scripted to how they want it to be. You know, we got a little bit of fearful over saying what ethnicity are. reviews as are and they shouldn't be like that. OK, so that's the second time you've brought up ethnicity. Let's talk about that. Because I did read that you thought there was an attempt by the panel and the government to shy away from reporting racial or religious motives. Can you expand on that?

I think the government and police and social services, I think they're all very intimidated and scared of being seen as racist. when they're trying to cover, you know, they're trying to bring out the truth. And I think it's a lot easier for them to be able to cover up grooming gangs that are predominantly Asian males. They're predominantly Pakistan and Muslim men. And then it kind of puts us on the back burner a little bit because we can't tell the full story.

Why shouldn't we be able to say what ethnicity they are? They are our abusers. They did it to us. And I think there is cultural motivations in this. There is motives. And we need to understand that. We're not disputing the fact that. there is paedophiles and sex offenders

in every single race and religion. But what we are trying to hammer down on is that grooming gangs operate in a way that's very unique and we need to be looking at that. And do you feel, were you able to raise your concerns, for example, in the way that you are describing it to me right now to people on the panel that you felt you were being silenced? There was Louise Casey's report that stated

the ethnicity of perpetrators as British Asian and of Pakistani heritage. And the government did accept the findings of that review. Yeah, I think the panel, though, in my own opinion, I think the panel kind of disrespected Baroness cases rapid audit. They weren't going for what she was implementing, and it was very contradictory. So I don't feel like they've done any favours whatsoever.

Was it a difficult decision, however, to decide to step down? Yeah, it really was. I had to, you know, really sit and think because I really wanted to make a difference and I really wanted to be able to have a voice like I always have for everybody and not even just young girls, but young boys as well, they're just as involved in this. So it was a heartbreaking decision, but morally it wasn't right for me to stick on a panel and to be completely blunt, I would like to have walked out of there with my hands clean, which is exactly what I've done. because if this is going to turn into a scandal and cover-up, I do not want any part of it. And I think morally, that is what we had to put it down to. We don't want any part in a scandalous setup by the government. Ellie, let me read a little from the Home Office spokesperson,

which we asked for a statement this morning. The abuse of children by grooming gangs is one of the most horrific crimes imaginable. Any suggestion that this inquiry has been watered down is completely wrong. We're committed to delivering a robust, thorough inquiry that will get, to the truth. We're working urgently to appoint the best chair to take forward this work and deliver justice, putting victims and survivors at the heart of the process.

We're grateful to all those who have shared their insights with us. We share the concerns around unhelpful speculation while this process is live, which is why we will not be providing a running commentary. Your response? If they were that serious on appointing a chair that was actually going to

succeed in this inquiry, they would not have picked a farmer police officer or a farmer social worker because they are two of the main authorities that have failed young girls and boys in the past it should have been a judge it should have been somebody that was completely impartial non-biased I do not believe the home office or the government for one second

and I think everything that they say is very scripted and very manipulative for people to think that they're revolutionary and they're really not how do you feel when you hear those words I think over the years I've kind of got used to the fact that they make a mess and they try and crawl back out of it.

I am disappointed, but there again, it doesn't shock me anymore because it's all we're used to, which is sad. Let me get to, you mentioned a judge there, you mentioned not a police officer or a social worker. Do you really feel that no police officer or social worker could be correct, the correct person to be a chair? I believe that when they are in them types of employment,

you have to really look at the higher up in this and where are they receiving their orders from to cover up and stay silent. So I believe that a chair shouldn't have been linked to any employment status like a police officer or social worker, no. And I think that's regardless of who it is. I think that, you know, like you say, you have to always look at the higher up in this

and it's a lot darker than what most people are educated on. You mentioned, Judge, is there any particular person you would like to be chair? I think Maggie would be great. You're talking about Maggie Oliver? Maggie Oliver, she'd be great. But I think just somebody that's completely, you know, I think it boils down to just somebody with a bit of humanity about them that isn't taking profession over peed files.

But Maggie was part of the police force. Maggie was part of the police force, but she was also whistleblown and she has put herself in some situations that could have really a bit her on the backside. She fights and she fights fiercely. Maggie didn't take orders from the higher-up she didn't choose her profession

over paedophiles and victims and I think that's what it boils down to like I say somebody with a little bit of humanity but unfortunately nowadays we're not finding much of that in the police force and social services. Is there any circumstances under which you would rejoin the panel? No, absolutely not.

Even if they came to you and said we're going to change the composition of the questions for example or lift the restriction on speaking to others? No, it's been scripted from the start I think when you've been failed once you're very reluctant

and I think I wouldn't go near it with a 10 foot barge pole now I've quite clearly seen it scandalous I've quite clearly seen that it's scripted and I'm not, I would never put myself back in that position Ellie Reynolds one of the two abuse survivors

who have resigned from the roles on the National Inquiry into grooming gangs. The other is Fiona Goddard. Thank you very much for joining me and just remind you a little bit about the report that was out by Baroness Louise Casey. She said that the ethnicity of people involved in grooming gangs

had been shied away from by the authorities. It's a story we will continue to follow. 8444-4, if you would like to get in touch. Now, I want to turn to the American author, Lily King, Her latest, much-anticipated novel, is a love story. It's said in the 80s where student life isn't just about learning what is in your books for college, but also about others' ideas, principles, anxieties and preconceptions. The title is pinched from a card game, Heart the Lover.

It has just come out and it explores early love and loss and how they influence our choices and the people that we become. Lily joins me now. Welcome. Thank you so much, Nula. I'm so glad to be here. Now, I think, I understand, that we can thank the author and Patchett in part for this novel. It is true. It is true. I was, I'd finished my last novel, Writers and Lovers, and I was working on a political murder mystery set in the first summer of COVID. Okay. I got about 90 pages in, and I had a dead body on the first page. And I suddenly didn't care of.

about I didn't care who did it. I didn't care about anything. I was so stuck and I kept on going to my little gray notebook kind of trying to just write out the plot. Okay, so what, and I felt like I was in this formula that I didn't wanna be in. And Anne sent me a manuscript of Tom Lake. And I read about six pages, those first six pages,

and it said in a gymnasium and I was like, she's having fun. And I am having no fun and I want to have fun. And I just flipped to the back of my notebook. notebook and I started writing those college classroom scenes. And they came to you easy? They did. I had no idea this novel was even in my head.

But once it was, I saw it and I knew that we would make this big jump in time and I knew where I wanted to end up. And I really thought those college scenes were just a small backstory that was going to take about 20 pages. But they sort of, they took over for a while. and they amount to nearly half the book. Yes, it said in the 80s, the protagonist wants to be a writer. How much of her experience is based on yours?

Definitely the emotional, the desire to be a writer for sure. And I definitely write about my own emotions. I feel like I have to write about my own emotions, I have to create some fictional situations. And while I did draw from some autobiography for this book, there are huge kind of veins of fictional characters and plot that certainly didn't happen to me. The protagonist explores different beliefs and habits and lifestyles,

which can be a big part of college as well, and has the boyfriend who is religious, so there's abstention, no sex before marriage. And I was just, oh, I was thinking, I haven't read about that before. Where did that come from? Well, I, you know, it's definitely out there. And I really wanted to explore that feeling of, you know, this woman who has just become sexual,

she's only had one lover before this. And suddenly she's sort of told that her desire is a sin. And the conflict that comes with that, as well as having the conflict of actually being in love with the roommate. So as much tension as I can pile on, I will pile it on. Yeah, and it's kind of flips the script a bit because it's not like she has to hold back through shame. She is sexually liberated. Instead, it is the man in this particular instance that is holding back. I saw a really interesting detail from your background that your parents divorced in overtime.

You had 14 step siblings. How was that? yes i have two biological and and 14 um so my my father married twice after my mother each time with a number of children and then my mother to really get the numbers up married a man with seven children um so that's how how it happened um and i really do think it had a it contributed to my becoming a writer because i had these different families that i had to enter you know on a weekend or during the weekday and on holidays, and they were, they were truly four different cultures are my family of origin and my three step families. And I had to learn the rules. And my father

was very, very committed alcoholic. And so he could get quite scary when he got drunk. And so I really had to know the rules. And I had to know my stepmother's rules. And I feel like it made me sort of a watcher and an observer and with a very, very, very sort of highly tuned instrument just out of self-protection. Yes, and I think talking about some of the scenarios that you created there, obviously delving into these different cultures, for example, and you talk about it within your own family.

But when you talk about surviving as best you can and to protect yourself within these various cultures that you step into, depending on the day of the week or what family you're with, that sounds exhausting to me. Yeah. I mean, of course, when you're a kid, you don't realize it. I mean, I didn't realize how abnormal it was, really, or perhaps normal. I mean, a lot of broken families out there. And it's really only when I had my own family, my own children, my own husband, and we created our own culture that I realized, wow, this can really be peaceful.

you know it could be fun it could be easy um so that was that was a wonderful thing to discover which there can be some parallels i'm not going to do any spoilers with your book but i can see some parallels in parts with that there as well but you talk about fun is it fun uh to write sex scenes i think it's pretty fun yeah i mean i'm not a great writer of really good sex scenes i think my my forte is really the bad sex scene you know the scenes that, you know, maybe leave something to be desired. And that can be, that can be very fun too, I would say. And with this particular book, she's moving this sex and then she kind of goes back to

her books because she's trying to write as well. There's lots of references to literature. And also, I suppose, understanding different worlds. I kind of come back to that again. And how do you see that or what do you read to try and understand other people's experiences of the heart? Well, I was really interested in this book in making their own language and their language is really based on literature. And that's their banter and their passion for the written word is really kind of the way to her heart and to each of their hearts. and I was interested in creating this world

that she hadn't been in before, that she'd been in her mind but she'd never shared with somebody else and these are her first sort of really intellectual friends and she sort of, you know, blooms there with them as well as, you know, her heart really kind of growing and exploring as well. Yeah, the intellectual friends that, you know,

could give some an inferiority competition, So, for example, when you first enter that world, I'm sure they will resonate with money. And the protagonist does feel secondary to some of these confident male students who do become her friends. Have you ever experienced that yourself? Yes, definitely. I feel like my last few years in college were finally sort of meeting the people that are very like-minded and really sort of push me. forward and and they taught me about what it was to be sort of intellectually ambitious. And I think that's really important. I mean, you can kind of glide or you could really

seize the moment and push yourself forward and not in a, you know, gross kind of American way, but just, just, you know, really having fun. But, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but seeing where you can go and having confidence in your own mind. What do you mean by a gross American way? Well, I mean, there's a lot of striving that is now placed on very small children, you know, from the very beginning. And it's sort of terrible to watch. And we're watching the consequences in our adolescence and our young adults.

and, you know, what they've been pushed into. And so, I mean, that's something that I've really, really tried to avoid myself and, as a parent, try not to push in those kinds of ways. So, you know. How's it going? It's going pretty well. My children are both artists.

Well, which brings me to a mother question. You said you wouldn't be a writer. if you didn't have the restrictions that being a mother presented? Well, that is very true. I think I said that when my kids were smaller and living at home. And I think I really, it was a good thing for me to have a lot of time constraints. Huh. You're like a deadline.

Yeah. And I, if I have too much time during the day, I get less done. If I have three hours to write, I can really focus. I think that's really important for me. I think that would be nice and inspirational for some of the moms out there that are also trying to get some things done. And before I let you go, I was a huge fan of Judy Blume. You were too. And then I heard you got to know her, which is very exciting.

Did you have a favorite Judy Blume book? I did. It was, it's not the end of the world. and I believe it was her second book, at least it's the second one I read. And my mother very conveniently gave it to me just before she was going to leave my dad. And it's about a family, a girl in sixth grade whose parents divorce, and she really, really, really struggles with it. And I love that book so much.

There's so much wit and humor and they move into the city and just, that book was so exciting to me and it was realism and I really hadn't read a lot of realism as a little kid. And it was my first exposure to it and I really thought that's what I want to do. When you talk about wit and humor and moving to the city, you could be talking about your own book, Harthe Lover. Oh, thank you. We will leave it there. I loved reading it.

I will let people know that Harth The Lover is out now. The author is Lily King. Thank you so much for getting up very early for us. to us this morning on Women's Hour. Thank you. Thank you very much for all the messages coming in as well. We're going to talk about menopause in just a moment and let me read one of them coming in.

I went through the menopause with no obvious symptoms at all. My periods just petered out and stopped. I wonder whether being very disabled with multiple cirrhosis meant I couldn't notice any other health issues. An older female friend once said to me she quite liked it. She lived in a chilly old house and enjoyed having hot flushes. and she said, I can have sex whenever I like. Some of us find the menopause no problem, really, so says Helen.

Thinking about Judy Blume and, you know, are you there? God, it's me, Margaret. Somebody was saying she needs to start writing again and do the menopausal version of dear old Margaret. I know it's a book I would read. I do want to let you know, before we talk about the menopause, that our new episode of The Woman's Hour Guide to Life is out now, available only on BBC Sounds. It's all about turning aging into your superpower.

It's both connected in some ways. Here's a clip from gerontologist, Dr. Kerry Burnight. I think when someone says you look good for your age, I think you can stop it right there and say, I just look good. I mean, you can, or when people say, oh, you don't look like you're 58 years old. You can say, this is what 58 looks like. So I think that the little kind of ageist zingers that we get all day long, half of them are from ourselves, half of them are from other people, I think it's possible to proactively decide each day, I am going to make a difference so that the people who come behind me, our daughters, won't have as much of a struggle as we have had, that we can start to change this narrative for people who follow. us.

Gary Byr night there, thanks to her. To hear the Woman's Hour Guide to Life, just go to BBC Sound, search for Woman's Hour. If you scroll down in the feed, you will find the Guide to Life episodes. Now, I do want to move on to the menopause, as I mentioned, because women's health academics at University College London

are calling for an education program to combat misinformation and unregulated advice about the menopause. Their study found that millions of women are being exploited by what they call the menopause gold rush amid a lack of reliable information. So the lead author of the study is Professor Joyce Harper from UCL's Elizabeth Garrett-Anderson Institute for Women's Health and she joins me now.

Good morning, Professor. Good to have you with us. As does my colleague Kirstie Wark. The presenter, of course, you'll know for many years on Newsnight and also her documentaries raising awareness around the menopause as well as continuing to broadcast. Good to have you with us, Kirstie. I'd love to be with you.

I just want to read one of the comments. coming in. Let me see. Everyone seems to be jumping on the bandwagon, face creams, collagen powders and so much more. Education is the thing, though. We are unique women who need to be prepared and families' partners need the information normalized and knew next to nothing about menopause and had symptoms at 40, so went to the GP. Was ignored and refused any help being told I was too young. I'm 55 now and have things mainly under control, but I'm thinking about HRT as I still get very tired and have brain fog. Let's keep getting the word out. That's Kate in North Wales.

Just really kicking us off, Joyce, on what it is you are trying to get across to people. What made you look into this? Well, comments from Kate are exactly why we're doing this work. So myself and Chimitaric, my co-worker, we've been researching around menopause and asking thousands of women around the UK what they feel and what they think about menopause

and what they know. And we're not surprised to know that they were very uneducated about it. When were we ever taught about it? So we have been working for the last couple of years in trying to set up a co-designed evidence base and very inclusive, listening to every woman so that we can run an education and support program

that we hope will be free to everybody. And as you said, not just women, also people with ovaries that may not identify as women will go through the menopause as well, but also men need to understand this. Because every man knows a woman who will one time have the menopause. So, and it is a menopause gold rush out there.

As you said, shampoo, chocolate. We've got to make sure women understand what's really beneficial to helping them through this life transition. Kirstie, are you surprised that so few have the information, have the knowledge? I'm not surprised. I think that the problem was that back when I did a menopause documentary eight years ago, women were really invisible to the whole of society in a way through the menopause, that nobody knew about it, nobody cared about it, and it was embarrassing.

In the intervening years, what's happened is there's menopause policies, the BBC has one, women are getting more support from their GPs and from other women. There's lots of different groups. There's now menopause cafe set up after the documentary. However, the flip side of that, and what makes me so angry about this, is having been marginalised and ignored, even though the menopause is not choice, for so many centuries, the intervening eight years has actually, caused a multi-billion pound industry to explode with absolutely no evidence. Now, in my last

documentary, I talked to women, some of whom were spending 150 pounds a month on supplements, which promised the earth, end hot flushes, end brain fog. And in a way, because, you know, you could actually say much more easily than you could ever say in a medical product, a medical product has to be absolutely reviewed and everything else. However, you know, who needs menopause shampoo, for God's sake. Who needs menopause chocolate? Who needs menopause pajamas? But when women are still desperate, because they perhaps don't know enough, they're not getting enough support from their GP, they're maybe not going to have support from their families, they'll cling on to things. And I am so angry that women are being exploited. And so we went

through a whole pile of different products, you know, and I wouldn't name them here, but we went through all these products. The efficacy of them are known to nobody, but the claims they made are known to everybody. And I suppose as you underline there, because people are looking for a solution, that's where they go. But I'm wondering, Joyce, I mean, what sort of course can you design and how will you get it out to people that combats some of the issues that Kirstie is raising there? Yeah, and I totally agree with Kirstie. It makes me very, very angry as well. Women are being exploited. Put the word menopause in front of any product and you sell more at a much higher price. So what we want to do is we've been listening to people, we've done workshops, we've

done focus groups. The report out yesterday is about a survey that we did asking women how they want to learn. And we are designing two programs. So the first is called be prepared for men which ideally we want everybody, including men, to have, but women to have under the age of 40 where we can tell them the basics of the menopause and what the symptoms are, what the treatments are, and also about lifestyle. But where would it be? How would they access? it. We want this to be in local communities. We want it to be in libraries, in local hospitals, in doctors surgeries. We want this to also be online because some of the women like neurodivergent women have said we probably won't want to go to a group. We'd like to have

this online. So definitely online as well. But ideally also through our companies and employers. But then we hope that women will then identify and join up the dots of various symptoms they may have that may be causing them perimenopause symptoms. And when they're actually in the midst of it, we want them to come to a more deeper course, which would be supported through menopause, very similar to what we go to when we're pregnant and have that peer support and then learn while we're actually in it, in the midst of it, appropriate education that will help hopefully improve our quality of life. It's interesting. I threw it out to our listeners this morning.

And I have a couple already that say the menopause has been turned into an illness. Some of us have no symptoms whatsoever. We're lucky, but it should be kept in perspective and not made out to be a totally negative experience. Another says, I'm 58, I think I'm through the menopause. I've had no symptoms, no issues. I know other women suffer, but really there's too much fuss. It's like with everything else.

Have a stiff upper lip, says Barbara. I'd like it. Kirsty, let me start with you. That's fine and well. And no two people have exactly the same menopause. I understand that. But then it's not an illness. It's something we all go through, but then I'm telling you right now, if men went through it, you know, we know everything about it.

You know, I actually believe that women are their own enemies when it sometimes comes to sharing conversations, supporting each other. But let's just go back to basics here, and Joyce will know about this. You know, we want women to have the best information so that they can get through, as it were, it's a long process, get through the menopause and feel really positive at the end of it. because it is a positive thing, you've got a lot more freedom and lots of ways at the end of that. However, the basics are still there that some women do not know what the best dosage of estrogen and progester on it is from go to your GP. Obviously, you know, when things aren't working, there's this temptation to ask for a higher HRT dose, which is tricky in the NHS anyway and is not necessarily condoned. And so there's lots of other people out there. and I think we should be very careful about over-medicalising the menopause.

Joyce, you're much, much better at that than I am. I totally agree, Kirsty. We really are making women out that this is an illness. This is this terrible thing that's going to happen to everybody. But 20% of women do not have symptoms. And we had lots of responses yesterday to our article that was in the press. And the term that kept coming up was gaslighting. So apparently we're gaslighting if we're trying to educate,

women that women have different experiences. And I heard some women on the chat were saying, oh, they do all have symptoms. Those that say they don't, just don't realize. That's gaslighting other women saying, no, there is something wrong with you. You just don't realize. I think we've got a lot of angry women out there. And we hope that in the next 10 years that we educate people and get rid of that noise. It's so noisy. Yes. The thing is that go on to menopause matters, things that are trusted websites. Those are the things. Don't be taken in by huge amounts of advertising around meaningless products

that are only going to deplete your purse and make you feel insecure because they're not helping you. A couple more messages coming in. Another, let me see, Christine, I learned about the menopause from my midwifery training but only from an anatomy and physiological perspective. I never truly believed I would suffer the way that I did. I was forced to leave my job because I couldn't cope. I suffered vaginal atrophy, which has resulted in no intimacy

with my much-loved partner of 25 years and now I have osteoporosis. I was not given H.R.T. Joyce. Yes, we need to stop these situations. We need to make sure everyone's educated and we do need to go to our GP with some information about where we feel we are. Our GPs at the moment, officially, they're supposed to only look at one symptom when we go to visit them.

Obviously, if you're in the perimenopause, chances are you've got more than one symptom. So by educating women, we can help them understand whether they can cope with this on their own or whether they need medical care. And if they do, we want to help them to understand when to go and how to discuss this with their GP. It's interesting because there is the medical aspect and indeed we do advise people to go to their GP if they are concerned and want advice. Another, let me see.

Every time I have an ache, cough, cold, etc., someone says to me, oh, maybe it's the menopause. I'm 43 and people have been saying this to me for at least five years. I'm fed up hearing about it. You're smiling, Joyce. But what age are you targeting this education program? Did you say from 40? Well, we want, so the menopause doesn't happen miraculously at age 51.

The normal age we can go through the menopause is between age 45 and 55, and we can get symptoms from up to 5, 10 years before that. So having symptoms in your late 30s is quite possible for some women, certainly early 40s. So we want to target women under 40 so that they are prepared for menopause. And then, as we said, the supporting through menopause will be when they're actually having the symptoms. But we've got to help women join the dots and understand that, yes, I agree with your. previous speaker. Not everything that happens to a woman over 40s because of the menopause and that's another

we have to be very careful of that really polluting and missing other conditions that could be happening. And I think that comes from going back to Kirsty's point that there's been so much marketing and kind of an explosion and everybody hit over the head. I don't even think you have to be in my

demographic to get it that now everybody kind of just puts it down to the menopause. Another one. Constantly told you're too young to be going through the menopause by male GPs, constantly been told by male managers, oh, why don't you smile more? Oh, you're so sensitive nowadays.

Not knowing how I will be feeling on a daily basis, which words I'd be struggling with with my brain fog, yet being told it's all in your head. I am floored by it. So says San. Kirstie spoke to Joyce there about, you know, the medical world around it. What about, how do you see it

societally now? You talked about like that documentary being eight years ago. Yes. Society, we're in a situation where women by and large are having children a little older. They're staying in work. There might be at the peak of their career, but they're also often dealing with elderly parents who they want to support. So it's absolutely critical crunch point that a lot of women are going through the menopause. And can I just explain there is nothing to be ashamed of by talking about it. When I did the first documentary, we didn't name, we named this woman, we didn't

say what she did. She went through terrible redness. you know, fury. She was head of nursing services in one of the biggest hospitals. You know, we need to talk to each other about it. I think that if you could find a menopause cafe and then go along, they're everywhere in the UK, talk to other women.

Women are the best advocates for other women. And try to remember as well, then previous generations, you know, women were called some dry old sticks for the time they were kind of 45-50. And that was women being dismissed. and othered. We can pay an absolutely full and happy part in life

after the pay. I went through a hard menopause in my 40s when I had hysterectomy. My consultant, who was brilliant, didn't even know about a menopause support online, and it was the nurses who told me. And you know what? The problem is, since ever there was a connection now erroneous between breast cancer

and HRT, GPs stopped giving out HRD, and often women are fobbed off. with antidepressants. You must be advocates for yourself and advocates for other women. And, you know, we will get better, but just don't be duped

and not be afraid to ask for help. Yes. Somebody is just picking up on your point there, Christy, saying, you know, we should go to the GP for our symptoms, but sometimes we go and our GPs tell us to get on with it. They don't know about dosage. It can be terrible living with this. And let's find some empathy, she says, for other women

with different experiences. Here's another one for Joyce and Christy. we should be celebrating the menopause as a right of passage. It's like puberty. Our brain changes. Postmenopausal, I feel wiser. My brain is as changed, but for the better. There are so many benefits.

Medical intervention, what she's saying, and HRT should be a last resort for others. Of course, it is the first port of call. We leave that to each individual woman. But it is interesting, that concept. Reading about it this morning, there was a lovely piece by Stella Duffy in The Guardian, who talked about Guatemalan women,

who saw their hot flushes as their animal spirit rising. What do you think about that, Kirstie? Well, I think it's fine. It's just that you don't want your animal spirit to rise of an odd time or an awkward time, which sometimes, I mean, honestly, I still go through hot flushes now and then, and I am 70 for God's sake.

So it is a process. You know, this happens, but I do believe that we have to actually change the attitude towards the men of ours. It is, as it were, a 30. And in that third age, you will be for many, many years, I hope, because I hope women will live longer and happy lives. So I think that we just have to encourage more employers to be much more empathetic. And I think we have to, look, I'll just do one very quick story.

Yes, please. I was doing a session for the BBC on the menopause talking primarily, it was to women. And there was this wonderful producer, and she said that she could not believe this was really the first time she was talking about it. I said, well, what are your circumstances? You said, well, I've got three sisters. And I said, what, you've got three sisters? Have you talked about the menopause? Oh, no, we would never talk about that.

And I thought, oh, my goodness, what a shame. You know, mothers in the past sometimes didn't talk to the daughters. My mother didn't. But I actually think, you know, just have that conversation. You know, please talk about it. You know, we should actually have some strip cartoons about it. We should also have some funny things about it. Because it will be a superpower.

Don't worry about period pains anymore. Don't worry about getting pregnant anymore. It is actually, turn it into superpower. I love that. Kirsty Wark, thank you very much for joining us, also kind of adding into that theme of ageing. As it's superpower, we also had a professor, Joyce Harper. Thank you for all your messages.

They continue to come in, keep in coming, 84844. Right, we're going to turn to something different. The ice rinks of Percher, for example, all the way to the top of the Olympic podium in Beijing. I am talking about Eve Muirhead, who is considered a titan of British sport. She was the first woman to captain a British team to Olympic Gold and Curling.

She's now the chef demission for Team G.B. At the 2026 Winter Olympics, they're going to be taking place in Milan and Cortina all across the north of Italy, which for the first time has reached 47% female participation in those Olympics. Equal race distances in cross-country skiing. So Eve has also published her memoir, Ice Queen.

The autobiography, welcome, Eve, to Women's Hour. Thank you very much for having me. Great title. Yeah, no, thank you. I don't take much of thinking that. Did it not? Did it come to you quickly? Well, do you know what?

It's a funny story where it came from. Like, my first games in Vancouver didn't quite go our way. We started off very well, and then things started to kind of hit rock bottom a little bit. And I just remember the headline on the front of the paper was, like, the ice queen has melted. No! No! No! So that's where it came from.

And because that was obviously a very difficult time after Canada and you've come back to brilliant success. But how do you remember that time, say with a headline like that, which has been very unhelpful, and how to navigate your way back to the top? Yeah, like I wish success was linear, but unfortunately it's not. And my career, I guess, definitely shows that. When you're younger, I guess you're really fearless.

You're not really scared of losing. And that was the way I was, and I really enjoyed it. But then as my career kind of progressed, you maybe had a little bit more pressure on yourself. You're representing not just Scotland, but you're representing Team Great Britain. And then those kind of small mistakes then kind of escalated. I became a little bit scared of losing.

I would kind of overthink everything. and I guess that's what happened to me, mid-career. And, yeah, on the back of not qualifying for Beijing first time around in Canada, like, yeah, I contemplated giving up the sport and it was a pretty tough time. But I managed to pull myself back together and I'm glad I did.

A lot of resilience there and, of course, finishing off my career with that gold medal in Beijing. I know, incredible. And just to bring people back, winning bronze and such, you were 23, you were the youngest captain or skip, as it was known.

And you were also talking about, of course, that gold in Beijing. But your chef de Mission now for Team GB, four months to go until the Winter Olympics. And I was having a look. Quite an expanse of geography there, shall we say, from Milan all the way up to the borders, over to Cortina de Petsa,

where you will be having a lot off the winter sports. What do you need to do now? Are you like a cheerleader-in-chief? Yeah, so a very different role for myself being the chef de Mischon. I lead, manage and support the entire delegation and I'm really, really enjoying it. It's been very much a challenge at times, but a challenge that I'm really, really enjoying. What's the challenge? What is the difficult pig to try? Is it like herding cats? Yeah, so I'm obviously

not just working with curling. Like I'm working with all the winter sports and you've got a lot of kind of tough decisions to make because like my main goal for this role is to make. It's to make sure we create the perfect platform for these athletes to perform on out in Milano Cortina. I want the environment to be perfect. I want these athletes to go out there and just be kind of tunneled vision when it comes to competing and to perform at the very best they can. So there's absolutely no pressure from us, but obviously behind the scenes it's very different. We're working very hard in creating that team environment because of course the athletes are our number one priority

but we need everyone to perform and we need all the coaches, support staff HQ staff and if we can bring everyone together have that one team GB ethos then I know for a fact that we're going to have a really great games out in Italy. Just to hark

back for a moment to when you were off at a lowest ebb as you talk about it and you took treatment from Zara Lipsi, I heard a psychologist and she had your mood and form transformed obviously that resulted in goals, but I'm wondering the lessons you learn from that and how do you impart that to this team that you are leading?

In some ways it feels intangible, right, to have, but it is all about being psychologically in the right spot for a great team. It absolutely is and I think one of my kind of strengths is that leadership and it's something that I've had right through my career being the skipper, the captain of my team, performing under pressure, as well and just making sure in getting the most out of your team. I think that's really important. But I want to make sure that we've got the same energy on day one of the games to day 17 of the games because that's exactly what matters. And I don't think we've ever been

more competitive across more sports than what we are just now. We look back at the current winter season and we had nine world championship medals. So we really are going in with great potential and you know what who doesn't love the winter olympics everyone is glued to it we've got everything from kind of speed style like you name it and obviously a lot of chaos thrown in as well yeah love the chaos but 47% female participation with equal race distances in cross-country skiing how significant is that oh i think it's i think it's great obviously we have no say in the athletes that that we take to olympic games like it's the athletes that that qualify and but i know in recent times at the summer edition of the games

there was more female athletes featured than male, which is fantastic. And I think you've just got to look at what's happening lately in the world of sport in Great Britain, from the lionesses to the red roses to the England cricket team just now. So I think we're in a really great place, and it is great to see that female participation is on the up. You know, winter sports often feel quite exotic to some. Maybe it's because we don't have an abundance of snow or ice at times.

But what sports would you encourage women or girls to take up? What's possible in the UK? Well, do you know what? I think any sport is possible. Like, as I mentioned, like, of course, we're not a nation that's known for its kind of natural winter sport facilities. But what we do know is that we can make those sports happen. Dry ski slopes, ice rinks. You look at the bobsleigh and skeleton and luis, the sliding guys.

Like, they're using a push track down in bath. It's a great image. And now we're looking at you've got two world champions in skeleton, current, and also the bronze medal for the four-man Bob as well. So, like, we really are in a really good shape, but I think any sport is possible to give a go. And I look at my sport of curling. People are like, well, where can you give curling a go?

And, of course, there's ice drinks all around the country, obviously more up in Scotland than down here in England. But you just need to look online and see what's available. But to me, sport is such a crucial part of life. It's not all about pushing yourself to the kind of maximum limits, like what us as full-time athletes do. It's about keeping active. And I do believe the more kind of active you can be,

the more physically, mentally that helps. What advice are you giving to the athletes who, you know, want to achieve their dream on one of the biggest stages imaginable? Well, that's it. the Olympic Games is the biggest sporting stage in the world. And these athletes have earned their right to be there. They've worked very hard throughout the seasons and a very tough few months coming up for them

with qualification to get that plane ticket to Italy. But me, of course, I'm there to give as much or as little advice as possible. And what the sports do really well is, they'll be replicating what the environment's going to be like out at the Olympic Games. And like for me, I want to create the environment that they are used to and create the kind of atmosphere, the platform. And if I can do that, then you just let the athletes do

what they want and need to do. And if they need absolutely anything, that's what we are here for. We are here to deliver the perfect kind of set up for them. And yeah, if they want to come and speak to me, absolutely. My door is always open. Do you want to in 10 seconds give me one female athlete's name we should watch out for? I think figure skating, Leila Fier, obviously partner Lewis as well, but they're doing fantastic bronze medal at the world last year

and they recently just won another Grand Prix medal out in Paris. We will be watching. Thank you very much for joining us. Eve Muirhead and her memoir, Ice Queen. The autobiography is out now. Do join me tomorrow. We're going to talk about the Nasebo effect. If you don't know what it is, you will by the end of tomorrow's program.

Also, Eileen Langsley, who has photographed some of the world's biggest sports. events will also be with me. I'll talk to you then. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hello, it's Ray Winston. I'm here to tell you about my podcast on BBC Radio 4. History's toughest heroes. I've got stories about the pioneers, the rebels, the outcasts who define tough. And that was the first time that anybody ever ran a car up that fast with no tires on. It almost feels like your eyeballs are going to come out of your head. for you? Subscribe to History's toughest heroes on BBC Sounds.