Woman's Hour - International Women in Engineering Day

Episode Date: June 21, 2019

Sunday 23rd June is International Women in Engineering Day. We hear from three female engineers about their routes into the industry. Why despite various campaigns to attract women is it still such a male-dominated trade? The Resolution Foundation Think Tank studied changes in pay, housing, taxes and benefits to see if it was still true that newer generations are better off than their predecessors were. It found under-30s are spending less than that age group did 18 years ago. Over-65s' spending has risen by 37%. But they also found a huge gender wealth gap for baby boomers. While men and women have similar amounts of individual net wealth until their 50s, a huge divide opens up after that. The report finds that women in their late 60s have just over half the wealth of their male counterparts. Jenni speaks to Laura Gardiner, Research Director for The Resolution Foundation, to find out why.Friendship in modern times: longing for closer ties in the digital age, forging close friends as family, and idealised female friendship in the media – is social media making us lonely, and do we have perhaps ever higher expectations of those real life friends we do have? How important are our friends and what expectations should we realistically have? The author Jessica Francis Kane, whose character in new book, Rules For Visiting, longs for closer ties and has high expectations of her few and distant friends; is joined by Natalie Lue of the Baggage Reclaim blog and podcast; and by friendship expert Kate Leaver, author of The Friendship Cure: Reconnecting in the Modern World and friendship columnist for Metro.As part of Radio 4’s Four Seasons poetry we celebrate the summer solstice with the poet and academic Elizabeth-Jane Burnett. She reads ‘Preface’ from her poetry collection Swims. Presenter: Jenni Murray Producer: Kirsty StarkeyInterviewed Guest: Laura Gardiner Interviewed Guest: Naomi Climer Interviewed Guest: Michelle Hicks Interviewed Guest: Olivia Sweeney Interviewed Guest: Jessica Francis Kane Interviewed Guest: Natalie Lue Interviewed Guest: Kate Leaver Interviewed Guest: Elizabeth-Jane Burnett

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, Jenny Murray welcoming you to Friday's edition of the Woman's Hour podcast. It's the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, which means, of course, a poem for the season. Elizabeth Jane Burnett will read her preface. This Sunday will be International Women in Engineering Day. Three engineers of different generations discuss their work, what they love about it and how they got there in the first place. And friend is a word that's been somewhat debased on social media.

What does friendship really mean and how is it best nurtured? Now, as you may have read in the news, it's been confirmed that the younger generations are not better off than their predecessors were. Today's under-30s are spending less than the similar age group did 18 years ago. But those who've passed the 65 mark are spending 37% more than their parents did. But the Resolution Foundation think tank, which carried out the research, found a big gap between men and women in that older age group. Women in their late 60s have just over half the wealth of their male counterparts. Laura Gardner is the foundation's research director. Why are women in their 60s so much worse off than men of the same age?

So what we're looking at here is wealth. So that's people's houses, their pensions and their financial assets. And we often think about that at a household level. So people in a household share their wealth. But because, you know, families break down, they change, people are deceased. It's good to look at what the individual has. So what the divide here represents is different amounts of pension saving and financial assets between men and women. So if you split those out, when people are in couples separately, this is where you get this

big gap over a half. So what's driving it is historic differences in pay, really large gender pay gap when these women were coming through the workforce, more time spent out of work, and a private pension system that was really geared towards men. So who had the big, generous, defined benefit pensions in the past? It was largely in sectors, industries and types of jobs dominated by men. And that is what's driving this gap today. But why, if there's separation or divorce are these things these assets not just divided equally between them? So I think that's a really good

question we're not necessarily saying that's the case so we know that when there's separation or divorce often the assets do get divided I think it's quite often the case that women in partnerships will be more likely to hold on to housing assets, with men holding on to kind of longer term financial and pension assets. But this is a complicated issue. It's not always the case that these things don't get divided equally or somewhat equally. But when separation happens in the in the 50s, you sort of you go off on your own way at that point. And you find yourself in your late 60s often with a lot less because of the kind of career you've been through during a working life.

What's been the effect of changes to the state pension age on this? So I think these gaps sort of coincide with people affected by changes to the state pension age. The changes to the state pension age have come alongside changes to the value of the state pension age. The changes to the state pension age have come alongside changes to the value of the state pension. So the introduction of the new single tier state pension, which do tend to benefit women relative to men, because the old state pension system was very, very generous to men who had quite high earnings over the course of their lives, so made lots of national insurance contributions. So the state pension is a bit of a complex issue, but it's definitely worth looking at these things in the round,

because although the value of the state pension might be better for women than it was in the past, some women, some of the same women that are experiencing these wealth gaps, are having to wait years longer to receive it. What will happen to the younger generations as they reach their late 60s? and women have very similar amounts. So you'd expect as that cohort ages, as that cohort moves towards retirement, you'd expect the gap to be much smaller. We have a different pension system. We have a much smaller gender pay gap, although it's still there. The question is, to what extent can we make sure that gap doesn't open up or opens up as little as possible as younger women today move towards retirement? Because wealth, these pensions and financial assets, is really important to supporting living standards

and providing income security in old age in particular. So what can these young women do to try and combat the gap? Well, I think that changes to pension saving, like the introduction of auto-enrolment, are part of the story about how we ensure that different groups in society both men and women higher and lower earners all start to put something away for retirement and that's generally been quite a successful reform so I think it's about building on the success of auto-enrollment to try and get contributions up with a particular focus on more contributions from employers and more for low earners and also just

continuing to make progress on gender equality in the labour market so who takes time out around childbirth, maternity policies and continuing to focus on the gender pay gap because it's what people get out the labour market that drives how much they can save for the future. And then as life expectancy rises, what will happen to the wealth gap? Well, I think that's a really interesting question. The big factor there is the difference between the two main types of pensions, defined benefit, where you've sort of got a right to a certain income for every year you live, and defined contribution, where you've sort of got a right to a certain income for every year you live, and defined contribution, where you end up with a pot on retirement, and it's now very much kind of your job to decide how to spread that out.

So defined benefit pensions are effectively protected against rising longevity, people living longer. Defined contributions, not so much. So there is a big gender divide in who has each, and I think that will drive who's at risk of big increases in life expectancy. So it's important for us to de-risk pension saving for the future to help people protect themselves against their own rising life expectancy, which is obviously a really good thing. And that's particularly important for women and lower earners who are more likely to have defined contribution savings. Laura Gardner, thank you very much indeed for joining us this morning.

Now, Sunday has been dubbed International Women in Engineering Day. You would think by now it would be hardly necessary to have such a day, given the number of campaigns there have been to attract girls and women into the industry. But still, only 12% of all engineers in the UK are female, and that figure is the lowest in Europe. Why is it still relatively rare for a girl to choose a career in engineering? And for those who do choose it, what's the best way in and what range of jobs is on offer? Well, Naomi Clymer, CBE, is Vice President at the Royal Academy of Engineering. She started in broadcasting and qualified in 1987. Michelle Hicks graduated in 2014. She's a civil engineer

and Olivia Sweeney is a chemical engineer and ambassador for the campaign This Is Engineering. Olivia, what appealed to you about engineering? For me, it was about the cross between practical and also theoretical. So I was always interested in science, but I felt like I needed to do something that made more of a tangible impact. And I'm really interested in the environment and sustainability. So I felt like equipping myself as an engineer was the best way to make a real impact in that area of the world. And why did you choose the type of engineering you chose? That was a bit of luck so I studied a really broad range of A-levels so I had chemistry and math so it matched up for me and I think the

link to science that chemical engineering has because you do have that chemistry backing, was appealing for me. Michelle, what drew you in? For me, it was an interest in roller coasters and theme parks that really inspired my passion for engineering and where I've ended up to today. So I was fortunate that I had very supportive parents. And actually, my dad took me to a lecture at the University of Reading about the design of roller coasters. And at that point, it really was at that moment where I put two and two together. And I realised I could take my passion for visiting theme parks, which was always the most amazing day of the year for me when I got to go on my birthday. And I was able to make that into a career. So from that, I started investigating the different routes in engineering. And I realised civil engineering was what appealed to me most because you're able to make these amazing structures, not just roller coasters, but buildings and bridges.

And from that, I went on to study, chose my A-levels to do that. So I studied maths and physics, which are kind of the cornerstones of civil engineering. Went on to study at the University of Surrey. And here I am today working as a project manager at Chessington World of Adventures Resort for Merlin Entertainments and delivering their new attractions and rides. And can presumably go on a roller coaster whenever you choose. A few times, you know, when you've had a difficult day. It does help de-stress when you're able to just go around the corner and go on a roller coaster.

So perks of the job, absolutely. Naomi, what drew you to engineering? Well, it was more accidental for me. It hadn't occurred to me that engineering was even an option for me. But in fact, because my first job was at the BBC, they ran a positive action campaign to persuade women into engineering. And so I came in that way. But the moment I arrived, I realised that I loved it. And I've had a sort of fabulous time of it, going all over the world and doing all sorts of things. And the BBC was a fun place to work. But everywhere I've worked in engineering has been really great. And these days, I'm much more engrossed in the future of work, would you believe,

where there's a very big technology component in what that's going to do. And so I'm still managing to find new avenues to pursue in engineering it's been it's been a really great 30 odd years. But 1987 how unusual were you as a woman coming into it? I think in in the BBC there were sort of 150 engineers of which two were women so it was it was pretty quite small pretty small yes but I mean's maddening, as you said at the beginning, that I think when I came in overall in the industry, there were about 8% of engineers were women and now we're up to 12 over 30 years.

So it is maddening that it's so slow to improve. Olivia, what kind of attitudes did you face? A girl going into engineering. Oh, dear. institutes did you face a girl going into engineering oh dear um so I think I was lucky in the fact that I was raised in an environment in which I could do anything and nothing was going to stop me from doing what I wanted to do but I think then once you chose it you get the questions asked afterwards so it was almost like that so you do get a bit of when people asked you what you were studying or what you would do, there's always kind of the shock reaction of old chemical engineering.

And that doesn't really add up with what I expect when I see you or when I'm talking to you. And even now, when at work, when I'm interacting with people, not necessarily in my company, but in with other relationships we have, there's people never guess that I have the knowledge that I do and have the understanding of what I do and you have to word things or ask questions in such a way that prove you're constantly proving your worth in that respect and that you can't be hoodwinked into doing whatever they want just because I'm quite young to have the responsibility I do and you know I'm a woman and present myself like I do. Michelle what about you? I think in my role I do spend quite a lot of time on construction sites so looking at the work being completed instructing change and I think with that there comes a certain level of oh we weren't quite

expecting a woman to come on site however I think a lot of it is about having confidence in your own abilities and showing that you know your stuff. And with that then comes the respect. So for me, that's been the main thing is just knowing that I know what I'm talking about and having that whatever I'm doing. It's the same way with another part of my job is attending a lot of design meetings and coordination. So when you're doing that as well, the industry is definitely changing and I never see any issue with any kind of preconception about being female. It's all about how you uphold yourself and how you come across when you're kind of carrying out your daily roles as an engineer. Because it would be surprising if the same sort of shock that Naomi might have faced all those years ago would still be there for you.

We've talked about it so much does it shock you olivia there's even the question um i definitely think it's i assume it's improved massively over the time and it's it's definitely better um it does surprise me that it's not as it hasn't moved forward as much as we would all hope. But I think, as I said, it was never a question for me that I could do anything. So there is that element of change. And it then came in later that I was not the norm that was expected for my role or my study. So I think, so my age group and younger

have the expectation of that everything is possible and that anyone can do anything. So once we feed further and further into the industry that will start to change but it's changing minds that were set 30 years ago or 40 years ago and that obviously still has an impact on how my career and my peers careers can progress because that's where a lot of the power is held so michelle it's interesting that the university of eindhoven which specializes in in technology in the netherlands has just announced it will only take female candidates for the next 18 months to try and redress their balance where they're very short of women what do you make of

that decision so um i think from my perspective i i'm strongly against any sort of quotas or changes to um who can actually apply for jobs, because if I was in that position and I was to then get that job as a female, I'd always feel uncomfortable in the fact that people are saying, oh, you've only got that job because you're a woman. Now, I think it is difficult and we need ways to make change in the industry. But I do think that's too radical. And I think there are other ways we can address sort of the preconceptions people have. There's been quite a lot of research into unconscious bias during interviews.

So I think another way to tackle it is actually if we can educate the people interviewing of perhaps any tendencies they have to favour certain people. And they may not even realise that, but as humans, we generally have... We sympathise more with people that look like ourselves, have similar backgrounds. And we can train that out of people. And I think then we're looking more at the person. We're not taking into account just only gender, but any other differences within people,

because it's not just women we want to encourage into the industry. It's a more diverse range of people all together. And if we can do that we've got different ideas and everyone comes together and that's what brings innovation to the industry and that's absolutely what we need moving forward as we start to to come up with new ideas. Naomi what did you make of the Eindhoven decision? Well I mean I can understand Michelle's worry about it and it's very radical but what they said in the in the article was that they've spent 10 years trying to get better diversity on their teaching staff through you know more evolutionary methods and they just haven't made any progress and so they feel they've got to do something and they did a nice job of describing

why that matters because they're saying their research and their teaching will be better if they have better diversity on the staff. And they think they can attract more female students if they've got better diversity. And so I think it's scary. I think it will be divisive and unpopular. And I think there are a lot of men and women that won't like that. But I kind of I have lost patience with this. So I will be really watching with interest to see what kind of a difference that makes. It's dramatic, but you know, let's hope that works. And if it does, we'll have to take a long look. Now with your impatience, how much impact would you say

recruiting campaigns are having? Because there have been so many of them. Yeah, I mean, that's in a way, that's my frustration, because there's a lot goes on in this space. We've talked about it over the years and campaigns like This Is Engineering. And there's all sorts of ways that engineering is being demonstrated, the amazing careers. And yet still, we're not attracting women. And so I do feel that it may be we need to do something a bit more radical. I'm nervous about it because I think it will be uncomfortable for a number of years while that's going on. But maybe if we can make that sort of step change, we'll finally get there. And it really matters because as you move into things like artificial intelligence, we need women designing this stuff. These things are going to impact our lives. It's going to

affect the way that we're living. I'd like to think that someone that has some sense of what my life is like is doing that designing. So it really matters. It's not just a nice thing to have, it matters for the whole world. What's your campaign trying to address, Olivia? Because you're actually involved in it. Yeah, so it's looking at highlighting different career paths that are available through engineering that aren't necessarily the preconceived notion of men in hard hats or the stereotypical mechanical engineer that you see

or a lot of the preconceived notion about what engineering is. So it highlights different career paths and the different types of people and work and careers that you can get out of it. When you referred to AI and it being really important that women should be involved in it, what type of engineers need to right up to mechanics and robotics. So there's quite a breadth there and even civil because there's kind of AI in buildings and in vehicles. So what you could do in that is enormous. But the point about AI is it's trying to make decisions for you, you know, think things through, do research, come up with conclusions.

And actually, you need a number of different perspectives thinking about how to program that, how to teach it what it needs to do. So already, it's talked about a lot that there's problems with bias and discrimination in artificial intelligence. So a lot of companies now use AI for the first round of recruiting. So, you know, AI will go off and look at all the incoming CVs and decide which ones are going to get interviewed. And it's become apparent that the bias that was there when humans were doing it is still there. And so understanding what we can do to overcome that is quite an interesting engineering challenge. So even artificial intelligence can be sexist? I know, it's terrible, sexist and racist. And that's sad because actually a computer really ought to be able to overcome that.

But we haven't worked out how not to transfer our own prejudices into the programming. So we need to get on top of that. So what would you say the future looks like with jobs for women generally? What range, Michelle, do you see? I think that the great thing about engineering is it's one of those jobs that we are going to need, regardless of how much computers move forward. Yes, there are certain things that artificial intelligence can help us with. But at the end of the day, you need the different people coming around the table with their different ideas to come up with the best design solutions.

But even listening there to Naomi, I'm thinking, are there so many ways we could use that artificial intelligence in what I do? I mean, you can make an attraction that responds to how people are feeling. You can monitor emotions, you can monitor heartbeats, and you can change, therefore, what the next section of that attraction does. Does it go faster? Does it go slower? So, I mean, it's really endless. That's just one example of the ways engineering

is continually growing and we need to make sure we've got those people coming up with new skill sets and ever-involving skill sets that can actually help people who've been in industry for quite a while. You made my heart beat faster just thinking about going on such a roller coaster just quickly around each of you what's been the highlight of your career Naomi? Oh all the travel and the incredible people that I've met. Michelle? For me it was seeing our four Amur tigers going into their brand new habitat at Chessington when we built a new enclosure for them and we were able to open up for the first time and see them exploring a really amazing feeling. Olivia? I'm just learning from such a variety

of different people and being able to see my work and what i do in a shop and having an interaction with real people and then responding to it in such a way and that's a shop that smells yes yes it does smell very good olivia sweeney and michelle hicks and naomi climber thank you all very much indeed and i do look forward to that AI rollercoaster. OK, still to come in today's programme on the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, a poem prefaced by Elizabeth Jane Burnett and the final episode of the serial Lullaby. Now, there's no doubt the word friend has been somewhat debased by social media.

You think you're keeping in touch, but you hardly ever see or speak with each other. And how different is a real old friend from one of the hundreds you call your friends on Facebook? It's a question that's inspired Jessica Frances Kane in her novel Rules for Visiting, where a somewhat solitary character, May, seeks out her closest old friends and travels to see them. So what is real friendship? What does it mean to us and how do we keep it going? Well, I put those questions

to Natalie Liu of the Baggage Reclaim blog and podcast, Kate Lever, the author of The Friendship Cure, and Jessica Frances Kane. That is exactly what my narrator, May Attaway, tries to solve, I think. She sets herself that task. She herself considers herself not a very good friend and wonders if it's possible to become better at friendship by practicing. The way we might get better at cooking or singing if we practice. So she thinks, well, could I get better at friendship if I go and visit my friends? And she does visit them rather than just communicating via social media. She goes and shows up at their doors. I think a good friend is somebody who spends time with you.

But she's rekindling old friendships. She's going to people she hasn't seen for very long. How do you rekindle an old friendship? Well, May certainly just decides to barrel ahead, doesn't she? She worries that if friends are the family we choose, she hasn't paid enough attention. She's kept her friends at arm's length for a time, and she thinks that she will rekindle these old friendships. I'm not an expert. I don't know myself. I know that for May, I gave her a bravery that I'm not sure I myself have, you know, to just call up an old friend and say, I'm coming for a visit. But I

wanted to write a story about a woman who did try to do that to see where it might lead. And, you know, we all have old friends with whom we get together and remember the past. And that's wonderful. But I think for a healthy friendship, you have to have some momentum into the future. And I think that's what these visits provide for May. You know, she wants to see how her friends are living, how they've made their lives in order to help her live her own life better. Kate, how do you reckon we stay in touch with old friends when people move away? You know, you go to school, you have really close friends, people move away. You stay in touch maybe through

Facebook, through the digital world, but you don't really see each other. Is that staying in touch? I think yes, it is. I think digital communication counts as staying in touch. I think in terms of how we stay in touch with our old friends, it's primarily about intent. You just have to, like the protagonist in Jessica's novel sounds like she did, you just have to make the decision, the active decision, to invest back in your friendships, to rekindle what you once had and then to actively keep them alive. So it's really just making that decision to be a good friend

and certainly to practice because I think we can become better friends. And I think most people could be better friends than they are, particularly in times when people need them. Natalie, how can you be a good friend with somebody you hardly see? I think this is a challenge that a lot of people are facing in a time where the way in which we interact in our friendships has shifted so dramatically over the last decade. And so, yes, we most definitely do keep in touch with our friends on social media. But what we tend to find is if we go the extra mile. So, for instance, it's so easy to, on a birthday, go and put happy or HBD. I think it's quite a popular one now.

Or one of those GIFs, you know, from Facebook or on Instagram. But actually picking up the phone and singing happy birthday to your friend, putting a card in the post. Oh my gosh, it makes such a huge difference in a friendship because that person really feels like, wow, you actually thought of me in advance of my birthday, thought of me on my birthday. You didn't just see it pop up on Facebook and go, oh yeah, yeah, it's a birthday. Let me go and post a message on there. I think as well, one of the things I noticed that causes a lot of strain in friendships is expectations. It's not that we shouldn't have any expectations. It's more that when we impose these very stringent

ideas and rules upon our friendships, you must call me X times a week, or you must respond back to my texts within X amount of minutes or hours or you're a bad friend. This is where we start to put a great deal of strain and we stop treating our friends like friends and more like these people that we're trying to control. So we need to give a bit. What can we expect from our friends, Kate? How much should we demand of their time and their attention? I think we have to take into account that people have ridiculously busy schedules. So friendship can be really difficult to actually get in your diary. But I think it's just coming back to making that decision to do that.

And I think when it comes to expecting things from our friends, I think we can only truly expect what we're willing to give to them. I think we have to earn the right to have a good friendship. And I think you can only do that by being a good friend yourself. So it's about instinctively knowing when someone needs you or perhaps even asking them if they need you and being there for them actively so that when you need them, they're there in return. It's very much a reciprocal thing. So I think if you have high expectations of a friendship, you better be willing to put in the work yourself. Do you think some people are good at friendship and others want the friends, would be really good company if they actually got together, but are never the one to make the call? And the other one, the one who's good at friendship,

does make the call and says, come on, it's time we went out for dinner together. Yes, I think that is true. In fact, that describes several of my relationships. And honestly, I'm the one probably less likely to reach out. It's one of the reasons I wanted to write this book. And I dedicated the book to five of my friends, in fact. And those five friends are people who did a better job of staying in touch with me through years when I didn't hold on to them as tightly. And I'm really glad they did. And as I've gotten older, I value them even more now than I did. And I'm awfully glad they're still in my life. And so this book is a way for me to think about their role in my life and friendship. I wrote it in a way as a sort of love letter to these five friends and dedicated it to them. How possible is it, do you reckon, Natalie, to not see old friends for a very long time and then one of you gets my childhood in Dublin in Ireland and then moved back to London. So I actually still am quite connected to friendships that I had back then. Now, what's quite interesting is last year, I ran a workshop at a friend's place in Dublin. I hadn't seen her since we were maybe 20 and you know within about three or four minutes it was like no time had passed at all

and we slipped into our groove because we had kept in touch over things like Facebook over the years and we're aware of different things that have happened in each other's lives but actually being in each other's company having a conversation and I've had that happen a number of times with friends that I made in, for instance, my teen years back home in Dublin, where we haven't seen each other for a long time, we haven't spoken, but the years close up. And I think that that can often be a marker of a very genuine connection and friendship between people. Because when I think of one of my dearest and closest friends who now lives at North, we will get on the phone to each other after several months, but there's no time frame that we have imposed upon each other about being in touch. And it's like no time has passed at all after a few minutes. There's no, I'm annoyed of you because we haven't been, there's a real ease

to the friendship. We both know if either one of us is in crisis, we can get on the phone to each other. We'd easily each, if we needed to, we'd hop on a train to each other. But we're not in each other's pockets every day either. Kate, to what extent are friendships with women as valuable, as highly valued as romantic and family relationships? Well, I think we are potentially dangerously preoccupied with romantic love and seem to present it to one another as the ultimate form of love. But friendship is a type of romance as well. And I think the type of friendship that Natalie's just been talking about where there's chemistry between two people and nothing changes over years is the type of chemistry that doesn't go away, particularly, I think, between women, because we exchange vulnerabilities as our currency of friendship and we tell secrets and we gossip. We've been raised to be communicators at a lot of women.

So I think our friendships can be incredibly deep and profound and we should absolutely value them as much as our romantic relationships. But if we demand too much of them, at what point can it all go wrong? This is something that I talk to a lot of people about. And I think that where things go wrong is where we're not really aware of why we expect what we do from certain friends and where the friend has actually become a substitute romantic partner or even a substitute parent. And so then we end up reaching our

boundaries and theirs because we don't realise that we are driven by a need for them to validate something about us, to do things that we might want from our mother or from our sister or from our father or from a romantic partner. And that's just too much to expect from the average friend. A lot of the high expectations, like a friend should always be on the phone no matter what time of day or night. A friend should always want to talk about their problems to me, even if they don't feel up to it. I should always know exactly what's going on in a friend's life. A friend should call me back, text me back in X amount of time. A friend should always take my side. These are when the expectations get too much for friends because we start to feel trapped. I think that's too much. But yeah, we start to feel. And these are really, really common expectations that cause tension and friction and fallouts between friends

because I think that we create these expectations because we're afraid. And so rather than being honest about what's really going on with us, we want to try to control things by saying, oh, you've got to do this or you've got to do that. And of course, our friendships evolve. And sometimes one of the things that people expect is you must stay the same. So even if I met you when you were 14 and we're now in our 40s, you've still got to be the same. That's too much to expect from somebody because actually we're all allowed to evolve. But then we feel threatened by lifestyle shifts that happen in friendships. So a common one with women is, oh, well, we don't have anything in common anymore

because she's gone and had kids. Or we don't have anything in common because we don't party together anymore. Or we don't have anything in common because they've settled down. And so I think sometimes the judgments we make about what our lifestyle shifts mean can cause a lot of friction in relationships as well and create these unnecessary expectations. So Jessica, final point. What are the most important rules for visiting friends? Well, goodness, we've just said that we shouldn't put too many rules on our friends, haven't we? But I think that you should prioritize friendship. And I think that the most important thing is to remember that a visit is important. I do believe social media plays an important role in the way we stay in touch, but I don't think it's a substitute.

And I think we're forgetting that. There is something to face to face connection that is really important. So really just prioritizing a visit. And I think, as Natalie was saying, meeting your friend where she is in her life, going and not imposing your life on her, but wanting to see how she lives and see her life and be in her life. Not do anything particularly special, for example, but just be in her life for a day or two or even an evening. It doesn't have to be long, but to see how she lives and to be open to that and to change and to let the friendship evolve. I was talking to Jessica Frances Kane, Natalie Liu and Kate Lever. And what does friendship mean to you? We'd really like to hear from you.

You can tweet or of course you can email. Now, you wouldn't have thought it given the weather we've been having, but today summer starts officially. It's the summer solstice and the longest day of the year and time for the next in Radio 4's poetry for the season. Elizabeth Jane Burnett is the author of Preface from her collection Swims. Swimming is continuous, only the rivers are intermittent. The river is something that happens like exercise or illness to the body on any given day I am rivering. Not that the river is like the body or the river is the body but both have gone and what is left is something else. To not end where you thought you did, not with skin, but water, not with arms, but meadow of watercress of the heart, the knuckles, the head.

To feel as in to feel it physically, push up the ribs which are bones now, everything remembering what it is, becoming is remembering. Sinking in the silt is the sand of the shell of the bone singing, in the reeds and the rushes, hordes of heartbeats not my own, mollusk onto stone, millfall onto moss, mayfly onto trout, metal onto clay, acid onto wire, electrified chicken wire, to keep the salmon in the summer, make a day of it, fill the car up, make a day of it, fill the river, make like mayflies, in the summer, swim in traffic, swim in the car, in the river, in the summer, in the city, in the

chicken, in the acid, in the salmon, in the rain, in the silt, in the sulphur, in the algae, in the day we come and part as friends. In the day, in the river, in the moss, in the rushes we come and part. In the river, in the heather, in the rushes, in the rain we'll stay, in the day, and the days dart over, and summer is over, a salmon leap over us, all come apart in the end of the day and the river. Elizabeth, why do you associate the wild swimming in often cold river with summer? Well, because in the country that we live in, that's usually the first time that it's okay to go into the water, not wearing a w wetsuit it's that kind of liberating moment where you can just about brave the cold in your skin and it is a beautiful kind of sensation

and you get all the wildlife that comes with summer so you'll often have the swallows swimming over you as as you're sort of in the water so it's just a wonderful time. How did you become a wild swimmer? I know you swim in the River Dart and I have seen the River Dart. It's quite a fast flowing, big river. It is. And there is that saying that the dart claims a life a year. So it is quite a dangerous river to swim in, but it's also very pleasurable.

And there are particular stretches of it, you know, that are used frequently for swimmers. I mean, I was born in Devon, grew up there. So it was always part of my childhood to go and have a dip in the river and also in sort of the North Devon coast. And that's where I learned to swim as well. So it's always been associated with my childhood. And why is Cold Water such an inspiration for your poetry? There's something that happens to you in the cold water. So it's a very shocking event, first of all, and it kind of denies the mind. So you can't be preoccupied with things in your head.

It's very much something that pulls you into the present which is great for writing I think because you get that first-hand experience and then later you can kind of record the sensation but it's a very freeing sensation, just that cold shock to the system. But to what extent do the words actually come to you whilst you're in the water or does it all come later? So it varies in between different swims that I'll do. So sometimes I might go into the water already with an idea

of some words or something that I want to achieve from the swim. So one of the swims in the collection, Swims, was a experience where I had written already on my swimming costume some texts that people had told me were their particular fears to do with the environment and I sort of written them all over my swimming costume. I then went for a swim in the river and I transcribed what was left on the swimming costume after the swim. And that was what became the poem. So the river kind of erased some of the words, but it was a real mix from what people kind of gave me. So some things were quite flippant.

There were some people sort of talking about the carbon footprint, but in quite a flippant way. And there were others who were really very sort of devastated with what was happening environmentally. So I had all these things inscribed on me in a way. And how important are concerns for the environment to specifically to your work? Well, they're central, really. And I think the swimming is a way to really get up close to the life forms that I'm trying to safeguard so I think it helps if we really have a kind of close relationship to these other than human species so we're not thinking of them as something that's separate that's other than us but they are actually things that we know and that we care about and we experience

intimately so swimming brings me really close to these things that I'm trying to to help. Never frighteningly close? I was just thinking what sort of things might you come across in the river that might scare you a bit? Well, I did have quite a close encounter recently with a pike in Dostal Quarries, which is in Worcester, which kind of gave me quite a big bump and was checking me out. It was quite a large fish and I do have the bruise still from that experience.

But by and large, I think we're okay in England. Now, your latest book is a prose book, Grassling. What inspired it? I know you did a lot of reading from it for your father when he was not well. Yeah, so my father wasn't very well for the last couple of years of his life. And sort of dementia was one of the things that he was suffering from, which made conversation difficult. And he became, you know, quite stressed in those kinds of conversational situations. So I found that talking about the countryside that he grew up in, that I knew also in Devon was a way that we could connect in a joyful way. So I would go to places that he grew

up in. I would talk about the experiences that I was having in them now. I'd write about them and then tell them to him. Can you read a little bit for us? Yeah. So I'm going to read a little bit about a swim that actually took place in midsummer. Midsummer's Day is one of the hottest of the year and of any of the country's summers. Water sways gold as wheat and I swoon in the heat. With each stroke the part that I know is my own evaporates and the earth breathes and the topsoil and the hummus and the air and the soil and the water touch and spin and touch and spin so that we breathe. All of them touching and spinning and speaking and singing and soaring and flinging their breathing. I was talking to Elizabeth Jane Burnett. Now that baby boomer wealth gap got you going. Someone who just

used the name UK citizen said, over, spending more than the younger generation, does this include the extortionate cost of care? My relative is currently paying 30 grand a year in care home costs, a lifetime of savings being wiped out. Then the engineers discussion. Jacqueline said, I graduated as an engineer in 1969. During my three years at university, I was one of only two women studying engineering out of a student population of 4,000 engineers. I became a patent attorney working until I was 65. The number of women patent attorneys was

very limited when I started, but began to increase as more and more women did science and engineering at university. It really is time it was considered normal for women to be engineers. Davy said, my mum, 81, was a civil engineer who graduated in 1960, had to teach herself to go all day without a wee, as building sites in those days had no facilities. Maeve said, I studied civil engineering and worked out on site on jobs as diverse as roads, bridges and tunnels to luxury apartments. I loved it, but I lost my career. The reason? I had children and was laughed at when I asked whether I would be allowed to return to work part-time after maternity leave. I do wonder whether this has changed in any way. Joanne said,

how brilliant to hear the women in engineering discussion today with such engaging and eloquent contributors. I'm going to play today's programme to my daughter, who dreams of designing roller coasters. And then what to expect from friends. Katie said this resonates with me. You have to be intentional about staying in touch. Make a decision. Spend time writing an actual letter. Book a visitor ahead of time and don't be afraid of the passing of time. And Fiona said, my mantra is a friendship is no different from a loving relationship

except the obvious. Trust, kindness, respect and a shared sense of humour are vital. Sadly, social media has made people rather lazy about staying in touch. Now do try and join me tomorrow for Weekend Woman's Hour when you can hear the sex therapist Dr Ruth

talking about pornography, vibrators, Viagra and the importance of communication when it comes to good sex. Michelle Tolley discusses how she became infected with hepatitis C after the birth of her first child in 1987 and explains why she's taking part in the infected blood inquiry. And a Bristol-based cook and food writer, Ellie Kirshen, known on social media as Ellie Pear, cooks the perfect spice, paneer, spinach, and grains. That's all tomorrow afternoon at four o'clock. Do try and join me. Bye-bye. We all live in a digital world.

How we work, how we play, the way we live, navigate the world, morals, laws, memories, even how we generate a thought and we share it with someone. These are all filtered, stored, and sorted by the technology in our devices, in the cloud, and even in the pavement beneath our feet. So we have to ask, how is the technological world shaping us as people? I'm Alex Kretosky, and I want to introduce you to The Digital Human, the podcast that tells the stories of being human in the digital age. Subscribe to us on BBC Sounds. 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.