Woman's Hour - Joanna Wolfarth, Jacqui Oatley, Shaista Aziz, Dr Stacey Pope, Róisín Lanigan, Catherine Hallissey. Lara Greaves, Helen Clark

Episode Date: January 19, 2023

When art historian Joanna Wolfarth was pregnant with her first child, she assumed she would breastfeed, as her mother had fed her. This didn’t go according to plan. In a bid to understand her own feelings and attitudes about feeding her baby, she has just published a new book called Milk: An Intimate History of Breastfeeding . We discuss the shock resignation of New Zealander Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern with BBC Diplomatic Correspondent James Lansdale, former Prime Minister Helen Clark and the political scientist Lara Greaves from Auckland University.The premier league and the football association has been spelling out what they'll do to attract more women both as players and fans. But critics say women players are still too often thought of as an afterthought when it comes to both resources and facilities. And that fans are put off because they are badly catered for and misogyny can be rife in football stadia. We hear from football corrrespondent Jacqui Oatley and Shaista Aziz from the campaign group The Three Hijabis and the Academic Dr Stacey Pope from Durham University. Do you consider yourself to be a lucky person? ‘Lucky girl syndrome’ is a new trend taking over TikTok with over 80 million views of the hashtag. The concept involves telling yourself that you are the luckiest person in the world, that everything always works out for you - and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The journalist Róisín Lanigan from i-D magazine and psychologist Catherine Hallissey join Anita to discuss whether it’s just a new take on positive thinking, and whether there is any psychological basis for it.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Lisa Jenkinson Studio Manager: Bob Nettles

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Do you feel lucky? Have you ever had a time in your life where you felt that luck is on your side? Have you woken up and things just gone your way? Maybe you're feeling lucky this morning. The reason I ask is there's a new TikTok trend you might already know about. It's hashtag lucky girl syndrome. I have always made it a point to tell everyone I am so lucky. I just always expect great things to happen to me. And so they do. That was TikToker Laura

Gilebby, one of the women who started the trend. So how do you feel about luck? Are you born with it? Do you earn it? Does some lucky so-and-sos have more of it than others purely by virtue of being born into privilege? Tell me about when you have felt lucky and how you feel generally about lady luck. You can get in touch in the usual ways. You can text the program 84844. You can email me by going to our website or you can WhatsApp me or even send me a voice note 03700 100 444. Check the data charges because they may apply depending on your provider. The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern has quit. She's announced her resignation and here's what she said. This has been the most fulfilling five and a half years of my life. But it has also had its challenges.

I know what this job takes. And I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice. So when have you realised you've got nothing left in the tank? Have you known when to quit while you're ahead? How much does it take to admit you've had enough? Get in touch 84844. Also this morning, I'll be speaking to Joanna Woolfarth about her book, All About Breastfeeding. So feel free to share your breastfeeding stories, whether you did or you didn't choose to breastfeed. Maybe you had no choice.

Maybe you come from a culture that has had a different take on breastfeeding to that of the UK. Did you feel any kind of societal or cultural pressure? Were you made to feel shame? Did you feel judged? Or was it the opposite? Did you feel nurt kind of societal or cultural pressure? Were you made to feel shame? Did you feel judged? Or was it the opposite? Did you feel nurtured and supported? Be really interesting to hear how things have changed over the generations,

whether you were breastfeeding in the 50s or the 60s, or you're doing it right now listening to me. 84844 is the number to text. But first, as you just heard, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Thursday made a shock announcement. She said she had no more in the tank to continue leading the country and would step down no later than early February and not to re-seek a re-election. Here's what she said announcing her resignation. So today I'm announcing that I will not be seeking re-election.

And that my term as Prime Minister will conclude no later than the 7th of February. I know what this job takes. And I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice. It's that simple. After going on six years of some big challenges, I am human. Politicians are human. We give all that we can for as long as we can. And then it's time. And for me, it's time. Well, we can speak now to Helen Clark, who was Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1999 to 2008, the first woman to become PM following

a general election, and the second to serve as Prime Minister, who's speaking to us live from Davos this morning. Welcome to Woman's Hour, Helen. How surprised were you to hear of Jacinda's resignation? Well, I was very sad to hear it. If you ask me, was I surprised? Not really. I've been very acutely aware of the incredible pressure Jacinda's been under for the five and a half years she's been leader. There's been a lot of crises, not only COVID. And I think as she very honestly said today,

I just don't have enough gas in the tank to keep doing it. That's a brave thing to say, a brave decision to make, but she's made it. You've said she faced a level of hatred that's unprecedented. What did you mean by that? So it's always tough at the top, right? I was prime minister for nine years. There were a lot of unpleasant people, but they didn't have social media as an outlet for it then. I think increasingly there's been communities

of hate built on social media, the trolling, the abuse, the anonymous vitriol, add to that clickbait, the 24-7 news cycle. It gets very, very tough. Now, in the context of COVID, it's given the way for a whole set of communities from QAnon to anti-vax to really step up vitriol. And I think a lot of that has been directed at Jacinda

and it's taken its toll. It really does say a lot about the job when you announce that you've got nothing left in the tank at 42. Correct, correct, correct. I mean at 42 it's prime of career. She came in at 37. She's given it her very best shot and I think her legacy is significant but she says I'm not the person to take it forward and that's a brave decision. She's given it her very best shot and I think her legacy is significant. But she says, I'm not the person to take it forward and that's a brave decision. Now, as a former prime minister yourself, what did you make of her tenure as PM over the last five and a half years? Well, firstly, she faced challenges I never had to face. Never had anything like a global pandemic and throwing the country into lockdown and just taking extraordinary measures

and trying to take people with you, which for the best part of the first year, she did. Then social consensus in New Zealand started to fray as everywhere and the going got a lot tougher. But I can say as someone in her 70s who looks after a father who's almost 101 years old, we are grateful for the life-saving measures that the New Zealand government put in place, which saved the lives of a lot of people. So I'm very grateful for that. I also see the long list of social and other

initiatives that Jacinda's government spearheaded, and generally I think she's done a good job. What's she like as a person? She is as she appears. She's a kind person. She has empathy. I think that helped enormously through that first phase of COVID. But the PM empathised.

She was able to communicate well. She based the decisions on science and evidence. She really did a stellar job. What you see is what you get with Jacinda. Yeah, in her resignation speech, she said that she hopes that I leave New Zealand with a belief that you can be kind, but strong, empathetic, but decisive, optimistic, but focused, that you can be your own kind of leader. They were her qualities, weren't they? Absolutely. of leader and that they were her qualities weren't they absolutely she did it her way and she managed to keep that kindness scarcely a crossword in five and a half years under great pressure it takes some doing in in my experience i i had a lot more crosswords

than just cinders ever had What do you think her legacy will be? The legacy will be that she, as a young woman in her mid-30s, was able to go to the very top. She coped with a new baby in her first year as Prime Minister. She coped in the intense media age that we live in. I think she inspired young women and girls all over the world. That's what I hear. She was a young graduate working in my back office when I was Prime Minister.

We all saw her potential, and I was so thrilled when she got to the top, and I'm very sad to see her go. Helen Clark, thank you very much for speaking to me this morning. I'm going to go now to James Landell, BBC's diplomatic correspondent, who's joined me in the studio. You must have met her before, James. I wouldn't say I've met her personally, but I've come across her a lot of times at political events, summits, particularly the Commonwealth Heads of Government Summit here in London in 2018, when she cuts a very striking figure.

She was pregnant at the time, you know, in a sea of, you know, Commonwealth leaders. She stood out, you know, wearing her national dress, but also being, you know, being pretty pregnant at the time. And the crucial thing to understand about that is her timing. She came to office in 2017 at the time when Donald Trump came to power. And at a time when many governments around the world were, you know, there were more strong sort of nationalistic, populistic political trends. She stuck out as a counter to that. She was seen as a sort of not just a female icon, but a progressive icon. At that time, you know, she came to power talking about women's rights, about child education, about lots of social issues.

So when she came to power, she had that sort of freshness. And so but that changed over time as she became more popular at home, as the economy became tougher, as she was criticised for the way she was handling crime. Her reputation was better abroad than it was domestically. What was her reputation on the world stage? She was respected. She was respected for the way she handled some really tough times. You know, she was really firm with the pandemic at a time when a lot of other governments were wobbling. They weren't sure what to do. Do we talk, you know, with that? And she went in very hard, very early, keeping it very, very tight. And as a result, the death rate in New Zealand was much lower than many other countries.

She was also hugely respected for the way she handled the Christchurch terrorist attack in 2019 when 51 people were gunned down at a mosque. You know, her empathy, her swift decision-making in tightening gun laws after that. You know, there are a lot of governments who looked and thought, oh, yeah, that's pretty good.

Her departure follows Angela Merkel last year. Are we going to see a shift to more men in suits again? I don't think so. I mean, there are a lot of, you know, very, very dynamic female heads of government and foreign ministers out there. You know, you've got a prime minister,

a woman in Finland, in Estonia, Italy, Lithuania, Denmark. You've got very powerful foreign secretaries in Canada, in Germany, who are women, who are people who are of the same generation, or maybe even some of them are even younger than Jacinda Ardern. They're still there. They're still very much on the world stage. We're going to see them at Ramstein in Germany tomorrow when they're talking about arms to Ukraine. We're going to see them, you know, at Ramstein in Germany tomorrow when they're talking about arms to Ukraine.

We're going to see them at all the big summits later this year. And her resignation, in a way, has just done it in her own way, in a very different way. I just wonder, in a more broader context, how rare is it for political leaders to resign when they're at the top?

In such a gracious fashion as well, to say, you know, I've got nothing, and be so honest, I've got nothing left in the tank. Politicians do resign occasionally when there's not a general election. Sometimes it's for illness. I'm thinking Harold Wilson in the UK. You know, there are there are other politicians, you know, who do it unexpectedly in Lyndon Johnson. So the closest parallel I can think of is Estelle Morris, Labour Education Secretary,

2002. You know, one of Tony Blair's flagship departments. And she stood down saying, look, very honestly, there's something I'm great at, but I'm not good at managing a massive, complicated government department. And I'm not so great on the media. So I'm going to stand down. And it was surprising then. And, you know, it's 20 years ago. I can't think of another parallel since then. Interesting that it's a woman. I'm you know, it's 20 years ago. I can't think of another parallel since then. Interesting that it's a woman. I'm not saying that it is only women that do this, but I just want to note Tim Farron stood down as leader of the Liberal Democrats. Kezia Dugdale stood down as the Scottish Labour leader, you know, at times of their own choosing rather than losing an election. James, thank you very much. I'm also joined by Lara

Greaves, who's a political scientist at the University of Auckland. Lara, thank you very much for joining us on Woman's Hour this morning. The wider world is shocked by our resignations, but are New Zealanders? Yes, I think New Zealanders are quite shocked and quite surprised. Ardern actually quite recently said that she was intending on standing in the 2023 election because there's been so much talk about her going away to some kind of international role she felt the need to really clearly state last year that she was definitely going to run so I think we're all quite shocked and surprised at this resignation. Is there a mismatch between her international perception

and her domestic one what do we not know? There's definitely a mismatch. So still, when we travel internationally or we talk to our political science colleagues around the world, people view Ardern incredibly favourably. And in the New Zealand context, the shine's really kind of worn off in a way. So 2017 was quite a close election where Ardern came to become prime minister. 2020 was the COVID election where her world-leading COVID response really catapulted their result. Their result was a huge record-breaking win. And then now in 2022, 2023, their polling numbers have come back down to reality, more return to 2017 levels. Because there have been all of those previously mentioned issues around the economy and the cost of living,

but also things around crime and just a whole host of issues, domestic issues and domestic realities. So is this a personal reason for resignation or a political one, do you think? There's so many debates at the moment about the extent to which it's personal versus political. Of course, like part of not having enough in the tank is going to relate to the fact that it will be a really hard election in 2023 for the Labour Party. The National Party have gone through that process of renewal, our right-wing party, and they're looking like they're going to win in the polls. So of course, that would be a really hard election. It's harder to go into a close election as the leader. So I mean, that's quite an obvious statement. But in a way, I think that a lot of people can sympathise with her position

and her situation. A lot of people were very tired or have been really tired from COVID and the COVID crisis. And so imagine leading a country through that. I think it's a relatable reason to be stepping down, although there will be some political element. Yes. And well, as Helen was saying, just how much she's had to face and deal with in terms of the online backlash that she gets. And also some of the public things that we've seen. When Sanna Marin, the Prime Minister of Finland, joined her for a press conference, you probably remember, she was asked a ridiculous question about suggesting that they were only meeting because they were women.

I mean, it's exhausting to watch, let alone have to deal with it. Yeah, and I would say there is a pocket of very hateful people that's relating to the COVID mandates and the COVID lockdown, and they're the ones doing a lot of the threats. But there is that broader culture of misogyny and kind of treading Ardour in a certain way. For example, one of our major news networks released a piece about her fashion, her best fashion moments not long after she resigned. And again, we wouldn't expect that from a male politician. There's been a lot of that kind of undercurrent working through our political culture, even though actually currently right now the majority of our members are parliamentar women. So how long do you think she'll rest for? When will she be back on the international stage? Well, I think we're expecting an international role from her at some point. And I mean, she's 42 years old. What do you do? You've got another 25, 30 from her at some point. And I mean, she's 42 years old. What do you do?

You've got another 25, 30 years of work ahead of you. I mean, you spoke to Helen Clark, who is still working in her 70s. What do you do after you're prime minister of a country and that you're known internationally? It's got to be some kind of international role, but it will be after a respectful amount of rest time. And I'm sure she actually does need

some kind of rest time as well. Maybe a year or two. Yeah what can't you do what can't you do once you've had that. We're not going to do her best fashion moments but I am going to bring up an image that I've got of her. She came to Buckingham Palace 2017 she was pregnant and it was a really striking image of a political leader pregnant wearing a traditional Maori costume at Buckingham Palace. And, you know, that was the moment where everyone, a lot of women looked at her and thought, now, here we go, finally, something different. Yes, definitely, that's a really meaningful moment. I personally was pregnant at that time as well. And that natural concern, you're like, can I juggle my career and my parenthood?

And so that she has been a role model yeah to people all around the world to working parents but more specifically to working mothers and that's like really important to be able to see and it's something that goes runs through a lot of our politics at all levels and most nations is can women kind of do it all in politics and can they cope as a member of parliament and a prime minister? And of course, Ardern is saying that she's leaving

because she's got not much left in the tank. But her position and her imagery and representation and all of that will have great impacts on the next generation of women politicians specifically. Thank you very much, Lara, for speaking to me this morning. And thank you to all our guests on this. We've been talking about the resignation of Jacinda Ardern. We did a special programme on quitting well on January 2nd.

You might want to listen back to that on BBC Sounds. Now, the euphoria when the Lionesses won the Euros last summer was almost tangible, but over six months on, that appears to have faded. The women's game is still desperately short of resources and female football fans are put off going to the men's matches because of misogyny and violence. The Premier League told MPs yesterday it's tackling the problem and more is being done to encourage young girls to play football. Well, Melanie Abbott was at the meeting. Morning, Melanie. Welcome. Morning. What did they say? Yeah, well, this is a special inquiry. It was set up by the Women and Equalities Committee at Parliament, and it's looking at how to promote women's professional football, but also how women who want to go to watch the men's games at the grounds can feel safer there, because stats have shown that one in five women has received unwanted

attention at football matches. So you can see why it might put you off. The MPs heard from professional women like sports broadcasters like Jackie Oatley. She works for Sky and ITV. She says that things have improved. At one time, it was hard for her to find a female loo at a football ground. And they also heard from fans like Shasta Aziz. She's from the group The Three Hijabis.

They're three Muslim women who are campaigning against racism and misogyny in football. And she says that all women, maybe particularly Muslim women, are deterred by the atmosphere at men's games. And she also said that while there were many problems with the World Cup in Qatar, in her view, one thing she says that they got right was not selling alcohol in the grounds. And she told me that she is calling for a ban on booze at Premier League games. There's been too many instances, pitch invasions, players being attacked. That's simply unacceptable.

We're also interested in finding out if that will diversify the type of audience that wants to come and watch football. And specifically, we're focusing on women, obviously, but also women of colour and other minoritised women as well and families. You're a football fan, how comfortable are you at Premier League games currently? Sadly I don't always feel comfortable about thinking about going to watch football. The reason for that is because it's not always a safe space. As a visible Muslim woman who wears a hijab we're still in a very small minority when it comes to, you know, being spectators. Have you personally suffered abuse at matches? Yeah, I have. I mean, I've been in environments where I've had people looking at me, men,

in very, very hostile, aggressive ways. And also I've had the P word thrown at me. I've also heard lots of racism the n-word for example and other words and you know it's shocking that in this day and age the football authorities some of them including the FA in high profile instances are passing this off as potentially as banter there is nothing that could ever make this acceptable so I feel feel like there's a long, long way, a long distance in terms of these institutions' understanding of what racism is, what misogyny is, how it manifests in football.

One of the things you have been talking to the Premier League about is consent training, a word that is important in all realms of life. But what have you been asking the Premier League to do? So in February last year, along with two other violence against women and girls organisations, Level Up and Violence Against Women and Girls Coalition, we issued a letter, an open letter to the Premier League and the FA, calling on them to work with us and other violence against women and girls organisations to implement consent training across the board for all players, for all clubs, for all employees across

the premier league is it happening well yes it's happening the problem here is we don't have any more information what we urgently need to know in the name of transparency and accountability is who's delivering this training are they actual specialists in rights against women and girls we've written to the premier league twice but we've been told that the training is being implemented with partners that they know and that they work with. We still don't know who they are. The fact that they've agreed to this is important and I want to give them credit for that.

And we need to get that information in terms of transparency. And we also want to see this consent training rolled out across women's football because there are big issues there as well. Yeah, we've had the three hijabis and shyster on this programme and she's rare because she just doesn't care. She goes to football matches regardless. She's a very unusual woman. Yeah, really. I'm very feisty.

Very feisty, yeah. What did the Premier League say? Well, we did ask them to come onto the programme for an interview, but they declined. But at the meeting yesterday, there was Kherjit Randhawa. He is the head of diversity and inclusion strategy. He says they are doing all they can to attract more women, particularly ethnic women, too, to their organisation. 42% of their staff are female and they are trying to educate, he says, against misogyny at all levels. Clubs have started that mandatory sexual consent training that Shasta Aziz mentioned there. And they say, the Premier League say, that they realise that football players are role models, so that attitudes and behaviour towards women is important. He did give more

details to the MPs about what's being taught to younger players at football academies. Obviously, we deliver a broad programme of life skills and under that banner it's everything from mental health, EDI and also healthy relationship training which all of our academies deliver from age 14 upwards all the way to the under 23s and that's delivered by kind of Lyme Culture who are specialist consent and healthy relationships experts and I think that's been going on for nearly eight years at our academies. So we're looking at how we support not just players but also staff and also parents as well within that wider context of how we look at good practice at clubs

and that training is delivered across all of our clubs yn y cyd-destun hwyr hwnnw o sut rydyn ni'n edrych ar ymarfer da yng nghyd-destun y clwb. Mae'r hyfforddiant hwnnw'n cael ei ddarparu ar draws yr holl glwb, ac rydym yn gobeithio y bydd hynny'n cael ei gyflawni ar ddiwedd y flwyddyn hwn. Beth mae'r hyfforddiant hwnnw'n mynd i'r afael? Mae'r hyfforddiant yn cael ei ddifrifio i mewn gwahanol ardaloedd. Yn amlwg, mae'r grŵp oed yn ymdrin â nhw. Er enghraifft, ar gyfer tîmau o fewn 14, rydyn ni'n edrych ar arwain seksual, ar iechyd seksual, ond hefyd wrth i'r chwaraewyr fyw, rydyn ni'n edrych ar y math o

cymysgedd a'r cysylltiadau iechyd. Ac yn amlwg, mae gennym arweinyddiaid sy'n cyflwyno'r rhaglenau allweddol o'r modiwlau hynny. Pan ddychmygwch fod yn edrych ar arwain seksual, beth ydych yn siarad amdano? Pa sgwrsau When you say that you look at sexual harassment, what are you speaking about? What conversations are you having? Well, I think those conversations, I can give you the exact kind of content of the programmes, but they are very much kind of small groups discussing those issues. Kajit Randhawa questioned at the meeting yesterday by MPs and he did say he is happy he will come back and provide more information to the MPs. So this all happened yesterday when there was yet another scandal about football manager John Yems from Crawley FC, who was banned from football for 18 months for racism. Tell us more. Yeah, the timing was quite extraordinary, you might say. And it won't surprise you that everyone at the meeting was very shocked at the outcome, particularly the three hijabis. And I suppose what's interesting is that the panel, the

independent panel which investigated him, decided that his very, very offensive comments were just banter. Now, the Football Association has said that it disagrees with that panel, but this has led to renewed calls for an independent regulator to look at racism and sexism. The chair of the committee, Conservative MP Caroline Noakes, told me after the meeting that she agrees. I think we've seen the need for independence, the need for something that is away from the game and the structures, away from the vested interests. And I would point specifically at the FA and the John Yams case. He's been found guilty of 11 incidents of racism but in the judgment we've heard from a so-called independent panel appointed by the FA that this was not conscious racism this was banter. Now, some of his comments were obviously very blatant racism.

And I think it's imperative that the FA should have structures. When they say that they are independent, when they bring in an independent panel, it shouldn't be made up of a former player, an executive in a club currently, and one legal expert. If you're going to have an independent panel, then I think it needs to be further away from the game than what we've seen in the Yems case.

You also asked the Premier League about the amount of time that was spent in their academies talking to young men about the issue of consent and the training about sexual harassment. Did you get an answer to that? There was no clear answer as to the amount of time that a young man would have that sort of training. So whilst I commend their efforts of bringing in an external organisation

to deliver high-quality training, what was very unclear was how many hours a week, a month, a year, that would continue for. What I want to understand, if that's an hour a year, what benefit is it? And I think... It's going to be more than that though, surely. I mean, they've said they have a training programme. Well, we like to think so, don't we? And that's the stark reality is that when young boys are taken out of their home environment, in many cases are taken out of a normal school environment and taken into an academy,

the focus is on turning them into a footballer. And I want to understand how much time is spent in turning them into a decent young man. Are you a regular at football matches? I try to go to Southampton at least once a season. I do not always succeed. I have had my one game this season where we didn't do too badly against Arsenal.

So look, I'm not that regular, but I consider it imperative to support my local team. Yeah, I'd go when I can. Just thinking about anyone who's been on the receiving end of racism being told it's just banter, recoiling at hearing that. So women, including Caroline Noakes MP, are making it to matches. What about encouraging more girls to actually play the game?

Yeah, after the Lionesses' success, that is on everybody's minds, really. And the Football Association says it is doing all it can to get more schools to offer girls equal opportunities when it comes to playing football. But currently, only 67% of schools do offer girls the chance to do that. But some good news, there has been an increase of 30% in female teams since October 2021. Thanks, Mel. Well, I'm now joined by Dr Stacey Pope,

who's Associate Professor in the Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences at Durham University. She's written a study about reducing sexism and misogyny in football and encouraging more female fans. She's written a study about reducing sexism and misogyny in football and encouraging more female fans. She sent it to all the sports governing bodies and

all men's professional clubs. It calls for a national hotline for women to report incidents of sexism. Welcome, Stacey. So record numbers watched on INS's Euro final last year and your research has shown those attending the games felt it was an inclusive atmosphere but this isn't the case with the men's game at home we've just heard. Yeah definitely not my AHRC funded work has shown that currently the football industry is just not catering adequately for women and while some women are able to attend live men's matches others are not able to do so quite simply because of gender discrimination and an environment that is not safe, welcoming and inclusive for women. And the severity of that ranges from sexist and misogynistic comments to sexual harassment and sexual assaults.

That can occur within the stadium itself, but it's also around the whole package of football. So it's online. It's routinely encountered in pubs. It can be on public transport, travelling to games. It can be walking to and from the stadium. And so that was really the rationale behind developing the report that's just been launched. And as you say, shared with every men's professional football club, as well as governing bodies and key politicians. And what have their reactions been? Have they read it? What have they said to you? Well, hopefully we'll be in a position to work more closely with them now that these issues

have been identified. Obviously, by addressing sexism and misogyny in the game, we'll be able to grow it significantly. That could be increasing attendances and interest. So one of the things that I've argued in the report is it is you know it's the right action to take both in terms of equality diversity and inclusion uh but if that's not enough well um not every football team fills its stadium each week um so there's also financial incentives here you know by not addressing these issues you're essentially neglecting 51 of the potential fan base so but and also we could say from the government's perspective creating a more welcoming environment for women and indeed

families um also has the potential to address issues of uh fan disorder as you mentioned this isn't something that's commonly seen um with the the england as we said with the england european championships with the women's team last year. Let me just throw it out to our listeners. Are you a fan of football? Do you go to matches? Do you not go to matches even though you want to? Let me know your thoughts on this.

84844. Just how bad is the misogyny against women at games, Stacey? Well, the research demonstrates that men's professional football is still one of the last bastions of male domination. So we still have this significant problem. And obviously, yes, it's everywhere. But football in particular seems to have that history of being a sport for men. And so what I found with the work looking at interview based research, extensive interview study with women about their experiences of going to matches,

as well as looking at men's attitudes with a survey of just under 2000 men. And in short, the research shows that women are routinely required to prove their status as fans, real fans in ways that are simply not necessary for many men. So they get extreme hostility by simply being in that space. There were numerous accounts from the women fans describing men who thought that women in football is a bit of a joke. Hostile experiences such as with comments such as shut up, you're a woman. What do you know? And so all the time there are consequences for women who enter this traditionally men's space. In the words of some of the women I interviewed, women are seen to be encroaching on men's patch or taking over their sport. And this provokes that intimidation or men feeling threatened. And as a result, men are more likely to be challenging. So this was definitely

not viewed as a space for women who are easily offended. So it makes me wonder why you'd want to go into that space. You know, it is traditionally where men go. And if they can't express their emotions during the week, on a Sunday, they'll go to their game and they'll laugh and they'll cry and they'll have their kind of community bonding moment. Why would we want to encourage women to go into that space? I think, I mean, my work evidence is that women have a long hidden, albeit hidden history, because a lot of people make the assumption that women weren't there in the earlier years, or maybe especially when

violence surrounded the sport, they stopped, wouldn't have been going to the stadiums. But I've got oral history accounts for women going back to the 1950s, where they want to be connected with what is obviously a magical space. And unfortunately for women um that space that means that they have to put up with feel like they have to put up with some of these issues first and foremost women want to be seen as a fan of football and so it becomes very difficult to highlight some of these issues from a gender perspective because that immediately highlights that you are a woman and therefore is more likely to provoke a backlash but they kind of end up in a situation given that it is a very much a man's world and the whole of the stadium design clubs being predominantly run by men governing bodies to some extent as we

to a large extent as we heard yesterday um none of the women's um this is not thought through from a gender perspective and so even the design of the stadium is highly gendered in a way that people are prepared to put up with that because they are passionate and committed fans in a way that they simply wouldn't be in other parts of their life you know in other leisure activities if you walked into your workplace and there weren't enough women for the toilets to use women's toilets you would complain about it but there is this idea that women are lucky to be there and so they tolerate some of this in a way that perhaps they wouldn't in other areas or are made to.

Are you a football fan, Stacey? I am, yes, yes. Do you go to games? I do, yes, yes. So do you just arm yourself and go for it? You're like, right, I'm going regardless. Or do you go with a little community? Or how do you make sure that you aren't on the receiving end of all this misogyny?

Yeah, I think one of the things that women speak about and probably applies to all women as well as this constant, how far do you talk about balancing gender alongside being a fan and this idea of learning safe zones around the stadium, thinking about how far you can stick your neck out in order to not provoke backlash. And I think that these issues are now being challenged because we've seen there's been a lot more focus in recent society or in society more generally around, well, public attitudes, frankly, towards sexism and misogyny are changing.

And so football needs to change too in many respects. generally around well public attitudes frankly towards sexism and misogyny are changing and so football needs to change too in many respects um so it's i think to some extent um there's a lot of putting up with some of the issues around for example women complain about lack of toilets the poor condition of those that do exist no locks on doors no sanitary bins but then when you look at the whole package um and when you look at the childcare provision, for example, or lack thereof, women end up in a situation where they end up dropping out of football because the grounds are not set up for young children.

Well, it'll be interesting to see what happens with your research. I mean, it's definitely, the game's come a long way since the 80s. I know that when I was a kid growing up, there was no way, never mind my gender, my race would just not allow me to set foot in a football stadium. But however, things have changed, but there's still a long way to go. 84844 is the number to text. Thank you very much, Stacey, for joining me to talk to me about that.

A Premier League spokesperson said, we're currently consulting with a wide range of groups and our clubs to better understand the matchday experiences of women and girls. This forms part of the wider work we're doing to develop a gender equality strategy which will address serious issues including tackling misogyny and violence against women and girls the match day experience should be enjoyable and inclusive for everyone and we do not tolerate abuse of any kind we and our clubs encourage supporters to report any abuse and we continue

to review how we can improve reporting processes. If you'd like to talk to me about any of the things you are hearing on the programme this morning, I'd love to hear from you. So a few of you have got in touch about football. I policed a match as a female police officer and had to listen to a group of male fans singing Get Your Out For The Lads to me. My daughter is a great footballer against the odds.

She now plays at university, but when she wanted to play football in primary school, she was not welcomed. Boys pushed her face into the pitch. Teammates called her names. And the men's game are filled with misogyny with the fans. Children who go to these matches learn this behavior and they feel they can get it, get it onto the pitch. It was a real struggle. A few of you getting in touch about our first item.

Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand, has announced her resignation, saying she's got not enough left in the tank. Chris in London says, Anita, I'm quitting while ahead. As a 63-year-old matron of a big critical care unit, I left at the end of lockdowns, physically done in, precisely nothing left in the tank to keep moving the car forward. I'm proud of my achievers and i know my nurses knew i gave everything but it was time for a fresh face retirement chris says is

heavenly your your opinions and thoughts on any of the items always welcome now do you consider yourself to be a lucky person well many people on tiktok do as a new trend called lucky girl syndrome has taken over the platform with over 80 million views of the hashtag. The concept involves telling yourself that you're the luckiest person in the world, that everything will always work out for you and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Let's hear an example. I have always made it a point to tell everyone I am so lucky. I just always expect great things to happen to me. And so they do there's gonna be someone in the comments who's like well that just opens more room for disappointment

because if something doesn't go your way then like you're gonna be disappointed well no because nothing ever doesn't go my way and like if it doesn't go the exact way that i wanted to go then something better comes up after it the thing is it wasn't until i genuinely believed that great things just happened to me out of nowhere that things literally started flying at my face like I'm not kidding literally literally flying at her face that's uh from the TikTok of Laura Galebi and is one of many videos on the topic so to delve further into this phenomenon and to discuss discuss whether it's just a new take on positive thinking I'm joined by Roisin Lanigan,

journalist, editor at Zyde magazine and psychologist, Catherine Hallisey. Welcome, Roisin. Welcome, Catherine. Roisin, I'm going to come to you first. I explained it briefly there, but give us a few more details. What is this? Yeah, so the clip explains it pretty well. But basically, Lucky Girl Syndrome is this new thing

that's taken over TikTok. It's kind over tiktok it's kind of a twist on manifestation kind of a twist on affirmation so rather than looking at yourself in the mirror and saying i'm a good person i can do great things you instead push that energy out towards the universe and you just assume i'm a lucky person you know you leave it in the hands of faith things are always going to work out for me so Laura was one of the first people to post this video towards the tail end of last year and it got millions and millions of views and then it's been followed as the algorithm will do by tons other videos from young women like her who are saying I started doing this and now my

life is great someone paid for my nail appointment. You know, I managed to sort of fight with my roommates, really inconsequential things that they're attributed to being lucky. How has it become so popular? I think there's a few reasons. I think the time of year is a big one. Laura's video was posted at the beginning of December and then the ones that followed came around the time of New Year's Eve and New Year's which is when we all want to make our lives better we all come into

the new year and it's grey and it's expensive and you know no one's drinking no one's going out no one's having fun you're like I'm gonna make myself better and lucky girl syndrome is kind of like an easy route to doing traditional New Year's resolutions, because you kind of don't have to have responsibility for actually making your life better in any way. You can just assume that the universe will come to you with things and that it will be fine. So I think it's kind of catnip to New Year's. And how is it different to manifestation, which became quite trendy a few years ago? Yeah, I think it's becoming trendy again, especially on TikTok. But manifestation, and I'm sure Catherine will speak on this more eloquently than me we'll bring her in

but it's kind of focused on internal things so and things that are within your control so you can be a friendlier person you can work harder you can tell yourself that you're a good person you can do things that will lift your self-esteem and will affect how you present to the world which might make people nicer to you more positive to you more receptive to you whereas this is more it's about the the world coming to you it's it's give me an example um so lucky girl syndrome one of the examples that i saw was this girl and she said i saw saw this video and I started telling myself. And then I went to the nail salon and I bumped into my mum's friend and I hadn't seen her in ages and she paid for my manicure. And that's I'm a lucky girl. And then there's another example that I saw was like an ex got in touch.

I don't know how lucky that is. Like that doesn't feel that lucky to me but they took it as like a great a great thing I'm gonna bring Catherine in here is there any psychological basis to lucky girl syndrome good morning I love Roisin's examples I'm laughing away here to myself you know I suppose when I first heard about this trend and you know I must admit I did a little eye roll. But when I reflected on the psychological principles that could be underpinning this, it started to make a lot more sense. So Roisin gave a really good example there of confirmation bias. So if you start to repeat to yourself and affirm to yourself, I'm so lucky everything always works out for me you start scanning your daily life for examples that confirm this belief so the girl with the nails so this old friend may have

paid for her nails anyway but suddenly it is confirmation of this um this form of manifestation and i think as well it's um the the positives of it okay i'm going to state some positives yes isn't this about having a positive outset mindset that's a good thing and and there is a whole branch of psychology called positive psychology that has very firm psychological research underpinning it and from this we know that having a positive outlook on life actually does improve your life so martin seligman is the person who developed positive psychology and he coined the term you may have heard of called learned helplessness and then what he set to develop then is this branch of psychology that talks about learned optimism and learned optimism is incredibly

powerful at improving your daily life simply by working on your outlook plus action so what's missing in the lucky girl trend is the taking action you're simply repeating I'm so lucky it's the same with affirmations that's just I'm so lucky I'm so wonderful. It's the same with affirmations. That's just I'm so lucky. I'm so wonderful. And not the deliberate actions that you take. Whereas the traditional approach for manifesting is you also take action. Yes, yes. I always say I've worked very hard to be this lucky. So Roshin, has there been some pushback on this trend when you see beautiful influencers bouncing around saying I'm so lucky I'm so lucky yeah I mean obviously the demographic of this so far has been quite small and I think there are a few things I agree with Catherine that it's great to be positive about your life but I think it's easier to be positive if you're in a position of privilege perhaps because you have a big online platform or you're very you know conventionally attractive or you're affluent or you're already

in the space that you could get those opportunities is very different to someone who's so far out of outside that space that it would be more difficult for them I think that that there's been a pushback in terms of privilege but also it kind of ties into imposter syndrome which has been a big discussion for women especially around their jobs and around their accomplishments, that then if you do get things in your life that you want, if you use lucky girl syndrome to get there, then you look at the world and say, oh, but I didn't really earn this.

You know, it was just that the universe gave this to me. I didn't really do anything. I think that that's a real problem with it. Also, I think that positivity is good, but we can sometimes fall into toxic optimism or toxic positivity. Tell us about that. Which is, you know, I don't think that there's necessarily anything inherently bad in sense. Sometimes things don't work out. That is a skill that I think is really important when you grow older, when you grow up to say you can sometimes try your best and things just don't work out. You know, you can be a good person. Sometimes things will still happen to you that will make you sad or feel bad about yourself.

It's important to have that resilience and to just sort of blindly look ahead and be optimistic. It doesn't take into account those things that might happen anyway. Yeah. Catherine, you were nodding away at that toxic positivity. What's your take on that? Yes, I fully support everything Roisin said. First of all, I think it's so important that we acknowledge the privilege aspect of this. No amount of magical thinking is going to lift millions around the world out of poverty, food insecurity, job insecurity, violence, and to suggest otherwise, it's toxic positivity at its very worst. So I think it's really important to acknowledge that. And then if we start to think about toxic

optimism, well, toxic optimism is, you know, as inherently bad as learned helplessness. Toxic optimism, you know, when you have this blind faith in these unexamined truths and it can lead you to have inadequate preparation and then if something goes wrong you know how do you cope with that so there's cognitive dissonance when we hold a belief so strongly and if there's evidence to the contrary how do we square that circle and with this cognitive dissonance it can lead to blaming yourself oh I just didn't believe it enough I just didn't affirm it in the right way oh I must go searching TikTok again to see how other people are doing it so that I can keep this

belief alive so that I can maintain this so this is just one of the many issues that I see with this lucky girl trend I do see positives because it's, you know, if you're going to cultivate positivity, you're what what happens is you start to open yourself up to new experiences, which we know there's research to back this up, that this actually does improve your life. You're more likely to interact with people if you feel there's going to be a positive outcome, which then lead to more chance opportunities which are more likely to take if you believe you're lucky and you're also more likely to persist in the face of failure however like Roisin said if you are overly focusing on luck you may not see all of the work you did to get there. You can have that sense of imposter syndrome. Yeah. You can also leave yourself open to the vulnerability of being taken advantage of. If you believe that nothing bad is ever going to happen to you, then I think you just have a shaky foundation on which to build your life. All right.

Roisin and Catherine, thank you so much for speaking to me about that. Jay from Brighton says, I'm a great believer in willful decision. I tell myself I'm lucky, so I rarely worry. I tell myself that everything happens for a reason. And so I'm resilient and have no regrets. This has a positive effect on my life. I'm not manifesting luck. I'm manifesting confirmation bias to my own benefit. Keep your thoughts coming through. Now, on to my next guest. When Joanna Woolfarth was pregnant with her first child, she assumed she would breastfeed as her mother had fed her. This didn't go according to plan. In a bid to understand her own feelings and attitudes about feeding her baby, the art

historian has looked at how infant feeding has been represented, repressed, celebrated and censored. Her new book is called Milk, An Intimate History of Breastfeeding. And Joanna joins me now in the studio. Welcome. When did you decide that you wanted to write this book to discover more about breastfeeding? I mean, it really came about very early on in my sort of new motherhood. So, as you said, I always just assumed that I would breastfeed. It was simply how I pictured my motherhood. I came from a family that had breastfed. I'd grown up with the breast is best mantra ringing in my ears.

I feel very lucky that we live in a time of formula and that women have choice because bottle feeding can be a positive choice for women. It just wasn't how I pictured my motherhood um and then very quickly um you know within a few weeks you know breastfeeding was not as I expected it was not natural it was not well I mean it wasn't easy um and I felt kind of bewildered um we there was sort of inconsistent advice that we were being given um eventually um it turns out that my baby had lost too much weight, something I had suspected, but I'd been dismissed when I'd gone to the GP. And we admitted to A&E. Now, thankfully, we ruled out anything more serious, and I'm so grateful for that.

But we left hospital with instructions to use formula, to express. But there was really no practical support when we were discharged from the hospital in terms of how do I bottle feed? How do I prepare formula? How do I express? How long do I keep doing this for? And also thinking I now have to give my child formula

when you had made a choice not to or you didn't want to. I didn't want to. Also, we'd been told in antenatal classes we can't talk to you about we're not going to talk to you about formula or bottle feeding um i was told i went to a breastfeeding session on the post-labor ward a day after i'd given birth and the woman running it spent ages telling us how awful formula was um so it was really jarring then to have to use formula when I didn't want to and because I was getting those mixed messages from various professionals.

And it was at that point that I just kept thinking to myself, what did women in the past do? I felt really adrift. I felt because the issues my baby had were because I wasn't giving him enough milk, he wasn't getting enough milk from me, the guilt I felt. And of course, no woman should feel guilty or a failure. But when you're in that moment, you really, really do. And the emotions run deep.

So where does that guilt come from? I mean, I suppose, you know, feeding your child is the most vital task, isn't it, when you're a new parent? And my body had not been doing what I thought it was doing, which was producing enough milk and giving him enough milk. And so, yeah, just a huge amount of guilt. And then for using formula as well, when we'd been told that breast milk is better. And also, you talk you talk I mean the book is so thoroughly researched because you basically find because you are an art historian uh you looked at depictions of breastfeeding and and what this can tell us about society and how it's been

viewed through the ages how I mean how much did you enjoy getting involved in all of that oh it was amazing it was amazing I mean it was just wonderful to kind of really delve into the archives. I was writing a lot of it during lockdown as well. So it was a very different experience of going through the digital archives. But it gave me something to kind of tether myself to. I was gathering together all of these fragments, pulling together at different threads, trying to stitch myself into something bigger, because I think, think you know new motherhood can be a very lonely and isolating time and so in addition to the kind of contemporary support that I had around me I just felt like this historical support as well can I read just a

very couple of something that you wrote here that I thought was very visceral and maybe some women listening might be able to relate to this while my this is what Joanna has written while my stomach slowly deflated my breast cycled through swelling and slackening beneath my clothes as my vulva healed, my nipples became pinched and raw. These are the silent places, the places that a woman must never refer to, the places my culture does not really want to think about outside of sex and seduction. Instead, I was aware that my body should be silenced and that I should conceal any evidence of my normal functioning postpartum body. I was to pad myself, cover myself and pretend that nothing was happening. Powerful.

Yeah, yeah. Because I mean, this links to so much about women's bodies. And certainly in Western culture, this goes back to classical antiquity, this idea of the woman's body being lesser, being unruly, being disgusting. And that goes across cultures as well. I'm a specialist in Buddhist art and, you know, and knowing that breastfeeding is good for your baby. Breast milk is good. But our culture is so confused about breast milk. You know, we're very squeamish about it. We certainly don't want, you know, we certainly don't want to see it really. And we don't want to think about what that means for a body. And I think it ties into bigger questions about, you know, the scrutiny of the female body and the objectification of a female body, not only in motherhood, but, you know, across our lifetimes. Another bit that you obviously, because you did a lot of research, you said, as a search of most of the comprehensive scholarly database web of science found. Here we go. I love this. 10,000 scholarly articles relating to tomatoes, but only 3,636 relating to breast milk.

We've still got Roisin in the studio. Roisin, what do you think about this? Semen brings up 7,851 articles and menstrual blood, just 239. And these are academic papers yes yes so this is this is a neglected area not only of you know this is a neglected area of history but a neglected area of science as well um so we now know that breast milk is you know it's bespoke to a baby there's various benefits of it to it but for of history, it was thought of as, it was actually thought of as menstrual blood

that was transformed on its passage from the uterus up to the breast through a special vein. You know, Leonardo da Vinci depicts this special vein. You know, cultures have always known that it's the best. It's used in remedies throughout the world, throughout history for various illnesses and things. So we've always known that it's good stuff. But it's only very, very recently we know how good it is. But it's still so neglected, you know, I mean, those those numbers speak for

themselves in terms of the curiosity that that we've have around women's bodies. And when was the earliest bottle found? So this was so fascinating to me. So the earliest bottles are roughly 7,000 years old. So Bronze Age, some found in burial sites in Bavaria, there are some, you know, found in burial sites in Sudan, they're a little bit more recent, so 3,000 years old, but they're old. And these fragments of bottles contain animal milk, contain maternal human milk. There's obviously, you know, there's question marks here around where they were found in infant graves.

Was it a way for parents to continue feeding their child when they couldn't feed the child in the afterlife? Was it a way of, possibly more likely, it was a way of supplementing a slightly older baby's food as part of the weaning process but some of these bottles are beautiful they are shaped as like animals with little bunny ears and legs they're almost like toys the love and the care that have gone into these artifacts and to me that that was just so, you know, I just felt that connection reverberate over the years between me and that mother once.

Lovely. I mean, we've had lots of people getting in touch about their experiences breastfeeding. I had an awful time breastfeeding. The inner guilt, turmoil and shame should not be something any new mother should go through. I didn't produce enough milk, but had no idea about bottle feeding.

Once I changed over, my son was like a different child, happy and satisfied satisfied and claire says breastfeeding is such an emotive subject but i was brought up in nigeria where breastfeeding was the norm and was seen daily um it was respected and seen as a vital role of the mother so many messages coming through but we just haven't got time for any more of them i'm looking at the clock and we're going to run out of time we're going to drop off air but jo, thank you so much for speaking to me. And thank you to all of your messages. I'm going to prove how every single one of us is lucky. Put your hand on your chest. Can you feel your heartbeat? Aren't we lucky? That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us

again next time. I'm Sarah Treleaven. And for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth.

How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.