Woman's Hour - Juliet Uzor Sewing Bee winner, Shame, Teenage brains

Episode Date: April 6, 2019

Juliet Uzor tells us about winning this year’s Great British Sewing Bee.What is the best way to care for a parent with dementia? We hear from Sarah Mitchell whose mother Wendy was diagnosed with early onset dementia at the age of 58. Sarah tells us how they've adapted their lives and relationship.A new Amnesty International report has found what it calls 'a shocking level' of unreported and acquitted rapes across the Nordic countries. Why? Jacqui Hunt the Director of Equality Now’s European office and Helle Jacobsen a senior Advisor and Researcher at Amnesty Denmark, discuss.What makes the adolescent brain different and why is it that an easy child can become a challenging teenager? Sarah-Jayne Blackmore a Professor in Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London helps us understand.Why is ‘Shame’ the emotion of now? Hetta Howes a lecturer in Medieval and Early Modern Literature at City University London, and Tiffany Watt-Smith a cultural historian discuss.Laura Lattimore and Rashida Hardy tell us about having severe hair loss and why wearing a wig is important to them. The poet Helen Mort on her first novel Black Car Burning about rock climbing, trust and polyamory.Presented by Jane Garvey Produced by Rabeka Nurmahomed Edited by Jane ThurlowInterviewed guest: Juliet Uzor Interviewed guest: Sarah Mitchell Interviewed guest: Jacqui Hunt Interviewed guest: Helle Jacobsen Interviewed guest: Sarah-Jayne Blackmore Interviewed guest: Hetta Howes Interviewed guest: Tiffany Watt-Smith Interviewed guest: Laura Lattimore Interviewed guest: Rashida Hardy Interviewed guest: Helen Mort

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Good afternoon. Welcome to the weekend edition of Woman's Hour. This week, caring for a parent with dementia. The winner of the Great British Sewing Bee and wigs. We know that hair is pretty political for women, but where do wigs fit in? Going for my first ever wig appointment and I remember sitting down in the chair and they were brilliant and lovely and they said, wigs fit in. Going for my first ever wig appointment and I remember sitting down in the chair and they were brilliant and lovely and they said, would Laura like a fringe? And I said, what's

a fringe? Because I had never heard of one and I'd never had hair. And they said, it'll be easy for you to maintain if you have a fringe. Also this afternoon, the mysteries of the teenage brain. The poet Helen Mort tells us about her first novel, Black Car Burning, and we ask, is the emotion of now shame? Shame tends to be associated with the visual, with kind of wanting to hide. So that's one thing that's important about it. Another thing is that shame tends to be about something that is you, you know, something that you are rather than something that you've done. So you tend to be embarrassed about actions, but you tend to feel shame about who you are sort of deep within yourself. We'll explore shame on Weekend Woman's Hour this afternoon.

First of all, what is the best way to care for a parent with early onset dementia. A couple of weeks ago, the 11th of March to be exact, I talked to Wendy Mitchell who was diagnosed with early onset dementia when she was just 58. This week I talked to her daughter Sarah who happens to be a nurse. First we did hear a short clip from Wendy's interview. I know I come over as very positive and always look at the good things, the positive things. But it's a bummer of a diagnosis to get. And when the fog descends, nothing around you makes any sense. All your surroundings are alien. The time is alien.

The people are alien. Well, that was Wendy in March. Sarah, when you hear your mum in this very public role she now has, what do you make of it all? Well, it is like listening to a completely different person because my mum as she is now, anybody that's only just met my mum recently could not imagine, could not possibly imagine the way she used to be.

So in a way, it is very strange to hear her now, although I'm growing used to it. She did talk to me about how she had changed. Yes. And you obviously recognise that. Absolutely. And like she said, there are some similarities to her old self. Her old self is just not lost. She's still ferociously independent she is still uses her coping mechanisms of being organized and and that kind of thing but her personality has changed ever so much and it is it is a process of change for me as a daughter.

And unlike other illnesses, that change means loss a lot of the time. And loss means grief. And so if I'm looking at it in a negative way, then it's a lot of grief over and over and over again. You happen to work as a palliative care nurse. I do. Now, in my innocence, I suppose I might think that might make you a better carer for a mum with early-onset dementia. Am I right? No, because, yeah, I work at Dove House Hospice in Hull

and I absolutely love my job and I do feel that I'm good at it. But when it comes to supporting my mum, I can often think I know best when actually with my mum being as independent as she is and us having that mother and daughter relationship, I have to put my daughter hat on and often I don't know best. And in practical terms, can we just talk about your mum's house? Because we've established she lives alone. She wants to carry on living on her own.

Yes. What modifications have you made? Well, to start with, I've offered to live at her home, but that would be a really bad thing because I would move things around. I would make noises which would disturb her. We've made so many modifications to the house for example in the shower there's the on off switch and then there's the temperature switch so we've indicated those there's banisters up the stairs there's lines on the steps outside so she can see them

properly. We had to think about what kind of carpet to get because we didn't want one where you could see footsteps in the carpets but it needed to be nice and soft and cosy but also you don't want too many modifications that it kind of doesn't feel homely what about food oh well mum's completely lost her appetite she has no feeling of hunger anymore which i struggled with as a nurse again because I'm trying to give her advice about what to eat when to eat she should eat breakfast she should it's kind of a joke between us now because at the end of the day she has capacity if she doesn't want to eat in the morning then she doesn't have to eat in the morning simple things and I say simple but I

wouldn't necessarily have thought of them putting pictures and then sticking the pictures of what cupboards contain on the door of the cupboard do you do that yeah so that's done because cupboards might just appear like walls wardrobes just appear like walls all the detail of the door just blends into the the walls so people's vision and hearing with dementia is affected black mats we joked on the way here i've got a black coat on and and and she joked that i must i look like a floating head right you were just floating along yeah because black mats as well can look like a hole in the the floor that kind of thing. So it's taking all those things into consideration. There is so much to try to get on top of and to bear in mind, isn't there?

What about quite literally tracking your mum? Technology does now allow people to do exactly that, doesn't it? Thankfully for me, I suppose, mum's embraced technology and really used it to her advantage. She's on Twitter, for example. Oh, she's on everything. She's taught me Twitter. twitter we've got an app which is very reassuring for me because it means that mum doesn't have to constantly let her me know where she is and she'd forget to do that anyway but she's you know we've got an app on the phone where i can track her so i can see where she

is and that's just reassuring because she always has a phone on her and that doesn't feel intrusive well no and if as long as she doesn't feel intruded then we're happy and if she knows that if she did get lost that i'd be able to know where she is and go and pick her up it's about getting the balance right isn't it exactly um so we don't want to be sentimental about this and i know you're anxious to avoid that but at the same time there can be there's still joy in her life and in your family life and we can't ignore that but I know you're also really keen to get across the message about research. Absolutely mum is heavily involved in research on the person living with dementia side but anybody can join dementia research it takes not very long to sign up and they link you to different trials and studies

and people with who don't have dementia we need people who don't have dementia to sign up because of any age of any age people can look it up don't worry but it is significant isn't it it isn't any good just researching people with dementia absolutely we have to have the comparison that's sarah mitchell and there's a video of Sarah's mother Wendy on the Woman's Hour website. In that short film, Wendy gives her advice about coping with dementia and talks too about how she and her daughters have found ways to deal with it. And if you'd like to hear a conversation between Sarah and Wendy, you can listen to the Woman's Hour podcast from Tuesday of this week.

And it's right at the end of that podcast. Really interesting actually hearing the two of them together, analysing how their relationship continues to work. Now, for the past eight weeks, the Great British Sewing Bee has been on BBC Two. During the series, which has been hugely successful, contestants have been challenged to make clothes using origami techniques. They've been recycling curtains and at one point, tents were transformed into dogs' raincoats. On the final episode, it was all about evening wear and the eventual winner was our guest, Juliette Uzzor.

It's really surreal, right? So, so unbelievable. I never win anything. I've never won anything, ever. I've had to fight for a lot of things and, like, really, really work hard. And I can't believe it. Juliet, congratulations. that was really quite an emotional response it hasn't brought you back to tears well you'll be fine now it was filmed

in august last year yeah how did you manage to keep it all a secret for such a long time it was absolute torture it was completely it... It was really hard. Really, really hard. I had to not say anything, not tell people what I'd been doing in the summer, make up a lot of stories. Just close family. My immediate family knew about it and a few friends.

And they had to make sure they didn't spill anything to anyone. So, yeah, it was hard. Now, you made, which we saw last night, a beautiful red evening gown for your cousin. What did you most enjoy making during the whole series? To be honest, I really enjoyed making my first ever made-to-measure garment, the jumpsuit that I created, my model. And I...

The reason why I enjoyed it was because it was the very first garment of the week that I won and um it gave me that boost of confidence you know think actually you can sew you've got this so at first I came onto the show thinking yeah let's just wing the first two weeks and see how it goes but that made me feel like actually you can so you've got a chance at doing this properly and um yeah i mean it's more than just sewing you were designing and making to measure as you said how difficult was it to just wing that it was really difficult we'd never seen our models all we got were measurements so you know having to create a pattern for someone we'd never seen and you know we got were measurements so you know having to create a

pattern for someone we'd never seen and you know you have to see a person's body shape to know whether the design would fit them or suit their body shape and um yeah it was it was it was very challenging but um somehow we got through it now you've only been sewing for five years yes what was it that prompted you to go into a shop and buy a sewing machine? I visited Nigeria in 2013 and I had something made for me, a dress made for me by a lady. And, you know, I was just so curious watching her. She was heavily pregnant in that heat, just sewing away. You know, the love of it's just gone with it.

And it made me, you know, curious. And I thought, I'm going to have a go at this thing. I'll have a go. So I went into the shops and bought myself a sewing machine and had to figure it all out by myself by watching a DVD that came along with the machine, pausing, rewinding, you know, fast forwarding and just having a go. But that first thing that you made, did you make that from a pattern? Yes, it was a pattern I downloaded online, a free pattern.

And I put it all together, cut it out and made it into a dress. And I still have that dress at home. What does it look like? It's awful. I wore it. It had a zip. It didn't have sleeves. Sleeveless dress. It had darts. Just a basic shift dress. Now, you said when you were making to measure you you needed to see the model you needed to see her body shape and obviously her

her size how does sewing your own wardrobe change the way you kind of see yourself and your own body i guess you get to understand it better yes Yes. Sewing for myself does help me appreciate my body type, my body shape, and feel confident in myself. I lost weight recently, a year plus ago, and sewing has made me appreciate my body a bit more and love my body a lot more as well. Sewing for myself does play a big role in appreci love my body a lot more as well sewing for myself does have it does play a big a big role in appreciating my body you're wearing a great skirt this morning which it kind of

flows is it a full circle no this is a gathered skirt full gathered skirt and i made it myself you did make it yourself good yes i had to ask you it colourful and it looks really good. Just one more question. One of the television critics said this morning in his paper, how heartening to watch the finalists on the Great British Sewing Bee reject conflict in favour of cooperation. How important was that atmosphere for all of you? Having ten people who were very supportive of each other, very generous with their knowledge, helping each other out and not having any sort of conflict, any sort of agenda,

it was a very, very lovely atmosphere in that sewing room. You know, you watch these things on TV and you think, yeah, they're just making it up. No, when someone left every week, it was very, very sad because everyone played a different role in making it a nice atmosphere in that sewing room. Juliette Uzzah and our congratulations to her, the winner of this series of the Great British Sewing Bee and all those programmes still available on the iPlayer. Norway, Finland, Sweden and Denmark, we often talk about these countries. They are considered to be amongst the most gender equal in the world. But this is pretty horrifying.

A new report from Amnesty International, which found a shocking level of unreported and acquitted rapes across the Nordic countries. We talked this week to Jackie Hunt, Director of Equality Now's European Office, and to Hella Jacobsen, a Senior Advisor and Researcher on Gender at Amnesty in Denmark. If you look at the Nordic countries, as you said, we are ranking really high when it comes to the more traditional parameters for gender equality. But when you look at sexual violence and rape, we see really, really high levels in all the Nordic countries. What we have documented with our report is that there are

really high levels of impunity because survivors don't feel comfortable to report a rape. There is a huge lack of trust in the system, which means that there is very little access to justice. We see flawed legislation. In three of the Nordic countries, there is rape legislation that is not based on the lack of consent, but instead force-based with a huge focus on proving violence, threats of violence, or whether or not the victim resisted. This is, of course, also a problem in terms of international human rights standards. For example, the Istanbul Convention that says that you need to base rape legislation on the lack of consent. all the way in the legal systems from the police till the courtrooms and in societies as well, as well as the lack of sexuality education that focuses on exactly consent and the right to bodily and sexual autonomy and integrity.

I think this will really surprise and no doubt depress many of our listeners, because we are taught really from quite an early age that things are simply better for women in this part of Europe. So what reaction has there been to your findings? Well, I think one of the things I saw and I understood when I did this research in Denmark was that we have a very strong self-understanding of already having achieved gender equality in the Nordic countries, as what you are also saying. So there's been, I think, surprise and shock over these findings. But also what we have seen is hope and women activist survivors coming together with women's organizations and human rights organizations like Amnesty

and pushing for change, pushing for the legislations, these old-fashioned legislations to be changed so they are no longer putting the responsibility on the women to resist the rape, but focusing on the lack of consent so that everyone should make sure that sex is of course voluntarily and focus on actually saying yes this is why we have launched the campaign let's talk about yes so I'm also hopeful that we will be able to push for change together with these brave survivor activists across the Nordics. Jackie Hunt from Equality Now what about Britain because we don't want to give the impression that things are any better here actually? They're not any better from Equality Now. What about Britain? Because we don't want to give the impression that things are any better here, actually. They're not any better here.

Equality Now has written two reports recently, one global and one about 15 countries in Eurasia. And the story is the same all over the world. Lack of faith in the criminal justice system, stigma, stereotypes, victim blaming. Men make the laws. Men often implement the laws. There are men on juries. Men in the media are giving victim blaming men make the laws men often implement the laws men on juries men in the media who are giving victim blaming sessions there are women on juries too there are women it's not just no i agree it's not just men but the stereotypes were all affected by those stereotypes

so a woman has to be chaste and pure available to men and a man has to be aggressive we could be having this conversation 60 years ago. Absolutely. It hasn't changed. But I think we haven't done a root and branch change. We're talking now about changing the law, changing the way the criminal justice system works. I think that's critically important. But I think we need to have a much bigger discussion about our societies in general. So I like that Hella mentioned teaching in schools, education, but I think we need to look across the board. Even now we're talking about gender pay gap. That means women are worth less than men

and somehow all those stereotypes seep down in society and allow men to take control. Rape is about control. It's about power. It's about entitlement. It's not about sexual desire. Hella, we'll come back to Hella in a moment or two, but Hella did mention consent.

Now, this is interesting. Just explain what has just recently happened in Sweden. In Sweden, I think it's very interesting, and Hella touched on it. Maybe they'll change that in Denmark too. What they have in Sweden is not just consent. It's active, willing participation. And that is really, really important

because it shows that a woman has to be an equal partner in that sex act for it not to be some form of violence. You have to be thinking, what does the woman want here? And the man has to check, what does the woman want in this environment? Is she really active and willing? Am I coercing her into something she doesn't really want to do? But this is very recent in Sweden. Very recent, last summer.

But anecdotal evidence is starting to come out that it's already having an impact. So that's very interesting. I want to follow that. And yet Amnesty's research says about Sweden, one in 10 people agree that gender based violence against women is often provoked by the victim herself. Well, I think that's why this law for me is quite interesting, because I think it will start to change mindsets as well as access to justice. Of course, there are all the other problems that Amnesty mentioned in its report in the system that needs to be changed as well as access to justice. Of course, there are all the other problems that Amnesty mentioned in its report in the system that needs to be changed as well. But I'm very curious to see if this law will have a different effect on people's mindsets as well and see women

as necessary to be an active partner in a relationship. So Hedda, what do you think? Will the Swedish approach happen elsewhere? Well, first of all, I completely agree with everything Jackie said. And yes, I really believe so. We have seen huge changes, attitudes in Denmark. When we started talking about this, you know, politicians were making fun and talking about contracts or apps. And now we actually have all parties agreeing that consent legislation is important. But I also think, as Jackie is saying, that a consent law is only the first step. Of course, it's important because legislation carries

attitudes. And I do believe that in the long run, it will be part of changing attitudes and making sure there is more equality between genders but it's really really important that governments also have comprehensive sexuality education and campaigns trying to eradicate harmful gender stereotypes and rape myth that we see are very much alive in the nordic countries still so the law is only like a first very important step but it will not change our societies only by changing the law. Jackie, we're obviously, I was going to say, talking largely to the converted, although I suspect we are. How do we take this conversation out of a space like Women's Hour and start talking to the people who are ultimately responsible largely for sexual violence and for these

appalling attitudes. As you mentioned, it's not just men, it's women as well. We're all steeped in these stereotypes. I think what we want to look at and what there has been some movement on across Europe is looking at the sexism and stereotypes in all forms of life. So you look at the law and when you say, OK, women get paid for maternity leave, great. Do men have access to that money as well? If not, why not? What does that say? A woman has to stay at home. You know, there are all these subliminal messages we get all the time. So let's look at the whole of our society. Let's look at paying women equally. Let's value women equally. And I think in that change, and there are lots of men now who are coming out joining the Me Too movement, Time's Up movement, speaking out as well. Let's

have that big conversation because it does affect men as well. Let's have that big conversation because it does affect men as well. If men are stereotyped into certain roles, it means their choices are limited too. The thoughts of Jackie Hunt and Hella Jacobson. Now, if you're a fashion fan, you might well have heard about the Mary Quant exhibition, which is at the V&A in London.

I've been lucky enough to go, had a sneak preview, and we'll talk about that on next Tuesday's edition of Woman's Hour and talk as well to a woman who donated a Mary Quant dress from the 1960s to that exhibition. So that's something for fashionistas to look forward to on the programme next Tuesday. The parenting conversation on Woman's Hour this week was about the mysteries of the teenage brain

Sarah-Jane Blakemore is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London and the author of Inventing Ourselves, The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain I think we all remember what it's like to be a teenager It's a time of transition and it can be difficult And that's for lots of reasons There are social changes moving from small primary schools to big secondary schools. There are hormonal changes of puberty, but there are also very large changes going on in the brain during the teenage years. Now, it is adolescence, we call it adolescence. Does it only apply to the human being or do the

effects on the brain occur in animals as well? Adolescence interestingly is not just specific to humans. All animals go through a period of development between going through puberty and becoming fully sexually mature adults and interestingly you can measure behaviour during what you might call adolescence in those. And lots of scientists do this around the world, particularly in mice and rats who go through about 30 days of adolescence. And you can see increases in behaviours that we typically associate with human adolescence. So things like risk taking, and being impulsive, and very big changes in social behaviour. There was one study published a few years ago showing that adolescent mice drink more alcohol when they're with other mice and that's not true for adult mice.

You include a teenage diary which I think was from 1969 in the book. Why did you pick that? Because what's it significant? It's such a beautiful illustration of what it's like to be a teenager. I've got it here, so I'll read it out. There's nothing like teenage diaries for putting momentous historical events in perspective. This is my entry for the 20th of July, 1969. I went to art centre by myself in yellow cords and blouse. Ian was there, but he didn't speak to me. Got a rhyme put in my handbag from someone who's apparently got a crush on me. It was there, but he didn't speak to me. I've got a rhyme put in my handbag

from someone who's apparently got a crush on me. It's Nicholas, I think. Man landed on moon. It's incredible, isn't it? Somebody landed on the moon. But what do we know then about what is actually going on in the teenage brain? What have been the most significant breakthroughs? Because I think the work in the past 20 years has changed enormously. Absolutely. When I was an undergraduate in the mid-90s, I was taught that the human brain stops developing in childhood. I have my undergraduate textbooks, that's what they say. We now know that that's completely false.

And in fact, research using MRI brain scanning technology over the past 20 years has shown that the human brain not only develops throughout childhood, but also continues to develop very substantially right throughout adolescence and only starts to stabilise in the mid-20s. So why then do teenagers tend to engage in risky behaviour, even when they've been extremely well brought up? What's going on in their brain? It's a very interesting question. And again, the first thing to say is that there are big individual differences. Some teenagers take risks, but others don't. And the other thing about risk-taking in the teenage years, so if you think about the risks that we typically worry about teenagers taking,

like smoking or binge drinking or experimenting with drugs or even dangerous driving, those are risks that teenagers don't tend to take when they're on their own. It's when they're with their friends. So the social context and social pressure and social influence is a really key factor in adolescent risk-taking. Now, we all know that teenagers can be painfully embarrassed, usually by their parents. Their father might be dancing, their mother might be behaving in a way that is not acceptable to the child. Do we know why they get so embarrassed?

Yeah, I know all about that at the moment. My children are teenagers and very embarrassed by me. And there's a very nice story of one of my friends where he said that the difference that he noticed when his daughters went from before puberty to after puberty was their levels of embarrassment, particularly in front of him. So before puberty, if they were messing around in a supermarket, he'd say, stop messing around and I'll sing your favorite song. And they would stop and he'd sing in public. And after puberty, that was the threat. The very idea of their dad singing in public was enough to make them behave. So why is this? It's something that I think most teenagers do go through, this intense feeling of self-consciousness.

Adolescence is all about developing your sense of self and who you are. So I think you do become more aware of yourself and how other people see you. There was a study by Leah Somerville in Harvard in America a couple of years ago showing that the brain responds differently and the body responds differently when teenagers think they're being watched. So if you scan the brains of children and teenagers and adults and occasionally you tell them when a red light comes on that indicates that you're being observed by someone your own age, that condition where they think they're being watched results in heightened embarrassment,

heightened stress as measured by sweat on the skin and heightened activity of parts of the social brain in adolescence compared to children and adults. So there's a biological reason why teenagers feel particularly embarrassed. Now, one of the things you write is that they will respond better to reward than to punishment. What does that teach us about actually how to handle them? There is quite a lot of evidence from lots of different developmental psychology labs showing that adolescents respond better to reward than to punishment. And they respond better to

immediate rewards than long term rewards. And they respond better to immediate consequences of their actions than to talking about the long term consequences of their actions. Now, I think what that means in terms of if we think about public health, trying to encourage young people to make healthy decisions, like, for example, healthy eating or not taking risks with smoking or binge drinking, or even things like around bullying, we know that focusing on the long-term potential health or legal risks of those decisions doesn't really work in the teenage years. It's more about the moment than now, and particularly the social consequences. in the context of bullying. A big study in America with 56 schools, half the schools carried out their anti-bullying campaigns as usual with the teachers running them.

And half the schools, the young people, the children themselves carried out their own anti-bullying campaigns like debates and parties and wristband campaigns. And in those schools where the anti-bullying campaigns were led by the children, they showed a 25% decrease in bullying incidents over the subsequent year compared with where the schools, the schools where the anti-bullying campaigns were run by teachers. Young people respond really well to campaigns and messages run by each other, by the other young people. And that makes sense. We know that young people are very influenced by their peer group and by their friends. Sarah Jane Blakemore, Professor of

Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London. Here's Kate. I've got a 14-year-old daughter. She was always lovely. She was engaged. She asked questions, lively, sociable. Guess what? As a teenager, she's moody, sulky, and likes to be in splendid isolation. I was taken aback when it happened, because I'd forgotten quite how awful it is at times to be a teenager. So she and I keep the communication channels open as much as possible, and we talk about how she's feeling,

and liken it, really, to being in a spin wash, hormones all over the place, and never knowing, really, how she's feeling and liken it really to being in a spin wash. Hormones all over the place and never knowing really how you're feeling or why you feel the way you do. Yes, thank you for that, Kate. Although I like the idea that, for example, in your 50s, you suddenly know how you're feeling and why you feel the way you do. I'm not sure it really gets any better, but that's a bit negative. So I'll move on to Hayley, who says, I don't have teenage children yet, although my nine-year-old daughter certainly has some big hormonal mood swings. But I love this. But Latte, my two and a half year old golden retriever, had an awful stroppy, defiant teenage phase at around 18 months. She would definitely have slammed doors if she

were able. And I'm sure she gave me more than one eye roll. Right. There's a part of me, Hayley, that wants to buy into that, and there's also a big part of me that marvels at the wonderful nature of the fact that Radio 4 has listeners who have got dogs called Latte. My next gerbil is so going to be called Flat White. Anyway, keep your thoughts coming. We welcome your emails on anything you've heard on the programme. Do pitch in, please, via the website. If it's an email, that's bbc.co.uk slash womanshour.

We're at bbcwomanshour on Instagram and Twitter. What is the emotion of now? We're about to hear a conversation that puts the, well, a spirited argument, I would say, for the theory that the emotion of now is shame. This was part of a debate from BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival, which happened last weekend in Gateshead. The cultural historian Tiffany Watt Smith is the author of the book of human emotions. Heta Howes is a lecturer in medieval and early modern literature at City University in London.

So why does Heta think that shame really is the contemporary emotion? I think there's quite a lot that we potentially maybe are feeling ashamed about culturally at the moment. I mean, there's been sort of big campaigns like Hashtag Me Too that have been very influential, big tax evasion cases big corporations not not paying up politically things at the moment I know I've just been traveling in Europe and feeling uncertain about things I think there's a lot of uncertainty but also a lot of kind of embarrassment and then and then more specifically shame around right now but shame has always been with us in one form or another it It's not possible,

is it, to say where it started or how it started? I've certainly not found a start point. My research begins in the medieval, and it's certainly very prevalent in the Middle Ages, more as a tool rather than necessarily a pervasive cultural feeling. So in the Middle Ages, it was sort of seen as potentially quite a productive thing. And my colleague Mary Flannery at Oxford's done some brilliant work on this but this idea that shame if you have too much shame it's crippling it's sort of debilitating and and that's bad but the right amount of shame can be really positive because it affects change and I wonder if we're starting to see that a bit in modern culture as well from sort of social media platforms that if someone's done something that we consider to be a little bit wrong, we can sort of publicly shame them, and maybe affect

some positive change. But okay, well, that's up for debate. Tiffany, can you just define shame for us? Well, that's a really interesting question, isn't it? It's one of those emotions, which is quite hard to separate out from some of the other emotions that Heta talked about so for example people talk about guilt and shame and how those two emotions slide across each other and people tend to talk about guilt as a kind of more inner voice so it's a more auditory emotion if you like it's like that sort of horrible endless sort of querulous little voice in your head whereas shame tends to be associated with the visual, with kind of wanting to hide. So that's one thing that's important about it. Another thing is that shame tends to be about something that is you, you know, something that you are rather than something that you've done. So you tend to be embarrassed about actions, but you tend to feel shame about who you are,

sort of deep within yourself. Also, we tend to think of shame as being a very sort of painful, of course, and sort of global emotion. Sartre called it a great hemorrhage of the soul, which I think is an amazing description of this sort of horrible coming outside of what's been hidden. But also, I mean, when I pay attention, as I've done over the last couple of days, to all the times that I feel ashamed, I feel that it's often these sort of little twinges, you know, I feel it in kind of quite minor ways, but almost relentlessly through the day. Okay, give me an example. So the day before yesterday, I was travelling up to Gateshead for this festival with my young family. And in the morning, I'd woken up and I'd seen a couple of spots. And there's been

a big outbreak of chickenpox in my daughter's school. And I said to my husband, Oh, God, I think, have I got chickenpox? No, no, no, come on, let's go. Let's go. Let's go. So we got on the train and I was calling to try and make an appointment to the doctors. And my daughter said, what are you doing? I said, I'm calling the doctors. And she said very loudly, is that because you think you've got chickenpox? And everyone on the train sort of looked at me and this terrible, and I think it was shame because it's something very important. If you've got a contagious illness, you don't travel on a train, you know, where there might be pregnant women and elderly people and so on. You know, this is an important emotion.

We feel it when we think we've done something quite seriously wrong. But yes, of course, you know, you can feel it in all kinds of slightly ludicrous situations, too. We do know, don't we, Tiffany, that in the past, shame has been used to, well, to really control the way women conduct themselves. Oh, absolutely. I mean, you know, we do get this sense that there are some cultures which are more guilt cultures

and the West is a more guilt culture and there are some which are more obsessed with shame. So Japan is usually the one that is described in that way. But actually, I think that that distinction just isn't right. And certainly in the West, I'm thinking about a particular example. In 1867, there was a couple were caught having extramarital sex in Puritan New England. And the woman was made to be present when the man was being whipped so that, quote, she could share the measure of his shame. Shameless is a word we still hear a lot about.

Generally speaking, Tiffany, I do not hear that in reference to men, right or wrong? I haven't heard it in reference to men, although I am interested in a kind of a growth of work with artists and writers who are trying to explore shame. I don't think they're being shameless, but I do think they're kind of enjoying and trying to reappropriate shame. So I was thinking about Fleabag and Phoebe Waller-Bridge's amazing enjoyment of very shameful moments. I mean, that wonderful opening image of her enjoying some private time in front of an Obama video. I can just say masturbation, it's all right. No, we rehearse her um and then her boyfriend comes in and that's the sort of that's an amazing um an amazing moment because she sort of looks

she looks at us doesn't she and she knows that this is a shameful moment and she and the character feels shame in that moment but she she looks at us the audience and says you know we we know we we know what this is and we we all do this you know. And I was thinking also about a performance artist called Scotty who ran this wonderful series of events called Hamburger Queen, which was a beauty contest, which reveled in the beauty of fat people in a very profoundly fat shaming culture. So I think we're sort of getting through these moments of people trying to understand and unpick shame and trying to sort of represent

those moments that we might to understand and unpick shame and trying to sort of represent those moments that we might feel shame and reclaim them. It's also interesting that we often use shame to propel ourselves to have what we might perceive as higher standards. I'm thinking about quite literally cleaning my front step, which, by the way, I do, and I feel no shame about doing that. Also, posh people can wear tatty clothes. If you don't have much money, you want to look smart.

You feel the need to look smart. That's not insignificant, is it, Heta? No, I think if there is an argument for a slightly more productive shame, then perhaps sometimes we can be using it to drive ourselves on. But I think what you've hit on there is sort of an idea about gender and privilege that I think often we, the media at the moment, that some sort of political leaders seem to feel themselves to be beyond shame,

that they are shameless in that they don't feel it and they don't seem to be able to be made to feel it. And that's sort of a dangerous potential, dangerous trend. Okay, so I'm going to throw this one to Tiffany. How do we stop ourselves feeling it, Tiffany, if it's crippling us and our development? That's an interesting question

because I don't really know the answer. You know, as Heta said, you know, shame can be very, very useful. And the idea of someone who doesn't experience it at all, like a sort of Teflon coated politician. I mean, that's that's a kind of frightening image. But I suppose when I think about it in my life, there's a lot of, because I've got young kids, a lot of shame around parenting. And that comes, I think, from a kind of lot of very contradictory advice, most of which you haven't read. And there's a sort of generalized sense of doing something wrong, even though you're not quite sure what it is that you've done wrong. And so I think paying attention to those moments and trying to understand, you know, what it is that relates your feelings of

shame and to this sort of sense of judgment and where you're getting this sense of judgment from might be the beginning of trying to kind of get on top of it. I think the key is talking about it then, isn't it? That if we all share these sort of shameful little things that we have inside and bring them out in the open, like that Fleabag moment, then we can combat it. Heta Howes and Tiffany Watt-Smith. If you're interested in more of the discussions about emotions which form part of the Freethinking Festival, then you can find the lot on the BBC Arts and Ideas podcast from BBC Sounds. Now, all this week we have been exploring the importance of wigs.

Why do different women choose to wear them and just how significant can a wig be? There were three really interesting conversations. We've pulled out just one of those conversations for Weekend Woman's Hour, but the others are obviously still available on the Woman's Hour podcast. You're about to hear from Laura Lattimore, who's a 28-year-old blogger from London. She was diagnosed with alopecia when she was a toddler. And she now uses her platform to promote awareness and offer advice on how to style wigs for other young women. Rashida Hardy is just 25. And three years ago, she was diagnosed with lupus. She's experienced severe hair loss as a

result of that condition and wears a wig almost every day. Laura told me what she remembers about having hair. I had it from the age of nought to one and then it all fell out so yeah I just really don't remember it at all honestly I just remember growing up bald and that's all I've ever known. Did your parents ever have to explain this to you or in fact because of your really young age at the time was it never a conversation they had to have? Well they were great actually because of your really young age at the time, was it never a conversation they had to have? Well, they were great, actually, because I never really remember having a conversation to explain it. It was always just part of our world.

So whenever I had questions, they'd always answer them very honestly, very openly. So as I was growing up, I just knew what I had. I knew that alopecia meant hair loss, and that was what I had. And I knew the full term alopecia totalis from quite a young age as well. And I knew that that meant the meant hair loss and that was what I had and I knew the full term alopecia totalis from quite a young age as well and I knew that that meant the total loss of hair of one area in my case my head and I'd always ask questions like so if it's the total loss of hair of one area could you get alopecia on your legs and things like that and then I learned the different

types as I grew older and I met other people with alopecia and I learnt their type but I always knew what it was I knew what it meant. Did you wear a wig throughout your childhood was it was it ever an option not to? Well I got my first wig when I was five so my mum and dad asked me if I'd be interested in having one and I said yes but I think as a child curiosity is really a big thing at that point and I was really curious as to see what it would be like to have one and it's one of my first ever memories in general going for my first ever wig appointment and I remember sitting down in the chair and they were brilliant and lovely and they said would Laura like a fringe and I said what's a fringe because I had never heard of one and I'd never had hair

and they said it'll be easy for you to maintain if you have a fringe so we got a fringe but there was never much pressure to wear it particularly in the summer and things like that when it was hot but I grew up with making it my choice and it really becoming part of my life and I loved wearing it so I liked it. And Rashida, your case is very different. Your hair loss is because of lupus, which you were only diagnosed with really a couple of years ago. Yeah, 2016 I was diagnosed. And it's an auto... Immune disease.

Yeah. So go on, tell me a bit more about it. So it's an autoimmune disease so where your immune system is supposed to fight off infection my immune system gets confused and attacks the healthy cells so that obviously resulted in my hair loss and then I kind of just got thrown into this world of having to take all this medication and go to all these appointments so everything just happened so fast and so suddenly that I never really sat down to research what the symptoms were or what would happen to me. And I suppose some people might think well with all the other symptoms and the impact it had on your life surely hair loss wouldn't be that bad but actually

it can be devastating. Yeah I think hair loss was the worst and to this day I do still struggle with it. I used to have a very big head of hair. I grew up having a lot of hair and it was always Rashida's got the best hair. I remember in school, all the girls would be like, oh, Rashida, your hair is so long. You've got such beautiful hair. And I remember when I would do like all these different hairstyles and come into school, everyone would be like, oh my gosh, Rashida, you look so nice. I wish I had your hair.

So I was just like totally in love with my hair. I'll never forget. I was looking in totally in love with my hair I'll never forget I was looking in the mirror combing my hair out and literally all this hair was just coming out with it and I had no idea what was going on I was so terrified I was so upset I was in such a state I remember I was in tears I was sitting on the bathroom floor with all this hair around me and I was in hysterics and I remember my mum was literally holding me like a baby and she was like Rashida it's hair it will come back and I was like yeah but it's my hair I just couldn't understand what was going on and I remember I had

all these bald patches but I still was trying to hold on to that hair and I wouldn't shave it off I remember everybody was advising me and everyone was like, Rashida, I think the best option for you is just to shave the hair off and then just let it grow back in its own time. But I remember being like, no. I just couldn't imagine the idea of me being without hair so I held on to that hair for as long as I could and then I remember trying to do all these different hairstyles

and the hair was so thin and it just didn't work and everyone was like, Rashida, this hair is just just gonna go so you just need to let it go and then I remember being absolutely devastated and then just thinking I'm just gonna have to go and get a wig made. And listening to that Laura what would you say about that experience? I mean that's an experience that I've never gone through when I think about my life being bald and people say how would you feel if it came back and I say I think I would be so shocked it'd probably all fall out again because I'm never expecting it to come back never and the idea of it coming back and then going away is difficult to think about. I think for me, I've just grown up the way that I am

and this is the way that I am and it's all part of my routine. I've had 27 years to get used to the idea of having no hair. And your experience, I think it was your teenage prom, wasn't it, that was an event that made things clear to you a little bit? Would that be fair? Yeah, I love my wigs and I i love my wig maker i still get a bubble of excitement whenever i think about getting a new wig yeah i love getting my wigs made it's just that excitement if i'm changing my hair today i'm switching it up yeah it's just the

best feeling i think maybe we should we should take this opportunity to pay tribute to these people because yeah this is a craft isn't it, I have to shout out my hairdresser because she is amazing. I always get compliments on my wig. What's her name? Nana. I'm going to shout her out. She's amazing. And say thank you for the wigs that you make me because they are absolutely amazing.

They really are amazing. Yeah, yours is amazing right now. Who makes yours, Lauren? Mine are made by Richard Morby at Wig Specialities and he's great. And I really felt like I was in safe hands, you know, when you're making a wig, when you're getting your wig for the first time. Yeah.

And I remember getting my prom wig made by him and I remember all of the other girls in my year starting to go to the hairdressers and go for prom consultations and that was really a time where I was thinking, oh, man, I can't do that. I can't go to the hairdresser with my friends. I can't get my hair done at the hairdressers. And I remember my mum saying,

no, but you can have a hair for prom. You can have a wig for prom if you would like one. And we called them up and he said, well, what would you like? And I said, I'd like it half up, half down with some curly bits in it. And what he made was just beyond anything that I could have ever imagined. I felt so amazing putting it on and it felt really special that somebody would make it for me. Laura Latimore and Rashida Hardy.

There are links on the Woman's Hour website if you need help or advice about hair loss. The other two conversations in that series were about black women and their sometimes ambivalent relationship with wigs and weaves. And also we spoke to two women who'd been through cancer and had gone through hair loss after chemotherapy. So if this is something you're interested in,

do make sure you listen to the other conversations in that series. I also should say that on the website right now, there is a film that Laura made for us about her wigs and about coping with alopecia. And there was a lot of love for everyone who contributed to those conversations. Here's one email. It's from Maria, who says, I lost my hair or started to lose my hair at 13. I had patches of hair loss across my hair, growing back in places and losing it in others.

And I was really bullied at school. I was constantly trying to hide the patches to avoid the comments. I lost all my hair, eyebrows and eyelashes when I was 28 and it was really hard to cope with. It was particularly upsetting when my mother told me that I looked like a man receding. I just felt I didn't have my crowning glory. I should say I do have a very supportive husband who loves me regardless. And she says, I should say they are my words and not his. I'm now on high alert for that patch of hair loss on my daughter's head. I wish I could be more open and care less. And I think Laura looks wonderful. I just wish I had her courage. Maria, thank you for telling us about your experience. I'm sorry things were tough for you, but yeah, you're right about Laura. She's incredible, but so is everybody we talked to on that subject. I thought it was really, really interesting contributors. Now, the award-winning poet Helen Mort was last on Woman's Hour back in 2016,

and we at that time discussed and indeed broadcast her poem Difficult, which contained the unforgettable line, in London, it's said you're never more than six feet from a difficult woman. Now Helen has written her first novel. It's called Black Car Burning, and it's about climbing, and specifically women climbers, polyamory and trust. It feels quite surreal to be calling myself a novelist. It's such a feat of stamina writing a novel. Most of my poems don't go over the page and I carry them in my head sometimes for six months for a really long time. Writing a novel feels very, very different. It feels much more like living with characters, which is fascinating. Well, we'll talk about your

characters in a moment. The book is called Black Car Burning and you're just going to read, I think, a short extract because it's a novel but it's dotted with paragraphs of prose that verge on poetry at times anyway. Yeah, I wanted some of the places in the novel to narrate the story so I let the places speak, I guess, and this is called Norfolk Park. You stand by the railings and take me in. The cholera monument is behind you Tall and slender, adorned with moss In front, there are trains pulling out reluctantly The distant sound of the announcer on the Tannoy Chinle, Stockport, Manchester Piccadilly

Manchester Oxford Road You light the joint and light it again When the breeze snuffs it out Inhale, witness Liverpool South Parkway And Liverpool Lime Street Exhale, the headlamps of the cars Inhale. Chesterfield, Barnsley, Rotherham, the shape of the moors in the distance, a dark cloth thrown over a tabletop, the stars above them, the satellites, the galaxy. Liverpool South Parkway has never sounded more beguiling,

I have to say. I've been there a few, and Lime Street, of course, which has just been refurbished, as many listeners will know. So tell us why you've written it in the way you have, because the structure of this novel is pretty complicated, actually. It is. I suppose it's a novel fundamentally about trust, very interesting trust and how difficult it can be on a personal level, on a political level.

And so I've explored that in different ways in the book through talking about Sheffield as a place, some of the community tensions that are in all of our cities and other places too, about the aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster and the impacts for policing in Sheffield and also about relationships between people and about rock climbing which is close to my heart. So I'm exploring trust I think on lots of different levels so I wanted there to be threads, different threads that come together through the book and the title actually is a reference to hill climbing it's to a rock climb in the peak district which I actually know the person who named who was involved in naming these

things named so whoever whoever climbs a route first gets the power of naming it which is an amazing power and they can they can call it anything there's some really fantastical climbing names um and yeah this one black car burning has always really really intrigued me and why how did they arrive at that name so apparently when they were going to do the first ascent of this route two mates were racing out in their black cars to help with spotting which is where you help to guard the person climbing and they were were racing so fast that my friend joked that it was going to result in a black car burning. Hence the name when it was climbed. Trust is obviously pivotal in climbing.

Do you do it yourself? I do climb, yeah. I'm a rock climber. I'm not. The female climbers in my novel are really pushing the limits of what's possible. They're really good climbers. I'm not. I'm a very mediocre climbers and i'm not i'm a very mediocre climber and i'm actually quite risk averse so it's interesting that i'm so fascinated by exploring risk and trust but you literally no matter what level you're climbing at you

literally put your life in someone else's hands every time you attach yourself to a rope yeah but the the intimacy is is not really it's a bizarre kind of intimacy because it isn't based on knowledge of the person's hinterland or anything about their real life, is it? Yeah, sometimes you can know relatively little about somebody that you're climbing with, their personal life, but yet know them in quite an intimate way because you see them at their most vulnerable. So it's a very unusual relationship, I think, the climbing partnership. Another aspect of the novel is polyamory. Now why that? First of all define the term and then tell us why you wanted to include it. So I was interested in exploring trust in non-monogamous relationships so where there's more than one person involved and I think I'd been I was actually listening to a program many years ago

on radio four and where they were talking about so much and and some of the people who they were talking to who were in polyamorous relationships were sort of complaining that if their way of negotiating trust was represented in in the me in culture either wasn't represented at all really it was always a love triangle. You had to choose between one partner and the other, or it was presented as the defining thing about those characters. And so I wanted, because there are many more people who are in open relationships or polyamorous relationships now, I guess, I wanted that to be in the book, but for it not to be the only interesting thing about those characters if you like so it's referenced it's a backdrop but it's

not the subject of the novel yeah that's not that's not the reason those characters are there and I also wanted to sort of set a so-called monogamous relationship against this polyamorous one and show that actually negotiating trust in relationships is just really difficult it doesn't matter what your approach to that is and or how you arrange your life it's just really we all face the same problems no matter what it's just difficult to trust people i'm really interested in whether um what would you say are poets people who secretly want to write a novel and by writing a novel have you felt that perhaps you've let down the poetry community by hopping over the hopping over the wall to the other side maybe some people would say like that yeah it's definitely different but as you say that there are these short place

interludes in the in the novel which felt to me more like I was writing poetry again so I think I was still thinking like a poet I was still trying to distill everything down to its essence, I suppose, which is how I think when I'm writing a poem. I think I'm always thinking about rhythm and about sound. And a lot of this novel I wrote similarly to my poems. I heard a lot of it in my head when I was walking, when I was out running. So it came to me like that. And then I wrote it down rather than working it all out on the paper. Brilliant writer, fantastic speaker, Helen Mort, the award-winning poet and author of the book Black Car Burning. On Monday, we've got a most important discussion about women in the archers. Is it true that all they talk about is men? Blurks. That's Monday morning, just after

10 o'clock. I should say I'm a bit behind with my omnibus podcast. Am I right to be slightly concerned about Leonard? I'm just not certain. That's Woman's Hour, Talking the Archers, Monday morning, just after 10. Enjoy the rest of the weekend. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy.

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