Woman's Hour - Kamala Harris, US Vice President; WFH; Georgia Pritchett.

Episode Date: August 11, 2021

Earlier this year, Kamala Harris was sworn in as the first female black Asian American Vice President in history. 6 months on, some polling has been interpreted as saying she's the most unpopular Vice President in history. To discuss the recent polling and her work to date we are joined by Sharon D Austin, a professor of Political Science at the University of Florida and Melissa Milewski, a Lecturer in History at the University of SussexAs the government urges people to return to the office we hear your reactions and consider the impact on women. Boris Johnson has called for a “gradual” return over the summer but there’ve been suggestions that civil servants who want to continue to work from home should lose their London weighting or even part of their salary as they no longer incur travelling costs. For the wider workforce the chancellor and some business leaders are calling for people to taper off home working for the sake of their prospects, the economy as well as their wellbeing . We hear listener reaction to the idea and talk to Wendy Hallett who founded Hallett Retail twenty years ago to create a flexible working environment for herself when her children were young and she now advocates this for her entire staff.So how’s your camping trip going then? Seemed a good staycation idea at the time, but what about the rain, mud and damp clothes? Have you given up the roaring fire and gone to the pub instead? We want to hear your funny stories. Listener Hannah, was camping in Norfolk last weekend: yes, that's right: when there was wind, rain and thunderstorms.You might not recognise her name but you will certainly be familiar with her work. Georgia Pritchett is a multi-award winning comedy and drama writer. She has written for numerous TV shows like The Thick of It, Veep, Succession, Smack the Pony and Have I got News for You. She has also collaborated with a huge range of comedians: Miranda Hart, Lenny Henry, Ronnie Corbett and Jo Brand to name just a few. She has now had a book published, My Mess is a bit of a Life: adventures in anxiety which is about her life from childhood through to almost now.As part of our money series, we’re talking about investing. Why don’t more women invest? Do you consider yourself an investor? Do you know where your pension is invested? Did you even know that your pension was an investment? Selina Flavius is a financial adviser and author of Black Girl Finance: Let’s Talk Money. Maike Currie is an Investment Director for Fidelity International and writes for the Financial Times. Presenter: Andrea Catherwood Producer: Kirsty StarkeyInterviewed Guest: Wendy Hallett Interviewed Guest: Sharon D Austin Interviewed Guest: Melissa Milewski Interviewed Guest: Georgia Pritchett Interviewed Guest: Selina Flavius Interviewed Guest: Maike Currie

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 Andrea Catherwood and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning. Now, one of the biggest fallouts from the pandemic looks set to be where many of us will work in the future. We've had such a huge response from you about working from home that we're going to look at it again this morning and we're going to hear your views. If you're not listening from home or work today, then maybe you're on holiday in the UK. After all the hype around this year's staycations, does the reality of a family camping trip on a wet weekend in August really match up? We'd love to hear from you if you're in a tent right now, or if you've been camping this summer. We're looking for the unvarnished truth this morning.

And if you need a laugh to brighten up your staycation or just your morning, well, we've got one of the world's best comedy writers joining us. Both her credits and her story are quite amazing. And it's been eight months since Kamala Harris became the first woman and person of colour to hold the post of Vice President of the USA. But polls seem to show that she's got a popularity problem. We're going to look at why that might be. And money. Why women shouldn't be turned off from investing. We'll be busting some myths and providing a user-friendly guide. Your views, questions and opinions on all of this are very welcome. You can text BBC Women's Hour on 84844. Texts are going to be charged at your standard message rate.

Do check with your network provider for exact costs. On social media, it's at BBC Women's Hour and you can email us through the website. The government is urging people to return to the office. What impact is that going to have particularly on women, many of whom have been working from home for over a year? We've had such a huge reaction from our listeners that we wanted to hear more. Boris Johnson has called for a gradual return over the summer. The Chancellor and some business leaders are calling for people to taper off homeworking for the sake of their prospects, the economy and their wellbeing.

But research for the BBC today shows that an increasing number of jobs are being advertised with the option of working from home. We're going to hear directly from listeners with a range of views and experiences on all of this. But first, I'm joined by Wendy Hallett. Wendy was a senior manager at retail group Arcadia, and she oversaw Topshop on Oxford Street in London. Around 20 years ago, though, she founded her own retail company to create a flexible working environment for herself when her children were young. And now she advocates this for her entire staff. Wendy, welcome.

Hello, thank you very much for inviting me on. Wendy, earlier this week, we heard this suggestion that civil servants should get their pay docked if they continue to work from home. And the Times newspaper has a story today that tech company Google is planning something similar. I wonder if you think a financial penalty is the way to get employees back to the workplace, and indeed, if they need to be going back to the workplace at all? I definitely don't think that starting off with looking at financial penalties to get people back in the office is the right way to go. I think that the fact that there has been so much more working from home, so much more flexibility for

men and for women, it's not just a female issue, gives us a huge opportunity to look at how we do work. So I think to come in on a negative, which is shall we cut pay, is totally wrong. And I do think that we should be looking at flexibility. I wouldn't advocate everybody working from home every single day, but I think there should be now a flexible approach. This is a huge opportunity to narrow, I think, the pay gap and to change the way we look at working going forward. Now, I want to kind of cut to the chase here. Ian Duncan-Smith, Conservative MP and former party leader, has said, among other things, that staff working from home are less productive. Do you find that to be the case? I mean, we really need to put that one to bed if we're

going to have proper flexible working, don't we? Absolutely not. That has not been the case through lockdown for my business. I have been taken aback by how well my employees at every level have handled working at home and catching up and having meetings. And I feel that it's taught me, even though I was a real advocate for flexible working and working at home prior to lockdown, it's taught me quite a lot about how versatile employees are and how well they can work from home. Well, let's bring in now one of our listeners who's enjoyed working from home over the last year. Benjamin Longdon from Chesterfield is an archivist working for a local council and has two young children. Benjamin, tell me about your experience.

Thanks for having me on. Yeah, you know, I've enjoyed it. You know, it's obviously, it's been hard work, but it's, you know, in many ways it has made life a lot easier. You know, my wife's had a new job, so she's been able to sort of concentrate on that it just things like you know getting the children to school normally you know before the pandemic that's probably the most stressful part of our day you know but it makes things easy you know if the kids are ill you know it's the worst thing you hear in the morning isn't't it? Oh, I'm not feeling very well.

And then you've got to start ringing around various family members feeling guilty about can you palm off your ill child? Well, now it's like, oh dear, and you can sort them out yourself. So, yeah, it's that side of things. It's meant I've been able to help out a lot more. And you've been able to work as well and as productively from home? I think so. You just have to be a lot more. And you've been able to work as well and as productively from home? I think so. You know, you just have to be a bit flexible.

So it might mean that you work a bit later or a bit earlier to fit it in and stuff. But I feel that I've been able to do everything. My bosses seem quite happy with me. So, yeah, I think it's been really good. And chatting to friends of mine, it's made their lives a lot easier. So I've got a friend who's like a yoga teacher her husband you know he's going to do two days a week at home and that just means when she does her classes in the evening he doesn't have to worry about rushing back home you know to look after the children he can be there straight away you know so she can

start you know build up her business enterprise and, you know, be an entrepreneur. And I think that's brilliant. So that's a good example of how, you know, it can really work well for people. And Benjamin, do you think this is going to be a permanent move for you? I think so. I mean, the particular project I'm on at the moment, I can do all online at the minute.

Some aspects of my job I will have to go in. But I think, no, funnily enough, before it all happened, the organisation I was working for was already looking into trying to encourage more people to work from home, you know, to try and prevent more people, you know, driving into town, you know, for admissions. And actually at the time that was probably really hard to do because we didn't have the setup or the infrastructure to do that.

Now we've got it. So I don't mind going into work, you know, in a few days a week. That would be fine. But then a couple of days, and actually if I do only have to go into work a few days a week, I probably might be able to go on public transport, you know, because I can afford that. I can't afford to go in public transport five days a week. So I used to drive in, but then you feel guilty

because I've got a diesel car and you're sort of driving past schools. So, yeah, I'm hoping this will be a permanent thing, you know, but being flexible, there will be times when I've got to go in and that's fine, but it's just being flexible and working around work and family life. Benjamin, thank you very much indeed for sharing your views. Wendy, I have to say the idea of taking a salary cut though isn't unpopular with everybody.

I just want to read you an email that we've had from a listener who works in a hospice and she'd like to remain anonymous but I think it's definitely worth hearing her words. She says, this subject has exercised me recently as I'm concerned that we're creating a division in our organisation. Clinical managers have worked at home throughout the crisis, managing staff who are unable to do so. We're told that this situation may continue

and whilst recognising that initially this was necessary, to carry on working at home means that those people who are able to work from home are hugely advantaged compared to those who are working from home. They save on the cost of travel and clearly for the manager caring for her toddler, the huge cost of childcare, while the cost many of us spend a huge proportion of our salary on

is something that we can't change if we're at work. I mean, really what she's saying is that actually people who have to be and many people do have to be front facing and on the front line at work, and therefore actually it creates a division within working environments. Yeah, I think that one of the things that I have always tried to do business, we have warehouse workers who can't work from home when they are physically have to be in the warehouse. And then we have employees in some stores and then we have head office employees. And what I would try and all of those three jobs are very different and what I would try to do is look at the well-being of each of those three groups. I don't think that it's right to say because one group works in a certain way

you should then in a sense penalize another group. There are different ways then of supporting people within a warehouse environment or within the store's environment. So I think that it is very difficult to try and look at things as, don't give it to one group because the other group can't have it. That's really interesting. I'd like to bring in another listener, Anne Tobin, who lives in a village near Matlock. Anne, I know that you're retired, but you do have family that can't work from home. Do you take Wendy's point that just because some people can't work from home, that doesn't mean that nobody should be allowed to work from home? No, no, I'm not. I'm not saying that nobody should be allowed to work from home? No, no, I'm not saying that nobody should be allowed to work from home, but I was just interested in the way that people and the government seem to be supporting those white-collar workers who are now going to work from home, and that the people who have been

unable to work from home have to go out to factories or what have you. If you remember the start of Covid, there were the Leicestershire factories with the sweatshops working in the clothing factories. I imagine they're still working in those factories and are unable to work at home. But equally, there are people who are unable to work at home because their space isn't good. I mean, my niece, who's actually a home help, even if she wanted to work from home,

she lives in an apartment in which her son sleeps on a bunk bed in the corridor and he has to do his homework on his computer sitting on his bunk bed and she has a tiny bedroom. So even if there were work that she could do from home, she wouldn't have the space to do it. So I think there's a quite big gap between classes here and between the kind of work that you're engaged in. And, you know, there are lots of people. My other niece is a nursery nurse, so has to go out to work.

And there are a lot of people already working from home who are on piecework, who are low paid workers, who are not getting this kind of moral support that the government is offering now because of the conditions of COVID. So it just seemed to me there was a big divergence about approaching this. Do you think, Anne, that we're in danger of exacerbating inequality and creating resentment? Yes, I think that could be one of the key things that arises out of the COVID, about who comes out of it best, I think. And that's why I was concerned when I was listening to the item. It seemed to me that we were ignoring a whole swathe of the population who were not able to take advantage of these opportunities

that are being presented. And thank you very much indeed for sharing all of that with us. I'd like to go now actually to Katja Nell. Katja lives with her parents in Chester. And Katja, I think perhaps you could echo some of Anne's sentiments about just the difficulties of working from home. Yes. Yeah, so I've been working from home since the beginning of the pandemic, which has been about 16 months now.

And I used to live in a tiny studio in London, just on my laptop working from a bed for eight hours a day. What was that like compared to working in an office environment? It was terrible. It was absolutely awful. It played havoc on my mental health. I was really isolated. I used to be so excited about my job and went into the office and learned from people.

My whole social life was around work. And now that's completely gone. It's changed from being a career that I love and I'm ambitious about to just being something which I'm just about coping with without just completely losing my mind, really. So you moved home then to your parents' house in Chester. And how long have you been there? I've been here a couple of weeks now.

And I'm back after having lived in London for eight years and I've lived in developing countries. I've always been very independent. Actually, the pandemic and being alone all the time was what brought me to my knees. And I just thought I've got to move back and have some company. So I'm now just back in my childhood bedroom, which is not ideal, really. But it's the only way I can kind of cope with all of the homeworking, I think. What is your company saying about homeworking going forward? I mean, are you planning to stay up in Chester or do you think that the office is going to be open soon? The office is open. The office is open three days a week.

But the difference is nobody is going in because of these reasons. Everyone wants to stay at home and work around the kids and that kind of thing. And I think people have just got lazy. They thought, I'll'll stay at home I can't bother to go into the office and commute now so I have been in occasionally but it's me in an empty building on my headset doing meetings remotely which is actually the same if not worse than being at home on my own so there's no plans to get people to come back into the office they're offering things like counselling and virtual coffees to try and you know keep people keep people like me sane. But it's just not, it's not the same. It's not living. It's just about ticking by, which is not, it's not where you want to be in your 20s

at all. Katja, the Chancellor Rishi Sunak has been outlining a number of reasons to get people back into the offices. And one idea that he's mentioned is this idea of mentoring, you know, young people like you in the early stages of your career and the kind of advice that you get from people in an office and how you can learn from them, perhaps in a way that you don't over Zoom. And I wonder if you think that it is more difficult to progress if you're not meeting the senior people in your office face to face? I think it's pretty much impossible to progress. I mean, I've got a great line manager and I chat with her remotely, but I'm not bumping into people in the office who are doing different things than I'm doing. I'm not getting new ideas. I'm not hearing the way

that more experienced people do things. So I'm not learning. I'm doing my role. I'm not progressing. So the idea of older people coming in and mentoring younger people is amazing. But that takes the slightly older generation to actually think of our generation and think, OK, I have these opportunities in my 20s. Maybe it's my turn to give something back to the younger people, which I hope people will do, but I don't know if that will happen. Katja, it sounds to me as if you think that older people are being a little bit selfish in this situation. Hugely. Yeah, I won't beat about the bush, hugely. I think in the pandemic,

you know, I got COVID right at the beginning and was absolutely fine, but I stayed indoors and isolated, took my jab, wore a face mask to protect the older generation and those who are more vulnerable. And I think the sacrifice which people my age has made has not been acknowledged. And now actually the new ways of working suit people with big houses and families who have had their 20s and had their kind of ambitious career driven stage of their life. And actually they're not thinking about now we're losing out on much more than we've lost just during the 18 months of the pandemic. Katja, thank you so much for sharing that. I'm sure that people will have huge sympathy with you. And we're certainly getting a lot of responses on Twitter. So good luck living back home with your parents and hopefully it won't be for too long. Wendy, do you have sympathy with Katja's position? Oh yeah absolutely and I think that I would really advocate flexibility here that I think for businesses to go totally to everybody working

at home and having no office days at all I think that just for those reasons that she's talked about, and also for very strong business reasons, that if you're not together face-to-face, I think you can lose creativity, ideas, certainly development, not just of younger people, but the skills and the way younger people think also develop the older members of the workforce as well. So I think for individuals' well-being and also for the business business success having um if you like a halfway house i think is is the way to make it work and i think that um how how you manage this i think each individual business needs to look at but having some days where everybody goes in and those are the days perhaps where you have the meetings and the interactions but also have

that option on some days when people can also work from home but don't have to work from home. They can go into the office if they would prefer. I just want to read out a couple of tweets on this because we seem to have divided opinion rather. There are some people, Micah, for example, has got in touch to say that people working from home are actually using more gas and electricity. Organisations are going to be saving money on smaller premises. And so it's disgraceful that companies are talking about cutting people's wages. But we've had quite a few other people,

Clive, for example, has written in to say that people working in central London shouldn't be entitled to London waiting. It's not part of the public sector pay scale. And others saying that on the question of office return, London waiting does need to be questioned if people aren't going to be going into the office. Wendy, we touched earlier on the idea that this is something that was being talked about before the pandemic, flexible working. You and your company have been doing it to some degree for years. It's been accelerated hugely. Do you think that this is a paradigm shift? Is this a moment where we will look back and say that the working world changed? I hope that we will be able to look back

and see changes. I think that certainly from where I was when I was working for Arcadia 22 years ago and for the reasons I set up the business, I think that there has been changes and I think that there are more opportunities to work flexibly. For me, one of the biggest things here is that given some of the changes the government has made to make it easier for men to work flexibly, I still don't think that men were taking up flexible working to the extent that women were. And what I'm hoping that will happen now, and from talking to a number of senior men within my industry, they are seeing the benefits of having been at home more. And I think that previously they didn't understand perhaps the pressures on their wives that that allows not only

good well-being for the men but also allows women to progress more within the workplace. Wendy I'm sure lots of people will be echoing that sentiment we do have to leave it there but thank you very much indeed and also to our listeners, Benjamin Longan, Anne Tobin and Katja Nell. Now, Kamala Harris is now almost eight months into her job as the first woman vice president and also the first person of colour to hold the post. In her first speech to The Nation, she thanked the women who had paved the way for her success to great applause.

But while I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last. Because every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities. And to the children of our country, regardless of your gender, our country has sent you a clear message. Dream with ambition. Lead with conviction. And see yourselves in a way that others may not simply because they've never seen it

before but know that we will applaud you every step of the way well remember those iconic words but eight months on polling has not been very favorable with claims that the numbers show she's now the most unpopular vice president in history. Well, Sharon Austin is professor of political science at the University of Florida. And Melissa Maluski is a lecturer in history at the University of Sussex. Welcome, both of you. Sharon, the most unpopular vice president in history. It's quite a claim. Is that how you interpret these recent polls?

Well, I think you have to interpret them as they are. Yes, that is what it's showing. But really, if you look at her approval rating, it's not a whole lot lower than those of other vice presidents. But I mean, it is true that her approval ratings are she's not polling very well in these first six months in office. But we also have to keep in mind that there's something called a honeymoon period in American politics. And that's that's the first six months that a person's in office. And usually after those first six months, the numbers start to fall. And that's what's happening to her. Melissa, some vice presidents have managed to keep quite a low profile.

That was never going to be possible or possibly even desirable for Kamala Harris. How usual is it, though, for a vice president to have this degree of scrutiny? Well, I think that it was always because of who she is, because she is the first African-American woman and first Asian woman as vice president in America, there was always going to be a really high degree of scrutiny on her. And I think that she has some real political ambitions to perhaps become president as well. And so she's taking on roles to prepare herself for that. And those roles are oftentimes very polarizing.

I wonder, Sharon, I mean, I know Joe Biden, when he was vice president under Barack Obama, got some tricky briefs. And I suppose that is the nature of the job. But she has had to deal with some particularly divisive policy areas, immigration and voters' rights. Is that contributing? I think so, especially the immigration issue. She's received a lot of criticism because she didn't immediately go to the US-Mexico border, and that caused her to get a lot of negative press, especially from the right-wing media here um so i think that a lot of it is because she has received so much negative publicity that people are starting to believe some of the things that they've heard and then also as as the other as melissa just said uh because she is a number of first the first female the first african-american the first asian indian vice

president i think that plays a lot into it but But the way that she has handled immigration, I think has received a lot of criticism. But a lot of it is because just because of a biased media here. Sharon, I mean, we you know, she is she is a black Asian woman. How much does racism and sexism play a part in these ratings? I think it's hard to say, but I think definitely racism and sexism have a part in this because in our country we like to sort of deny that race and gender matters, but unfortunately they do. And I think that some people just have a serious problem with a woman in a position of authority, especially in the second highest office in our country. And then also with a woman of colour in particular, she has received, even if you do a simple search of her name, you'll find a lot of really racist and sexist images. So, I mean, you would be totally in denial to deny that race and gender is at least somewhat of a factor in the way that she's perceived by some people. Melissa, she is polling more popularly with black women, but with white women and black

men, it's different. That is interesting. I think that black women have always kind of been big supporters of Kamala Harris. They were a big part of her election victory. And I think that also kind of goes into the conversation that we're having about kind of this bias by viewers of her. Where I think that black women perhaps are not having the same bias. There have been reports of a toxic atmosphere in her office. She's also been seen as a tough prosecutor in the past. Are those two things, Melissa, do you think kind of contributing to come back to haunt her a little bit now? I think that the prosecutor issue has haunted her throughout kind of the presidential campaign, for instance,

when she was running for president, throughout the campaign for vice president, it just has made some people on the left a bit suspicious of if she's really one of them. And I think that she's now getting criticism from the left as well as from the right. And I think that that kind of idea of her not really truly being one of them is continuing to hurt her. Sharon, there have already been comparisons made between Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton. Is there any validity in that or are they just high profile women democratic politicians? Well, I think there's some comparisons can be made simply because they both are women who've been in powerful political positions.

But I think her situation is totally different in some ways from Hillary Clinton, because Hillary Clinton had been in office as a U.S. Senator, like Kamala Harris, but also she'd been involved in politics for many years before that as an activist first lady. Even though she wasn't actually in an elective office, she still had a lot of influence during her husband's presidency during the eight-year office. And so that means that she has had a lot more political experience than Kamala Harris. But there are comparisons between the two women because they both are Democrats. They both have served in the U.S. Senate. They both received a lot of criticism, but and they also both have been accused of having toxic environments, which I would think that any woman in a position of leadership, especially in the

types of positions that Kamala Harris has been in, would be accused of that. But there are some similarities, but there also are some differences between the two. Do the Democrats have a fear that they can't win the presidency with a woman after particularly after what happened with Hillary Clinton? Is that going to be another problem that Kamala Harris is going to have to overcome? Sharon? I would say yes. I would definitely say yes, because I mean, you should never say never, because who would ever have thought that we would have ever elected an African-American president? So it's possible that maybe she or some other woman could possibly run for president successfully and win. But we also have to keep in mind that there are some people who would never admit that they have a problem with having a woman in the nation's highest office. But once they go into a polling place and once they cast their vote, they won't vote for a woman. And we

have to tell ourselves the truth about that. So, I mean, she has higher political aspirations, but it remains to be seen. I mean, it's still really early in Joe Biden's presidency, so I'm sure her approval rating will increase at some point. But we also, again, have to keep in mind that gender still matters in our society. Melissa, would you agree? Absolutely. And I would absolutely agree with Sharon that it's still very early in in her vice presidency. And I think that these issues that she's taking on. So looking at into the roots of illegal immigration, tackling voting rights, these are really important issues. And if she is able to tackle them successfully, she will have some real political momentum. On the other hand, though, if these issues are difficult for her

to handle and they don't turn out well, it will be difficult for her. Just while I have you both here, there is another woman Democrat about to take on a major role. Cathy Hochul is about to become governor of New York after Andrew Cuomo, who is really well known here, actually, for the way that he led the state's response to the pandemic. He's resigning after an inquiry found that he'd sexually harassed multiple women. Melissa, I just wonder what's your take on that? It's interesting.

In the wake of the B2 movement, I think this is very much in part kind of this, that the allegations against Andrew Cuomo were taken very seriously. But on the other hand, he did not really acknowledge, take very seriously in his resignation, the allegations against him. He dismissed most of them. And so it's ironic in some ways that a woman is now taking over his office. In some ways, it's kind of come full circle against him. And she's been his lieutenant governor. She's known as a hard worker, but she's had a pretty low profile up to now, and she'll be the first female governor of New York. Well, Sharon Austin and Melissa Miloski, thank you both very much indeed for joining me. Now, we all know that camping in the UK has soared in popularity because of the pandemic. But what's the reality of camping in this soggy August?

Have you given up the campfire and gone to the pub instead? Well, listener Hannah is from Suffolk and was camping in Norfolk last weekend. She tweeted us about it. And what she actually said was in her tweet, absolutely 100% never enduring camping again. Mud, thunderstorms, leaking tent, snoring campmates, other people's wild children at the campsite park until

midnight. It turned me into a grouchy mama T-Rex wanting to roar at them all. Well, Hannah joins me now. Hannah, are things looking better this morning? Things are looking much better this morning. Even, you know, back at work, back at home. The sun shines out as well. So that's all good.

Look, the North Norfolk coast where you were is very beautiful. But what was it really like over the weekend at that campsite? Well, with the British weather, it's just a complete make or break, isn't it? And so we were there for a long weekend. It's absolutely stunning up there. You're right. But certainly we had thunderstorms. We had the wind. We had leaky tents, mud everywhere. And it has an effect on you after three nights of probably three hours a night sleep, you know, so yeah. Well, you've got, we've had quite a lot of interaction, as you might be able to imagine, and quite a few people agreeing with you. One tweet here says, camping is hard work. And on a very rainy trip recently, I wondered why I ever imagined this would be a holiday. Then they said, but waking up to see a baby owl poke its head out of a tree, it dawned on me that all the struggling with the elements

is why it's such a blessing. So I suppose that's Sally from Bristol who says that you can have a little bit of both, I guess. I wonder, Hannah, though, your children were with you. What did they think of the camping experience? Well, the children had a whale of a time. You know, they were with their cousins and the rest of the family. There were about 14 of us in total. So, you know, the weather had no effect on their time that they were enjoying, you know, playing games, you know, tennis on the beach, rounders, even getting in the sea when the thunderstorms were going.

So they had a whale of a time. And what about, you know, what did you think normally you would go on holiday, on a foreign holiday, would you? Yeah. Right. OK. And you do mention other people's children. That was a particular bugbear, was it? Yeah, it was actually. You know, I just think it is a family campsite. So you expect to hear children playing and having fun and arguing, whatever. But I think when it gets to sort of half past 11 at night,

when it's pitch black and the park has got no lights on and you can hear children roaring like dinosaurs, when you've had three hours sleep you kind of, it begins to grate on you a little bit and I certainly started to turn into a bit of a T-Rex like I said myself. Well Sarah has also

tweeted in to say, I've just returned from a few days glamping in Norfolk and I'm exhausted. The wind was howling, the rain pouring, we couldn't get any food. It was a holiday, but far from a relaxing overseas break. And Alison has mentioned, she's just reminded me that a holiday in the UK

is a holiday, not a staycation. A staycation is staying at home and having days out. Actually, Alison, I completely agree with you, but I think we're becoming in a smaller and smaller minority. A staycation is when you stay at home, not when you go on holiday in the UK. And Anna has tweeted in.

And actually, Anna is very pro-camping. She said, this is our third year with our kids. And each year we average about three trips across the summer and half terms. One trip a couple of years ago, we were the only ones camping at a site in Yorkshire when the rain did not stop. Getting to pitch our car, the car got stuck and then the mud rolled backwards, knocking over a baby tree. The same trip, my youngest thought the tent door was zipped shut but instead fell headfirst into a pile of mud outside the tent. But then she goes on to say, all in all, we love it.

The kids think it's amazing and I'm glad to see more people enjoying campsites, although I would like it if campsites weren't full so early. So there's a real mix of views there, Hannah. But what do you think? Will you be going on holiday to Norfolk to attend next year? No. OK, very simple. OK, well, Hannah, I really hope that you enjoy the rest of your summer and that maybe next year's holiday is a little bit more relaxing. Yeah, thanks ever so much.

Now here at Woman's Hour, we'd like to hear about your experiences in caring for elderly relatives. If you're concerned that someone close to you is beginning to struggle to look after themselves in their home, or if you've given up your own career to care for them, perhaps you're finding that difficult and you think actually that they'd be better looked after by somebody else. Maybe you're too proud to ask for help and maybe they are as well. And maybe they'd never consider moving into a care home. I know it's a really hard subject to broach, but we'd like to hear what you've got to say. And if you are elderly yourself and you're worried about how much longer you can remain independent, do get in touch with us and have your say.

As always, you can email us via the website. You can text WOMENSHOUR on 84844. Texts are going to be charged at your standard message rate. Or, of course, you can tweet BBC WOMENSHOUR. Now, if you have laughed at shows like The Thick of It, Veep, Smack the Pony or Have I Got News for You, then you've probably been laughing at lines written by my next guest. Georgia Pritchett is a multi-award winning comedy and drama writer.

She's also collaborated with a huge range of comedians. Miranda Hart, Lenny Henry, Rory Bremner, Ronnie Corbett and Joe Brand are just a few of the names that she has written for. And she's also writer of the hit drama, Drama Succession. That's about to come back for its third series. And she's also written a memoir. It's called My Mess, A Bit of a Life, Adventures in Anxiety. And it's about her life from childhood through to almost now. Perhaps not surprisingly, it is one of the funniest books I've ever read, but in places it's also one of the most tender. Here's a small taste. We're all doomed. My earliest memory is of sitting in my buggy in the snow. I was three. My mum said to my brother, don't fall over in the snow. Then my brother fell over

in the snow. This made me realise, one, bad things happen. Two, bad things happen even if you tell the bad thing not to happen. Three, we're all doomed. George, you're welcome. Your writing credits, both here and in the US, are quite spectacular. Before we get on to them, though, I'd like you to just tell us a little bit about how you started. You grew up in London, but how did you get into comedy writing? Well, I always knew I wanted to be a writer. I think that's the one thing I've never been confused about. But I wasn't sure what kind of writing. I knew I couldn't write prose because I don't like describing things and I don't know enough adjectives.

And I knew I couldn't be a journalist because I don't care about facts. And so it was actually my mum that pointed out that I would sort of watch my favourite comedians and sketch shows and memorise the dialogue and that I obviously enjoyed dialogue. So that made me think I was going to give script writing a go. Now, your first credit when it was read out, actually read out on Radio 4, it was read out as George Pritchett. And you say in your book, I'm quoting from your book,

of course it was, I was the only woman in the room. Just how male dominated was the comedy writing world when you started, Georgia? Well, it was all men. And I didn't have to bother with having imposter syndrome because I was the only person who wasn't a man and who hadn't gone to Oxford or Cambridge. So I was an imposter. And I thought at the time, you know, things will improve. More women will appear. But it was 25 years before I sat in a room with another woman and worked. That's just an extraordinary fact. 25 years. And, you know, you write with a number of people. So it's not like there's just two of you. So there might have been, what, six or seven writers and all of the rest of them were men all the time for a quarter of a century? Yes. Wow. And, you know, even when you started writing, you say in the book, you started writing for Jo Brand, one of the few women that you actually wrote for.

But you had to write jokes about her weight. I know. I mean, it was fantastic writing for stand-ups and a great training for writing characters because you have to sort of inhabit them. But I remember at the time, you know, saying, should we do some material that isn't about your appearance? And she said, if I don't mention my appearance in the first minute of being on stage, I will get the most terrible heckles.

And that's not a good way to start a set. So, yeah, we had to adapt to the situation she was performing under. I wonder how it works writing for comedians. You've written for many huge names. I mentioned a couple of them, Ronnie Corbett and Lenny Henry, Miranda Hart. I mean, they're all very different. How does that collaboration process work? kind of becoming these different people and and putting yourself in their shoes and um i remember when at one time i was writing for joe brand and lenny henry and ronnie corbett all at the same time so and they all talk about their physicality quite a lot so i was sort of switching personalities um but it's yeah it's it's a wonderful thing to collaborate with them

such incredible performance and certainly i learned a huge amount from all of them and that must be quite different from from writing collaboratively on shows like the thick of it succession veep i mean i wonder if there are very many differences in the way things work in the uk and the us yes absolutely it's incredibly different. And part of that is to do with money. You know, there's more money over there to pay for more writers to sit in a room. We don't really have that kind of money over here. So it's generally quite a solitary endeavour at home in your pyjamas. But in the States, I think it is very different, not just for those reasons,

but they have always had a different attitude towards women in comedy. So right from the earliest sitcoms like Lucille Ball and Mary Tyler Moore and Rhoda and Roseanne and Ellen coming through the decades, there's always been fantastic sitcoms with the women in the lead. And we just haven't had that over here. We've had women playing nags or slags, basically,

either the sensible wife providing the set-up line or the sort of hilariously oversexed older neighbor or something and um you know even today our one of our most successful sitcoms is a man in a dress rather than a woman um so yeah we just we we don't i mean i think i was listening to your conversations earlier about Kamala and Hillary Clinton. And, you know, the states have proved themselves to be an incredibly sexist and racist country. And yet they still are ahead of us in terms of their attitudes towards women in comedy. Georgia, throughout your book, you're wildly self-deprecating. And you do say that writing is the perfect job for an anxious person.

Until now, you've never written about yourself and I wonder to what extent it was helpful writing about yourself. I'm asking this because one line in your book, you say, feelings are like pickled eggs, best left unopened, no matter how drunk you are. Yes, I stand by that. Yeah, it's it is the perfect job for a shy person. I literally get to put words in other people's mouths and hide behind the lines and, you know, only express myself by stealth. So to write a book about myself, I don't know what happened. Really, it was a terrible lapse in judgment or a moment of lockdown madness. Yeah, it's it's pretty horrifying to discover that I've written something so personal.

And both your sons are autistic and you write really well about the challenges that you faced with them in your book. What made you decide to include them in your stories well because they're the center of my world and um they bring such joy to me um but I wanted to um you know be honest about what life is like with children who are different um I don't feel you get to see that on TV or in films very much if they have someone with autism they're usually some kind of genius or have sort of special powers or something so I just wanted to kind of show what day-to-day life is like and how unpredictable it is it's basically like all parenting but but sort of concentrated, like times a thousand, you know,

every day is brilliant, hilarious, tragic, shocking, surprising. You know, it's everything. You go through everything in the space of one day. Although this book made me laugh a lot, it covers so much and there are some, you know,

very sad moments in it as well. But I wanted just to before we go, I wanted to talk to you about two things. I wanted to talk to you about Succession. It's such an amazingly famous and huge hit. The third series is about to come out. I wonder when you were first writing it, when you were approached to write about it, what you thought, what are the challenges and pleasures of working on Succession? Yes, well, when Jesse Armstrong, who I, you know, started off in comedy with, suggested it, my initial reaction was I don't want to write about a bunch of entitled white men who are poisoning our world. But actually, it's been a really exciting challenge to dig deep into their characters

and try and make the audience sort of, if not care, sort of feel compassion on one level. The other thing I wanted to ask you about was hanging out with the First Lady of America and the first lady of comedy, along with just, by the way, Joe Biden, who's now the president. You were filming at the White House. I mean, it's just not something that you would expect from an anxious girl from Elephant and Castle. Tell me how that happened. I know that was extraordinary. And I was really enjoying your conversations earlier. So the they asked us to film a sketch for the Barack Obama's correspondence dinner.

And I'm sure you know that the correspondence dinner where all the sort of journalists and everyone in Washington attends, the only person who can't attend is the vice president for security reasons. So at the time, that was Joe Biden. So we did a sort of sketch with the real vice president and Veep's fictional vice president, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus. We did a kind of Ferris Bueller's Day Off sort of idea of what these two people got up to while everyone's backs were turned. And that was an extraordinary experience. And you said that Michelle Obama has got natural comedy timing, I think.

Oh my goodness, she's hilarious. She was absolutely brilliant and wonderful. Well, thank you so much for sharing just a few of your wonderful stories with us. Georgia Pritchett's book is called My Mess is a Bit of a Life and it is I Deny. Now, as part of our series on money, today we're talking about investing. Now, don't switch off. Women invest significantly less than men and it's actually not good for financial equality. So I wonder if you consider yourself an investor. Do you know that your pension is actually an investment? So how much do you know about where it's invested? To help us debunk some of the myths and provide some advice,

I'm joined by Selina Flavius, who is a financial advisor and author of Black Girl Finance, Let's Talk Money. And Micah Currie is an investment director for Fidelity International. And she also writes for the Financial Times. Selina, I want to start with the very basics here. One reason that women can actually be put off talking about finances is the jargon. So let's just start with what investing actually means as opposed to saving. That's such a good question. Well, investing to me, and i describe it in my book black guy finance let's talk money as uh you know we invest in so many other things in our lives so we invest in relationships we invest in you know study to to get an outcome you know to get love or to get

you know a really good job at the end of it and we can do the same with our money so invest in is basically putting our money to work for us. We may invest by owning some stocks and shares in a company. And if that company does well, hopefully that share price will increase. And, you know, there we're quitting. We've made some profit based on that investment. So, you know, why is it important then that women should actually be educated in the benefits of investing as opposed to saving? Why isn't just saving enough? Oh, there are so many reasons. You know, there are some disparities that exist in terms of kind of the gender pay gap, the ethnicity pay gap.

And unfortunately, that leaves us having to catch up. You mentioned earlier about, you know, you didn't know that pensions were invested somewhere. And I think we need to, you know, you didn't know that pensions were invested somewhere. And I think we need to, you know, really centre investing as a way of catching up and making sure that we are closing those financial gaps that do exist. So just to be clear, are we saying that actually if you save, if you just save, you're not going to make as much money as if you actually actively invest? That's correct. And another reason for that is because of inflation as well. So you probably would have seen a lot in the news about inflation rising, potentially getting to three or 4% by the end of the year last month. This month, there's not so much about inflation in the news. But I mean, inflation is where the value of your spending power is eroded,

because things are becoming more expensive. So again, as well as kind of tackling pay gaps that do exist and ensuring that our pay, our salary is increasing in line with inflation, we need to make sure that our investments are increasing in line with inflation as well. So a number of reasons. Micah, there are a lot of myths and stereotypes out there. One is simply that women aren't as good with money as men. What are the facts around that? account and those are published every year twice a year and you look at who holds the most in cash ices women hold far more in cash ices than men women are better savers than men now consider the fact that we get paid less because of the gender pay gap we take career breaks to raise children

to care for sick or elderly relatives we get charged more for things because of the think tax. We spend more of our money on children. We still manage to save more than men. However, there's a caveat in all of this. If you look at stocks and shares ISAs, so investing in the stock market, buyer and ISA, men hold more than that. And that's really the rub. We know that interest rates have been at record lows in the UK for more than 10 years now. Great news if you've got a mortgage, not such great news if you've been a diligent saver and you've left your money in a cash deposit account. So do we know why women don't invest in stocks and shares? Are women more risk averse? I mean, do we know what's behind this?

There are various reasons. I think the first thing is around the myths that you mentioned. The first thing is that there's a myth or there's a preconceived belief that you have to be wealthy to invest. That is incorrect. You can start investing with as little as £25 a month. There's a myth or a belief among women that they're not as good with money, which is nonsense. Because as I've just said, women are really good diligence savers. We save with the goal in mind, whether it's buying our first property,

buying a new car, going on holiday. And that mindset is actually the exact mindset you need to invest. On your point about being more risk-averse, this is something that's often said. It's not true. There's no – people with the same level of education. There's no disparity in the genders when it comes to being risk averse. That comes in when you've got more children, depending on your earnings and the like. But it's a very dangerous risk because it becomes self perpetuating. Women are more risk averse. That's why they can't take the plunge and invest. What you know about the world already tells you a lot about where the investment opportunities are. The fact that I'm talking to you via Zoom, the fact that I'll probably binge watch Netflix tonight or the doorbell will ring and there'll be an Amazon delivery. The changes in the world that we women are very good at observing tell us where the investment opportunities are. We really just need to take the plunge and invest because ultimately, we know that money is power, money is choice,

money is freedom. And investing gives you that ability to leave a toxic relationship, to walk away from a controlling parent, to leave a job that you're miserable in. And that's why we really need to talk about investing more as women. Okay, Selina, how do you start investing? Where would you begin? That's a really good question. Again, the very first places that I started investing were in my company pension. That was the very first place that I began. And also I worked for a company, a software company, and they offered some stocks and share options as part of being part of their employee basically. So those were the very two places that I started investing in and secondly

as Micah has mentioned you can start investing from very small amounts so from £25 and that was me as well. So when I decided to invest outside of my pension I went onto a kind of a platform that allows you to choose what you invest in. And I started off from investing very little, so probably like £50 to begin with. And that took me doing some research and also just giving myself permission to decide to invest and learn as I go along as well. I think it's been really interesting investing throughout the pandemic and seeing the rise and falls of my investment and really understanding myself as an investor,

not panicking, not kind of selling everything when things have gone down and just understanding that it's a long-term goal. So yeah, just giving yourself permission to invest and starting with what I could afford as well. Well, that's really interesting. And thank you both very much indeed for joining me. Micah Currie and Selina Flavius, thank you both.

Well, we've got a lot more information coming in, actually. A lot of people are saying that working from home is something that they really want to do and they're really hoping that they're going to be able to manage it in the future. And I'd like to thank everybody who's contributed for us today. I'll be back at the same time tomorrow for Nine. Goodbye.

That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Sneakers? Trainers. Whatever you want to call them, they are amongst the most iconic cultural objects of our time. But their evolution is a story rarely told until now. From BBC Radio 4, this is Sneakernomics.

Across this podcast, we're going to be telling the crazy origin stories of the most well-known sports companies and their relentless quest to be the world's number one brand. Sneakernomics tells the story of fierce competition and rivalry, one that tore families and friendships apart And even divided towns We'll follow in the footsteps of mavericks, hustlers and dreamers And hear their tales of boom and bust, fame and infamy, hope and heartbreak

Above all, this is the story of the people behind the shoes From BBC Radio 4, this is Sneakernomics Subscribe at BBC Sounds. 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.