Woman's Hour - Listener Week: Female breadwinners, Attitudes to stepmothers, Traditional craftswomen

Episode Date: August 7, 2025

Listener Week continues on Woman's Hour as we bring your stories, ideas and the issues you want to hear about to the air.What happens when a woman earns more than her partner, or is the sole earner in a household? For some couples, it’s a practical arrangement that works well. For others, it can bring unexpected tensions, challenging traditional ideas about gender, identity and power. Listener Karla emailed the programme to say that she wanted to talk about what it means to be a female breadwinner. She joins Anita Rani along with Melissa Hogenboom, author of the book Breadwinners.Lynne got in touch with the show to share her experience of being a stepmother and ask why people question the validity of her role and other her. Lynne explains that her bonds with her partner and her stepdaughter are incredibly strong, but expresses confusion and anxiety at how people react to her being a stepmum. Lynne talks to Anita and Professor Lisa Doodson, a chartered psychologist, author and stepmother herself, who has carried out research into this topic.After our recent series about women and gaming, listener Jacqueline got in touch to say, 'I use games to 'check out' of life and to cope with an overwhelming amount of stuff that I need to manage. The games are an escape, but all those issues just come rushing back afterwards. I don't know where to turn for help.' Jacqueline joins Anita to share her experience, alongside consultant psychiatrist Professor Henrietta Bowden-Jones, founder and Director of the National Centre for Gaming Disorders.Last weekend Laura Hollywood was crowned Europe’s Strongest Woman at the Official Strongman European Championship. We heard about her achievements from her friend Helen, who is a Woman’s Hour listener. As well as being a ‘strong-woman’, Laura is also a strength coach, supporting women through the perimenopause, helping them to embrace their strength, enhance their performance, and build their best self. Laura joins Anita to explain what it take to become a ‘strong woman’.Mary-Havana Little is a traditional fibrous plasterer. She got in touch for Listener Week to suggest we talk about traditional crafts. Mary is one of the few women in the plastering world, working to create ornate decorative mouldings using techniques from hundreds of years ago. She joins Anita to speak about working in this male-dominated craft, and why she wants to inspire more women and girls into the industry.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Rebecca Myatt

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BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning, welcome to the programme. It's a highlight in the Woman's Hour calendar listener week. Every subject, every story covered this week has come from you. So far, we've heard some really powerful accounts of the reality of women's lives, and today is going to be no different. We'll be discussing female breadwinners.

Do you earn more than your partner? How does this impact the dynamic of your relationship? How do you honestly feel about it? Have you found a way of making it work? And the person who doesn't work, do they pick up the slack at home? Or as the female breadwinner, do you find you're still doing all the domestic chores as well? Your thoughts on this, please. Also, I'll be speaking to Europe's strongest woman.

She's from Sheffield. Also, a specialist decorative plasterer, One of the few female plasterers in the country that should be good inspiration for people wanting to do something different and also gaming addiction. How many hours do you spend playing games online? And stepmothers, are you one? I'll be speaking to listener Lynne, who emailed the programme to say,

I met my partner almost 10 years ago, just two months after his wife died. She succumbed to breast cancer and five years after five years, leaving him with his beautiful daughter, who was almost six. I was 42 and had no children, but I'm divorced. We fell in love and became a family almost immediately, and my bond with our daughter is so profound. I love her more than anything in the world.

Despite this, I will always be the stepmother, and I'm always asked questions like, how do you get on with your partner's daughter, as though she isn't mine too? I'll be speaking to Lynne about her experience, as well as a professor who's done research into stepmothers. So if you have a question, or would simply like to share your experience

and your story, then get in touch in the usual way. The text number is 84844. You can email the program by going to our website. You can also WhatsApp the program. It's 0300-100-444. And if you'd like to follow us on social media, it's at BBC Woman's Hour. That text number once again, 84844.

But first, what happens when a woman earns more than her partner or is the sole owner in a household? For some couples, it's a practical arrangement that works well. For others, it can bring unexpected tensions, challenging traditional ideas about gender, identity and power. We're talking about being the female breadwinner, what it means emotionally, financially and socially. Listener Carla emailed us saying, my suggestion for Listener Week is to do something on women that do well in their careers, surpassing their partner. I don't often feel that it's a theme covered as normally you look at the other side, women as caregivers, or the ones that are underpaid. I'm a marketing director at an American tech firm.

I'm married with a four-year-old and a six-month-old. I'm currently on maternity leave and I feel a huge amount of pressure to go back soon and full-time as I'm the sole breadwinner. Am I alone in this or is this an emerging trend? Once again, that text number 84844. Well, I'm delighted to say that we're joined by Carla and Melissa Hogan Boom, author of Breadwinners

and other power dynamics that influence your life. Welcome, Carla. Welcome, Melissa. What made you want to write in about this topic? Yeah, thanks, Anita. Well, I guess this is something that has been on my mind for a long time. I've been the main breadwinner of my house for probably the best part of 10 years now. And certainly now that I'm on maternity leave for a second time,

it's something that plays on my mind quite a bit, particularly as I am about to return to work again. And there's that feeling that, gosh, I really wish I could spend more time with my children. but you know I have to pay the bills and so yeah it's it prompted me to write in I think as a consequence of being a breadwinner I do feel a lot of pressure on my shoulders to keep going at full pelt there really isn't an opportunity for me to drop down to going part time for instance so that I could spend more time with my kids because again the bills need to be paid and also I do get anxious from time to time thinking about, gosh, what would happen if I did lose my job, you know,

with emerging AI and things like that. Could at some point my job become redundant because of that. So I don't quite know what the answer is to that. But then the other observation I've had, and I would love to hear what Melissa has to say on this, as a female breadwinner, I still find myself picking up a lot of those traditional female responsibilities in the house such as cleaning and of course carrying the mother load and project managing our house and our family and I do wonder whether that is unique to myself or whether that is more of an emerging trend well before we ask Melissa and our listeners in fact we would love to hear whether your thoughts on this and if you can relate to what Carla's saying why do you think you're doing that yeah it's it's a great

question. I do think that my husband is capable of doing some of these things, but not necessarily to the same standard that I enjoy. And we often get into heated discussions around this, around what does a clean kitchen look like? So for me, a clean kitchen is clean. But for him, it might still have crumbs on the counters and a few dishes out and the floor hasn't been hoovered. And so for me, I then feel like I need to take on that as well because I hate to say. I mean, I love my husband to pieces, but I can't trust him with certain things to be done to the standard that I'd like. And also, as we were discussing a little bit before we came on live, I don't necessarily want to be judged by other people for not keeping a clean house. And I think that if people come into the house and they see it's not

clean, they'll think that it's me who hasn't cleaned it properly as opposed to actually it was my husband who did it. So, yeah. We've got personal already. So we might as well. keep going. Can you sort of explain the setup at home a bit more? In terms of... With your husband and the childcare and how the home is managed with you being this old breadwin? Yes, for sure. So I work full time and, well, I mean, at the moment, obviously I'm on maternity leave, but if we talk about when I'm working, I work full time. I typically clock off around 6pm, but sometimes it can go a little bit later than that. From a child care perspective we pay for four days of nursery for at the moment not neither of the children are in

nursery because I'm off but very soon our four-year-old will start school so that's great and then our baby will be starting nursery and he will be doing four days a week for that fifth day the idea is really for my husband to pick up the child care and actually as it turns out my dad has really stepped up and he's been helping us a lot so shout out to the dads for, you know, coming in here. He's been really good at helping out with those Fridays. My husband, he does work. It's not that he doesn't work. He's self-employed and he's very passionate about what he does and he does work hard. But unfortunately, it's just not bringing in an income that really can support our family. It doesn't contribute

in any material way. So it does sort of land on me to pay for things. And then, yeah, from a sort of getting cleaning done and those sorts of things that's as i've already mentioned primarily sits with myself it's not to say again that my husband doesn't do other things he there are things that he takes on like managing the car we're doing a big house project at the moment he's doing a lot of the DIY and things for that so he does work hard but again the traditional things that normally sit with women very much full with me Melissa it's interesting that to hear carla say that because this chimes with the women I spoke with. So in all cases, every woman I spoke with, and I spoke to dozens of men and women, they tended to do the majority of the household labor, whether they were the primary earners, so earning more, or the sole earners. So this is earning the full household income. And the only situation where men were doing more at home was if they were the state-at-home dads during the week. But at the weekend, the women still tended to pick up the slack. And a lot of researchers point to the idea that women who are stepping outside of these gendered expectations and they're so entrenched,

we feel it, you know, the way we're brought up. Girls do more chores than boys from a very young age. And women are judged on the way the household runs in the same, not in the same way that men are. And so women then overcompensate in their spare time, either because they feel guilty for not being there. Maybe they feel guilty for not working flexibly, like you said. you don't see men male breadwinners requesting more flexibility at work but women feel judged for the way that they're doing child care in a way that men simply do not and women are expected to work flexibly in the way that men are not and so this translates to doing more at home

whether it's the visible load or even the mental load so I think that's the one that's hardest to crack this is the anticipating the researching the deciding it's not just the visible elements of the housework and then what carla said as well the very gendered patterns that happen. You see women doing more of the everyday tasks and men chiming in and saying, well, I do my bit, I do the finances or the car, but those are not everyday tasks.

And so in terms of leisure time, female breadwinners who earn more of the money, they are out the house more or working more hours, they still have less leisure time than men, even if the men aren't in paid employment. Roughly how many women are the breadwinner in the UK? In the UK, it's about one in four couples and it's been gradually rising.

you see similar trends in Europe. And why did you want to write this book? Well, I grew up in a household where my mother had the higher status job and my father was at home a lot. So I was very much of the generation where I was thinking, I thought I could get, you know, go into the labor force and do whatever I want. I didn't ever think my gender would hold me back. And this definitely helped me progress in my career.

And then when I came across research, because I write about gender inequality a lot, I came across research that showed that men's well-being is lower when they're both when, so men's well-being is lower when he's unemployed and she's out to work and his well-being is higher if they're both unemployed and that makes no economic

sense. Yeah, explain. It makes no economic sense and this is a well-being survey so it's not looking in asking them deep questions about it but the reason why it's again it's tied to masculinity and expected norms of going out to the workforce and your identity being tied to the work and so if you're

both unemployed there's not this visible discrepancy. Yeah, the discrepancy. Whereas if you're unemployed and your female partner is employed, you see her go out to work every day and every day you're reminded that you're not providing. Carla, you're nodding. Yes, I mean, I actually have to say that I don't feel that this is the case in my relationship as it is today. My husband, he said, don't call it a low ego, call it a non-fragile ego. He is quite supportive of what I'm doing. I say very supportive of what I'm doing and he loves to see that I'm successful. That's not to say that it doesn't hurt him that he's not able to contribute more because I know that he would love to be able to do that, but it's not, they're not mutually exclusive. However, I have been in previous relationships where this would have been a really, really big issue and, you know, relationships where I was earning less than the man and he would hang that over my head and, you know, remind me every day that, you know, not necessarily I should be contributing more financially, but that I should, therefore, as a result, be doing a lot more to compensate for the fact that he's earning more. So I know the type of men that would feel very comfortable in a way of either earning more or just being unemployed alongside their counterpart as opposed to the woman going out and earning and them not earning. So Melissa, do you think some of these, I mean, expectations, we've mentioned already, come from telling little girls they can do anything or in fact actually saying to them that you must do everything, but not socialising boys in the same way. To use Gloria Steinem, she said, though we have the courage to raise our daughters, more like our sons, we rarely have the courage to raise our sons like our daughters.

I think how we raise our children plays a huge role. And you see this in norms where men perhaps have seen their mothers go out to work and earning more. They are less expecting of their wives to do more at home. So I spoke to some amazing fathers who were earning less. And the common thread was the ones who are happy in their marriage and happy to see their wives earning more had witnessed their mother going out to work. And I see this in my own children. so I have a boy and a girl. And I asked them once, who does more work? Mommy or Daddy? And they said, Daddy, because they see me more. I work possibly a few hours. I work from home more. And then I had to consciously tell them,

no, we both contribute. We both work. Our jobs are both important. But it is really important how we socialise our girls and boys. And it's really subtle things. Like there's loads of research that shows that women talk more about emotions to their daughters than their sons. Fathers engage in more rough and tumble fun play with their sons

and their daughters and fathers tend to do the fun activities and women do the kind of mundane care activities and if your children are seeing mum doing the washing up, mum doing the laundry, mum doing all the kind of the lunchbox prep and this was me this morning by the way, they're going to expect that this is what a girl does and this is what a boy does.

So it's really important very early on for them both to see both of you doing it. But in Carla's case, he would do the cleaning but it's just not to your standard. So how do we solve? How can we help Carla today? I think the main thing is women do have to do some initial work to let go of some of these expectations

and understand that the judgment is because women are judged more in their house than the men and handing things over end to end. And just a discussion about what's important because if you don't understand what matters to you and what matters to your partner, it's mutual respect, right? Like some people might be fine with screen time, other people might not. And so having the discussion about this is really important to me. I know you've got the time.

I will do this part of the household if you do that part of the household, but that means end to end. So how do you prevent resentment setting in? That question to me. Yeah, to be either of you. Melissa, what needs to be done? It's such a basic respect that needs to happen. So there's evidence that shows that higher power partners expect their lower earning partners

to adopt their goals, whether that's career goals or hobby. and you can see that that can happen then in the household too if the person who's out earning more expects their lower earner to do what they want them to do. It's an uncomfortable power imbalance. And then with women, it's kind of reversed. Women have the higher kind of financial power, but they're still doing more at home.

And so respecting mutual time and leisure time equally and then dividing accordingly. So it does all stem back to really basic communication of what each of you is doing, what makes you happy, and how much time you need to pursue your goals. What would make life easier for you? I mean, if my husband could wake up one day

and realize that actually the kitchen isn't clean, that would be great. But I know that that's not going to happen. But could you not talk to him about it? Yeah, no, we do. We do talk about it. And, you know, I wouldn't say we ever argue over it because we generally have a very open, you know,

relationship in terms of our communication. But, yeah, I think it's just, he just fundamentally doesn't agree that things need to be done to the same standard that I think they need to be done. Melissa? Yeah, I think part of letting go would be when does it matter

for your kitchen to be clean and tidy, but also for him to understand that that's a big thing for you and maybe to understand why. And so what could he do differently to that standard so you don't have to think about it because if you're thinking about it on a radio interview, you have a mental load of kitchen, which is,

is going to hold you back. Like if you have to come home and pick up some of the slack, you're not thinking about your next appointment or career. So it's really important for him to understand your pressure points, but for you to understand why his standards are lower. What happens in same-sex relationships? So I think that that's what we can all learn from. So they're not beholden to the same gendered expectations,

especially women who are in a relationship. They have both been socialised in a world where they understand kind of the gender biases. and so one couple I spoke to kind of sum up what the research says. They said to me, if she does it even half a percent less, I will complain. And so from the outset, they look at what they're doing, they look at the childcare tasks, the cooking, the cleaning, and they divide it according to who has time available

and who is better at it or who wants to do it, not according to who's earning more income. You've opened a can of worms, Carla, by getting in touch with this subject, because we've got loads of messages. I'm going to read a few of them out. I absolutely identify with Carla as being the female breadwinner. In my case, my partner found it incredibly emasculating. And as I listen, I'm thinking about how difficult it is to discuss this honestly without sounding critical of your partner.

Another listener says, TOTU relate to your guests at every level. My marriage and all those issues she's talking about shattered my mental health. And eventually I had to leave the relationship. It took me three years to recover and I remained single for 10 with years of therapy in between. expectations of women are unrealistic and unattainable. Maybe that's the thing we need to stop doing, just worrying about other people's expectations. That's exactly what my husband says,

who cares what other people think. Yeah, absolutely, because the female breadwinners are more likely to end up in divorce. That stat is right there. There you go. And on that note, we will leave it. Carla, thank you so much. Are you pleased that you got in touch?

Have we just made it more complicated? Possibly. Okay, well, it'll be a good discussion when you get home. But thank you so much. Like I said, lots of our listeners are getting in touch and keep doing so. 84844. Carla and Melissa, thank you very much. On to our next topic.

According to the Office for National Statistics in 2021, there was 781,000 step families in the UK, equating to 1.1 million children living in a blended family household. Lynn has been a stepmother for nine years. She got in touch with the show to share her experiences. Here's a little of what she told us. I met my partner almost 10 years. ago just two months after his wife died she succumbed to breast cancer after five years leaving him

with his beautiful daughter who was almost six i was 42 and had no children but i'm divorced we fell in love and became a family almost immediately and my bond with our daughter is so very profound i love her more than anything in the world despite this i will always be the stepmother and i'm always asked questions like how do you get on with your partner's daughter as though she isn't mine too Lynn ended her message to the program wondering if she's the only woman with this experience but Professor Lisa Dudson also a stepmother herself has carried out research into the topic

finding that stepmothers across the country are feeling anxiety in the role Lisa and Lynn join me now Lynn I'm going to come to you first because you got in touch and wanted us to talk about it why? Yeah morning Anita and thank you by the way for being so honest

and getting in touch Not at all. I'm delighted to share with you, delighted to be part of your brilliant program. Yeah, I've been a stepmother for almost a decade now and it kind of was something that irritated me at the start because I walked into a situation where obviously my daughter's mother had died and I walked sort of up to the school gates and was eyed with a bit of suspicion and I don't want this to sound like a pity party by any manner of means but I wasn't added to the WhatsApp group. And some of the mothers would tell me lots of stories about, you know, my partner and his late wife's life before I came along, you know, as if to show that they knew more about them. And it was a sort of way that I think sometimes when you're a new entry in a group, people try to sort of get a bit of grit under your skin to show that they, that you're not part of the group, you know, maybe test you. But, I mean, last year, something really extraordinarily happened. and her daughter became critically ill and was admitted to hospital. When we were in hospital, nobody doubted my bond with Angelica in any way.

But sometimes, you know, friends and family would say things like, gosh, my partner must be terribly upset, as if I wasn't upset that she was in a coma. She was terribly unwell. And it occurred to me that people think that because I didn't give birth to her physically, and because I didn't go through some formal adoption process because we haven't, that in some way she means less to me and that I'm less of a mother to her. And sometimes people have even said to me, well, of course, you don't know what it's like to give birth.

And I think, well, obviously not. And also I feel like saying to them, obviously you don't know what it's like to adopt. And I look at being a stepmother and I couldn't love my daughter anymore. I just, she is my absolute world, you know, as I said, we're a small family of three and the joy of being her stepmother is wonderful, but I find I don't want a change in the nomenclature, but what I ask is why is the evil stepmother thing, you know, still a something that perpetuates? Mostly my family have been very accepting of her, but I can see in some areas where people are not 100%

accepting of us as a family as if because we're not married perhaps or as if I have. I haven't gone through some formal adoption. Maybe she's not mine, although it's never been questioned by authority. You know, we've had a problem travelling because I have a different second name. But I look at being a stepmother, and I think people talk about being a dog mum, and that's accepted. But somehow a stepmom is not seen as a positive thing. Well, I'm glad you got in touch, which is why we've got Lisa on, because one of the other things you said, apart from, you know, what you've brought up there about this sort of this kind of wicked stereotype, wicked stepmother.

role, is that you felt alone and you were wondering whether other people related to your experience. So Lisa, let me bring you in here. Is this common for women who are step-mums to feel that their experiences there's alone? Yes, it absolutely is, Anita. And I've heard that that story resonates so much, you know, Lynn's story. It's an incredibly difficult role because I think that the last stories we were talking about sort of society's expectations on women. And I think that follows through here, really, is that if you aren't part of a blended family, you've never been a step-parent, you just don't know. And we don't really have that very, very many positive role models.

And so people are looking for guidance, really. And it takes, we know it takes a long time. It takes several years for a... a new blended family, step family to form. And things are getting better, but my own research basically showed that, you know, all these challenges of feeling like an outsider, you know, what's your role? What is a stepmom? You know, if you ask, should a stepmom attend school events?

Of course, in Lynn's case, of course they should. But if there was another mum there, is that, you know, should you go? Should you go and watch football? Some people were saying, no, absolutely not. your role. And that's where we get this sort of this confusion because it's really not clear. And that causes this huge anxiety in

stepmonds, which is awful. Lynn, your situation is quite unique in that your daughter's biological mother passed away before you met your partner. So how do you navigate your daughter's relationship with her biological mother alongside your own? Well, she's fourth person in our relationship. She very much is. We talk about her a lot.

we have some beautiful photographs of her we discuss as my daughter she's going to turn 16 in September and we discuss how she is like and not like her mother in many ways so you know she's very much a part of our family and that was something that I felt was terribly important when he talked about having a daughter I imagined that it would be shuttling back and forward between him and his ex-wife's house and then he said my wife died and I was kind of shocked and relieved at the same time because I realised that if I were to step into this family,

I wasn't going to be able to step out because you can't mess about with the emotions of a child, but we bonded almost immediately. Which is really, it's nice to hear that you bonded immediately and, you know, it's very moving when I read in your email that, you know, you love her more than anything, anything. I think you even said to your partner that, you know, if you had to choose, you would choose your daughter.

Lisa, I mean, Lynn's situation is unique, but your research looks into the impact of relationships it's between the biological mother and the stepmother. And why is that such a source of turbulence in family relations and conflict? Conflict always inevitable. What's the best way to deal with that? So it's not always inevitable. And I think, you know, what Ling was saying there about, you know,

not having that physical presence is different. It's not necessarily easier or better, certainly not better for the child. But it makes it for a different dynamic. But there's this sort of, if you come in as a stepmom and there is another biological mom, it's sort of, you've got to sort of have this dance of who's got control, if you like. And if you have a biological mom who's recovered, if you like, from the separation from the divorce and has moved on with their life and they feel very comfortable, then that can be much easier. But if you've got someone who still feels resentful that they were, you know, that they've been abandoned maybe,

or they're not moving on and they see their partner move on. It can cause this clash where the biological mom feels she's got more control or wants that control. And the stepmom can feel, you know, often you get stories where, you know, the biological mom is setting, you know, you're not allowed to do X, Y and Z with the children. The children have got to ring me every day. They've got to do this.

They've got to do that. And it's really overwhelming as a step parent. It can feel that you're not in control of your own life. You know, you're constantly having to sort of, shuttle the children, you have sort of two lives, one with the children, one without. You may have joint children together and you're trying to create that, that sort of blended, whole blended family with everybody. And it's so difficult if you've got this other presence. And it does happen a lot. And this co-parenting is so important, but it's getting the balance right. I sometimes

talk about having like this sort of this professional relationship with an ex where it's about being polite it's about listening it's about give and take but ultimately what happens in your house should be under your control and what happens in their house is under their control so it's trying to keep those boundaries really clear um we've had a few messages in at least i'm going to read a couple of them out sue saying funny how if a male marries someone someone with children already they're viewed as lovely but women who marry someone who already has children is the stepmother which often comes with negative connotations. I mean, we were talking about it in the previous discussion,

just the expectations that are placed on stepmothers compared to stepfathers when it comes to how quickly and deeply they're able to establish a bond with a stepchild, must be something you come across. Yeah, I mean, we know from research that stepmoms, that women actually cope, that they struggle with their well-being so much more than men in the same role. Because we believe it's to do with the society's expectations.

know, on women. And again, funnily enough, it's, you know, very similar to the earning and jobs. Because as a woman, we expect, you know, to be nurturing. And as Lynn's demonstrated, she's taken on such a wonderful caring role. And the worrying thing is that people don't react to that in the way they should, which is how wonderful, you know, to give this little girl another chance at having a mom in her life, you know, which is amazing and give her support. So it's this sort of dichotomy between what do we expect? How can we, how can we support people who are in this role? And it's, and for me, it's what I try and do with what I do as a psychologist and working in this area is, is really support women and give them, you know, more chance at understanding what their

role is so that their anxiety drops and they can start developing much happier. And how can a stepmother sort of protect their own space in a way? What if you actually don't particularly want to be a step-parent, but you're with, you know, you have children in your life because of your partner, then what about protecting your own boundaries? What advice would you give? So I would say it's about talking to your partner about what role you want to have. So it's not always going to be the same. It depends on the particular situation. So it's working out what you feel comfortable with. Don't do things just because you feel you should. You know, so all society or, you know, my friends think I should, you know, spend more time as a family.

if you just don't feel comfortable at the moment in your relationship doing that or you know you want to let your partner continue putting his children to bed or whatever that might be set those rules set your boundaries and then as you become more and more comfortable or more at ease in that role then you can change things it's not forever but it's working out what you can and can't do at the moment another fascinating conversation lynn and Lisa thank you very much another message here is saying anonymous please I didn't get on with my stepmother at all growing up, but as an adult, I know she cares about me a lot and I treasure our relationship. 84844. Keep your thoughts and opinions and experiences coming in about anything you're listening to on the program.

And remember, you can remain anonymous. Now, after our recent series about women and gaming, lots of you got in touch to ask us to highlight the issue of gaming addiction in more detail. Jacqueline was one of those listeners. She wrote, I use games to check out of life and to cope with an overwhelming amount of stuff. that I need to manage. The games are an escape, but all those issues just come rushing back afterwards. So today we're discussing gaming addiction or gaming disorder, as it's sometimes called. Jacqueline joins me now, and I'm also joined in the studio by consultant, psychiatrist, Professor Henrietta at Bowden Jones, founder and director of the National Centre for Gaming

Disorders, which is the first NHS clinic dedicated to treating them. So welcome both of you. Jacqueline, thank you for getting in touch with Woman's Hour. Why did you want to speak to us? about this. Tell us more. Well, when I was listening to the Women's Hour week-long program on gaming, I didn't hear that much about gaming addiction among adults. You hear things about gaming addiction among children or young adults, but it also exists among adults and women. And gaming is now ubiquitous. You just need to look at fellow travelers on public transport, for example. So many people who used to maybe read a newspaper or a book and now totally engrossed in mobile games, And I suppose I realized earlier this year that I'm addicted to online games, and that's what pushed me to write in.

When you say addicted, what do you mean? What are you playing and how long are you playing it for? Well, I've always played problem-solving games like Solitaire or Sudoku or, you know, the Chinese tile game called Majong. But I guess it really became a problem in 2020. In the middle of COVID, I took on three major projects at work. They all had really steep learning curves. I moved countries. The house we bought had all kinds of problems, which caused significant financial stress. And as was discussed by earlier guests, I'm the main breadwinner in the

household. So I felt a huge amount of responsibility. There was so much going on at all fronts, and the games became a way of calming the noise, calming the panic, and a real sense of overwhelm. And with the games, I could just check out of life for a while. The problem was it then became a habit. It became a coping mechanism. And it sounds ridiculous and actually pretty pathetic to say that I'm addicted to Suduco or Solitaire. But if I have a thought that I'm struggling with, the impulse to start a game even now is really strong. The game that I play are short games. They're just five games. They're just five minutes. So, you know, I would just, You know, if I had to sit down and play something like Call a Duty or Grand Theft Auto or, you know, the actual big proper video games that you might get with a gaming console, that's not something I would do because you have to commit at least half an hour to an hour, even before you start.

In my mind, I think I'll just be five minutes, but, you know, it's five minutes followed by five minutes, followed by five minutes and an hour, three hours, half a down. Even a whole day later, I could still be sitting there. And what's the impact on your life? I lose time. I lose time. I think the two most important things for anyone in life is your health and time. I mean, people get to the end of their life and you say, you know, I wish I had more time. And it just disappears into down the online sort of the online Ethernet.

And so I lose, I have, I've lost quite a lot of self-respect because I have tried to kick this habit. I've deleted all of, you know, there are no mobile games on any of my phones or tablets. I asked my husband to change the codes on his phones and his devices so I couldn't access them on his.

But I have a computer-based job and they're all, you know, they're everywhere online. Even now you can access mobile games on a TV streaming service. And I've, you know, I've tried sending a timer so that I would, you know, after X amount of time will stop.

I've looked into trying to block certain websites. I've been unsuccessful at doing that. And so I lose time and everything that I still need to do, you know, when I stop the gaming comes rushing straight back. And so it actually increases the stress level. So the thing that I'm trying to avoid by playing a game comes straight back. And I lose time. So I lose time to do the things that are actually important in life.

I'm going to get Henrietta to speak directly to you, Jacqueline, because that's why we have you here. You're the expert. What would you like to say to Jacqueline? The first thing I'd like to say is how delighted I am that you were courageous enough to bring this issue to such a wide audience. Certainly when we started the clinic in 2019, we were just seeing an endless number of young people, mainly boys, and they were often in group-based. games, presenting with lots of things that I weren't discussed today necessarily because I'm keen to focus on women and slightly older women as well. But I still remember a moment after I'd been on the radio talking about gaming disorder when I was contacted by a man in his 50s saying that he'd pulled over, he was on the motorway driving to work and he pulled over and in tears. He did not

think that grown-ups had problems with gaming. He'd never heard of that. And this had been a great barrier to seeking help. Stigma had been a barrier. And, you know, we got him to the clinic. We treated him as we did many others who are older. So I would say the older wave is more recent in the last three years. People are no longer feeling stigmatized. They can come forward. And I think when you talk about what is essentially loss of control, this is at the core of the way we perceive gaming disorder. So if you are behaving in a way in relation to your activities, to your games, that is harming you, harming your relationships, harming the way that you dedicate time to work, or even, as you say, your ability to feel good about yourself,

because you are really unable to fulfill your own expectations about how you feel life should be spent. All of these things are vitally important. And although normally gaming disorder needs to present for a year or so before people can actually diagnose it, we have moved away from that. And we do feel we come across people who, even in a matter of a few months, particularly if they get on to a game that is very, let's say, appealing to them. them. They can be gaming eight, nine, ten, even twelve or fourteen hours a day. Well, it's interesting, isn't it? Because when I read your email, Jacqueline, I thought,

well, you know, it's Sudoku. You know, you're playing kind of, we're told that these are mindfulness, this is brain training. But the impact it's having on your life is obviously very detrimental. And the way, even just hearing you talk and I can see your face, you know, it's obviously having a huge impact on you. What about the rest of your family and your husband? And what's the impact on them? Well, this is what's interesting about these kind of short games and online is my husband can obviously see that I'm doing it. But no one else in life can because, you know, unlike alcohol, you know, being an alcoholic or a drug addict or gambling, there is no physical impact. There's no financial impact.

And really essentially just losing time. And so it's very easy to, for people not. to notice. So I actually, my husband sees it, and he is a little bit at a loss as to how to help. But I spoke actually earlier this year with my father. My father is a recovering alcoholic. And I asked him what caused him to become an alcoholic.

And it was all very unnervingly similar. It was a way of coping with stress, with overwhelm, of kind of just leaving the people. problems behind for that period of time that he was drinking. So, Henrietta, I'd like you to give practical advice to Jacqueline if we can this morning. I will, but could I just intervene for a second about the genetics of things to do with addiction? Because you mentioned your father and we do know that there is a role played by genetics. It is quite significant.

So people whose family, whose relatives have suffered with any addiction are going to be more, at risk. It doesn't mean that they're going to develop an addiction, but they should be certainly aware that their neurobiology might lead them to be more vulnerable, particularly in an age when products are so addictive and the availability of products. As you said, you know, these games are everywhere. It becomes difficult to avoid things. And so being aware of that is important. Now, in terms of what one can do about it, you listed an enormous number of things you are trying to do already, but certainly the National Centre for Gaming Disorders, which is a NHS centre, it works at national level, you don't need to be attending in person,

you can self-refer, you don't need a GP referral, has a really good track record of helping people put in place the behavioural interventions that are required, which do include what we call stimulus control, things like self-exclusion. I think more can be done by industry, by the way, to make it easier for people to exclude themselves, just like it's happening in gambling now, where people exclude themselves, they can't go back to something. This should really be improved in the gaming world.

But yes, it sounds to me like we could be very helpful to you, Jacqueline. Jacqueline? Great. I'm absolutely going to look at that. Thank you, yes. Thank you very much, Jacqueline, for getting in touch with us. And once again, speaking so honestly, and Professor Henrietta Bowden-Jones, thank you. I'm just going to read out one of the messages that's just come in saying the most recent caller, small mobile game, Sudoku, Solitaire, that could have been me.

It's a coping mechanism, but it means I lose time procrastinating and half an hour turns into hours. And like your caller, all the things I'm avoiding come flooding back. Before you go very quickly, Henrietta, there's something that I did pick up on what Jacqueline said. And she talked about the sort of shame she feels about it. Yes. So shame and particularly shame in women. and women with addictions has been a plaguing issue that I've been trying to fight in terms of letting people know addiction can impact on anybody at any age.

And it's really important to be able to speak up and to own that difficulty and to talk about it. I think that we need to break all the barriers into treatment. And I think women of 40, 50, 60, there are so many of them doing things like, Candy Crush and not being able to focus on their daily lives, but they are not necessarily finding it easy to discuss these issues. Thank you once again. That text number 84844. Now, my next guest was crowned Europe's strongest woman at the official Strongman European Championship last week following on from her success earlier this year when she became Britain's strongest woman. Her name is Laura Hollywood. And we heard about her achievements from her

friend Helen, who is a woman's hour listener. As well as being a strong woman, Laura is also a strength coach in Sheffield, supporting women going through menopause. And I'm delighted to say Laura joins me now. Congratulations. Hi, Anita. Thank you for having me. Europe's strongest woman in the under 73 kilograms category. How does it feel? Yes. I'm still getting used to it. It was really unexpected. So, yeah, to get it is quite overwhelming, but really excited. How do you feel about your mate, Helen, getting in touch with us, to tell us. It was a surprise. I'd say she's a...

I'd say she's a great friend. So talk us through what the challenges were that you were put through in order to get this title. Okay, so just to give maybe listeners who don't know what strong man is, if you've ever seen the world's strongest man on TV, usually around Christmas, it's kind of like pulling trucks, picking up stones and things like that. Only one of my favourite programmes, by the way. Of course. So I didn't have any trucks to pull this time,

but it was like deadlifting, putting logs over my head, carrying sandbags that are, you know, heavier than my body weight, yoke on your back, which is like a big frame that you carry up and down a track. So, yeah, it's very heavy weights up against a lot of other athletes.

And you've got a... 10-year-old daughter. What does a 10-year-old child, son, sorry. What does he think about mum? Yeah, I think he's really excited and proud. He likes to tell people about the trophies and yeah, shows off to his school friends. How did you get into it? Were you always very fit and very strong? Well, not always very strong, no, always very sporty, you know, through school and played rugby as a teenager and a young adult. I was a runner before this. And I just really enjoy a challenge, to be honest, like physical challenges.

So I got into it in January 2022 and kind of did some local level competitions. And then January 23 is when I did my first England's competition. And it's kind of snowballed. Yeah, and I've seen footage of you doing it, and you're absolutely remarkable. But what I think is interesting is that now you coach for women from the sort of 40s to 50s through menopause and perimenopause. So what do you teach? What does that entail? And why is it so important?

And we have talked about it on Women's Hour before the importance of strength in women. Yeah, yeah. So I work with basically women over 30 focusing mainly on strength and power to try and, and help them get through all the symptoms of perimenopause and later life, essentially. I'd like to think I was ahead of the trend at some point because I started doing it and then all of a sudden, you know, Davina McCall was coming out, the research was coming out, and it's obviously just grown from that, which is obviously a positive. And now there's lots of women that are getting into strength training,

and they're starting to understand that they can take up space in a gym and in the weights area in particular. And that's a big message. I like to try and, you know, teach my clients. It's not, yes, obviously I teach them how to physically pick up the weights safely and that kind of thing. But it's allowing them to take up the space in the weights. It's not just for men.

You know, it's not just for young, you know, young skinny women. It's not about that anymore. It's about owning, you know, owning your capabilities and doing things that you didn't think, you'd ever be able to do. Yeah, and start. Start somewhere, but just start. So what's next?

100%. What's next for you? So for me, I've got another competition at the end of August, that's in Ireland. And then in November, I fly out to Texas to compete for the world's strongest woman title. Yes. And we will be backing you all the way. It's a little bit crazy. I've had a lot of support from.

local community, fundraising activities, this kind of thing. Yeah, a lot of support and I'm really grateful for everybody who's got involved. Well, let's talk to you before you go to America, possibly, or when you, fingers crossed, win the next title. Well, yeah, let's see. Well, keep us posted with all the progress. Laura, thank you so much and congratulations once again. Fab, thank you. Now from one strong woman to another in a different way.

My next guest is Mary Havana Little. Mary got in touch on Instagram to ask us to talk about traditional crafts after hearing our interview with Cathedral Stone Mason Rachel Ragg during last year's listener week. 30-year-old Mary is one of the few women in the plastering world working as a traditional fibrous plasterer. She creates ornate decorative mouldings using techniques from hundreds of years ago. And Mary joins me now.

Hello, you're right. How are you? Yeah, really well. Thank you. Thanks having me on today. Oh, it's absolutely our pleasure. I'm so glad you got in touch. I've been all over your Instagram looking at what you do.

It looks very impressive. Tell us, describe it for the listeners. What does a traditional fibrous plasterer do? Yeah, so being a traditional fibrous plasterer, I do a lot of heritage work and restoration work, and we also take on a lot of new builds, so I manufacture, and we create a lot of the mouldings and casts for ornamental plaster work, so all your cornices, fireplaces,

This is corbels. So, you know, look, when you go into an old sort of National Trust building, look up at the ceiling, you see all the plasterwork, that's what we do. It looks amazing. And what's pretty hypnotic about watching you do it is that the process is really interesting. So describe it. So we use all the traditional methods that we used sort of like 500 years ago and all the same materials.

So, yeah, it's quite a process where first of all, you start off with, you know, what we're repairing or say it's a drawing we're of a corb or a ceiling rows we get it made in clay and then we bring it back to the yard and we mould it and then yeah so we get the mould out and then the process of actually making it starts and it's quite a quick process people seem to think it takes you know hours for plaster to set but it doesn't it takes about 10 minutes and some of the pieces you're working on can be three metres long and up to 50 kilograms oh yeah we make some massive stuff yeah we've made a lot bigger than three meters as well you kind of need the strength of Laura. Oh yeah, we do. We need, we could do with Laura in the yard actually. She'd be really

handy. Hang on. We can might get back in. So it doesn't take very long. How did you learn the skill? What got you into it? So it's actually my father's trade, his craft. So he started sort of in late 80s, 90s. He took on an apprenticeship in London and then he went to college, went to the guild and learnt that. And then he taught my brother. And I was always very interested in my dad's work. I always wanted to sort of follow my dad and brother to the workshop so yeah one day he said right let's um make a plaster molder out of you and that's what we done which is great obviously you could have done that because he's your dad and he does it but what made you want to take it up as a trade i think just um i always loved being messy and creating

i loved art as a child so anything i could sort of make with my hands or even fix i i loved doing that so it was just quite a natural thing for me to go into and it always being around me And I loved buildings, architecture. Like I said, drawing was like my favorite thing when I was little, so I loved drawing buildings. So it just sort of progressed from there. It was like a natural. Is it a male-dominated industry?

Oh, massively, yeah. So what's their reaction to you? Many years ago, it was a bit like, oh, what is she doing here? You know, like my dad would take me on site and he'd get the side eye. But now, yeah, people really respect me now for my work. But I've worked really hard to get where I am. So I think I deserved a little bit of respect, I guess. Absolutely. So how did you earn it? Just by grafting.

Just by grafting every day, yeah, learning. I kept getting things wrong constantly and kept trying again. And I think that's your main, that's how you learn best is basically getting things wrong and just keep going and going trying again. Yeah, and that comes up quite a lot in various guises and conversations we have on Women's Hour. But what is it in you that made you want to keep going when you were getting in? It was just that drive for me to be the best of female out there as well because I didn't see any other girls.

And when I was little, I think, having like, celebrities, loads of little kids look up to people. There wasn't a tradeswoman to look up to. So I had to become sort of my own for the young girls to look up to. So I thought, yeah, that's what I'm going to do. I have to say, you look pretty rad. I mean, you're kind of covered in plaster with these mega boots on. Yeah, I've got my boots.

I'm straight to work after. Balls are ridiculously glamorous. Yeah, she's actually got her boots on. Where's the camera? Yeah, I mean, the entire studio is covered in plaster. Sorry, it's very dust. We'll get the Hoover out. Don't worry about it.

But yeah, like you say, it's really important. for you to represent a woman doing something. It is. I want to represent all the young ladies, you know, and I've got such a great support around me. Like I've got my team here today, my managing team, and Stacey, she's a woman in the trades,

and she's a powerhouse, that girl. Honestly, she's amazing. So I think what it is, being a woman in these male-dominated industries, you have to have that female support around you to push you through. Otherwise, it's difficult. And you've got a daughter? Yes, I've got a seven-year-old,

well, soon to be seven, And she's sometimes in there with you. She is. She absolutely loves it. Oh, it's great. Yeah, it's really, I love watching her learn and become part of it. And to see her mum do a trade and, you know. Oh, she's so proud of me.

She thinks it's normal, though. She thinks women run work sites and things like that. So I'm like, yeah, women, we do technically, yeah. And you are actually quite high end. I mean, you make these, I mean, it's beautiful stuff that you make, and it's lovely to watch. But you worked on some really big films. Oh, I've worked on some really big films.

Oh, I've worked on some. really big film sets. Yeah, some really good stuff. Also, some beautiful homes and, you know, work for some really important people. And now I'm Mo Freeman of the Guild of Plasters in London as well. So I got that respect and recognition. So that was great. Yeah, being a young women, a woman sort of in that, yeah, it's really, really good. And still only 30. So well done you. Yeah, still 30. What's your advice to other women who might want to get into this industry or even just to step outside their comfort zone and try something new? That's it. It's like I said, having that support and having that drive,

if you find something that you're really passionate about and that you feel yourself that you can go into, you just really got to push yourself and not listen to what anyone else is saying around you. If you've got a vision, you've just got to go for it and really push yourself, be confident. Best film set that you've worked on? Go on, name drop some things for us.

Oh, the Gentleman 2 series. We love that. Yeah, we did the statues for that. Guy Ritchie. Guy Ritchie, yeah. It's, yeah, I think we come in about episode five. It's the St. Mary statues. Yeah, me and my brother made them along with my dad

Absolutely love that Because that was like a bit of a dream working for Guy Ritchie And have you got an ambition of what you want to do? Yes, I would love to Well, I'd like to get my plaster work out there on a bigger scale But I would also in the future I'd like to start up some training programmes for young women Not just to go into the trades

But I'd like them to go into like a heritage trade You know, like I said like fibrous plastering You've got fat roofers, blacksmiths, all these trades There's no young ladies and they could really do with them because we've got a little bit of finesse we've got something a little bit different about us Mary, I like your style a lot

well if you are someone out there who is a heritage trades woman then get in touch maybe we could maybe create the collective like join the dots Yeah we could I'd love any woman out there that's in a heritage craft trade

Yeah come and find me Mary Havana Little Thank you so much Thank you having me on today It's been our absolute pleasure We have loved it too Thank you to all of you who've been getting in touch with your stories. I'm sorry I haven't been able to read them all out,

but to the woman describing her Sudoku addiction, thank you, you're not alone. I'm a woman in her mid-40s with a professional and demanding job, also similarly addicted to short online games. And so many more of your messages coming in. Do join me tomorrow when we'll be discussing more of your topics as listener week continues on Woman's Hour. That's all for today's Woman's Hour.

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