Woman's Hour - Millie Bobby Brown's video, Tuppence Middleton on OCD, 30 years of Lush

Episode Date: March 6, 2025

A video made and posted by Stranger Things actor Millie Bobby Brown has gone viral. In it she criticises the recent press articles about her appearance, saying "this isn't journalism, this is bullying". The 21-year-old posted a three-minute monologue on her Instagram page, in which she called out article headlines and the names of the reporters who wrote them. Anita Rani is joined by Anita Bhagwandas, beauty journalist and author of Ugly, Olivia Petter, journalist with the Independent and Morgan Fargo, Beauty and Wellness Editor British Vogue to talk about the impact of Millie calling this behaviour out.Today the General Medical Council has announced that for the first time since their records began, women doctors practising medicine in the UK are greater in number than their male counterparts in the UK. It is an historic moment, but the announcement also acknowledges that women are more likely to be affected by discriminatory behaviour during their medical training and some specialisms still have relatively low numbers of women. To discuss the challenges faced by women doctors, Anita is joined by Professor Dame Carrie MacEwan, a consultant Ophthalmologist and Chair of the GMC and Dr Leanne Armitage, a locum doctor working in General Medicine and co-founder of the Armitage Foundation for young people from under-represented backgrounds who want to study medicine.Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a mental health condition that affects less than 2 percent of the population. For as long as the actor and star of Downton Abbey Tuppence Middleton can remember, she has had recurring unwanted intrusive thoughts that led to compulsions such as mental counting, checking and handwashing. She also has emetophobia, an intense fear of vomiting. Tuppence joins Anita to discuss her memoir ‘Scorpions,’ which explores nearly thirty years of living with OCD and the impact it has had on her daily life. As the beauty brand Lush marks 30 years Anita is joined by one of the co-founders and product designer, Rowena Bird. Starting with one shop in Dorset, Lush now has over 800 stores in 51 countries, so how do they balance their ethical credentials with their global reach?Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Rebecca Myatt

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petruzzella, 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 it will take to feel truly alive.

If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. BBC Sounds music radio podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Women's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning. Welcome to the programme. We have hit a significant milestone in women's history. For the first time in the UK, there are more women doctors than men. Quite an achievement considering that women were only first allowed to study medicine

from 1874 and only in one place, the London School of Medicine for Women. So we're going to dig into the successes and look at the remaining challenges still faced by women doctors today. Now imagine you're walking down a high street and you suddenly get a waft of a soapy sweet smell hitting your senses, a shop you can smell before you even see the fizzy bath bombs and shampoo bars it's famous for. Most of you will know I'm talking about Lush. Well, it's celebrating its 30th birthday and one of the founders, Rowena Bird, will be here to tell us about how this global, milty, multi-million pound brand got to become what it is.

And actor Tuppence Middleton has written a memoir explaining her obsessive-compulsive disorder, something that's often misunderstood and that she's lived with for 30 years. Tuppence will be here to explain how she navigates her life and motherhood with this mental health condition. You can get in touch with the programme in the usual way. Our text number is 84844. You can email the programme by going to our website and you can WhatsApp me on 03 700 100 444. Your comments, thoughts and opinions on everything we talk about in the program are more than welcome, including this. A video made and posted by Stranger

Things actor Millie Bobby Brown has gone viral. In it she criticises the recent press articles about her appearance saying, this isn't journalism, this is bullying. The 21 year old posted a three-minute monologue on her Instagram page in which she called out articles, headlines and the names of the reporters who wrote them. Here's a snippet of what she said. I started in the industry when I was 10 years old. I grew up in front of the world and for some reason people can't seem to grow up with me. Instead, they act like I'm supposed to stay frozen in time, like I should still look the

way I did on Stranger Things season one. And because I don't, I'm now a target. One article reads, why are Gen Zers like Millie Bobby Brown aging so badly? What has Millie Bobby Brown done to her face? Millie Bobby Brown mistaken for someone's mama as she guides younger sister Ava through LA. This isn't journalism, this is bullying. The fact that adult writers are spending their time dissecting my face, my body, my choices is disturbing. And the fact that some of these articles are written by women makes it even worse.

We always talk about supporting and uplifting young women, but when it comes down to it, it seems a lot easier to just tear them down for clicks. Disillusioned people can't handle seeing a girl become a woman on her terms not their own. I refuse to apologize for growing up. I refuse to make myself smaller to fit the unrealistic expectations of people who can't handle seeing a girl become a woman. I will not be shamed for how I look, how I dress or how I present myself. We have become a society where it's so much easier to criticize than it is to pay a compliment. Why is it the knee-jerk reaction to say something horrible rather than just say something nice?

I'd like to hear from you this morning about your experience of this. Have you been shamed about your appearance? What's your experience and how did you deal with it? Get in touch in the usual way, 84844. But joining me to discuss what Millie Bobby Brown has said is Anita Baguundas, beauty journalist and author of the book Ugly. Olivia Pettah, journalist with The Independent and Morgan Fargo, beauty and wellness editor at British Vogue.

Welcome all of you. Olivia, I'm going to come to you first because you're sitting in front of me. What did you make of Millie calling it out? I mean, I think, you know, kudos to her for calling it out. This kind of thing, unfortunately, happens all the time. It just so happens that Millie Bobby Brown is the latest target, to use her words. We see it over and over again, particularly with younger women in the public eye, because there is this fetishization of women like Mill, of women like Millie, who became famous

when they were very young. We do try to keep them looking in a certain way and keep them youthful because we do have a problem with women who age. I have nothing but respect for her for speaking out, but I do think that this is a much bigger problem that is about more than just one individual woman, because we do see this happening time and time again. You know, this week it's Millie, next week it will be another woman in the public eye. We see women being torn apart for the way they look, being scrutinized, being criticized,

because they are not meeting the beauty standards in a way that is deemed acceptable by society. But I think what's also important to consider is how sometimes these women in the public eye, as much as they are targets of that system, they are also sometimes the ones that are upholding it. Because if you think about it, you know, the women who we see every day in the public eye, the women who we see on films and TV screens and on our phones, on social media, on billboards, they are generally famous women.

They are the ones that are upholding these unrealistic beauty standards. And I think that complicates things a little bit, but we need to consider that as well as how it's affecting individuals. Morgan, what's your take on it? I mean, to be honest with you, when I wrote my article, which was No One Cares How Old Do You Think Millie Bobby Brown Looks, it was because it was just so overwhelming. And that's as a consumer, that's just seeing these things. I'm not Millie, I'm not the one being torn apart every single day about how I

look, how old I look. People were saying she looks 40. I think she's 21 as it is at the moment. Yeah, I don't know what anyone's confidence was like at 21. But mine was certainly not robust enough to deal with that. And I think the response that we had at British Vogue was just that this is untenable for someone to have to maintain their appearance in public and know that these things are going to be said about them. I do think it's a cycle that we appear to be in where we see young, successful women and we almost put them onto this treadmill of building them up, building them up,

and then we just tear them down and it has such a distinct effect on their psyche and you can see it with people like Amanda Bynes for example, Brittany who I know that Millie is rumoured maybe to be in a biopic about and I just feel like as a community we have to get off and that's what our responsibility is. But what about what Earliev has just said about them also being responsible women in the public eye for upholding these unrealistic beauty standards? I think I understand what Olivia is saying I do think it's changing we just had an essay by Paulina Poroskova in our latest issue our March

issue called memoirs of an invisible woman and it was all about how she was no longer going to promote anti-aging products because she didn't believe that aging was a bad thing and I think at both ends of the spectrum the very young women and the older women I think there is starting to be more transparency about what it's like and I believe that's what Millie's intention was with sharing her thoughts recently on Instagram. Anita I'm going to bring you into this. This is nothing new, as Morgan's just said there. Where did these beauty standards even begin? I mean, they've been going for centuries, essentially,

but this sort of incarnation of really just wanting to keep women frozen in time and looking sort of as young as possible, it really amped up in the 1930s. With the sort of birth of Hollywood's golden era. It was quite often written into women's contracts that they had to do everything they could to be as slim as they could, to look as young as they could, because they knew their shelf life within the industry was really short. And it's really sad that almost a century later, we're still talking

about these same things. And these things are still impacting women as young as Millie Bobby Brown, still talking about these same things and these things are still impacting women as young as Millie Bobby Brown, you know, who's like in her very early 20s and it's so sad that so much has changed but actually so little has changed for us and I think we need to really look at beauty, beauty standards as a whole to examine actually how much freedom we do have because at the moment it doesn't feel like a lot. What about what Olivia's, to Olivia's points that maybe, I don't know, I don't want to put words in your mouth, is there something about them being fair game because you know they perhaps have had cosmetic surgery? I don't think it's at their fair game. I think you know I think

women in the public eye feel pressured to look a certain way because of the system we are all operating within and obviously for them the pressures are much higher because of their, you know, excessive visibility. I think with the cosmetic surgery stuff, what bothers me is that there is this culture of secrecy around it. You know, we know that this work is happening, we know that women are getting things done to their faces and that is perfectly fine and perfectly acceptable. What I don't like is that women are pressured to do what they can to look beautiful according to societal standards but not tell anyone about what

they are doing in order to look that way. So women who are getting work done in the public eye are not talking about what they are getting done and I'm not saying the onus is on them to do that. Exactly we're still making it a woman's problem. You're trying to fit in to maybe advance your career or just do what it takes to get to wherever it is You want to be and still we're blaming them for wanting to do that? It's not even that I'm blaming them It's that by by not by not feeling like we can be open about it

And I understand why these women don't feel like they can be open about it But it raises those beauty standards higher and higher making them even more unrealistic And then creating this culture of secrecy where no one can really talk openly about the pressures we're all feeling and all kind of succumbing to. And I think that's really the point we need to get to if we're going to make any kind of tangible change here. Anita, who is setting these standards? It's really tough because the women who are in the public eye are under a huge amount of pressure and scrutiny for the reasons I mentioned earlier. There is a shelf life. And we see this in Hollywood, as soon as someone starts to look a little bit older or, actually not even that, as soon as they start to shift into a different age bracket, they are paired with much

older co-stars. There were so many examples in Hollywood where there is a much younger woman who is playing someone's mother, you know, who is actually younger than them and older than them, sorry. And it's just, this perpetuation goes on and on and on and across so many different industries. But it's really tricky because they are trapped in the cycle that we're all trapped in and to a certain extent and that is that we are pandering to patriarchy and the male gaze and that is what controls everything from the beauty industry to Cosmetic surgery to Hollywood. Tell me about your own experience Nita of being in the public eye a little bit

Yeah, I've definitely I I feel the pressure that everyone else feels You know I'm 40 as well and that is definitely a milestone age that all of a sudden women do start to become a little bit invisible particularly within my industry where you sort of see lots of people start to disappear and etc. And yeah, it's really hard and it's really tough and I'm not against injectables or tweakments or anything like that. I think they're all fine, but I think there is a lot of pressure to have them and they've become almost as the same way as getting a new serum or something. It's that industry putting a huge amount of pressure on women without telling them about the emotional impact or the cost impact or the physical impact of those treatments. So I think it's a really tough time to be a woman and that's across the board.

And a lot of people are making a lot of money from those insecurities as well. Morgan, she called out the names of the journalists. Do you think she should have done this? I think if you're not inside the industry, it's difficult to know how it works. And I think, honestly, I think Millie might not have had enough of an understanding that these writers are probably entry level, they're probably junior writers, and they are being told that, you

know, clicks are happening if you write about Millie Bobby Brown looking old and so they have to do it and if they don't do it then they're essentially going against their editor or their director, whoever is in charge, and that could mean that they lose their job. So I'm not going to disagree with what Millie did because I haven't ever been under that sort of public scrutiny. I don't know what my brain or my nervous system would do if I was, but I think those writers are under an unfair stress from their editor or whoever is designing their content plan. So maybe she should have called out the editors rather than the young journalists, but aren't

them we all complicit? Because if it's clicks and likes and eyes on these stories that are to blame for this whole thing, then surely that's us, the public. Olivia? Yeah, we are all complicit because we are all clicking on those stories. And I think, you know, intrinsically, we have to fess up to the fact that internalised misogyny is a very real thing in our culture. And just because that's something that you and I don't necessarily agree with, there are a lot of women out there that feel, I guess, a lot of kind of schagenfreude by seeing a young, beautiful woman in the public eye being torn down. And that is what's ultimately fueling the appetite for stories like this and for those headlines that Millie was calling out in her post. So I think it's about, like I said, it's about looking beyond this individual

story and trying to tackle the wider culture as a whole and what is going to continue fueling this cycle because like I said, it will continue. Yeah, there's quite, there's a couple of things going on with what she said though, because there's the one thing which is the bullying and being torn down because of the way she looks and some really mean things being said about her, you know, why are Gen Zers like Millie Bobby Brown ageing so badly, not only dissing Millie Bobby Brown, but her entire generation there in one sentence.

But the other slightly more disturbing thing is what she was saying, Anita, is about being, when she was on our screens as a 10-year-old, and it's this infantilization of her as a woman. We just don't want to see her grow into a woman. We want to keep her as a child. And that's sort of almost more sinister isn't it?

Yeah it is really sinister and it's about control because actually you can control a child to a certain extent but actually as women get older we have more confidence, we have we grow into ourselves, there are messy parts, there are difficult parts, we have you know we have opinions and that is what people want to control and that's that's the bigger narrative here. What difference Livia do you think this will make on the way women are reported on? Any? Do you think she's got any power by doing this? Look, I would love to turn around and say to you, yes, it will be a total massive change and the world will change and be a better place and no woman in the public eye will ever be torn down again, but I just don't think that's the case. Unfortunately, I don't think that's the world we live in.

I think it will be another week until another young woman is torn down and we see this repeating over and over again. And I think there is definitely progress happening in the sense that, you know, we are having this conversation here today. People are more aware of it. You know, she got a lot of praise for speaking out, Millie did, which I think is wonderful from lots of other famous women. But ultimately, I don't have much hope that this is going to stop here.

I feel like we all got we all breathed a sigh of yes, she just said it and then we all went back to putting on our lipsticks and looking in the mirror. And so we will be back here I'm sure discussing this again at some point but Morgan, Anita and Olivia thank you so much for joining me to discuss that. Your thoughts and opinions please 84844 have you ever been made to feel shame? Have you ever put on clothes or an outfit or done your hair or your makeup in a way that you thought who am I, why am I even dressed like this, but you felt you needed to present yourself in a certain way, whatever your experience of looking the way you do or feeling that you're made

to look a certain way when you don't even want to, I'd love to hear about this morning. You can also email me by going to our website. Now today the General Medical Council has announced that for the first time since their records began in 1859, women doctors practicing medicine are greater in number than their male counterparts in the UK and there is an expectation that women will in the next few years form the majority of the workforce. It's a historic moment but the announcements also acknowledges

that women are more likely to be affected by discriminatory behaviour during their medical training and some specialisms such as emergency medicine and surgery still have relatively low numbers of women. Well to discuss all of this and the challenges still faced by women doctors I'm joined by Professor Dame Carrie McEwen, a consultant, ophthalmologist and chair of the GMC, also by Dr Leanne Armitage, a locum doctor working in general medicine and co-founder of the Armitage Foundation for young people wanting to study medicine from underrepresented backgrounds. Welcome both of you. Carrie, this is quite a moment for women doctors, but can you actually tell us how big the difference is how significant are these numbers what we're talking about here

oh we're talking small change that moment we've just announced that there has been a change and it's 50.04% women so it is small but it is the first time that there's actually been a majority across the UK 0.4% will take it yes less than 1% and tell us about some of the barriers that women have faced since records began. Let's talk about the history. It's significant because of how far we've come in a relatively short space of time. Absolutely agree. It's a fascinating journey and a journey that is one of pioneering and inspirational women who've overcome societal change, overcome

legislative change and if you think back 165 years or so ago when the Medical Register began we had one woman on it and now we have 165,000 near as possible and during that time these women have really moved ahead they've allowed for instance you couldn't get a medical degree in the UK as a woman when we started. And they have moved ahead, they've worked together, and they've overcome a lot of different barriers. And now, 165 years later, the big change came with the Sex Discrimination Act in 1975. And that was the year I went to medical school so it was a long time ago and at that point that was when the numbers, the

cap came off the number of women medical students and the numbers started to grow. But that was 50 years ago and it's taken a long time for these numbers to grow. Did that feel significant for you then when you were going to uni? Did you feel like you were a generation of women doing something quite radical and uni? Did you feel like you were a generation of women doing something quite radical and different? Did you feel like a pioneer yourself? I have to say not really because when I went, the Sex Criminology Act, we'd all been recruited before that so there was still a relatively small number of us and we recognised that we were joining a very male dominated profession inevitably but we just, I think many of us again, continued to look to see how we could

improve things for women. We introduced lesson full-time training, for instance, which I worked on in Scotland for a long number of years, but we've still got many women coming through. I mean, Leanne, as we will hear later, is another inspirational woman and we just need to continue on this journey. I completely agree Leanne you are an inspirational woman so I think we should hear your story and tell us about your route into medicine. Yeah so I decided at 15 that I wanted to become a trauma surgeon and I grew up in southeast London in Peckham and I witnessed the aftermath of a stabbing

and as a young person thinking what can I do to make a difference the idea came to me that if I aspire to become a trauma surgeon that might give me a platform to do good and help address some of these issues so that was always my vision that was always my goal throughout medical school. Any doctors in the family? No no doctors in the family. So you're the first? I was the first doctor in my family exactly and yeah I came from a family of no was the first doctor in my family exactly. Yeah, I came from a family of no medics. Only one of my siblings went to university, no doctors in our social network. So yeah, nobody who could really show me the ropes or give me advice

along my journey. So after I got, well, while I was at medical school, I co-founded the charity that has been mentioned, the Armitage Foundation to help increase diversity because I knew there were many other students coming from a similar background to my own who were not given the kind of opportunities that I had despite having the talent to be great future doctors. When I did eventually become a doctor and start my training as a junior doctor and experience the surgical environment, I then changed my mind. I kind of had quite a few different mindset changes. Initially I wanted to be a trauma surgeon and then I wanted to be an A&E doctor and then I was considering anaesthetics and now

I've decided I want to be a GP. What made you change your mind? I think for me I've always wanted to have a portfolio career which would mean I'd work less than full-time as a doctor and especially on my trauma and orthopaedic placement, I remember seeing some of the other trainees, especially some of the other female trainees, some of them didn't seem very happy and that wasn't inspiring for me. But in addition to that, there was this culture of sometimes coming in outside of your working hours to get as many hours in surgery as possible, you know, really trying to get those learning opportunities to develop your skill and your craft

and I understand why one would want to do that but when you're thinking about having other responsibilities for some women it might be family, for me at that stage it was my charity and some of the other kind of social impact type of work I'm doing. I just, I didn't have peace to let go of all of that, to just kind of commit everything to wanting to be a surgeon. And sometimes it's difficult for people to do that because in medicine we can kind of attach our identity to some extent to some of the specific roles. So I had to really ask myself, you know, why do I actually want to be a surgeon? What is the overall impact I want to have? And on reflecting I

realized that really it was just wanting to create positive change and impact people's lives and there were other ways that I could do that which is why I stepped away from surgery. So Carrie, does Leanne's experience echo some of the reasons why some other specialisms actually, it's not 50-50, there are far more men still going into those professions, give us some more of the figures for surgery for instance. Yes you're absolutely right. It's interesting that the highest number percentage of women are in specialties that a lot of women will use like obstetrics and

gynaecology, pediatrics, they'll go along with the children, general practice and so on. And so they've already made that choice but they're not choosing to go into surgical specialties and specialties like my own like ophthalmology which actually to be honest has been one of the more welcoming specialties and one of the more popular specialties for women over the years. Why is that? Why is that happening? I think Leanne has already alluded to some of the issues there but also I know that the surgical colleges are looking very seriously at this and trying to work out how they can better attract women into the surgical specialties.

Interestingly enough, my daughter is a surgical trainee and just having had her first baby, we're looking to see where that's going to take her. Well, yeah, so let's talk about it now. What needs to change to address this? Because your dream was to become a trauma surgeon. You've obviously looked at what's going to suit you, the reasons why you wanted to go into it, but also lifestyle.

What needs to change to encourage more women to get into these specialisms? How could we make it happen? Well, I think there's a lot's been done. As I said, less than full-time training has helped, helped enormously, and the acceptance that women will want to take time out during the time they've got children and so on and so forth. So I think that's really important. But one of the issues that

we are very aware of in the General Medical Council is culture, culture within medicine. We know that from the surveys we've done that unfortunately sexism and sexual harassment is still an issue and we know that it's particularly an issue within in surgery which the Royal College of Surgeons have actually published themselves. So in our good medical practice which is the professional standards for doctors we've highlighted that these behaviours of any form of discrimination and particularly highlighting that we will have zero tolerance for sexism and sexual harassment is hopefully helping to move

along the way but we need that workplace culture to buy into this and recognize it, be supportive, be compassionate and allow people to speak up. Well I'd like, I'd be intrigued to hear both of your experiences of this because you're two different generations I wonder you know what how about you, Liam? Because I know you've set up your charity to encourage people from other backgrounds to get into. I remember the Royal College of Surgeons, they published an independent review into diversity in 2021 and around about that time I'd been invited to do a talk for a vascular surgery conference and I was researching

and reading up on things and I was also on a surgical placement during that time and I remember asking some of the consultants if they'd heard about this report already and many of them didn't and I think to the point of culture change you know we can write reports with 16-point plans of recommendation etc but if the people in positions of power are not recognizing and reading and understanding the significance of these reports and then making a conscious effort to actively work to create this culture change, it's going to be quite difficult because culture change is something that will likely take several years and it needs to start from the top coming down. So I think that's one

of the challenges. How did that make you feel when you were there? I was really shocked actually and it also made me feel quite frustrated because you know if we're writing these elaborate reports which take a lot of effort and a lot of time and they're highlighting real issues but people are not taking this seriously and people are not feeling you know a weight of duty and responsibility to be the ones driving that change and that's going to be an issue because we're not going to see that change or at least we're going to see it at an extremely slow pace and that's not good enough. And what was your experience like at university? Being somebody from you know your background,

what was class an issue that you saw before we've even qualified? What's happening at university? Who's even going to study medicine? Yeah I think the university you're at, the experience will be slightly different depending where you are. I can definitely say I studied at, the experience will be slightly different depending where you are. I can definitely say I studied at St George's and I remember being quite inspired by meeting other students who I felt were coming from a somewhat similar background to mine, or at least I felt I could relate to. There weren't many but there were some and just having a few was quite inspiring.

And definitely St George's were very supportive of my desire to set up a charity and they helped me and they showed that they understand the need for more diversity at medical school so I'd say overall I had quite a good university experience. Can we take you back to 1975 Kerry? What was your experience like as a student? Very different I mean I hear exactly what Leanne's saying and unfortunately, or fortunately things are still bad, but they've come a very, very long way. I mean, when I qualified the 80s and 90s, sexism was just normal. It was normalised across not only

the profession, but actually across society. You would be quite openly met with incredulation when you were looking like you might be a senior doctor, you know, gosh you can't possibly that, you are a woman very very open and quite commonly asked to make the tea and so on. So these were these were almost routine in these days. So I think that it's really important that it's been recognised, we wouldn't call it out because there was no point, you can just be laughed at. So now it's really important that it's recognised, people feel that they can talk about it and also people feel that they're responsible to act on it. So I think

we have come a long way but we've, as we've said before, got a long way to go. How important is it to have women getting into and wanting to get into clinical leadership roles? Absolutely vital and that's one of the things that we do need to tackle. Although we've got equal numbers now effectively of women and men as doctors, we have far fewer clinical and academic leaders in women and that's something that needs to be addressed. Have you ever had patients who are reluctant to want to be treated by you because you're a woman? Never but I have to say that I commonly

have seen patients, I've even operated on them and then they turn around and ask me when they're going to see the doctor. So yes. How about you Leanne? I think it's difficult to definitely say that's the reason but I would suspect it is because I've had several times where patients have said are you the doctor? And I think for me it's twofold, it's because I'm a woman and also because I look quite young. So sometimes they're asking are you the medical student or other things like that. And I suppose a really important thing because we talk about this a lot on the program, I know it's important to both of you as it's all women, you know, even though we've got this great wonderful

0.04 increase in you know more women than men who are now doctors in the UK, what's the impact actually going to be on women's health? I think that's a very good question. I think overall this is good for the profession and it's good for the population because it's now better reflective of the population that we care for and obviously the more women there are, the more likely that women are to be able to get a women doctor if that's what they particularly want. But I think it's more than that. I think that we've demonstrated that we are an inclusive

and diverse profession and that means that more backgrounds, more ideas, more experiences are being fed in and that inevitably is going to affect health policy and also actually health delivery on the ground and that must be good for everybody and although I do recognize I think what you're you're raising is the fact that there are inequalities within women's health and I think that this undoubtedly will hopefully even if it acts as a platform to to raise that issue it is a positive step. I'm going to read out a message here that says, my niece is a trainee doctor and has always dreamt of becoming a cardiologist, but finds the hours and culture within it not appropriate for her

and her ambition to also have a family one day. She says it's all or nothing and she's really upset by it. You're nodding there. I really relate to that. And I think, you know, when you're in training, people will say that you spend the shortest time of your career in training. Most of your time is as a consultant and usually it's as a consultant that you've got more autonomy, more flexibility, you enjoy a better life. But I think when you're in

it and you know you're thinking, oh I've got up to 10 years of this possibly or if you're doing less than full-time training, sometimes that incentive of waiting for that 10-year silver lining isn't enough, especially when occasionally you look to those seniors who seem extremely stressed out and not always very happy because of the pressures that are on the NHS. So yeah, I really resonate with that sadly. And also lastly with you, Leanne, you know, 15-year-old, you saw that horrific violent attack growing up in Peckham and that moment you decided you wanted to go and study medicine

and here you are, qualifies, doing your thing. I mean, how does that feel? It feels amazing. I think it's definitely not exactly what I thought it would be as a 15 year old, but I still am so grateful, you know, to have made it this far, to be able to impact people's lives and my community as a doctor. It really is a privilege and even with all of the challenges that we have as medics, there is something so special about being able to support someone in a time of vulnerability

or in a time when they're really worried and scared and anxious. And I'm always grateful for those small opportunities. Thank you, both of you. Thank you, Kerry. Thank you, Leanne, for coming in to speak to me about that 84844 is the number to text. I have to say I'm very proud of you for qualifying, as is my mum. Hi, I'm Namulanta Kombo, here to tell you that my podcast Dear Daughter is back. And and this time I'm joined by an all-star lineup of guests each with some sage life advice and a letter for their daughter. Every mother has a letter in her head for their daughter so it's really nice that that's being like expressed out loud. That's

Dear Daughter's stars from the BBC World Service. Listen now by searching for Dear Daughter wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Dear Daughter. Now, walking along most high streets today, you might drift past the sweet soapy aroma of a Lush store. Now a high street staple, Lush has become synonymous with glitter bath bombs, attentive staff and impactful and sometimes controversial political campaigns. Lush prides itself on a commitment to creating products made from natural sources that are only ever tested on humans, never on animals. Well this year the company marks

30 years in business. Starting with one shop in Dorset. Lush now has over 800 stores in 51 countries and today we're joined by someone who's been there from the very beginning co-founder and product designer Rowena Bird. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Thank you. 30 years and here you are. I know. When you reflect back. Don't look a day over 30. Going back to the beginning of the conversation program talking about beauty standards And but yeah, just sitting here coming in to talk to me and woman's out about 30 years of your company How does it thought that yeah, how does that feel? It's amazing because it's we don't feel like 30 years has passed

So you don't do you because it's been an organic growth. So it's sort of yeah Here we are. I want to start by asking you where your own love of beauty comes from and where the sort of origin of the company comes from because I understand you had a very glamorous Auntie, Auntie Penny, who first introduced you to makeup. Tell me about her. She was the original blonde bombshell in the family and she used to sort of always have her updo even when she had her helmet on from riding her moped or a scooter and she had this amazing dressing table and it was just full of lotions and potions so she would have had all the creams and lipsticks and eyeshadows and she lived with my

grandmas and so I used to go and stay at Omi's and be looked after there sometimes and that was my playroom and I always thought I'd left it very neat and tidy and Auntie Penny would never know I'd been in but obviously she did and my granddad had the most amazing shiny bald head and that was ideal for painting on. So and then beyond that I had my best friend Maureen and we lived behind the woods and so every spring we'd be out there collecting bluebells and making bluebell fragrance or rose fragrance or you know I mean it never is it's just smelly water isn't it but we were convinced we were making the most beautiful smells so it's always sort of been there it's always something that I've really loved. And so then beauty became your profession as a beauty therapist? That was by accident I went to a careers officer and I walked in and I had a wig on and

coloured nails and coloured tights and he looked at me and obviously I'd have been made up and he said have you thought of being a beauty therapist and I thought I don't know what that is and then he described it and I thought well it's a proper job and it was and I had the right qualifications and I got in and studied beauty and yeah. I have to just tell everybody Rowena has walked in here with the most fabulous sort of baby pink hair today with matching lipstick as well. Yeah. It's appreciated. And so then you got this job, you moved to Dorset, you left the North, North West. The Midlands. Yeah. And you met Moe and

Mark Constantine, Helen Ambrose and Liz Bennett and Paul Greaves and you together set up one of the UK's leading natural beauty brands. Take us back to that time, how did Lush come about? Well Lush came about because we'd all been working together a lot longer than that, 44 years. Mark Mo and Liz had started a natural hair and beauty clinic and I joined there as a beauty therapist and there was about seven of us, eight of us working there at the time and we produced product for other people we were really backroom boys but we had our own salons, master trichologist as beauty therapist and when we made and invented our own product so that all

sort of came of then we had Cosmetics to Go which was a wonderful mail order catalogue of cosmetics, which was really good fun. We managed to overtrade that, sadly. But from the demise of that, we all realised that actually we were unemployable by anyone else. And so we came back together again. Helen said, well, I'm going in to make product.

I said, if you're going in, I'll come in and run the shop. And yeah, and the rest is sort of history. It was at Mo's birthday party in her back garden when we all decided actually this is what we were going to do we're going to start again and our original idea was just to have shops within the M25 of London yeah. And was the and and sustainability and the ethics of the company were they always at the heart of it from the beginning? Yes always because originally we used to make products for the body shop but the reason Mark approached Anita in the first place to make products for them was because of his

credentials. So him and Mo were campaigners, they were always ethically minded anyway. And that sort of remained throughout the business. And now people that join us join us because of that, to a certain extent, because of the way we campaign, because of our charitable giving, because of our ethics within our cosmetics. And that's what's so lovely. So we're all sort of like of one mind. And 30 years on, you have become a global brand.

800 shops in 51 countries is huge. And it's as you say, you pride yourself on your commitment to waste reduction and environmentally friendly ethics. How do you balance that with growing your empire? I think because we've done it organically you sort of can keep those things. If you try and go from 0 to 60 then that's not going to work. So it's part of us, it's who we are, so we never think about changing any of those things. We're just there and it's all important to us. It's important to us to make naked product where we can, rather than package it. Naked means it doesn't come in a bottle or a container of some kind. But then when we do use the bottles and containers we ask

you to bring them back to us. So we're sort of renting them to you. You bring them back, we'll give you 50p back for each item that you bring back into us of ours. Our plastics are recycled. The black plastic goes into a closed loop. The clear plastic bottles as ocean-prevented plastics. So you know everything we're doing we're thinking about, okay, if we have to package something, what's it packaged in? Please bring it back, we'll give you your money back. But it must be difficult.

I mean, even in 2016, your head of ethical buying at the time, Simon Constantine, said he would never be comfortable saying that the supply chain is 100% clean. Do you think that customers might be disappointed to hear that? Or is that just a reality? I think it's reality. Go on, explain. Sadly, I don't think anything is 100% clean. You do your very best, don't you? And that's what we do every day. We do our very best to hold up our

standards. And you know, we believe we're doing them. But the minute somebody tells us, hey, so at one point we made cosmetics and we had what we still do, but we had natural mica in there, which is the sparkly stuff in an eyeshadow or a lipstick. And I had a journalist phone and say, you know this is mined in India and I'm like, yes, and we've got all the certification to say that, you know, it's all well done, fairly done, there's no child labour, there's nothing dodgy going on. Oh, that's not true because families living around the mines will dig holes, I mean it's not as lucrative, but they'll dig holes to get the mica out and when the holes get big enough they send the kids down, the ceilings can crash and the kids get buried underground. And the minute we heard that it was like, right,

that's it. So, and now we only ever use synthetic mica. It's those things that you know people can tell us something, you're not doing this right or did you consider this and we'll make that change. You're also known for supporting various campaigns. Why do you do this? Because it's needed. I think we're very passionate about our environment, about people, and about the planet. So when we can do a campaign that maybe is not getting enough vision, people aren't seeing or understanding

or hearing about it, but it's important that they know about it, then we'll do a campaign on it. We'll put it in the window. And then what we're doing is offering education though we're not saying you should be thinking this this is shocking, we're not giving a one-sided we're giving both views so you can come in learn some more from us and we'll educate you on that and you can make an informed decision as opposed to one that you're being given maybe. And you know you've lots of campaigns that you've supported they're really

varied ranging from campaigns against Swedish mink farms to raising money for the black curriculum here at home. But in 2018, you ran a campaign that platform the experiences of women who'd unwittingly become involved in relationships with undercover police. The campaign was withdrawn because you got a backlash from officers and their supporters.

I don't think we withdrew that. No, you don't think? It doesn't sound like withdrew that. No? You don't think? It doesn't sound like us. Why did you back down? What happened? The thing that would have been the most upsetting was that a lot of people would have come in and attacked the people, not physically, but come in and been verbally abusive to our staff

in the shops. And that's not what we're doing, we're educating. But we were right to highlight that because the TV programme starts tonight about the uncovering of the spy cops. So you know we were ahead of our time weren't we? We were highlighting something and saying look this isn't right and now what six years later there's a TV program about it. Is it a risky strategy when you've got such a broad customer base? Yes in a way but it depends what you believe in doesn't it? When it comes from the heart,

you know that you've got to say it. So, you know, do the hunters like us? No, not very much because we point out that they're breaking the law every time they go chasing a fox with their hounds. So it's, yeah. And people, yeah, we all have the right to believe in what we believe in and support what we support. So are we going to match everybody? If everybody thought the same way as us, these things wouldn't be happening, would they? But they don't. So we're just highlighting it so people can make an informed decision. Now, I've got to draw a full circle because we started the program talking about Millie Bobby Brown, who's been very outspoken about how she's been treated as a young woman.

And then we had lots of the beauty journalists talking about how beauty standards and where they come from and you are a brand that aims and I guess you know a lot of your customer base are young girls so how do you fit in with the sort of standards of beauty that and expectation that's put on young women? Well we're not selling dreams so that's one thing. We are making products for every need and so whatever age you are and I think people think that we're a younger brand we're actually not the fizzy bath bombs that make us think like that I think but we appeal to a wide range and we've always

been there all are welcome always we always wanted to to a wide range and we've always been there, all are welcome always, we always wanted to do a wide range and at any age good skincare is important to keep your skin clean, to keep it healthy, it's really important. So from that point of view we very carefully compile our products, we very carefully buy our raw materials often from the source where they're grown or produced, so that we know the quality of the ingredients is utmost importance to us when we're when we're putting them together to make a product. Everything about it is thought about as to what is this going to do, but it's and it is effective and then we're testing it on people, real humans,

and they're telling us what their feelings are. Sometimes it comes back and we think, oh, this shampoo is meant to be for greasy hair, but actually it's working really well on this. So you find out things when you're testing on humans. So yeah, it's just really important to us. But at no time do we say, you must look like this, you must do this, this will get rid of all your wrinkles, this will make you look 10 years younger. No, using a good skincare regime with beautiful ingredients, not full of preservatives, you know, made fresh using

all these fresh ingredients, that is what's going to keep your skin biome healthy. Also there's something about just being in your shop that feels like a treat as well. Although the smell is divisive. No, it's a free aromatherapy treatment Anita. You come in, breathe and you're welcome. You see you get something for free every time you come in. And I've got to ask very quickly, what happened, you've been around for 30 years but you had exponential growth in about 2014, what happened? How did you go from one thing with it, 20 years in and then grow? I don't know. You tell me, have you got it written down? We've probably opened more countries

because we've always worked on the fact that people come to us and ask to take Lush to their country rather than us going actively looking for them. That way we know that we're meeting with like-minded people and that's really important to us. They need to be our friends, they need to be like-minded, they need to care for the same sort of things that we do and then that carries it forward. It's been wonderful speaking to you. Rowena Bird, thank you so much for coming into chat. 84844 is the number. Now, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or OCD is a mental health condition that affects less than 2% of the population.

For as long as the actor and star of Downton Abbey, Tuppence Middleton, can remember, she's had recurring unwanted intrusive thoughts that led to compulsions such as mental counting, checking, hand washing. She also has a metaphobia, an intense fear of vomiting. Her memoir, Scorpions, explores nearly 30 years of living with OCD and the impact it has on her daily life. Well, Tupans joins me joins me now with Professor David Field, consultant psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital London, who I will come to shortly but first of all, Tupans, welcome to Woman's Hour. Your mind is full of scorpions, that's how you visualise your

OCD. Yes. And that's what you've called your memoir scorpions Explain what you mean? Yes Well, I think it's quite common for people to name their OCD as a sort of separate entity to themselves You know, it's visualizing it as a sort of bully I suppose and for me it was always more than one thing it felt like And for me, it was always more than one thing. It felt like the nature of the thoughts, which were always kind of running around my head that was sort of sinister, creeping, needling presence, reminded me of scorpions. And I think rather than using something like ants or spiders, the idea of the slight threat or danger that scorpions has, always interesting to me.

Aside from that, when I was studying Macbeth at school, I was always really struck by a line that Macbeth says to Lady Macbeth where he is starting to, I suppose, succumb to his guilt and his mind is starting to unravel, and he says says, oh so full of scorpions is my mind and to me something really resonated with that thought. When did your obsessive compulsive disorder first become apparent to you? It first became apparent when I was 11, almost 12 and I'd had a long illness. I'd been suffering with chronic fatigue syndrome or ME for five months. I'd taken a lot of time off school. I had felt nauseous every day, stopped eating as much, found it hard to get out of bed and

this lasted for a very long time and once I'd recovered from that I started to see symptoms of OCD so I started to create what I would call my routines around the house so I would begin counting things from one to eight I would start looking at the corners of different objects or doorways and count to eight each time I looked at them and then it kind of built from there. Do you still have those? Yes. Like what? Can you explain your daily routine?

Yeah so I mean it was definitely at its worst in my late teens, early twenties. But the residual rituals that I have now are checking behaviours when I leave the house. So I will have to put my hand under the tap for a count of eight and then turn it over and count to eight to make sure it's off, press the handle of the tap. I will have to touch each of the gas knob, the gas cooker knobs for a count of eight. I'll have to press and pull my door for a count of eight, check my windows and my doors, door handles, light switches and depending on my levels of stress it can be worse or better day to day. But other things that revolve around my emetophobia, the fear of vomiting, would be sort of avoidant behaviour. So avoiding people or situations which I believe might make me sick or where I can catch an infectious bug.

You work in such a public sphere. I'm thinking of you on stage, Stuffins. How do you cope? Yeah, well, I find that when I'm busy at my busiest, it's much easier to be distracted and I think, of course, you're always working with a company of people. But where it tends to affect me most is if I have to do intimate scenes. So especially when I was younger and I was playing a lot of love interests and Having to be close to people or kiss people on camera or kiss someone every night when I'm doing a play Then those were the things that really bothered me because I would start to think that someone might have Norovirus and they could pass that on to me or that their children might have had a bug overnight that I didn't know about

And then therefore they were sort of incubating symptoms of that and then I would catch it. So those kind of cycle of thoughts would be the ones that are most present at work. So what would you do? Did you have to explain? I'm not kissing you. Yeah, well, now I feel much more able to say to co-stars, this is my particular anxiety and please let me know if you are ill, if someone you know or has been close to has been ill, so then I feel much more able to talk about it. But in terms of the checking behaviours, hand washing, mental counting, all of those things are relatively private things and I think that's why a lot of people with OCD can lead an outwardly kind of functioning

life because these are things that are going on in your head and that you Often don't want to share with people because of the stigma Yeah You write in your book that you'd often be late for things because you'd be counting how easy has it been to be able to Talk to people about it about your anxiety and explain to them It's gotten much better. I think when I was younger, I felt very embarrassed about it and I think um It was something that I felt you should be ashamed of. But it was actually on a good read, the Radio 4 program, where I first sort of talked about it

actually publicly. And it was in passing, I had chosen a book called The Loser by Thomas Bernhard, which has a very repetitive sort of obsessive stream of consciousness. Anna mentioned that I related to that because of having OCD and then it's sort of built from there, talking about it publicly. And since I have spoken about it, people have been so understanding and so many people have written to me about their own experience that I didn't really realize, you know, even a metaphobia that as many people suffered with it. So it's been a real eye-opener. I'm going to bring Professor Veale in here, just to kind of get a bit more of an understanding about this, because I bet people listening will be suffering from it.

What causes someone to develop OCD, Professor Veale? Well, we don't know. Obviously it's complex. Part of the problem is being born human, because you've got a tricky brain, you know. Crocodiles don't know, obviously it's complex. Part of the problem is being born human because you've got a tricky brain. Crocodiles don't get OCD. Yes, there is a heritable predisposition to anxiety in general, probably about 40%. It's not your fault. You can blame your parents and they can blame their parents all the way back. But that's not very helpful.

Obviously, there are things that shape you during your childhood and your adolescence whether it's being bullied or difficulties with your attachments and it carries you know there's all sorts of things that could be triggers but obviously one of the things that we really want to focus on is the things that keep the problem going and that's all the avoidance behaviors and the things that you have to do to feel right or feel comfortable in those compulsions and all that magical thinking and the way you take on excessive responsibility for preventing harm. So there's lots there to work on in any therapy. How did you, I don't know, treat is the right word, you know, how have you managed to cope with yours? You said it was worse in your 20s. It's better now. So what have you tried?

So I suppose now, although I'm not free of it, I have various coping mechanisms, probably many of which Professor Veale would say are not useful. But those, you know, in order to leave the house sometimes on time, I will take photographs of things in my kitchen so that I have the hard evidence that those things are awful That I my door is shut or whatever it is that is bothering me that day, but I've gone through various things I had a course of CBT cognitive behavioral therapy when I was in my early 20s Which is very effective for most people and I think at the time didn't work for me for various reasons, but

for most people and I think at the time it didn't work for me for various reasons but was a step towards then taking medication which I found very helpful for the physical manifestation of OCD that the anxiety the panic attacks and then later on in life the thing that helped me was a combination of talking therapy and coming off the medication at the same time and I think now I know that those things are available for me to go back when when I have a flare-up. Professor Veale, can it be cured? For some people it can be cured, for other people it's just well managed and for others that may develop more longer-term chronic problem and so it does need more research and but you know for most people you can definitely get improvements. Tuppence you're a mother now. Yes. Congratulations. Thank you. How has that impacted all of this? Must be tricky. Yeah it's um there have been good things and bad things about it. I think there are many women in particular who

who will avoid getting pregnant because of morning sickness and because of the idea of their child picking up infectious illnesses at nursery and school. So that was something that worried me. I didn't get morning sickness when I was pregnant which was a huge relief but dealing with those kind of bugs, the vomiting bugs that kids pick up at school and nursery is a real challenge. I have a very understanding partner. How do you deal with it? Well, it's only happened once so far.

She's just two now. So that's been my partner taking the reins on it when it happens. But I do have a preventative box that I have in my bathroom, which has four bottles of bleach, a whole package of face masks that I stockpiled after COVID, long rubber gloves, you know, things that I have that I'm ready to go if I need to to clean things up. But there are other elements of it which help in the way that, you know that you're so busy with a child, you're so distracted, there's so much to do, your focus is on them.

And sometimes I've left the house when I'm with her, trying to sort her out and then I've been able to leave without checking the door twice. When you look, you said she's only two, but looking into the not too distant future, what about children's parties? Yes, yeah. Soft play. Yes, soft play. I have of course taken a soft play but I find it very tricky. There's lots of hand washing and I, you know, if I know that something's going around, if I know there's a norovirus flare-up then I will probably avoid it. But yeah, there's a norovirus flare-up, then I will probably avoid it. But yeah, there's a constant sort of navigating around that and also not wanting to set a bad example

to her, not wanting to pass on my behavior, so doing my best to keep them under control. Yeah. What's the reaction been like to the book? Really positive. Overwhelmingly so in that I have had, I'd say the majority of the messages I've received have been from mothers, particularly mothers of daughters around the same age as I was when I was diagnosed, so 11 or 12 years old, which has been really moving because I didn't realise quite how many people were dealing with this day to day and who were worried about their own children going through it too. And why did you want to write it? Well I think that it

got to a point where I because I had mentioned it in an interview and then it was picked up on then I ended up talking about it a lot when I was discussing my acting work and I felt like I had much more to say about it and I everything I wanted to say about it is in the book and I wanted to give people some hope you know that there is life beyond the worst elements of it. Tuppence Middleton thank you so much for coming in to speak to me and Professor Doctorville thank you and we've been talking about the expectation of women to look a certain way. Judy Dench says oh says we had a message here saying try being 80 we're expected to look and act and be younger

thank god for do Judy Dench. Hear, hear. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. A billionaire Christian family is building a huge collection of artifacts for their Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC. During that time, there were 30,000 items probably. But a scholar turned super sleuth starts asking questions. The magnitude of what I found out is incredible. I'm Ben Lewis. I investigate the darker side of the arts and antiquities world,

but nothing prepared me for this story. Something truly, truly wrong was going on. Looters, forgeries, and a scandal of biblical proportions. From BBC Radio 4, Intrigue, Word of God. Listen first on BBC Sounds. Hi, I'm Namulanta Kombo, here to tell you that my podcast Dear Daughter is back. And this time, I'm joined by an all-star lineup of guests, each with some sage life advice and a letter for their daughter.

Every mother has a letter in her head for their daughter. So it's really nice that that's being like expressed out loud. That's Dear Daughter stars from the BBC World Service. Listen now by searching for Dear Daughter wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Dear Daughter.