Woman's Hour - Modest Fashion, Behind the Unemployment Figures, the Art of Listening

Episode Date: January 21, 2020

The Office for National Statistics release new unemployment figures today. We look behind the numbers and ask what sorts of jobs women are losing and what’s being done to save them. What do we know about the jobs that women are employed in? And have efforts to help women get into better paid sectors changed the gender pay gap? Do you know what “modest fashion” is? It’s about wearing less revealing clothes, and if you’ve a religious faith which emphasises modesty, it’s a style which allows you to do just that and look great. Well-known high-street shops and on-line brands (like M&S and ASOS) sell clothes under this banner, appealing to a more diverse range of customers. But is it really just a new way of describing how many of us prefer to dress, especially as we get older? Reina Lewis from London College of Fashion together with Amina Begum Ali who’s a model, discuss how it fits into the UK’s £32 billion fashion industry. When you look back over your relationships do you see patterns? Our reporter Milly Chowles does and she wants to understand why this might be. In a new series about toxic relationships she talks to four women who have broken free. Today, a woman we are calling Nina who was drawn to bad boys. Writer Kate Murphy claims that as a society we’ve forgotten how to listen. She joins Jane to talk about what stops us & to argue the case for better listening.Presenter: Jane Garvey Interviewed guest: Vicky Pryce Interviewed guest: Amina Begum Ali Interviewed guest: Reina Lewis Interviewed guest: Kate Murphy Reporter: Milly Chowles Producer: Lucinda Montefiore

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. This is the Woman's Hour podcast. Good morning, welcome to Woman's Hour. On the programme today, how to listen. Do you regard yourself as a good listener? More tips on how to get it right in the listening department on Woman's Hour this morning. Most of us, it's fair to say, have a so-called type.

But are you one of those people consistently attracted to the wrong type? We start a new series on relationships on the programme today. And modest fashion is having a moment. But what does modest fashion mean? Now, the new unemployment figures are out today and the government has recently made much of the fact that more women are in work than at any time before. Indeed, we know that the latest figures reveal that 72.3% of women are in employment. But we also know that female employment is often insecure and poorly paid.

And we've talked a great deal about the crisis on Britain's high street recently. So what sort of jobs are women doing? What sort of jobs are they losing? And what is being done to help save them? Let's talk to Vicky Price, economist and author of a new book called Women vs Capitalism. Good to see you, Vicky. Good morning. And we have Kate Bell as well, TUC's head of economics. Kate, good morning to you.

Good morning. First of all, Kate, do you take joy in the fact that female employment rates, the rates, are so high? Isn't that something to celebrate? It absolutely is. It's really good news. But what we're finding is that those high employment rates aren't solving some of the kind of structural problems in the labour market. So whether it's low pay for everybody, or it's the fact that that persistent gender pay gap, at the moment not set to close until 2058, isn't going away. So, of course, these figures are good news, good news for women who increasingly want to be in work, but we've still got this huge kind of structural discrimination and high employment rates on their own won't solve that.

I can't imagine that you disagree with much of that, Vicky. Tell me. No, and it's interesting when we look at the pay gap, of course, because a very large number of women, something like 43% of women who work, out of those figures that you quoted earlier, work part-time. And, of course, very often they work at below their skill level the moment they start working part-time, which, of course, loses a lot in relation to productivity for the UK economy as a whole. But also the gap between the part-time hourly wage

and the full-time pay for a man is about 35%. So if we look at the vast majority of women who work part-time actually not earning an awful lot, then you can see that gap being contained and sustained throughout the whole of their lives, more or less, because many women, 43% of them, who work part-time over a period of years, obviously collect a lot less in terms of average earnings, and they end up with a lot less in relation to their pensions by the end of the day.

And some of the increase we've seen in women labour force participation has been because they've had to carry on working given the increase in the pension age which has been introduced yes rather suddenly for some of them. Yes okay so that headline which looks rather wonderful actually masks some rather more well some some darker truths if I can be so melodramatic that that pay gap of 35 percent Kate that is a worry isn't it? That's a huge worry. And I think it also reflects the fact that where part-time work is available tends to kind of drive the kind of occupational segregation we see. So we know that... Okay, occupational, what do you mean by that? So I mean

the types of jobs that are available to women and men, so where they're concentrated. So for example, 74% of chief executives and senior officials, kind of one of our highest paid jobs, are male. Whereas when you look at people working in the care sector, 80% of them are women. And those women are low paid? And they are predominantly low paid. They're often in insecure work. And that's a form of work which we know is going to need to expand. You know, we know we've got the social care crisis.

So that's an expanding area. But can we continue to accept that care work is low paid? Why do we just say it's low paid and move on? Why don't we challenge that? Absolutely and I think that's you know what I was going on to say and there's this kind of chicken and egg situation where work which is predominantly done by women is undervalued partly because it's done by women and then women end up in these part-time low-paid roles, which continues to reinforce that gender pay gap. And I do actually think, though, kind of, if we're thinking about a new strategy for social care, surely that's an opportunity

to say, how do we value this properly? And that has to start by paying people properly first. Vicky, would employers have a problem with that? It's very interesting when we talk about that particular sector, because, of course at the end of the day is the government, it's the National Health Service and it's a big monopsonistic. Well it's not in terms of care. Well nobody then pays the people who then provide that service who then go out and hire the care workers and of course it depends how much you pay those companies that go out and do it for you. Well some of these companies are making a great deal of money out of not paying their workers very much.

Thank you very much. Absolutely. But the government needs to be on top of that and make sure that it only hires or asks people as subcontractors to do the work for them. If they are properly treating their employees more generally. And if they don't, then they shouldn't make it onto the list of contractors that they go for. But overall, I do still think that the NHS probably tries to, well, of course, the NHS and social care are supposed to be two different things, but it's still the government that pays for it. And the fact that the budget for social care has highly increased,

in fact, it's fallen in real terms, is a serious problem in terms of what you pay the people who do the work. Two things I really want to talk about, the high street and maternity leave. And Vicky, your stand on maternity leave is interesting. I mean, I think fundamentally you just think it's something women should avoid if possible. Well, that's because the evidence shows that once you go off and take time off from work, you lose out almost forever. Because if you come back part-time, as many women do, or want more flexible work, then quite often you lose out in relation to being trained

and acquiring those skills that are necessary. And basically you no longer compete to the same level as whoever stayed behind and continues to do the work. But we've got many, many thousands of listeners, I'm sure, right now on maternity leave. Are you saying to them, frankly, you're mugs? No, it's very important to look after your children. But what should happen is that it should be shared properly with the men or with your partner. And therefore, there should be no discrimination in relation to a woman going

off. So there will be an incentive for firms to carry on upping the skills of everyone and not considering women for whatever reason, maternity being one of them, as being the types that they wouldn't want to hire to begin with. And second, they certainly wouldn't want to promote because they would be less able to do the roles that they want them to do because they have children and they need to go and continue caring for them throughout their lives or for a large part of their lives. So flexible working, in my view, and also absolutely subsidised, heavily subsidised childcare, if not free childcare, has to be, in my view, the answer and absolutely sharing with the other person in their lives. Kate?

I think we've got a huge opportunity here because we are hearing increasingly that men want to be spending time with their young children. They might well say it, but it's not actually happening, is it? But one of the reasons it's not happening is because paternity pay is still so low paid. So we've got two weeks, the entitlement at the moment is two weeks on statutory pay, which is just over £100 a week. And many men say they can't afford to take that. And that's why we've been calling for a long time for a much higher entitlement to paternity leave and like maternity leave to make sure it's paid at least for the first period at 90 percent of earnings and you know this is something we know that works when we see kind of that being introduced

in I'm afraid to say it's a bit hackneyed but it is the Scandinavian countries who have introduced and their gender pay gaps are lower and they have much more equal sharing of care between women and men and it's kind of we've known this for a really really long time and I think one of the kind of frustrating things about this debate is we keep talking about the gender pay gap we know what the answers are we know it's around valuing care work more we know it's about more equal pay for women and men we know like Vicky says it's around big investments in child care and of course about that right to flexible working and yet we've had inaction on this for a really really long time now and i think we can we can continue to talk about it forever without apparently making huge amounts of headway but we will plug on

i promise uh so to the high street which of course of course, employs many, many thousands of women. And these jobs are going, Vicky. And what's the government doing to protect those jobs? There is a real issue there. I mean, the thing to remember, particularly about women, is that many have been employed in the public sector and the civil service. And those numbers were cut very significantly during the austerity period of George Osborne and beyond. Many of them then found jobs elsewhere. But the women in the civil service and public sector generally are higher skilled, interestingly, than on average, than people who work in retail or people who work in the private sector. So that's the women, okay, the women who work in one area, women who work in another. The moment they leave that type of employment and guaranteed pensions and so on

that they had before, they move into a much more uncertain environment, which is exactly what has happened. And of course, in areas which are less requiring of the skills that they had before, and they earn less as a result. And those jobs are incredibly insecure. It's not just the gig economy. If you look at the retail sector, where many of them are gravitated to what you find is that hundreds of thousands of jobs are being cut every year the expectation is that something like 170 000 jobs will go again in 2020 a lot of them held by women because of introduction of technology cutting costs we've seen what's been going on in the retail sector to warehouse housing for example up to a point but but it isn't just the sort of online shopping that's taking place. It is also that firms are discounting like mad because the consumer only recently started

seeing an increase in their real disposable incomes. And they've been very, very careful how they spend and they only go for the cheapest things that they can find. So it's understandable that they would do it, but jobs are going in that area. So where will they go to next? Maybe the care sector we've already discussed, which pays even less. So it is a serious problem for women who have tended generally to be downwardly mobile in terms of their wages, particularly once they have children, but also once they change the way they work.

And this trend that we have seen recently actually accentuates that problem. Is there any, are you optimistic at all, Kate, in terms of what government intervention could do for preserving or at least looking after those women who have lost out in the retail sector in particular? I'm talking about when you think about the car industry, for example, and government intervention there and interest in it. Is it the same? I mean, I think there is a really interesting kind of, you know, gendered kind of aspect here is when we talk about industrial strategy, everyone thinks, as you say, in a kind of automotive or heavy manufacturing. And of course, those are completely vital. But they think less about, you know, where is our retail industrial strategy? How are we making sure we have a kind of vibrant high street and that's providing decent jobs? Of course,

part of that, as Vicky says, would be to be getting pay rising for everybody. Again, we've seen pay today still not hitting its pre-crisis peak. And that is, of course, holding back some of the kind of consumer spending we need to support the high street. But I do think we need to look at the kind of retail sector as a whole. And I think there's something really interesting happening where you're seeing kind of predominantly female jobs in shops, basically, replaced by what have been seen as traditionally kind of predominantly male jobs in warehouses. And, you know, we need to kind of look at the quality of those jobs as well, because that's often also making that work invisible. We've heard quite a lot about kind of conditions in those warehouses, not great in general.

And I think our kind of retail industrial strategy, which is what we definitely need, also needs to look at the conditions in that kind of online sector too. Thank you both very much. That was Kate Bell, Head of Economics at the TUC. And you also heard from the economist Vicky Price. Thank you very much for coming in, Vicky. And now to modest fashion, which we're told is having a little bit of a moment on the high street and of course, yes, online is it um reena lewis is professor of cultural studies at the london college of fashion and amina begum alley is a model with um the world's first modest modeling agency we're told it's uma models that's right isn't it i mean yeah okay um now we know that the uk fashion industry is worth billions what do we

know about what the modest fashion industry is worth globally either What do we know about what the modest fashion industry is worth globally? Either of you got any idea? Either of you, Reena? Yes, the most recent figures suggest that it's worth 283 billion US dollars in 2018, and predicted to rise to 402 billion by 2024. So it's a big and growing market. All right, I'm ask you amina to define it what do you understand by the term modest fashion i think it's all personal like i i think what society does and especially with mainstream media i think it's people focus way too much of it being outer so what you wear so when i think about modesty i think about the way i speak the way i act and how i carry myself and how people perceive me as a Muslim woman essentially so but then again I say that but I feel like there's so many other people that could be modest you know like you can there could be people who just don't agree with wearing you know um

revealing clothing yeah um and then you can there's so many different religions as well so like Jewish women they decide to cover their hair as well which is the same concept as us so i feel like when it comes to modesty we shouldn't like just say it's muslim women essentially because that's not the case and some of our listeners who then perhaps the older the older people um what how how would i know that you were modestly dressed? I just think by, well, modestly dressed. What would you cover your arms? I just think overall, I wear pretty modest clothes. Like I cover my arms.

Well, this is what I said, because when I first saw you, I was like, I actually would wear your outfit, but just with a hijab. So this again is religious, but I think there's other women who don't wear hijab who are significantly modest too. And I think modesty can't really be defined unless you like if I'm talking about Muslim context or what it says in our scriptures. But then that can go with anyone.

So you can consider yourself quite modest and you don't have a religious faith, you know. So that's kind of where I come from. I just think it's all personal yeah okay um are you at all resentful that the big fashion brands are now I don't know encroaching on this area and of course they're in the business of making money we've just talked about how difficult it is out there for retailers are you angry with them or do you just think well let them do it well I think let them do it but also I feel like if you're going to use it use people who are genuinely modest to use a jewish woman who wears do you know i mean use us you mean in the imagery and

yeah exactly so use us and promote us instead of you know getting a woman for a brand and then putting just a hijab on it because she doesn't understand the meaning behind any of it but then i also think that we've been doing this before this industry existed. There were Muslim women who curated their outfits to begin with. So this figure, yes, it's there. But you also need to understand that when this industry didn't exist, there were women who were taking dresses with short sleeves, et cetera, and making it modest. So what really is the modest industry? Well, that's a good point.

Do you see what I mean? I do. Rina, what would you say to that? I think that's a a good point. Do you see what I mean? Yeah, I do. Reena, what would you say to that? I think that's a really good point. Women around the world from different religious and faith communities have been dressing modestly on trend for centuries. Can I say some people would also say dressing practically? Well, I think lots of women,

you know, you said earlier what you're wearing could count as modest and indeed it could. And you're not, I'm guessing, necessarily dressing in that way for reasons of religion or religious community cultural convention so the way that I would it's quite cold as well yes and you may also wear a swimsuit on a public beach so or not it's not the garments it's how people are wearing them and why they're wearing them so I think what's

different now women from different communities have dressed according to their understanding of modesty for generations what's different now is that there is a commercial niche market which initially developed led by women entrepreneurs from within faith communities who wanted to make and sell what they couldn't find in the shops well i suppose this is what the global industry is interested. Yes. Are women who are actually living this life making money out of the current trend, or is it the usual suspects making money out of all this?

I think that the niche modest fashion brands are seeing a bounce. I think it's an interesting question with any niche. When the mainstream industry, whether it's mainstream food companies doing organic, start to get interested in the niche, it both raises awareness, which creates more market opportunities, and it brings in market competitors who have more money to spend on research and design, on advertising and so on. And I think the other thing I'd say in relation to your question about how would anyone looking at Amna know that she's dressed modestly?

Well, in this case, the fact that she's covering her hair with a headscarf is a sort of militia beacon of Muslim woman in the street. And that makes you hyper visible. Of course, lots of Muslim women who also dress modestly for religious and cultural reasons, don't consider it necessary to cover their hair. And they are invisible, both to other Muslims and to people from outside that community yes so it's quite hard to tell sometimes I'm sure I mean tell me men and modesty what about that well I think there are a lot of men in that like for example Sikh men they wear turbans so they have a ruling where they have to cover their hair and it's the same thing there are some Sikh men who you know choose not to cover it so I wouldn't know whether they're Sikh or not but I feel like that never gets talked about you know and it's interesting isn't it yeah

it is but then also within like within my religion there are also there's a hijab for men so there's certain things that they can't show in and we never speak about it because it's never spoken about in society I think women are more, we get more picked up because it's just life, isn't it? We live in a man's world, that's what we get told. But I feel like in every situation, if a woman who's like a public figure, if she takes a hijab off, it's scrutiny.

But then you won't see the same happen to a guy. I would come in there and say that many women from within communities where there are conventions of modesty would often say, in response to the accusation, aren't men forcing you to do this? You know, of course, not all women can exercise choice around the world about how they dress. But also many women will say, well, we have codes of modesty in dress and behaviour for men as well.

But exactly as you're saying, women bear the burden both of demonstrating cultural authenticity and tradition and also women are scrutinised. When I walk down the road, I am much more scrutinised and surveyed for how I look than a man walking down the road. Men can turn up looking shabby if they want to. Women get judged in a different way. But I do think that menswear

is going to be a new area that the market is going to look at. Well, we'll keep an eye on it. Thank you both very much. Really appreciate you coming in. You heard there from Rina Lewis of the London College of Fashion and from Amina Begum Ali, who is a model. Good to meet you. Thank you very much for being with us today. Now, on Wednesday, that's tomorrow, Jenny's going to be asking, why did Jane Austen burn her sister's letters? I think there's a story there and you'll hear it on the programme tomorrow. On Friday, I'll be talking to Lorna Cooper. Now, she cut her family of sixes weekly shop from 100 quid down to just 20.

How did she manage it? If you've got any advice to offer or something else to add, you can send us a tweet or email via the Women's Hour website. And now something I think is really important, loneliness. We often talk on this programme about busting taboos. Is it fair to say that actually admitting to loneliness, not in the past, but right now, is a genuine 21st century taboo? We really want to hear from you on this. It isn't easy to talk about, but I thought this might encourage you because one listener has been brave enough to contact us on this very issue. And they say, in my opinion, admitting to loneliness is one of the last taboos.

That's why it is difficult for people to admit to it. It is more humiliating than things like addiction and sexual preferences. For me, loneliness has led to substance, mainly alcohol abuse, and I'm also on medication for anxiety, sleep and depression. I don't have any interest in my lifelong occupations of reading, music and exercise. Here is a typical day for me. Sleep or stay in bed as long as possible. On a good day, go to the library and go online and buy food, come home. On a bad day, and that's about four

days a week, as above, but go out and get wine, fall asleep, wake in the evening. Might or might not go out to get more wine. I do have voluntary work where I have contact with others for about six hours a week, but this is the only thing keeping me afloat. The only times I've been happy in the last few years have been when I've been on a trip or a planned visit, but I can no longer afford these trips as I've run out of savings. I am neglecting my physical and my mental health with no people to talk to, the motivation has gone. Well, first of all, I only know the first name of that listener. I'm not even going to use it.

But I really admire your courage in writing to us about that and just laying it on the line. I think you've got a point. I think loneliness is a taboo. Certainly admitting to it right now in your life is really, really tough. So if you're prepared to do the same, and then we will have an open conversation about the subject, please do contact Women's Hour via our website. Now, when you look back over your past relationships, are you able to see a pattern? Well, our reporter Millie Chowles has made what is, I have to say, a very personal new series for us about damaging

relationships. And she's going to talk to four different women. A few years ago, I became aware that I was stuck in a really painful loop with my love life. I was in my late 30s, so lots of my friends were, and still are, happily coupled up, getting engaged, starting families, something I desperately wanted, but frustratingly seemed to be completely elusive to me. I seemed consistently drawn to people who were for one reason or another

unable to commit and to give me the love that I so desperately craved. I felt like I was being driven by something very unconscious or subconscious. I was aware of it, but couldn't seem to stop it. And that led me on a bit of a mission, really, to really understand what was going on, and of course, to hopefully change the pattern. For this series, I'll be meeting other people who, like me, have eventually broken free of their own painful relationship patterns. The first of which is a woman we're calling Nina,

whose attraction to bad boys started from a very young age. I started getting a bit of attention when I was about 14. Boys started calling me pretty and I wasn't just like the weird brown girl anymore, which was really exciting at the time. So yeah, we used to hang out at this local park and every week there were these boys, older boys, about 18, and every week they would come and rob us.

And there was one boy there called Chris. Yeah, so I really liked him and I think I was very attracted to the fact that he was, like, this guy who was really mean to everyone, kind of scary, but he was this guy who was really mean to everyone, kind of scary, but he was being really nice and really sweet to me and started showing this vulnerable side and I was really attracted to that.

I think that's the first time I realised I had bad boy syndrome. But I was obsessed, like obsessed. I could not stop thinking about him. Sometimes I'd see him and he'd be really nice and then something would happen or sometimes he would be a total prick. How long did that relationship go on? That, like, didn't go on that long. It seemed like a really long, sort of painful time at the time,

but it went on probably for maybe five months. And then I met this other guy who was sort of then my I'd say he was my first proper love he was I was probably about 15 when I met him yeah I absolutely fell in love with him basically straight away he he was a lovable rogue if you will he was a local drug dealer and he was also very charming and very lovable and we met and we just clicked but I really fancied him straight away he was definitely a nicer person than the guy before but he was also a bit of a sociopath in many ways and I think a lot of it was just because he was so deep in sort of drugs that he he couldn't be normal, you know, emotionally.

He messed me around constantly. How did he mess you around? I'm just trying to think of the best way to describe it because he wasn't a violent person. It wasn't like, you know, something really dramatic, like, oh, he beat me or he tried to make me smoke crack or anything like that. It was quite subtle. He was the kind of person who everyone who was around him like loved loved loved to be around him when they were on his good side

it would just be literally like one week super charming nice next week totally cold and ignore me ignore my messages it just totally ignore me blank me it was literally on and off for about three years at that time I was probably about 18 by that time and had gotten over a lot of my anxieties I was like in a place in life where I wanted I was sort of ready to move on I had new horizons I'd gone to art school so I just left and went to London. You said it was very on off and clearly he had a real element of danger and darkness around him in the kind of circles and the lifestyle that he was leading did you have people around you saying what are you doing yeah I think my sisters were always just like what are you doing a few of my friends actually a couple of my guy friends were

just like you know he's not a nice person just it wasn't even that he wasn't a nice person but he's not he doesn't care about you like I couldn't get my head around that and I had guys who really liked me like really really liked me really good guys who wanted to go out with me and I just was just like no we're just friends I just felt like somehow if they really like you there's something wrong with them yeah if you don't feel good about yourself then uh if someone else likes you you think they well what's wrong with you I guess yeah and I think at that time I was so like probably unaware of how bad my self-esteem was well I hadn't even begun or thought about tackling it really at that age because I'd just bury it and probably outwardly I was very confident and seemed quite you know happy and and so on but inwardly actually there was a

lot of self-loathing there so you went to art school and tell me about the you know the next relationship that you had yeah so there's various other things that didn't work out actually there's one thing that I always forget in 2005 or something, when the internet was still really rubbish and you didn't have Facebook and all of that. I used to go on this really crappy digital pool site. You could play virtual pool, but you had a little chat box and you could chat to people. And one day I started doing that to some guy, but we ended up actually really chatting loads and loads. And we had this little internet romance. and then we started chatting on the phone and um when I started talking on the phone like he actually came across really sort of abrasive and it turned out he was

like this con artist but even then it was like how have I managed to even find this type of guy on the internet because you feel like you keep finding this type of person yeah I totally relate to that you know if you're on a dating app and you're sort of going through hundreds of different profiles and you go oh I like that one and then it turns out that that person's got exactly the same kind of characteristics that you've been trying to kind of move away from and you'd be like how can I pick up on those signals from literally just a photo yeah yeah and I think the thing is if you're honest with yourself that is subtle things that are warning signals if I look over each guy I sort of now know that things like I remember the first time I spoke to the internet guy on the phone my immediate thought

was deep down I got a bad feeling from him and this is something that I had from all the guys I liked at this point. There was this darkness. Anyway, so about a year later, I met my next guy, who was a very important figure in my life. We met because I was out with a friend and we wanted to buy some weed, and I went into this club and I was like, right, who looks like they sell weed? And I saw him sat with a group of guys,

and I went over and we started chatting. He wanted my number straight away and I didn't really fancy him at that time and then we spent a lot of time hanging out and he would call me all the time, we'd hang out, we'd chat, we got closer and closer and then one day we went out and we went to a friend's house and he was chatting to his friends and he just started talking about how he when he was younger he'd like done this armed robbery and he'd been in prison that was the moment I was like oh you know what actually I really do fancy him and I remember literally the next day I was like oh I fancy him so much I had borrowed his jumper and I started wearing his jumpers like oh I love the way he smells he he's so wonderful. It's so crazy thinking about now, like, that I couldn't make that connection.

That was sort of the beginning of, like, three years of misery. Again, same thing as this last guy. But it was even worse because he would sort of say to me he was in love with me and he wanted to marry me and have kids with me and all this stuff. He would say to me, I'm coming around for dinner tonight, I swear to you I'll come around, we're going to have the most romantic night and just not turn up. Like, literally, he would do things like that.

And then it turned out that he was smoking a lot of heroin and basically was money laundering and then eventually he went to prison. You've described the lifestyle that he's leading, but what was your lifestyle at that time? Okay, so I was just a student and I was going to art school my social anxiety by that point had gone but I still had this very much just like I'm ugly thing going on which I was trying to tackle and I was managing to kind of get over that slowly as well it was fine and I had very strong goals as well so I knew what I really wanted in life I knew what career

path I wanted to go down and I think that's kind of been my saving grace because I think I could have kind of gone away with these kind of guys and gone into this lifestyle but I didn't because I was quite clear on what I wanted and I was also like really into sort of like wellness culture like that point so I was quite into like yoga and things because when I was a teenager yoga had really helped me kind of overcome some of my anxiety and stuff so I was really into that probably for myself okay except for the fact that I was felt this self-loathing that was torturing me and putting me into this kind of pit of despair every so often and it sounds like these guys are kind of reaffirming that in their treatment of you yeah yeah exactly I sort of felt it was me who was the stupid one it was me who

was the one who was wrong it was me who wasn't worth a while and then eventually I left uni and I went on and I started working and um I started doing quite well and then um another guy came along who actually I'd known for years and then we ended up meeting up like years years later we really got on and straight away I could tell there was something between us and we ended up sleeping together it was all the same stuff again basically of blowing hot and cold like we started sleeping together and then the next week we'd go out and he'd like snog a girl in front of me and by this point I felt so depressed because it was like I was stuck in this cycle and every time I'd go into the cycle it was worse and worse and it was like all the cracks in my mind of all these years of kind of

self-loathing suddenly became like not a crack but like a hole and I got really depressed and I think one night I'd gone out with this guy that I was sleeping with who I really liked and wanted him to go out with me and who he was kind of treating me like shit. And we went out and that night he sort of said there's something really special between us. And then literally like an hour later he started snogging a girl in front of me. And that really upset me and I left. I felt so full of anger and depression. And the thing is with all of these guys it wasn't one event.

It was like a death by a thousand cuts, you know. By this point I was so anxious. I was so depressed. I felt mental and I felt really trapped by this situation because the guy was in our friendship groups. I had to deal with the fact that I would see him every week and I couldn't just run away. At that point, I was just like, I can't live with this anymore. I can't imagine my life being like this.

So I wanted to change and I started doing CBT. I went to a therapist every week for like 10 weeks and it was very hard. And especially at first, because when you do CBT, they say, okay, write down all your thoughts. You know, every day you have to keep a journal. And when I started writing down and looking at my thoughts, it was just like, it really freaked me out because when you see them on paper it was really quite sad that your

thoughts have turned like into such a mess and I sort of saw it as the equivalent to having like a really messy room that you've just never realized is a mess and then you start looking at it and you're like oh dear so I started working through like all these started working through, like, all these problems, working through, you know, why I felt this way about these guys. And it slowly got better, but it was quite, like, stressful, you know, because you're kind of going against what your mind wants to do. Like, your mind wants to sort of blame you for all these people and you want to call yourself stupid. So I had to kind of unpick all those thoughts.

And that probably took a long time. and I had the therapy for 10 weeks and then I kept doing the uh just the practice of journaling and looking at your thoughts and then after that you know it's funny because I still met a few guys who were horrible but you know I instead of like freaking out and being like letting myself go into this like whole like oh my god I'm so stupid I'm never gonna find anyone I'm ugly I'm this I'm that and the I'm never going to find anyone. I'm ugly, I'm this, I'm that, and the other. I was able to kind of not let it get to me. It still hurt, but I was just, like, able to keep my mind from going down that dark place.

I stopped, like, bullying myself, basically. Then I met my new boyfriend. He's just really nice to me. Does he have a criminal history? No. He was a little bit of a bad boy when he was younger though so I was like okay that's good I can have my little bit of bad boyness we're moving in together he said he wants to marry me and stuff like that and we go on holiday and we go camping

and I don't have to worry about him like suddenly ignoring me or lying to me it's nice is there a part of you that finds that you know boring or not exciting compared to what you've been through I do find it hard and I have to say recently I've been like okay I think I need to start doing CBT again because there's still a part of me that wants to run away and one thing about all the guys I've liked is it's weird it's like there was a subconscious feeling of relief I'd never have to be with them it's strange so like they couldn't attach to me but deep down I couldn't really attach to them as well like I didn't really want to get in relationships with them I don't think I've always had this fear of people taking away my freedom and so I still have that fear sometimes

I think a technique that actually my therapist didn't teach me but I kind of sort of started teaching myself was starting to think of trying to retrain my brain was thinking that bad boys was boring love was actually more exciting it's more of an adventure and I kept having to just literally repeat those thoughts myself and those images. Alan de Botton said this you have to make a decision of whether you want excitement or stability. The two are sort of pretty mutually exclusive. The excitement is caused by the inconsistency. I think that it's part of my personality that inherently finds it hard to be stable and goes towards excitement. It's hard to have both excitement and stability. Millie Chowles was talking to somebody we're calling Nina and there'll be more from Millie and from that series actually

on Thursday's edition of Woman's Hour. Now, Kate Murphy has written a book called You're Not Listening. And Kate, this is about listening. It's about being a good listener and it's about the art of listening. Now, have a lot of us lost the art? Right. It's about the lost art of listening. And I'm just looking at it on all different angles, how we got here, what's happening culturally, technologically, psychologically, politically, that's making us shut down and not listen. In really basic forms of conversation,

and this is an incredibly artificial conversation because we are in a radio studio, I am asking you questions. Most people aren't listening. They're worrying about what they're going to say next. Is that true? Yes, it is. And when you're worrying about what you're going to say next, you can't focus on what the other person is saying.

And so as a result, when you are responding, you're less likely to respond in a meaningful and sensitive way, and the other person gets that. And so you're both almost talking over each other while the other person's thinking about what they're going to say as you're talking. And so no listening and no connections really happening. And you know, on those rare occasions, when you do really connect with someone, that actual feeling where you get outside of your own head, and you have that moment, whether it's with a checker at the grocery store or a loved one, where you really, like, you know, that person gets me, and they have the same sense that you get them, that that actually is when your neural impulses, neuroscientists have shown that the brain of the speaker as well as the listener are actually in sync.

So, you know, that saying where people say, oh, he and I are really in sync or she and I are really in sync. It's actually true. It is what is happening in your brain. It's a measurable moment of connection. And it's something that's so critical to our feelings of well-being. And since people are not listening anymore, we're not getting that. Well, we're not listening in increasing number to people with whom we will not agree. We are choosing to opt out of that, aren't we? Yes. Yes, we are. And as a result,

we're not understanding where other people are coming from. And it's what breeds this idea of different groups, drawing from different sources of information, because we're all siloed in our own ideal ideologies, and looking at different information. And so not only are we not listening to each other, we're not drawing from the same sources of information. What can we learn to do better than in terms of, let's talk about talking to partners. If you've been with someone for a length of time, you are bound to not lose interest, but certainly lose curiosity, aren't you? Absolutely. That is called the closeness communication bias.

But how do you overcome it? Well, you develop that curiosity for one another, that you don't reduce your conversations to, you know, how was your day? Do you have laundry? Do you want to go out to dinner? What are we going to eat? To really ask questions that get to what the other person's feeling and where they are in their life. Because we change every single day.

You know, you think, oh, you know, I know him like the back of my hand or I know her like the back of my hand. You don't know what happened to them during the day. And each little interaction, occasion changes actually who we are. And if you don't listen to people, that person will change. It's why couples, you know, sometimes they feel like I don't know you anymore. Okay, somebody walks through the door, and you want to ask them a good, useful, open question at the end of their working day or not? What do you ask them? You know, a good question, we were talking about this earlier, a good question is what was the best part and what was the worst part of your day? What if they just say, why are you asking me this idiotic question? Because I'm interested in you. I want to know how you are. Yes. And I

really want to know how you are. I really want to know. But it's a two-way street, isn't it? You can't do this game, can't play this game on your own. Well, that's true. But human beings are, you know, by nature reciprocal. We like to return courtesies. And so that actually happens where people do return the favor. And also when someone tells you something and you learn what the best part and the worst part of their day is, you know how to speak to them in a way that resonates. So they're more likely to listen to you. What about having your mind changed by somebody who has completely opposing points of view to your own? How often does that happen? I don't really have any data on how often that happens, but I think you can develop a greater understanding

even if you don't change your mind about what your views are. But if somebody has abhorrent views, you are obliged to hear them out and learn to understand why they feel the way they do. I think so. I think it makes for a richer existence. If you know how other people land where they landed and how you landed where they landed,

they might know something you don't know. And unless you listen, you will never know. You will never know. And then is it your duty to change them? No, because, you know, your duty, it doesn't work. You can't change someone's mind. And the only way that you can even get close to changing someone's mind is listening to them and knowing how to craft a message that will really speak to what their

motivations and their understanding and their willingness to actually change their mind. That was Kate Murphy. Her book is called You're Not Listening. Steve on email. We're a two-way communication device. The trouble is that most of us are stuck on transmit. Guys are worse than women at this. Listen to a group of men talking in a pub. Thank you for that, Steve. That's Steve, by the way, generalising about men. Not me, Steve.

Chris on email. My cat, Blackberry, had to come through to my home office and meow for me to let her out because my wife was listening to your programme and looking at cat images on her phone in the kitchen and wasn't listening. See this, that is my worry. That actually is, oh dear, I'm so depressed by that, I might have to pack in the whole business. But thank you for dobbing in your wife, Chris. How dare she be half listening to me and half looking at pictures of cats on her phone. It puts broadcasting into perspective, doesn't it, somehow?

And it's probably not before time. I'm just going to read this extract from Kate's book because this is if you are a parent or a grandparent, perhaps this is something you need to be aware of. Kate says, listening is not just something you should do when someone else is talking. It's also what you should do while you are talking. Is the other person indicating any real interest in hearing more about your kids' oboe recital. I know a couple of weeks ago I had issues with my shower drain, and it was something I did talk about at some length,

and I'm revisiting that time in my life right now. And if I'm honest, I'm slightly haunted by the expressions on the faces of people that I was talking to. And yesterday I had to go home early because British Gas were coming to look at the boiler. Honestly, it's all been going on. It really has. But I must stop talking about that shower. Now, on the subject of women and employment, we have a statement here from the employment minister, Mims Davis MP.

Here we go. Women remain some of the biggest winners from our jobs miracle, says Mims, who is the Employment Minister, hence her enthusiasm, with a staggering 317,000 more women in work in the last year. And that's happened at a time when wages have been rising on the year with over 80% of employment growth driven by higher skilled roles. That's just to give us a little bit of balance because I have to say in that discussion, I guess, we didn't hear the voice of the government. So there we are. And of course, it is good news that more women are in work. That has to be a positive, surely. Now, Jane says, my husband is semi-retired now, but his career has been as a solicitor in the city. He says that men who choose to take shared parental leave tend to be regarded as less ambitious and less committed. He admits this is

unfair, but thinks it will take a long time to change. This is the case with most other sectors in the city as well. The subject of modest fashion got you talking and thinking. Eki says, am I the only person who despises the idea of dressing modestly? It suggests that those who do not dress as your moral religion dictates are immodest. There's no such thing as modest dressing. That, the view of Eki and Jane. This is important for mental health. Modest dressing is what she means there. Long sleeves are used to cover self-harm scars,

yet uniforms for women and girls often only have short-sleeved versions. This is particularly bad in schools, where it can exclude children from PE. Thank you for that. And thanks to everybody who took part today in one form or another. Still shattered by the cat thing, but we'll plough on. Jenny is here tomorrow. She's going to be talking amongst other people to Gail Porter. Now, she was a children's television presenter. She presented top of the pops. And her naked body was once projected onto the House of Commons as an unforgettable stunt,

I think it's fair to say, by a men's magazine. And it did take her toll, not surprisingly. She went on to develop alopecia and mental health issues. And she's on Woman's Ad tomorrow, talking to Jenny. Thank you for listening today. You have been listening haven't you i mean properly bbc sounds music radio podcasts anna delvey was due to inherit 67 million dollars i'm so excited about what the future holds she secured huge investments for a project in new york she was very confident in her words and yet it was all a lie she's a con artist join journalist I was watching this whole thing happen thinking it can't be true. Download the free app to listen. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies.

I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby.

It's a long story, settle in. Available now.