Woman's Hour - Nubya, Justyna Wydrzynska, Ramadan and Parasocial relationships

Episode Date: April 1, 2022

Have you heard of Nubia from the DC comic books? She’s the adopted sister of Wonder Woman and is DC’s first Black superwoman introduced in the 70s before disappearing from comics for decades. Nubia returned last year in the new comic book Nubia: Real One, which is set in modern day America and tells the story of her teenage life. Anita talks to the cartoonist, Robyn Smith who illustrated the book about the importance of representing Black women and their stories in comics.Next week, Justyna Wydrzynska from Poland will be the first pro-choice activist to appear in court, charged with breaking the country's strict abortion law. On the 27th January 2021 Poland enforced an near-total abortion ban. It is now only allowed in cases of rape or incest or when the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother. Justyna provided miscarriage-inducing tablets to a pregnant woman. Unlike in other countries where abortion is banned, women in Poland are not criminalised for illegal termination of pregnancy; instead it is those who order or carry out an abortion that face penalties. Anita is joined by Justyna and Dr Sydney Calkin, from Queen Mary University.Are you familiar with parasocial relationships? It’s a psychological term to describe when someone thinks they have a friendship or bond with a person they have never met before or spoken to face-to-face. The most common parasocial dynamic exists between celebrities and their fans. But is it healthy? And do women often pay the price? Anita explores this with Gretchen Robertson, a psychotherapist whose clients include influencers and vloggers, and Flossie Clegg - a YouTuber and Digital Content Creator with over 700,000 subscribers.Ramadan begins this weekend. It’s the month when Muslims refrain from eating or drinking between dawn and sunset to give more time for self-reflection, prayer and identify with the hungry. Statistics from Dubai show that women spend twice as much time in the kitchen during this time in Muslim communities around the world, which is a paradox given that it’s also a time of eating less. Much of the pressure comes from the preparation of the Iftar meals which end each day of fasting; an important time for families and communities to come together in homes and mosques. To discuss the issues are Shelina Janmohamed, Vice President of Islamic Marketing at Ogilvy and best selling author of Love in A Headscarf, and journalist and broadcaster Remona Aly.

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. We're going to be in the presence of superpower greatness today. Nubia, the sister of Wonder Woman and the first black woman superhero is on the show. Or the woman who's brought her to life as an illustration will be at least so this morning i want to hear about your superpowers what are they what are you able to do that makes you wonder woman or indeed superman maybe you're more organized than anyone you know maybe you can cook up a feast for a small village whilst breastfeeding and looking after a toddler

maybe you were the fastest at school sports day, faster than any of the other parents. Maybe you have serious empathy skills. You can drink without getting a hangover, imagine. You can dance till dawn and your feet never ache. Do you possess the power of super energy or super positivity? Or indeed, what superpower would you like to possess that would dramatically improve your life? The power to not suffer jet lag would be very welcome this morning.

Luckily, I have the power to power through. So your superpowers, please. I'd love to hear all about them. You can text me on 84844. Texts will be charged at your standard message rate. So do check with your network provider for extra costs. And of course, you can get in touch with us on social media it's at bbc woman's hour and if you fancy dropping us an email go to our website ramadan begins this weekend it's a time for reflection a time for a prayer but statistics have shown that paradoxically women spend more time in the kitchen preparing the iftar that's the daily meal to break the fast. Pressure to want to put on an incredible spread for friends and family, pressure for that spread to then look fabulous on Instagram, just general pressure women put on themselves under to make sure the meal is perfect. Is this you? Are you already planning what you'll be cooking? Are you already dreading the hours

you'll spend in the kitchen every day? And the most important question of all, as we are food mad on this show, what are you going to be cooking? Text me on 84844. We'll also be discussing parasocial relationships. That's when people believe they have a friendship or a bond with someone they've never met before. But first, a week today, Justyna Wodzinska from Poland

will be the first pro-choice activist to appear in court charged with breaking the country's strict abortion law. In January last year, Poland enforced a near total abortion ban. It's now only allowed in cases of rape or incest or when the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother. Justyna provided miscarriage-inducing tablets to a pregnant woman. Unlike other countries where abortion is banned, women in Poland are not criminalised for illegal termination of pregnancy. Instead, it's those who order or carry out an abortion that face penalties. Well, I'm joined now by Justyna herself and Dr Sydney Culkin from Queen Mary University. Good morning to you both. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Justyna,

I'm going to come to you first. Let's find out about the organisation that you work for, Abortion Dream Team, ADT. What service do you provide for women? Hello and thank you for the invitation. So I deal with abortion with, it started with my own abortion in 2006. I saw that there was no information in the Polish internet about how to do abortion safe at home. And there was no support for women like me who wanted to do self-managed abortion. So I decided to inform other women how to do it safely,

give them support during taking pills. And this is why I started the Internet Forum for those who want to make self-managed abortion. And also my organization, Kompiutiv Sieci, which in English is Women on the Net. In 2016, together with Kinga Jelińska, Karolina Wienskiewicz and Natalia Brońarczyk, we started the new activity, Abortion Dream Team. Our main work is the destigmatization and demethylization of abortion in Poland, but also because of huge popularity of abortion gym team in Poland, people who get in contact with us also receive support

and information through our social media. And how are you able to get away with it in a country where abortion is banned apart from in exceptional circumstances? So the Polish law is very specific. You can make self-managed abortion up to 22 weeks and you are not criminalized. But in a situation when you try to help other person to get pills, like pay for it, buy it for this person or send a package of abortion pills, or you are a doctor and you want to do abortion for your patient out of the hospital, then you are criminalized.

So we are on our daily work. We don't distribute pills. This is not what we do. We have Women Help Women and Women on Web organization who do this for people in Poland. But what we do is just give the information to people. And this is knowledge which is in the internet. You can search it, but sometimes it's hard to find it.

So this is why we, in 2019, together with other organizations from Netherlands, UK, we started activity, the initiative rather, Abortion Without Borders. orders and it showed it was kind of huge success because last year we had to get access to safe abortion up to 34,000 people and together with abortion orders. What do Polish women do? What do they do then if you're a Polish woman and you want to get an abortion? So mainly up to 12 week you can order pills and you can do from abroad yes from abroad and it's really really safe and easy and the who says this is the best method after up to 12 weeks so um mainly people do this but if they are above 12 weeks then we advise them to go abroad to like countries like

czech republic sorry germany austria netherlands many people from poland travel to netherlands um uk sometimes if they are above 24 week and there are some fetus abnormality they can travel to belgium france so justna now let's talk about your case specifically what have you been accused of what's happened? Yes I've been accused of helping like giving my own the pills I have it for my own use for a person from Ania and also the prosecutor like thought that if I had this one package for my own use I want to put this pills on the market and sell it I just sent those pills for free to this person I thought that this is the situation which I have to do this. Why? What happened? In the end of February 2020, I got information about the situation she's been in.

She was close to 12 weeks and her home situation was quite tough. And it was very similar to my own story because I also was in 12 weeks when I made my own abortion. husband who was like using his force and power to control me to play games with me against my kids and use them like to to push me to controlling so the situation was really really hard and this is in Poland it is like really common when the man is controlling you your body what you what you do in your life uh control what you do in the internet you know this this is like very common behavior of men in poland so and also it was the beginning of pandemia so we knew that that borders could be closed,

there could be some problems with traveling. She was also blackmailed by this man about traveling to Germany, that he will inform the police about kidnapping a kid. They had a kid, and it was very small, so she had to take him with her to Germany. So she decided to ask us about pills, ask abortion without borders about pills. And then I heard this story and I thought this is like incredibly sad that she has to be in this situation. So I decided to send my own pills for her. Because you could relate to her story because you yourself had been in an abusive relationship.

Yes, it was very, very close. It was like almost the same stuff. And you know, I have my own visions of this. Maybe there was no situation like I was experiencing, but it was like very touchy yeah you must have been aware of the risks that you were taking when you sent to those pills though why did you take the risk yes I've been but still you you have to imagine you living in a situation like you cannot go abroad for your abortion your husband is not letting you to control your body

and forcing you to like be pregnant and have another child if you are feeling like really really bad and you don't want to have another child and you think that he's controlling you and this is like you you'd want don't want to live in this uh in this life anymore and uh in in other even uh maybe not in the life but the way the life it looks like right like like right now you don't want to live like this so this is why i said this is the situation i have to take a risk and send those pills i'm going to bring to bring Sydney in to get some context around this, and I'll come back to you in a minute, Justina. Can we just get some understanding of the law that Justina is being prosecuted under and what the implications might be for her?

Sure. So the law that Justina is being prosecuted under actually dates back to the 1990s. The change in the law that you referred to came in last year and removed the ability to access abortion in Poland in this case of severe fetal anomaly. But actually, abortion's been almost totally banned in Poland since the 1990s. In terms of the implications for Justyna, it's hard to say because she's the first activist who's been prosecuted under this

law. There have been other prosecutions and usually those result in fines or suspended sentences. But Justyna is, as far as we know, the first activist in Europe who's being prosecuted for assisting someone to self-manage an abortion. Do we know what the likely outcome might be? I don't want to speculate. Maybe Justyna is comfortable doing that. Justyna, what's the risk that you might be taking here? So this is also, we don't know what the judge will say and the prosecutor will ask.

We know that they use, they put like in the charges information that I am abortion activist in Poland. I do it publicly and loudly. And so maybe it will be kind of political thing, but we really, it's hard to say. We don't know. I mean, Justyna, abortion is still a very controversial issue, not just in Poland, which is a devoutly Catholic country, but around the world, including here in the UK, where abortion is legal. Many believe the right to life is sacred. So why do you think it's important to defend women's rights to abortion? We have, to us, like to Abortion Dream Team, Kobiety w sieci, Abortion Without Borders, we receive calls and messages from really different people.

Those who think that abortion is the right of women and those who are against, but this is the situation very specific for them and they need this because of many reasons. So this is like in such circumstances we think that if you have the full spectrum of information like how to do it safely, what kind of limit you can go with home abortion. And if it's safe or it's maybe better for you to go to the clinic, people can take the decision which is inside of them, even if they decide not to do abortion at all and keep the pregnancy. So this is why we think that it's not like...

that we fight for... We rather think that it's best to go with your own decision than go with the decision you think is the like maybe in the first this is this is your first choice i don't know if you understand me this is like uh the uh the best is that you go with with the feelings you have in your it's your choice yes this is your choice and this is not like a thing that somebody's thing is best for you your partner, your mother

and your family and this kind of thing, we are angry about the situation which is right now and which is we both, me and Anya had to go through this. So Justina how did the authorities find out that you'd sent her the pills? The husband informed, Ania's husband informed the police about the situation

because we assumed that he noticed pills in her like maybe bag or stuff and or maybe he searched her phone or I don't know maybe internet browser and find out about the situation. And how is it affecting you? I mean there there's a threat of prosecution. What does this mean for you, your fellow activists? Are you afraid? Maybe not afraid, but rather angry about that we have to go through this situation. This is like Poland in appeal, I would even say. What is happening in this in this case uh the home abuse and like everything in in the story and also we will not stop uh our activity abortion gene team abortion boarders kobiety shechi will not stop and we are not like afraid of this trial we rather think

about those who uh because of the situation be afraid of asking our help thinking that it could like put us in danger or ask other family member about help, even support, not maybe help, but support in the situation, being with them during the abortion because of putting people in danger. So we think this is the most important for us. Sydney, you're nodding there. Yeah, I just wanted to make clear to the listeners that community providers like Justyna are the main providers of abortion in Poland right now,

where abortion is almost totally illegal. And even in the grounds where it's legal in the law, it's impossible to access in practice. So Justyna, Abortion Dream Team in the UK, the Abortion Support Network, these groups are the providers of abortion in Poland. And the WHO recognises that community providers like Justyna are safe providers of medication abortion care. Sydney, just to bring it back to the UK, MPs have voted to continue the abortion pills by post-scheme. But there are concerns about the health and safety risks,

including the lack of checks on abortion providers who make these pills. And the campaign group Right to Life UK is worried it remains vital safeguards and, as it puts it, thousands more women at risk from DIY home abortions. What do you make of the decision? I'm glad that MPs voted to maintain the Pills by Post scheme.

I think the concerns of right to life are misplaced. We've had Pills by Post abortion in the UK for the duration of the pandemic and every assessment of that system has shown that pills by post is safe. It's effective. It's preferred by patients. It's resulted in shorter waiting times to access abortion care. And it's lowered the gestational age at which people can access abortion. So I think there was no medical basis for banning the pills by post system. I'm really glad that MPs decided to keep it.

Justina Wierzynski and Dr. Sydney Culkin, thank you very much for joining me this morning. I'm sure we will be coming back to this story. If you're interested in learning more about the history of Poland, the BBC's former Central Europe correspondent Misha Glennie is currently presenting The Invention of Poland on BBC Radio 4 on Monday at 11am. Now we're talking superpowers on Woman's Hour this morning. Lots of you getting in touch with your superpowers. Gary says, My sister Lisa has an amazing superpower. She is deaf and can lip read.

Lip reading is a superpower as it's like being able to listen to any conversation around you. A good example was Lisa telling us what the rest of the royals and guests were saying during Harry and Meghan's wedding. That is a good superpower. Rebecca says, my superpower is opening the curtains. I'm the only one in a household of five

who has the ability to do this. 84844 is the number to text. Now, those who are familiar with the DC universe may know Nubia, the first black woman superhero in the comic books. She is the adopted sister of Wonder Woman and was first introduced in the 70s before disappearing from comics for decades.

Nubia returned last year in the new comic book, Nubia Real One, which is set in modern-day America and tells the story of her teenage life. In the story, Nubia faces typical superhero challenges while also navigating the day-to-day life of being a black teen in America. The comic is being featured in a new exhibition, Superheroes, Orphans and Origins,

which opens today in London at the Foundling Museum. And I'm delighted to say I'm joined by cartoonist Robin Smith, who illustrated the book. Welcome to Woman's Hour, Robin. What a job. When DC pick up, do they just pick up the phone and say, would you like to design a superhero? How did you get the gig? And what was that moment like for you hi um thank you so much for having me

um I actually like got an email um asking if I would like to try out to draw for the book which I didn't believe it was real. I thought it was a prank, especially because they reached out through my store, which because my email wasn't anywhere accessible. So I just didn't think it was real, but I wasn't going to like take the chance that it wasn't. So I got in contact with them and like sent in my drawings and they really loved them. And then I did test pages. And then they asked me to like it took a few months for them to get back to me. But they finally did. And I remember getting the email that I got the job. And I was actually in an elevator with my mom and we jumped and the elevator shook and we got really scared so we were like oh wait

yeah let's wait till we get out get out the lift before you start celebrating um tell us about creating um this nubia the teen nubia the superhero was it a collaborative process was it just you in a room and what makes her so special? It was highly collaborative, I would say. I wasn't given any physical description of her, but I had an idea of what she looked like previously in like the earlier comics. And her being like a 16-year-old girl, I am really close with a cousin of mine who was 16 at the time that I was designing her.

So she's very heavily based off of my 16-year-old cousin. How flattering to your 16-year-old cousin. That's amazing to have a superhero designed after you. What was important? What characteristics were important to I mean, this is such an opportunity, right? You're creating a new version of Nubia, a black female superhero. That's a lot of pressure, but a lot of pleasure, I'm sure. Yeah, it initially felt like a lot of pressure. But I feel like every thing that I do is to like uplift Black women.

I really love creating comics that center Black women. So I was already doing that before I was hired to do Nubia. So in terms of like creating her character and like, again, I like didn't come up with her personality, but so much of like her body language and what she chose to wear and like how she interacted with her friends, people think that they have to be like this exceptional being when in fact, like Nubia is just a regular teenage girl who has these powers. And so I just wanted her to seem like a regular teenage girl. Like she's shy. She has a crush. She like moves through life with her best friends and is just a really sweet person.

But crucially moves through life as a best friends and is just a really sweet person. But crucially moves through life as a black woman, a young black woman. Exactly. So what was important to feature as part of that? Mostly just like I really wanted to get across her softness. That I feel like maybe that was the most important part to me. Again, like she is a black woman. She is super powered, but at the same time, she's a young girl.

Um, and I feel like so much of like black girlhood isn't portrayed in like a positive light in a lot of media. I feel like it's more common now. And there's so many people, especially, especially um in comics who are making things about black girlhood that I'm really enjoying right now um but that sort of like taking on like knowing that fans of DC would be aware of what I was doing was super nerve-wracking um especially like when it came down to her legacy and like who she was before and then making her a teenager. But I just thought a lot about myself at her age and my friends at her age. And especially because I grew up in Jamaica, like I grew up around lots of black girls. I went to an all girls school there and just what we did together, you know.

But then you're, now you're living in the States and that experience for you must have been very different from coming from a country where you're surrounded by black women to being in America. So how did that inform what your character was going through? It was mostly thinking about, well, one thing that I really enjoyed about the comic was that almost all the characters were black.

So I feel like I called on my own experience of like having my black family and my black friends like in Jamaica, but also like moving here and like what that community felt like. But again, being in America that experience is so different and like having my identity suddenly shift moving here and like understanding myself as like a Black woman in America was very different and then trying to translate that into Nubia's experience was really important, especially because luckily Elle McKinney, the writer of the book, was even more so in charge

of like portraying that. Yeah, because you've got some real life events in the issues as well, haven't you? Because she lives through the Black Lives Matter protests. Why was it important for that to be included? Because it's like happening now, you know, it's something that has always existed and been happening where like black people, black children,

like face a lot of like threat from like police, you know, and including that in the book as something that like does happen it's not fictional and again like Nubia was supposed to sort of represent like a real person like her experience is real like she was put in real life they weren't in space they weren't like put in like a fake area I don't know, a country or anything. It's her experience is what like a lot of Black teens are experiencing. They like go to the protest. It's their reality.

And I know it was really important to Elle and myself to like show as much of what was real and that Nubia, a superpowered being, especially like a black superpowered being, would be at these protests, would, like this is her community. And friendship is a big theme and sisterhood. Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, she's the sister of Wonder Woman. So how does that run through it? So like originally her story is that

um they're both made of clay it's kind of like a racist story that starts nubia um where wonder woman was made from like light clay and then nubia was made from dark clay nubia was like stolen by like Ares and made evil and then comes back as a villain and that's Nubia's original origin story so I know our comic was basically to revamp her image and like put it in the hands of two black women who would then make sure that it's not another racist telling of Nubia's story. So instead there is like the through line of them both being made of clay, but it's the same, it's clay.

It's just clay. It's just clay. It's not evil clay. It's not bad clay. It's just clay. Exactly. And we actually sort of changed the lore a little bit where their eyes are actually the same color and it is the color of that clay that they were made of. It's like a very subtle thing that happens in the book. And I don't think it's like something extremely noticeable, but we wanted that to like run through. And she's like kept

in stasis as like a baby and Wonder Woman does discover her. So that is why she's 16 and Wonder Woman is an adult, but they are twin sisters. I mean, it's DC, it's superheroes. So it all goes. I think I can't wait to see it. I can't wait to read it. I think more power to you. We need more representation definitely in our superheroes as well. We're asking our listeners what their superpowers are. What's your superpower apart from creating a superhero? I think my superpower is probably, this sounds ridiculous, gift wrapping. I love it. I can really neatly wrap a gift.

I look forward to the holidays so that I can use the least amount of tape to wrap a gift. Robin, I wish I had that super skill. And people who have received gifts from me will know. Just terrible. Robin, thank you so much for speaking to us this morning. That was Robin Smith. And you can see the exhibition Superheroes, Orphans and Origins, which opens today in London

at the Foundling Museum. And lots of you getting in touch to share your superhero, superpowers. Sam says, I have psoriasis and I tell children who ask what it is or are scared of it that it's my super skin as theirs takes 21 days to grow. But mine takes five. They love it and are no longer scared or worried if someone they know has it or has a skin condition. And Gary says, my sister Lisa has an amazing superpower. She is deaf and can lip read. We've read that before. But yes, that is an incredible superpower. 84844 is the number to text.

Now, do you think you might be in a parasocial relationship? If you're not familiar, it's a psychological term to describe when someone thinks they have a friendship or a bond with a person they've never met before or spoken to face to face. The most common parasocial dynamic exists between celebrities and their fans. But is it healthy and do women often pay the price? Well, to explore this, I'm joined by Gretchen Roberts, a psychotherapist whose clients include influencers and YouTubers, and Flossie Clegg,

who's a YouTuber with over 700,000 subscribers. Gretchen, I'm going to come to you first. What are some of the key behaviors of a parasocial relationship and was i in one in 1988 with all of new kids on the block i think i was probably i think i was thank you so much for having me anita i i have to say that probably um it's one of the most interesting new dynamics of our all of our collective generations right now, and especially impacting young people, just like you just mentioned. And there's been some really interesting studies, which are quite new, looking at the longitudinal effects of parasocial relationships, especially in youngsters, but it does impact all age groups, all genders.

Some of the key factors are just that real sense of intimacy and engagement with someone that you really don't know. And you really just know from either social media or television, particularly looking at social media and reality TV. Isn't it just normal? Didn't we all do it to some degree? Like I said, you know, posters on on your wall I'll just share with you I changed my watch so that I was in the same time zone I mean it's crazy but I was 11 and I just you know it was my boy band of choice so isn't so when does it when does it tip into something that's not just what we all kind of go through

when we're coming of age I think specifically you recognize that this is someone that you don't really know. Yes, you're in the same time zone and you really admire them and you want the photos around. And obviously we're talking about a time when really you couldn't send them a direct message either. And that's sort of the illusion is that they are so accessible through that beautiful little blue tick. You kind of think, right, this person is really engaging with me directly. And seeing so much into their personal lives and having access to their real-time responses gives a further depth to that. So you work with bloggers and influencers. What kind of concerns do you hear from them?

What are they telling you? What's happening? I think that it's kind of a double-edged sword because not only are they interacting with us in the public, but they have a certain level of presentation and branding to maintain. And sometimes that's not truly consistent with what their lives really look like at that point in time. They have the same insecurities, worries and so on. And also as your life changes and you mature through life, possibly you may begin to question whether or not that branding is still accurate to your real authentic self.

There's also that direct access from the public, which means that people can say what they like to you. If you're directly answering emails or direct messages, that can also be quite toxic, as we've heard from some, you know, Caroline Flack, unfortunately, you know, how that impacted her directly, unfortunately. I'm going to bring Flossie in on this, because Flossie, you've got 700,000 subscribers on your YouTube channel. Tell me about your your experience can you relate to this and what what when what have people what do people say to you and how when does it sort of overstep a mark i firstly just want to say thanks so much for having me on um but no like i've obviously definitely experienced it and i think on one hand it's like a really amazing thing i think

people online like your relationship with your viewers is very different to like that of you know say Justin Bieber and like the people who listen to his music because the majority of us our job is sharing our life so I feel like that's why it's so common with people online because people are watching in all the time and you know they're watching at us our happiest sometimes our lowest like our most vulnerable so it really is um you know like a deeper insight into anyone's life that I feel like has ever been done before because that because that's the whole setup isn't it people expect you to share something personal and then more people will follow you when you're sharing something that's yeah really

intimate and you do that you've covered topics like your relationships and mental health haven't you yeah I have um and I think for a lot of people as well like as um you were saying before um like you start to share something so you know I probably started filming video I've been filming videos since I was like 12 years old and sometimes there are things that you're happy to share when you're 18 but then say you hit 20 or you hit 25 and stuff and it changes and people can sometimes question your authenticity and then it you know poses the question and raises the thing of you've changed and people sort of expect you the consistency that it is expected of you to share everything it's kind of crazy and obviously it's always going to change over time it

doesn't mean anything's any less authentic so what kinds of messages do you get from from the people who follow you that make you feel like okay maybe they've overstepped a line here what what the expectations of you um I always like I completely can understand and empathize with like the messages that even do make me feel uncomfortable but a lot of the time like being open with my mental health and talking about it I can only sit and talk about it as a 21 year old girl like I'm not a trained therapist and I've you know always try and make it quite clear that I'm I you know I will share what I feel like is safe to share but at the end of the day I'm not a trained therapist and it's all

it can some way sometimes I open up a gateway to messages for people thinking that I am and I'll get messages like you're the only person who can help me and I understand this and it's like it also makes it hard because obviously I don't want to say the wrong things ever I also can't reply to hundreds of messages a day I'm not trained I'm not qualified in it like never want to say the wrong thing that's a huge amount of pressure so what do you say what do you say when some but some young person's got in touch to share their own mental health journey or wants you know something really deeply intimate about themselves about their own mental health journey or wants, you know, something really deeply intimate about themselves, about their own lives. How do you deal with that? The thing is, is like, I can't

reply to every single one. I probably like used to reply when I was younger and had less followers and it sort of felt a bit more manageable. But obviously, I also, you know, kind of have to put like my own health in priority and stuff. So just in my videos or when I do speak about it I just always you know try to I don't want to say preach but I guess advise other people to seek professional help and I've also spoken about it being like you know I know like a lot of people DM me and will message me and stuff and I'm really sorry to hear that but genuinely like in your best interest I can't help you with this I'm really sorry I wish I could. I mean Gretchen let me bring you back in here because of course of course Flossie has to have boundaries because she has hundreds of thousands of followers and she can't possibly and she's not a therapist

but but what is it in us that we feel that we want to reach out to strangers and share intimate details of our lives to them well i especially just wanted to say thank you to floss for having such a great sense of boundaries about how how to communicate with the public but i think in terms of our views of these people um who are kind of intimate with us in terms of how they project themselves in society and social media, we kind of assume that they have some sort of awareness or wisdom because of where they are. So we want to kind of connect out of our loneliness, but also expect that there'll be a lot more information than we have in our daily lives. Like, like they have some sort of extra sensory sort of insight to the way life works.

What do you think fans and followers should be considering? I think remembering specifically that, you know, these are just individuals, they're human beings. Remembering that they're there sharing their lives, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the boundary has disappeared. And asking for that deep connection. I mean, there's some really great examples of wonderful world models out there in social media and reality TV. But then that just is how they manage their lives.

It doesn't mean necessarily that they have a responsibility to then share that wisdom as though they were a trained therapist to the public. Flossie, does it take its toll on you? I wouldn't say it does because, you know, I can understand, I can empathise and there also, there is that line like, I really truly believe, like, I'm so blessed, have the best job in the world.

And I know it's never coming from a bad place. Like, they're not believe, like, I'm so blessed to have the best job in the world. And I know it's never coming from a bad place. Like, they're not nasty, negative comments. But, you know, obviously, sometimes it's just more so, like, I feel so terrible for the individual. And I wish there was more I could do. But you do just, I think, when they do start coming in, in influx, you do just kind of have to mentally be like, this is really awful, but this is also not my problem. This is not like what I set out to do. Like I just post videos online to try and make people laugh.

I mean, you're lucky Flossie doesn't get negative, but it can get negative, can't it, Gretchen? Where people feel that they have ownership. And if you aren't sitting in line with what they believe that they have the right to tell you absolutely and and again we're not always in the position to take that level of um critique shall i say and sometimes it's just coming from a place of an individual who's at home they've had a bad day something's triggered them and they just send out an email and not even recognize that there's a real

human being on the other side who's reading it so and so many times we see there's and lots of us are on online now lots of us share our life on social media what advice would you give someone like floss even if they have a much smaller platform how do you protect yourself gretchen i think it's really good to have a third party of course um sorry the line was a little bit bad um I think it's really good to just have a third party a family member someone who can help go through and field those emails and just keep you kind of grounded and maybe even be a buffer there's some great organizations out there that also can do that service for social media people. Okay.

Gretchen Roberts and Flossie Clegg, thank you so much for joining me this morning. Now. Okay, any excuse to play that track. We're talking cricket. The England women's cricket team are on the cusp of World Cup glory. England were on the brink of elimination after losing their first three games but have now won five in a row to reach a second successive final. The captain, Heather Knight, said the way the team turned things around

has shown a lot about the character of this group. They face the favourites Australia this Sunday. Beth Barrett-Wild is head of the 100 Women's Competition and female engagement at the England and Wales Cricket Board and joins me now. You must be so excited, Beth. Yeah, really excited. I think this World Cup, it's been quite

testing to watch at times. I think those first three losses at the start of the comp were a bit challenging, but the players have done brilliantly. They've bounced back amazingly well. And just, yeah, really excited that we're in our second consecutive World Cup final now. They won it last time. Could they do it again?

Yeah, I think so. I think, you know, sport, a lot gets talked about momentum. And I think the women's team, the England women's team, now have that momentum behind them, having won five in a row. And I know they'll have definitely taken a lot of confidence out of that semi-final victory against South Africa a couple of days ago. What did you make of the article in the Telegraph today which had the headline England's male cricketers could be replaced with women's team after winter of disasters? Yeah well look first of all just to

be clear that is an April Fool's joke there is is no element of truth to it. It is a joke. I think the England men's team, they're going through a difficult time at the moment on the field. And I know that a lot of work is going on behind the scenes to sort of get them back to winning ways. But I think it's just testament to how brilliantly the women have done over the last few weeks, actually. And I think, you know, we've got a lot to look forward to with that World Cup final now. And ultimately, we just want the England men's and women's teams to be successful. So, yeah, hopefully the women can win the World Cup on Sunday. We know it's an April Fool's joke, but I have to say here at Women's Hour HQ, we're all for it.

We're like, yeah, why not? Bring it on. Now, you work with trying to get more women and girls involved in the game. How important is this for the work that you do to see the team in the final? This must be an absolute gift. Yeah, absolutely. I think that visibility and really driving awareness around the women's game is really important. I think, you know, I grew up, I fell in love with cricket probably 20 or so years ago now. And my sort of aspiration, I suppose, was to play in a World Cup final. But I always thought I was going to play in a men's World Cup final because we didn't have those role models and that visibility

behind the women's game. And that's not the case anymore. So I think the really brilliant thing about it is that for young girls who are falling in love with the sport now, they can see a place in cricket for them. And I think hopefully, you know, with that success and on that big stage, that will really sort of drive more girls in particular across the country to fall in love with the sport.

And coverage is on Five Live from 1.30am on Sunday morning because it's in New Zealand. That's not going to make it easy for people to be involved, but will you be awake for it? Yeah, I think I'm definitely going to get an early night the night before and sort of stay up to listen to that. But I think what's brilliant actually in terms of sort of the coverage of this competition, whilst it's on the other side of the world

and the time difference isn't great, the digital coverage, social media has been brilliant. I know the players have been very active on that. So for anybody that can't quite stay up through the whole night to watch it, hopefully they'll be able to catch up with the highlights and various clips

on socials and perhaps listen back to it on Sunday morning. And come on, come on Team England. And Beth, we're asking everybody, what's your superpower? Yeah, I was just thinking about that. Look, I think from a work perspective, it's all about just trying to sort of,

yeah, inspire girls to sort of fall in love with cricket and sort of, yeah, in love with sports. So yeah, hopefully I'm doing a good job at that. Well, you've inspired us this morning. So thank you. And yeah, we will, we might,

we might stay up for the highlights. I'm not going to say I'm going to be up at 1.30. Thank you for speaking to me this morning. You are still getting in touch with your superpowers. Michaela says I can float on fresh water even in a shallow pool. I don't sink. Lying on water is as comfortable and effortless as lying in bed, except infinitely more soothing. Julia says when I was younger, the superpower I wanted most was beauty. I thought I was very plain along to be gorgeous. Looking back now at my youthful pictures, I see a girl who was far from plain, but at the time I couldn't see it. Now in my 70s, it might be a stretch to call it a superpower, but my hair hasn't turned white.

OK, there are white strands, but most of it is still my natural color. What a great superpower. Just look in the mirror. You are beautiful. I think we should all be able to do that. Now, Ramadan begins this weekend it's the month when muslims fast and refrain from eating or drinking between dawn and sunset to give more time for self-reflection prayer and identifying with the hungry paradoxically statistics from dubai show that women spend twice as much time in the

kitchen during ramadan and this is likely to be the same for women in Muslim countries around the world. Much of the pressure comes from the preparation of the iftar meals. These end each day of fasting and are important time for families, communities to come together. So with me to discuss the pressure that can fall on women during Ramadan are Sheila Jan Mohammed, bestselling author and vice president of Islamic marketing at Ogilvy, and Ramona Ali, a journalist and presenter of the podcast Things Unseen, A Greener Ramadan. Welcome to Women's Hour, both of you. Shaleen, I'm going to come to you first. So tell us more about what we know about Muslim women in the UK spending more time in the kitchen during Ramadan. What are we doing? Well, happy Ramadan for the weekend ahead.

So Ramadan has these interesting paradoxes. On the one hand, it's all about spiritual development, about taking yourself away from the physical, and also not eating and drinking, of course, during daylight hours. But on the other hand, there is this pressure to create a magical iftar. And the best sort of parallel I can give is it's almost like having 30 Christmas dinners in a row. And the pressure falls on women really to create that nostalgic, traditional Ramadan out of love more than anything else, but also because of the traditions that have been handed down. And so the question I think that's really important for us to ask ourselves is in the fact that women are spending more time cooking at the time when we're supposed to be eating less what does this tell us

about ourselves but more importantly can we talk a bit more about the female experience of Ramadan because we have a sort of overarching view of prayer and fasting but actually women's voices and women's experiences are really important for us to think about at this time. Yeah, Ramona, what is that women's role? I mean, I've grown up seeing my mum, my aunt's female friend just spending the majority of the fasting day by the cooker to ensure everyone has a feast at the end of it. And before iftar time, they're running around the kitchen, you know, trying to ensure everyone has that hot, fresh food on their plates. And minutes before you break the fast, it's said that your individual prayers are listened to even more. But so instead of raising their palms in prayer, they're raising a samosa out of the frying

pan. So the spiritual implications for the female experience of Ramadan, you know, can be quite serious when the focus is more on the food and less on the faith. And so I just think we need to lower our expectations when it comes to an iftar meal and be more mindful of what we eat. And that has a knock-on effect. You know, those women not feeling that pressure of providing a banquet and that then lessens consumption and it helps with the food distribution and helps the environment. And I think that's more true to the Ramadan spirit.

I just want to reiterate something that Shalina said, just for everyone, just hope everyone let it sink in. 30 Christmas dinners every single day. Let that sink in. So where's this expectation coming from? Who's putting it on the women? Shalina. So I think pressure comes from a number of places.

And at Ogilvy, we did a study called the Great British Ramadan. And what we found is that women, particularly in that sort of motherhood age group of 35 to 44, say that fatigue is the most challenging thing that they faced. And some of it comes from a place of love. If you have a family and you want to give them an iftar, particularly if you've got children who perhaps are just starting to fast. So my 11 year old will be fasting for the second time this year. You know, there is a natural instinct that you want to give everybody their favourite food. There is also a pressure of the social norm that you're supposed to, apparently, this kind of

ephemeral supposed to that women face in all parts of their lives, supposed to have a really full iftar table. And I think more recently, we've seen the rise of the idea of the Instagrammable iftar. So the idea that you fill up your table, and then you have to take a photo of all these amazing things that you cooked. And I think there's also a pressure that women have in Ramadan that actually women face across the year across all faiths and cultures, which is that we become the repository of the memory where the chief memory officers in the house, and we're there to create the tradition and the feeling of Ramadan. And all of that, as I said, leads up to the fatigue that we discovered in our study, but also the fact that Ramona was referring to that women do want to spiritualize during this

month, but they just simply don't get the chance. So we see a spike, our studies showing a spike in listening to things like podcasts and radio programs to listen along, whereas actually menfolk will be going to the mosque, they will be engaging in more charitable works, which is the essence of Ramadan. And that can lead a gap where women feel like they are not somehow allowed to have the full Ramadan experience. And that can, of course, rightly or wrongly lead to a sense of resentment or a sense of being held back in their own individual development. And that's what we really need to talk very openly and honestly about. It's not just that the food is becoming an extra pressure. It's that women aren't allowed to enjoy Ramadan in the way that they would like to.

Interesting, because based on what you just said, someone's messaged in. Zuby says, I'm a Muslim and will be observing Ramadan. I see my cooking time as mindfulness and learning time. Just like you said, as I listen to various religious YouTube video stories and experiences. So one hour of me time, really. But just like you said, listening to YouTube or podcasts at that time. So how do we redress the balance, Ramona? What needs to happen?

And what will you be doing? Well, Ramadan is an opportunity to kind of reassess ourselves, reassess what we're eating. And for a lot of people, it's about a detox. It's about developing more healthy habits. I generally eat a vegan diet when I'm at home with mum,

but it's different when you go out with for like iftar gatherings and you know for a lot of people um it is going to be a vegan Ramadan and that's dubbed veganidon you know the people like I've been interviewing have decided to go vegan for Ramadan they say that it makes them feel healthier it makes them feel lighter and actually it helps them to focus on worship better so their spirituality is actually heightened by their veganism and I spoke to a female interviewee about the suggestion that women are more likely to become vegan than men and she says she does notice that Muslim women tend to go fully vegan in Ramadan while sometimes the male counterparts might

more likely reduce meat. So does that mean double the cooking then? Because you're cooking what you might traditionally cook as well as the vegan options. Well, it could be in some households, but I think, you know, they try to accommodate everybody in some. And then others will say, well, no, let's all try to go vegan in this household this Ramadan. And of course, there are many male vegans, but, you know, women might go vegan for reasons of empathy and compassion and commitment. And you know, one young woman I spoke to, she decided to go vegan for life, you know, and she goes out advocating veganism and animal rights. And she says that the Islamic principles of living more frugally and being vegan, actually, you know, they align for her. Because the food waste must be enormous if you're cooking big

huge meals every single day you know there is that aspect of it as well shalina yeah so um we it's really interesting to think about this paradox of on the one hand wanting to cook more food and treat people with love and giving food which is an islamic principle but on the other hand there's also a very strong is strong Islamic principle of avoiding food waste called Asraf. And we have studies from the Middle East and Muslim majority countries. So in Dubai, food waste is normally around a fifth and in Ramadan, it reaches half. It goes up by 50% in Ramadan. And a study in Malaysia looked at food waste, saying it increases by up to 20% in Ramadan, which would be enough to feed 3 million people three meals for a day. So anecdotally, I think we all have that feeling in our homes, although we don't have research in the UK.

And so we really need to think about finding this balance of keeping the joy and the celebration, but on the other hand, reducing the food waste. And at Ogilvy, to do that, we have been working with Love Food Hate Waste, which is a food waste reduction organisation, to try and figure out how you strike this balance. And we've brought our Islamic marketing expertise with our behavioural science to try and work out, instead of guilt or shame or worry, where are the places in the Ramadan journey that people can start to address food waste? So there are things like, you know, does your table need to be full?

Do you avoid going shopping in a hot state, basically, when you're really hungry an hour before iftar? You know, how do you avoid getting takeaways? And the kinds of interventions that we're starting to think about and the piloting that we're doing is, you know, how do you make your table look full without filling it with food? Especially at a time when the British Muslim charity Islamic Relief estimates that half of Muslims in the UK will struggle to feed their families this Ramadan. You know, so there's that aspect of it as well.

I think people feel in their hearts the reasons why they don't want to waste food. The challenge is when you're tired and you've got these social pressures that we talked about, what practically can you do that's easy and painless? So, you know, can you decorate your table to fill it up so it doesn't look as empty? Can you repurpose leftovers? Can you get your children to pester you a little bit? Yes, all of that.

Repurpose your leftovers very quickly because we've got 20 seconds left. Shalina, your superpower? I can magic a smile up for anybody at any time. And you've got me smiling. Ramona, your superpower? My superpower is being able to eat lots and lots of crisps in a very short period of time,

which I'm not going to do during Ramadan. Oh, well done. And you've said it on radio now, so you have to stick to it. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. 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's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I 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.