Woman's Hour - Rise in menopause tribunal cases; Brené Brown; Women's FA Cup Final; Ravinder Bhogal; Ghislaine Maxwell trial update

Episode Date: December 3, 2021

Brené Brown has always called herself a mapmaker and in her sixth and newest book, the Atlas of the Heart, out this week, she takes us on a journey through 87 of the emotions and experiences that define what it means to be human. Her TEDx talk “the power of vulnerability” is one of the top five most viewed TED talks in the world with more than 50 million views. She joins Anita.This Sunday marks 100 years since women's football was banned by the English Football Association. Because of Covid the Women's FA Cup final, traditionally played in May, will take place with Arsenal taking on Chelsea and shown live on the BBC. Kelly Simmons, director of the Women's Professional Game at the Football Association; and Jen O' Neill, editor of football magazine She Kicks discuss the game.The number of tribunal cases in which employees are alleging menopause related discrimination is on the rise. Analysis of the Courts and Tribunals Service has shown that menopause was cited ten times in the first six months of 2021, and could rise to 20 by the end of the year, if the rate continues as it is. Research by Menopause Matters earlier this year found five cases in 2018, and 16 in 2020. Although these figures appear very small, nearly one million women are said to have left work due to menopausal symptoms and there is currently a Women and Equalities Committee inquiry looking into workplace practices around the menopause. So what can be done to prevent a situation getting as far as a tribunal? I’m joined by Lauren Chiren, who runs Women of a Certain Stage, providing coaching, mentoring and training on the menopause at work and Sinead Casey, a partner with the law firm Linklaters, who advise employers on workplace issues including menopausal women, and has been looking at the recent uptake in cases. Over the next few Fridays we’ll be looking at alternative Christmas food ideas and who better to start off with than Ravinder Bhogal, journalist, chef and owner of Jikoni, her restaurant in London. Always challenging traditional notions of food preparation she joins Anita to share her thoughts on creating some rich adaptations of everything from brussel sprouts and ham to samosas and mathi. And tells us why Christmas is a particularly special time for her and her family. The British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell has been in court all week in New York City on sex trafficking and other charges. She’s challenging claims that she groomed underage girls for convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein for sexual abuse. He died in prison in 2019. She’s been in a US jail since her arrest last year. We hear from Stephen Wright, Associate Editor at the Daily Mail currently in New York City covering the Ghislaine Maxwell trial. Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Kirsty StarkeyInterviewed Guest: Brené Brown Interviewed Guest: Kelly Simmons Interviewed Guest: Jen O'Neill Interviewed Guest: Lauren Chiren Interviewed Guest: Sinead Casey Interviewed Guest: Ravinder Bhogal Interviewed Guest: Stephen Wright

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. Good morning. How are you feeling today? I mean, what actual emotion are you experiencing at this moment? Happy? Sad? Angry? Well, according to researcher and academic Brené Brown, they are our go-to three emotions. Yes, I said Brené Brown.

If you're a fan like me, you will be excited. In her new book, Brené has identified 87 emotions and will be telling us about a few of them in a bit, including joy. And that's the one I want you all to think about right now. The question I have for you all this morning is, how do you find joy? What lifts your spirits? Going for a walk, paying attention to nature, reading poetry, writing poetry, watching the sunrise, gardening, watching sport, having a little chat with your dog every morning whilst having a cup of tea

in a china cup that works wonders for me and it has to be a china cup um we've already had a tweet in from mrs rf who says omg have loved her for years yes let me say it again brené brown on the program she's the best i've been asking myself this question recently as november was hard i look forward to hearing others suggestions as mine are limited to strictly music. So let's give her a hand. Text me 84844. Where do you find joy? You can also contact us via social media.

It's at BBC Woman's Hour or drop me an email through the website. I'd love to hear from you. Heck, write me a poem if it's going to bring you joy. Also on today's show, I must warn you, today's show does come with a warning. You will be hungry by the end of the programme. Every Friday in the run-up to Christmas, I'll be talking to a different chef

about what we can eat over the festive period other than the same old turkey, roast potatoes, Christmas pudding, cranberry sauce, bread sauce. Mmm, hungry already. Well, Ravinda Bogle from the restaurant Joconi will be joining me to chat alternative Christmas feasts. So, if cooking up a storm is how you find joy, then today is your lucky day. In fact, every Friday in the run-up to Christmas. We'll also be finding out why workplace tribunals citing menopause-related discrimination are on the increase,

plus an update on the Ghislaine Maxwell trial, all interspersed with your messages, so do get in touch. But first, Brené Brown, research professor at the University of Houston, has always called herself a mapmaker, and in her sixth and newest book, The Atlas of the Heart, out this week, she takes us on a journey through 87 of the emotions and experiences that define what it means to be human. Her TEDx talk, The Power of Vulnerability, you might have seen it, is one of the top five most viewed TEDx talks in the world, with more than 50 million views.

In the opening of her book, she talks about her childhood and how in her family, no one spoke about emotions of any kind, not feelings or fears or periods or friends or problems or puberty or financial problems or family members who struggled with addiction, problems with mental health. Sounds like she grew up in a Punjabi family. And locked and loaded was their motto. With that as her background, I began by asking her why she had always been fascinated with emotions. My family was very, you know, I'm a fifth generation Texan, which actually gives me a lot more, you know, in common with the folks in the UK than you would think

because we do horses and dogs more better than people. But I think that we just were raised with the mentality of suck it up, get it done. And the more I think about it, the only emotion that was really permitted was anger, because it had a little agency with it. So we could be really angry about things, but what we never said or what I never heard or what we probably were not allowed to say was, you know, that hurt my feelings or I'm experiencing grief or I, you know, those things we just couldn't talk about. So for me, kind of survival and also as the oldest kind of my job protecting my siblings in what was a very intense family, intense love, intense joy, and then also intense anger and an intense lack of predictability about how things were going to go. So for me at a very early age, I probably was maybe seven or eight. I learned very quickly how to recognize patterns and connections between people's behaviors,

their thinking, and their emotions. And I got really, really good at it. I mean, to the point where when I was in high school, I thought maybe I'm like a witch or I had superpowers or, I is not going to go well. Like, get gear up. And they'd say, well, she hasn't even said anything yet. I said, I can tell by the look on her face, this is not going to go well. Well, you certainly have a magic ability, Brené, to help us understand our emotions and feelings. And you've done that in this book. And you've identified 87 different emotions. And you use the term emotional granularity. Can you explain what that means?

I try to frame it as 87 emotions and experiences. And I do that probably as an academic because there's a lot of fierce debate about what actually, what is an emotion, what belongs in that category. And so rather than getting involved in that debate, I just said, look, here are the 87 emotions and experiences that I think we need to understand. And I came to that number by first, we taught a very large online class over the course of a year. We had over 500,000 comments and we de-identified them, ran them through human subjects protocol for approval to do a secondary analysis on, came up with 150 emotions that were very difficult for people to name. And when they could accurately name and label them, it brought understanding and even healing. We took that 150.

We took it to a focus, did some focus group research with therapists and clinicians, and we whittled that down to 87 emotions and experiences. And I think this question of emotional granularity is just, look, on average, up until recently, our research showed that we can name and label about three emotions accurately, happy, sad, and angry. That means every nuanced feeling that we have, disappointment, resentment, dread, worry, wonder, awe, we shove into these three big crude buckets. So emotional granularity is the ability to get very specific about what we're feeling and not just my research but other researchers around the world show that the more granular we are and our ability to name what we're experiencing the better we can manage it regulate it move through it if it's a positive emotion we can replicate it in our lives emotional granularity highly correlated with

very positive living outcomes. We've all heard of the angry woman trope. It's often seen as a negative emotion, one that's unfeminine, one that girls are actively encouraged not to feel. But on Woman's Hour, particularly this year, we have talked a lot about anger because women are feeling angry. So is it a good emotion? Is it a bad emotion? I mean, I'm in Texas. I'm enraged. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it is a necessary emotion. The thing that we need to get away from is labeling emotions good or bad. They just are. And here's the thing about anger. For a long time, I, along with some other researchers, wondered if anger was a legitimate primary emotion or was always a secondary emotion covering something else.

And 91% of emotion researchers today believe that anger is a primary emotion. It can often cover things. For everyone listening, how much easier is it to say, I'm so angry, then I'm hurt. I'm disappointed, or I'm sad. Those are harder. But let me tell you about anger. Anger is a beautiful, necessary catalyst for change. But anger needs to ignite something. It's a terrible lifetime companion, but it is a very important catalyst to change. When we see something that is unfair, unjust, lacks equity, our response of anger is what fuels change. But to stay in it perpetually, it's a lot of physical, emotional, spiritual costs. It made me think about, it's a lot of physical, emotional, spiritual costs. It made me think about how different communities, women of color, marginalized people can express emotion and how you can communicate how you're feeling when sometimes you can be told that your feeling is invalid.

And that trope of angry black woman, angry brown woman, and how damaging that can be to those people who are trying to express their emotion. I mean, I hate to be a bumper sticker, but look, if you're not angry, you're not paying attention. And one of the things that really shifted for me in this book was this idea about our ability to read emotion in other people. And I don't think we can do it. I thought that we could do it for 20 years. I used to say, man, we just need to build skills around recognizing emotion and self and others. And I don't think we can do it, actually. I think emotion is biology, biography, behavior, backstory. It's too complex. So when we see someone enraged, when we see someone angry, when we see someone hurting,

I think we have to get curious, listen, become stewards of the stories they tell us about their experiences, and believe them, even when their stories don't reflect our lived experiences. I mean, I think one of the things I always ask myself, and I ask other people all the time, is that when you see people enraged and angry and hurt, what do you have to tell yourself to make that okay? What is the narrative that you have to engage in when you see the Syrian refugees, when you see in the U.S. the police brutality, especially towards Black men? What is it that you have to say to yourself to make this okay? And is it the fear of discomfort? Is it the fear of complicity?

Is it the fear to acknowledge privilege? Is it the fear of closing the door on an idea that this country is not what you thought it was. And the system is actually not broken. It's working exactly how it was designed, which I believe is the case. And so look, Anita, I think one of the reasons we're so disconnected from each other is that we are so untethered from ourselves. And I think if we're going to find our way back to each other, we're going to have to find our way back to ourselves first. And we're going to have to find some humanity in ourselves so that we can embrace the humanity and pain of other people. One of the sections that really stood out for me was belonging, where you talk about diversity, equality and inclusion and belonging as a critical component. And you talk about something called belonging uncertainty. It all ties in with what you're talking about. Yeah, I mean, the greatest barrier of belonging that emerged from our research over the past 20 years is fitting in.

You know, our yearning to be a part of something, to be seen and to be included is so primal, so hardwired that often we confuse fitting in with belonging. We come to a place in our lives where it's a very vulnerable place, it's scary as hell, where we realize that belonging never asks us to change who we are, but it demands that we be who we are.

So when we talk about diversity, inclusion, and equity in organizations and cultures and neighborhoods and schools, it's so important, but we can't forget belonging. We can't forget that it's not about headcount. It's about seeing the humanity in each other and in ourselves and saying, I see you. I hear you. I value you. You belong here. We've become so polarized, haven't we? We've got really scary. I mean, I'm not saying that we have a white male problem. I'm saying we have a white male power over problem. It's about the type of power that's being wielded right now in this country. And I think that probably the same is true in yours is really making a last stand.

And the issue here is about power. It's the belief that power is finite and that it's like pizza. If I give you a slice, I have less, as opposed to what we really know is true about power, that when shared, it becomes infinite. But there is really a dramatic, violent, dangerous last stand happening right now. And last stands are scary. They are scary. And you actually talk about we're living in a culture of contempt. Oh, yeah. Contempt is, wow, what an emotion. It's worse than anger. If you're angry with me, I'm like, okay, well, Anita's really pissed off at me, but I'm still engaged. Contempt is dismissing. You have been dismissed. You're not even worthy of the argument. So contempt is the fastest corrosion of relationship. But also politically in our culture on a macro level, we hold so much contempt for each other. And let me tell you something, I consider myself to be a very self-aware. I've evolved a lot. But like right now with this new

variant of COVID, I go into like terrible five-year-old contempt for people not getting vaccinated. You know, like I just feel contempt, not even anger. So what do you say to yourself when you feel that? Well, for me, because I'm a person of faith, I can lean into my faith. You know, I just say to myself, my challenge is to find God in the face of everyone I meet. Sometimes I got to look really hard. Another bit is, and it's all kind of in the same section, is nostalgia, which I often thought

was just a lovely state to be in. But you describe it as a double-edged sword. I thought nostalgia was great. Let's just think about our childhoods and those lovely little memories that we have, whether they're real or imagined. It's just a good place to go. But actually you say it's a double-edged sword.

Well, I think it's both. And it's interesting because I swung too far the other way. And I thought nostalgia was just period dangerous. But I really wrestled with that because there's this great scene in Ratatouille, the movie, where the food critic comes in and the little rat chef makes him Ratatouille. And everyone's like, oh my God, this is the food critic comes in and the little rat is, little rat chef makes him ratatouille and everyone's like, oh my God, this is a food critic and you're going to serve him a peasant dish. And they lay the ratatouille in front of the food critic and he's drawn so like menacingly and it's just, and he takes a bite.

And in a second, he's five, he's standing at the back door of his home. He looks like he's been on a, in a bike accident or something. He's kind of bruised door of his home. He looks like he's been in a bike accident or something. He's kind of bruised and skinned up and he's crying. And his mom pulls him to her bosom and comforts him and then sits him down at the kitchen table and serves him ratatouille. And then the food critic's crying. So there is this beautiful part of nostalgia. So as it turns out, there's two parts of nostalgia. There's this one that's this beautiful, what you were describing, the ratatouille scene, this reflective part. But then there's also the form of nostalgia that can be a dog whistle for everything from white supremacy to the

oppression of people of color to the oppression of women. It can be kind of the way things used to be hard stop when people knew their place. And so like, you know, Make America Great Again was an entire brilliantly constructed nostalgia foundation campaign. And actually recalling an America that never existed. In the 50s, rates of domestic violence were much higher than they are now. Addiction rates were, you know, really bad. So I think what researchers have found, and I'm so grateful for this, the difference between a healthy, pleasant nostalgia and kind of a dangerous dog whistle nostalgia is rumination. When we ruminate on the way things used to be and we're like, oh, now it's unfair and

they're after me and who are these people getting ahead? I'm going to tell you, I was in London, maybe in 2016 before the election here. And I had a moment where I was in the back of, what do you call it? Like a black cab? Is that what those are called? Black cab, yeah. Yeah. And they were taking me somewhere. And the cabbie was an older white guy.

And he said, this is where I grew up. That's my school. Now it's a mosque. It's all gone to hell. And I remember thinking, I was in the cab with a colleague and I remember us looking at each other and I remember thinking, this is the dangerous part of nostalgia. You know, this is the part where if leveraged correctly by power over politicians. If you give people in fear someone to blame and then validate why it's okay for them to push their pain on other people, you can rule the world.

But we're living in an interesting time now where people who are experiencing the other side of that, experiencing the racism, it's very difficult to even talk about it, to find your space to talk about it because the backlash comes to the people expressing that view, right? Yes. Why did you want to write this book now? When I realized that the average number of emotions that we could experience is three, I remembered a quote from college from a German philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, that said, the limits of my language are the limits of my world. And I thought, we cannot live in a world where we do not have language that's as expansive as our experiences. Because how do we move through our experiences in a way that brings healing and

resolution and more of the great experiences that we want if we don't have the language for it. Language is the portal for humans. It's the handle that we need. So I thought, let me take it on. I had no idea it was going to kick my ass so severely. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have done it, just to be honest. No, you love it. You love it. And that's so beautiful, talking about language like that, which is why we have poetry, which is why I love that you quote Rumi so often. You do talk about positive emotions in the book and you talk about joy and happiness and the connection between the two and you call them an intriguing upward spiral, which I love. So where do we find the joy and the happiness?

I don't think you start with those. I think you start with gratitude and you think about what are you truly grateful for in your life and what do you need to do to practice gratitude around that? Not just have an attitude of gratitude, but literally practice it. And then I think you think, how do I invite more of it in? So for me, you know, playing tennis, family dinners, laughing with my sisters, I'm so grateful for those things then what am i doing on a daily basis so that my choices reflect bringing more of that into my life brené brown talking to us on woman's hour her new book atlas of the heart is out and rebecca green has tweeted in to go to say omg brené brown on woman's hour dissolves into fangirl nonsense um and janette has been in touch to say where she finds joy,

because that's what I'm asking you. Where do you find the joy? Brené finds it by having gratitude. 84844 is the number to text. Jeanette says kite flying, peaceful, mindful, such a happy activity. Maybe you find joy in sports, in which case this Sunday you'll be delighted because it's the Women's FA Cup final at Wembley with Arsenal taking on Chelsea

and it's being shown live on the BBC. I'm joined now by Kelly Simmons, Director of the Women's Professional Game at the Football Association and Jen O'Neill, who's the Editor of Football Magazine She Kicks. Morning, welcome to you both. Jen, let's come to you first. Arsenal v

Chelsea, was that expected? I kind of guess so. There's a draw that is involved in that. So you don't just pick two teams at the start of the season, but they are the two in-form sides. So I guess if you were a neutral and you wanted to see the two best teams in England at the moment come up against each other,

this is what we're getting. And how have the teams played so far? Well, it's interesting because at the start of the WSL, the opening match, Arsenal beat Chelsea 3-1 at the Emirates. And I think Chelsea have been a bit upset about that. That was a surprise in some respects. Arsenal started in such great form. They haven't lost in the league yet, but Chelsea have worked up a head of steam and they're chasing them. They've won six in a row. They've both been in Champions League action. So they really are two informed sides.

Any players we should be keeping our eyes on? All of them. All of them. Yeah, I mean, not even just the starting 11. I could go through a lot of the squad. What's interesting is that Arsenal actually have some concerns, I think, fitness-wise in their defence. So there's a few centre-backs and importantly, Leah Williamson, who has been England captain of late, she won't be available. So that's a worry because you have in Chelsea's forward line,

you have Fran Kirby, you have Sam Kerr, you have potentially Penula Hardy, she may be injured, but then Arsenal have great firepower as well. Kelly, this is the delayed game because it was delayed from last year, right? Because of COVID. That's right, yeah. Because the Women's FA Cup final, sorry, Women's FA Cup is a mixture of grassroots and professional clubs

in the early rounds and grassroots sport wasn't allowed. We've had to roll it into this season, which is sort of so important that we completed the FA Cup. It's such a special moment in the women's calendar. It's the one that the fans want to be in. It's the one the players want to play in at Wembley. It's such a special day. So it's great that we can complete it

before we get into the latter stages of this year's competition, which we'll complete in May as usual. And it's been a really exciting year for women's football because the matches have been televised this year. So how successful has that been? Yeah And it's been a really exciting year for women's football because the matches have been televised this year. So how successful has that been? Yeah, it's been fantastic. So the Women's Super League has got a new TV deal with BBC and Sky.

Most weekends there's three live games, either on BBC One or BBC Two, and two on Sky. We've had fantastic viewing figures. So, you know, roughly around sort of one and a half million people are watching the Women's Super League each weekend. That's some of the biggest audiences in sport, never mind women's sport, across the world. So it's been really game-changing for the women's game.

And Jen, have you experienced the knock-on effect from that? How much difference has it made to the popularity of the game, having the matches televised? Oh, it's just huge. It's mind-blowing to us who've been in the game for quite a long time. I mean, congratulations and thank you to Kelly whose work at the FA for 30 years has made such a big difference.

I can get up on a Saturday morning, go for a run and then come back and watch a BBC One live game at lunchtime. It's incredible. I love it. And you just see girls in football kits everywhere. I remember an advert in the late 90s on TV, I think it was for Fish Fingers, and a girl was in a football kit and it was like,

wow, you know, it's kind of almost broaching the mainstream. Now this is the normality. Yeah, and as we say, Kelly, thanks to you, 30 years you've celebrated at the FA. How have you kept going and how have things changed? They've changed a lot. It's been an absolute privilege to work in the game, work with so many fantastic people,

both within and outside of the organisation. I think, you know, if you look back sort of 30 years, the FA wasn't responsible for women's football and there was very little in place. So it's been great to be involved in being able to put the whole player pathway in and see the game move to professional now. and then if you look ahead to sunday you know bbc won what a fantastic tv slot we've sold over 47 000 tickets um they're still on sale plug plug you

know it is going to be an incredible game and as jen said i've been asking everybody all week who's going to win nobody can call it and it's going to be a really special day. And I think it just shows how much the women's games come on, that women's football's on the TV in great slots every week and attending in big numbers. And it has. And a lot of it is to do with you, Kelly. But I've been glancing at the back pages

and there's just nothing about the women's final on any of the back pages of the papers. I think that might potentially be because we come off the back of an international break. So the players have been away. I mean, some players have been in Australia, Mexico, Korea, all across Europe. So access for the press to the players is limited to today.

So a lot of the pre-match press stuff will be today. You'll see it tomorrow. Fine. And Sunday is also 100 years since the FA banned women playing football. I mean, what an anniversary to be playing on the BBC. Yeah, well, I would say on the home of English football as well, it just shows you the advancement. And there's been a lot of catching up to do,

but the pace that the game's going at the moment and watch this space. Can you give your predictions? What can we expect on Sunday? I think that the two teams might cancel each other out. I mentioned some of the fantastic Chelsea players, but Arsenal have Viv Miedemaar, the striker, and Beth Mead, who's in form. So I'm almost thinking it might go to extra time. Well, at least there's going to be a balance

and not just a bulldozing, as we have seen. Yeah, and sometimes that's unfortunate for the as we have seen yeah and that's sometimes that's that's unfortunate for the spectacle we won't see that on Sunday I mean this is this is really is a game to keep your eyes on this is the one Kelly predictions oh no the one way to survive the FA for 30 years is not not to upset a club by predicting the other one will win I was at the opening WSL game this season that Jen talked about. What a game of football. And I think you just can't call it.

So I think it's going to be an absolutely wonderful game. Can't wait for it. Can't wait. And Kelly, I did say it earlier, but genuinely, what has kept you going? You're a lone woman in a male-dominated sport. It's come on leaps and bounds. We're now finally seeing women's football being talked about we're able to watch it young girls can can aspire to be footballers but that's really only happened in the last few years what has kept you going where have you found your joy?

Well I think the motivation is that I wasn't allowed to play football and I really really wanted to so it felt you know very much an injustice and unfair and I wanted, really wanted to. So it felt very much an injustice and unfair and I wanted to make sure that this generation had got more opportunities. But I've worked with both inside and outside of the organisation, some wonderful people who've helped drive the game forward. And I think what's great on Sunday

is that we've invited the captains of the 50 years of the Women's FA Cup, the captains of the winners and their names are on the iconic steps. And there's just so many pioneers who fought to get the game to where it is. So it'd be wonderful to recognise some of those on Sunday who've helped us get where we are. Brilliant. Something to look forward to. Kelly Simmons and Jen O'Neill,

thank you for speaking to me about that this morning. The Women's FA Cup final at Wembley. Arsenal take on Chelsea is going to be a good one. Now, the number of tribunal cases in which employees are alleging menopause-related discrimination is on the rise. Analysis of the HM Courts and Tribunal Service has shown that menopause was cited 10 times in the first six months of 2021 and could rise to 20 by the end of the year if the rate continues as it is. Although these figures appear very small, nearly one million women are said to have left work

due to menopausal symptoms. And there's currently a Women and Equalities Committee inquiry looking into workplace practices around the menopause. So what can be done to prevent a situation getting as far as a tribunal? I'm joined by Lauren Chiron, who runs Women of a Certain Stage, providing coaching, mentoring and training on the menopause at work. And Sinead Casey is a partner with the law firm Linklaters, who advise employers on workplace issues, including menopausal women, and has been looking at the recent uptaking cases. And morning, welcome to the show, both of you.

Sinead, I'm going to come to you first. 20 cases expected this year. It doesn't sound like a lot, does it? Yes, you're right. Of course, it's tiny compared to the number of women who are going through the menopause and the stats that we have seen, which are very unfortunate in relation to,

you know, a million women leaving the workplace because of menopausal issues. But I think the trend is important. So we had five cases back in 2018. We're projected to have more than 20 this year. So it's the trend that's important and I think is indicative of the wider context we're seeing where, you know, high profile celebrities are coming out and talking about their own issues with the menopause. as you say we've got the the government inquiry um going on at the moment and an independent report published just last week so there's a lot of momentum and profile around this which is fantastic what are some of the stories that women are telling you what's happening to so i think there's a whole range um you know, looking at the cases in particular, there's a whole range of issues that are coming up right across the spectrum.

So I think the issues that women are experiencing are probably best badged as gendered ageism. You know, with a few exceptions, we're talking about usually women and usually people within a certain age group. There's a lot of harassment claims coming through as well. So we're seeing issues with insensitive comments in the workplace. So what might be dismissed as workplace banter, people being called a dinosaur, for example, in one of the cases. People not being believed that actually some of their symptoms like confusion led to conduct which they were disciplined for so I think it's the the conversation around raising awareness of the types of symptoms that individuals may suffer

and also the severity of those symptoms so a lot of the more successful cases were ones where people could prove that actually their menopausal symptoms amounted to a disability. And that's where it's sort of long term, so over 12 months, and severe enough that it affects their ability to do their day to day activities. And I think perhaps there hasn't been enough awareness that, you know, it's not something that women should just deal with, not speak to their employers about, and deal with quietly. There might be lots of women sitting up and paying attention, getting a bit closer to the radio as we're talking about this. So what rights do women have under the law?

So the equality legislation protects people on grounds of age, on grounds of sex, on grounds of disability. And, you know, clearly the types of issues that arise from the menopause could fall under all of those buckets. And as I say, there's also a protection against harassment. The conversation that's going on at the moment around what could be what further steps could be taken under the law to protect women includes, you know, should menopause be specifically listed as what we call a protected characteristic. So, you know, is it a standalone right there or should it be listed in the way that certain disabilities are scheduled to the Equality Act? And the other thing that's being looked at quite closely and that came out of the report, the independent

report that the government issued last week, is a slightly techie concept, but can you combine two protected characteristics? So I think women and employees would have a better chance of bringing a successful claim if they could say, I've been discriminated against because I am a woman of a certain age. And that would be helpful. We call that a dual discrimination claim. At the moment, that's in the Act, but it hasn't been enacted yet. And I think the report, that was one of their strong recommendations that that is enacted because it would help women with choosing a comparator for the purposes of bringing their claim. I'm going to bring Lauren in here because, Lauren,

you run Women of a Certain Age, which does provide coaching and mentoring and training around the menopause. But you actually left your senior executive job in financial services in your early 40s. So how did your own menopausal symptoms impact your ability to do the job? Yes, I think the challenge for me was that I was used to juggling lots of complex information, managing teams globally, and I absolutely loved my job. So when I find myself sitting in a meeting unable to get the word plan out of my head

when I was running a planning meeting, that kind of did take me aback. There was one meeting where I literally held the arms of the chair, staring at the clock, waiting for it to take down because my heart was beating out of my chest and I couldn't focus on anything other than staying upright and being in the chair. On another occasion, I'd driven home from work, said hi to my son, released, you know, my help in the house, picked up my bag and went to go back to work completely forgetting I'd been in the office that day. To cut a very long story short, I basically thought that, you know, my recall, my retention was so poor that I had early onset dementia. And working in such a male-dominated environment, I felt that I didn't want to be seen as weak or vulnerable so I ended up having a period of leave which I'd never had in my life

before and ultimately left my job so it was more to do with this complete loss of self loss of recognizing who I was and how I was operating and you know we know, we didn't drop. And Lauren's line has frozen. I was on the team, everything carried on, carrying on. And I've been, you know, it was, nothing had actually stopped, but it just, inside me, I felt vulnerable. I felt as if I was going to get found out, unable to do my job.

And that's what caused me to leave. And did you even know what was happening within yourself? Were you able to even bring it up? Did you understand? Could you go to your employer to talk about it? What was the situation? It was really tricky because I was seen as the go-to female leader in the organisation for upcoming women so having a conversation that's for me to to say that I felt slightly out of sorts that I was finding things a bit trickier or I wasn't holding on to information put me in a position where I felt as if I was caught between a rock and a hard place if I spoke up I might get called out if I called out I might not get to carry on doing my job and that that was when I left and started researching and I discovered

that over 90% of women neither know what menopause really is nor how it's going to impact them. And that's when Women of a Certain Stage was born just by bringing women together and starting to find out more about this. And now you're working with businesses to try and kind of teach them and encourage menopause training and with women themselves. How ready are businesses to bring in new policies? Do they get it? Yeah, they do. They absolutely do.

I work globally, excuse me, and it's been phenomenal. This year, the sea change with the inquiries in Parliament, with the celebrities speaking out, with the high-level documentaries we've had, it's absolutely seen a sea change. And October this year world menopause month and world menopause day on the 18th I had such a massive increase of inquiries for training for coaching for programs of support for women organizations it absolutely skyrocketed so it's moved from about five percent of companies back in 2018 that had policies and were doing training.

Last year, we were around about 12%. And I'm just waiting on some stats coming through this year, but I think that number has probably doubled. Sinead, is there a concern that this might just be box ticking exercises for the businesses? Yeah, my experience very much marries up with what Lauren is saying. So, you know, earlier I was focusing on the tribunal claims, but it's part of the wider conversation. And I think Lauren's absolutely right. You know, lots of employers are focusing on policy and are focusing on training. I think, no, it's not a box ticking exercise or it certainly shouldn't be, because actually what we're talking about here is likely some of the most experienced most senior women in your organization so it would

be very I think short-term thinking to look at this as box ticking or something that you need to do actually the employer's focus should be you know how can I help my employee through this and likely have many more years of successfully working within my organization so it's really a retention risk I think and so And so it's much more important than just a box ticking exercise. And then Lauren, how do you prepare women to actually even go to their boss to express what they're going through? Oh, that's a really great question. So the same prep for going to your boss as your doctor, neither are usually prepared for the conversation. So you need to do double prep,

keep a list of your symptoms, get real clarity over a couple of weeks of how that's really impacting you have some thinking time to think about what type of health and support that you need then go and have the conversation share your thoughts and your finding and your request make sure you take notes and you get your employer to take notes exchange your notes and agree a follow-up so that you can continue the conversation because menopause does go on for a number of years and we need to make sure that we keep that conversation going it's not once and done absolutely and we will keep it going here on woman's hour lauren uh chiron and shenaid casey thank you both very much so i'm talking about uh joy this morning as well and where you find joy

84844 is the number text uh asia says i find joy by crocheting something cooking my family's favorite foods and seeing them enjoying it together hearing happy anecdotes from my son's day at school he is high functioning autistic and has struggled to attend school in the past so i'm very happy to hear that he's finally making friends and looking forward to going in going to bed with newly washed dried% cotton bed linen and folding laundry, please feel free to tell us. Cooking, cooking is a big one. Well, over the next few Fridays, we'll be looking at alternative Christmas food ideas. And who better to start off with than Ravinda Bogle, journalist, chef and owner of Joconi, her gorgeous restaurant in London, always challenging traditional notions

of food preparation. She's here to share her thoughts on creating some rich adaptations of things such as Brussels sprouts or ham, as well as one of my favourites, samosas. Ravinda, welcome to Woman's Hour. Good morning, Anita. Before we start getting into alternative recipes, let's hear about your own childhood Christmases. What did you and your family get up to? So when I was growing up in Kenya, I was born in Kenya, Nairobi. Christmas kind of came and went like any other day. There was a lot of celebration of things like Eid, Masaki, Diwali, but kind of

Christmas just came and went. I mean, apart from the fact it was my father's birthday, so we always had birthday cake, you know. And it was when I was seven years old and I arrived in England. And that was what was so wonderful to me, seeing this sort of opportunity for societal unification and also to see that festivals actually, whatever festival you're celebrating, shouldn't be hoarded. They should be for sharing because what comes out of those festivals is such joy and the joy of food. Absolutely, sharing. So when you did arrive at the age of seven, did you know any of the, did you sing carols? Did you know any of the words? Were you playing catch up?

Yeah, definitely playing catch up. I remember, you know, going to friends' houses who were Christian singing O Little Town of Bethlehem and mumbling through the words. But, you know, it was about the part-taking, the sharing of gifts, the sharing of traditions. So what did you cook? And were you cooking from a very young age? Very much so. You know, my mother expected us all to be in the kitchen

helping out big family, four sisters and a brother, so five siblings. And then we always had so many people over the kind of whole Indian relative thing. So we always got involved. And I think over the years, what really gives me joy is this kind of merging of really disparate cultures and what happens when they come together and the kind of food that comes out of that merging. That's what's exciting to me. So, you know, when we were small, well, we always had, well, a birthday cake. I always managed to avoid that dense shot of Christmas pudding.

I'm not a fan, but it was obviously my father's birthday. So there was always a birthday cake and he passed away now 10 years ago and we very much kept that tradition going. So we always have birthday cake, which is lovely. And then there was always the turkey, always. And I think that the lovely thing about turkey is that it is such a big bird. And when there are so many mouths to feed, it's actually very, very practical, but always done with a different kind of rub. So, you know, spices and spices in the brine.

And, you know, maybe I remember I recall my mother covering it in yogurt and tandoori paste and doing it that way. Standard. And then the ham. My father loved ham. He studied in England in the 60s and 70s. So he had this sort of nostalgia about gammon and pineapple. So my mother would cook this huge ham and she would cover it with a mixture of jaggery. She'd make like a caramel out of the jaggery with tamarind and star anise and ginger, garlic, chili, cover it all and then slow cook it. And that just tasted incredible. And, you know, last year I did a ham and I did it with a jerk paste

and served it with a homemade mango chutney. And it's just joyful. And then, of course, all the sides and Brussels sprouts. I mean, I couldn't believe people in this country were so sort of divided about Brussels sprouts because for a girl coming from Kenya, they were just so exotic. I'd never seen them, these cute little baby cabbages. And I just absolutely loved them. And over the years, I've sort of cooked them in various ways.

And then when I opened Jikoni our first Christmas, I was like, right, I'm putting Brussels sprouts on the menu. So what did you do? Come on. There's lots of people going, come on. There's nothing you can do to a Brussels sprout to make it tasty. I mean, I love Brussels sprouts. So what's your recipe, Ravinda? I'm taking notes. My recipe is to firstly, it's the way you cook them. So we char them. So lots of butter in a pan. Get the butter really nice and hot. And then in go the kind of halved Brussels sprouts, cook them until they're really, really kind of brown and charred.

And then you make a dressing, a hot and sour dressing with fish sauce, tamarind, chili, garlic and jaggery or palm sugar. And you put that over the hot Brussels sprouts, which just soak in all that flavor, chestnuts. And then you take the chestnut and you grate it almost like parmesan, raw chestnut all over the Brussels sprouts. And then ongo bonito flakes, which are this kind of Spanish or Japanese use. It's like a dried tuna. and it's these thin flakes and what you get is these intensely bitter Brussels sprouts the sweetness from the chestnuts and then the umami on IMAX from the fish sauce and the bonito and it is addictive eating and that has been I think one of the most popular dishes on our menu people come come back. Come on, name drop, name drop.

Who's eaten it? Well, the god of vegetables, Yotam Otolenghi, said it was the best version of Brussels sprouts he'd ever eaten, which was incredible. Yes, he did. I mean, how happy. Look at that smile on your face. I'm sorry, I'm actually salivating and my stomach is actually rumbling.

I do apologise to everybody. If you can just hear this growl. That's my tummy. Let's talk about what you've talked about, kind of recipes coming together in different cultures, bringing, and obviously that's a big influence in your food. And one of your cookbooks, Ciccone Proudly, it's a great title, inauthentic recipes from an immigrant. And you're always challenging preconceived notions of how things should be done. Why? I just think that that is who we are.

Culture moves forward. Immigrants, as they move from one place to another, your cuisine naturally adapts. As you settle in a place, what once seemed so barren suddenly becomes very fruitful. And it's the merging it's the reconciling of your old traditions and what you find in your new land and I think that is what immigrant food is and that's what's so beautiful you love a samosa don't you oh is it

that obvious yes I do and your venison samosas oh my goodness I've been lucky enough to have Ravinda cook for me so tell the audience all about them so I love that idea of mixing something that's a very British tradition it's a British game and venison and beetroot are such a wonderful combination so I make these samosas with venison mince and we do it with a clove smoked ghee. So lots of spices, lots of things like fennel, nutmeg, again, ginger, garlic, chili to really. And then what we do is we because venison is a very lean meat. We soak cashew nuts in sort of milk and then puree those. And that gives the samosa this wonderful fattiness that doesn't exist naturally in the venison.

And then we serve it with a beetroot chutney, a very spicy beetroot chutney. So it's still a British tradition, venison and beetroot, but done via an Indian lens. Delicious. Let's bring in an Italian tradition, a panettone. What do you do? It's which is a type of sweet bread. Lots of people see it around at Christmas. Everyone knows what panettone is, I'm sure. Now, what do you do with a panettone what what do you do it's a which is a type of sweet bread lots of people see it around at Christmas everyone knows what panettone is I'm sure now what do you do with a panettone so this comes from my days as a beauty journalist years and years ago I'd always end up getting sent lots of uh panettones and I there's only so many things you can do with a panettone so true there's always there's always loads left by February I've still got one in the cupboard. And they're massive, right? Yeah, they're huge.

They're massive. And so what I do is, and it's a very unusual way, I make a panzanella, which is basically an Italian salad made with sort of old bread or stale bread, normally plain bread. What I do is I take the panettone, cube it up, and then I make a sage and garlic butter. So infuse lots of chopped sage and garlic into a butter, pour it over the panettone crumbs, lots of parmesan on top, put it in the oven, get that into croutons, and then lots of roasted vegetables and nuts, Brussels sprouts, parsnips, this is the season. And then in go those beautiful panettone crumbs that are just so crisp and delicious and and it's that lovely thing of slightly sweet bread with all these very savory flavors that just is for Christmas for a vegetarian if you've got a vegetarian coming I mean I could

eat that alone at Christmas and be very happy. Panettone and Parmesan croutons sounds like heaven. OK, and what about leftovers? What can we do with our roast potatoes or our mash or our bits of turkey? What should we do with them? So, you know, I love parathas. I'm Punjabi. So parathas are basically like the Indian version of a, you know, fry up on a Sunday morning. All the sizzle, no bacon and sausages, but still that very seductive sizzle on a pan.

And I just take the roast potatoes or any vegetables that are left over, mash them up, mix them with a really good sharp cheddar, some spices, some coriander, some chili, and then stuff them into these flatbreads and then pan fry them with lots of ghee and they are delicious you know just wonderful oh and ravinda what will you actually be having on christmas day you've given us all these amazing recipes what will you cook for yourself this year it's just the two of us uh just nadim and i my in-laws are off to Kenya for Christmas so I'm not going to do a turkey this year I might do a quail because I like the idea of a tiny little bird and I love it when they're completely deboned so no fussing around and I like the idea of doing them with very very lovely things like pomegranate molasses for example you do a rub with pomegranate molasses, for example. You do a rub with pomegranate molasses and spices.

Use things like quince that are in season, beautiful, fragrant quince, muscat grapes, all those lovely things, figs, really festive. Oh, Ravinda, thank you so much. We've been talking about how we find joy. You have brought us joy to Woman's Hour today. Thank you very much, Ravinda Bogle. How do you find joy?

Pat says, I find pleasure, Joy, in hanging out the washing on a blustery, crisp, sunny day. It has to be neatly pegged out. I used to really enjoy hanging out a line of terry nappies, also a tray of tea, teapot essential, and biscuits on a wet winter afternoon. I'm with you. Now, the British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell

has been in court all week in New York City. She's accused of grooming underage girls for convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein so he could sexually abuse them. She denies all charges against her and has pleaded not guilty to eight charges of sex trafficking and other crimes between 1994 and 2004. Jeffrey Epstein died in prison in 2019, whilst Ghislaine Maxwell has been in jail since her arrest last year. On Monday, when this highly anticipated trial started, we spoke to Stephen Wright, who's the associate editor at the Daily Mail. Then he was outside court in New York waiting to get in. Well, let's go back to him to get his view on the last five days and an update on what's been happening. Stephen, I know it's very early for you. So thank

you very much for joining us on Woman's Hour. So on Monday, you said this would be the trial of the decade. How's it shaping up? Yeah, it's been billed as the trial of the decade. That's for sure. I'd say that everything we've seen this week, starting from Monday, it is a truly historic case, both in terms of the defendant, what she's been accused of, and the profile of those people who are on the fringes of this story, some very high profile individuals mentioned, name dropped in evidence today. I have never seen, in terms of the profile of this trial, I mean, I've been working at the Daily Mail since since 93 covers some enormous trials in the uk trial of rosemary west harold shipman and steven lawrence murder case i've never seen

a press pack like it so when i spoke to emma on monday i at about five o'clock i think i was number four in the queue by eight o'clock there were about 100 journalists in the queue at eight o'clock and the trial didn't start until about half nine. On top of that, loads of TV crews. So in terms of day one, and I think this has really set the mark for the trial, in the UK it's very rare for both the prosecution and the defence team to be able to make opening statements on day one. In fact, I can only think of it once in my career.

But here it's quite routine. So in terms of the prosecution case um uh about half an hour long but very quite explosive uh making the allegations against galene maxwell which we all know she denies uh but she groomed individuals uh groomed young women for to be served up allegedly for abuse by former boyfriend, companion Jeffrey Epstein. Then straight after that, Ghislaine Maxwell's lead attorney, Bobby Sternham, addressed the jury in a very dramatic way saying we are proud to be representing Ghislaine Maxwell. And it's quite a dramatic moment in its own way. It was a very dramatic first day, Anita.

Yeah. Epstein's pilot, his butler, an alleged victim called Jane and an expert witness on grooming are some of the people who've taken to the stand so far this week. So what have been the key moments or standout moments for you? Well, I think, you know, obviously there are four women who accused Ghislaine Maxwell of committing criminal offences. So far we've heard from a woman called Jane, as just say, that's a pseudonym for her, her anonymity is protected by court order. She gave evidence for several hours, more so under cross-examination than

her evidence towards the prosecution. There was a very powerful moment when she described an incident when she claims that Ghislaine Maxwell collected her from a room at Epstein's Ranch in New Mexico many years ago and said, Jeffrey wants to see you. And she said that her heart sank because she knew what was going to happen then. That was a very powerful moment in terms of the prosecution case, obviously being up to the jury to decide what weight they give to that but that was a very powerful moment and I think that the point I'd like to make is that the media

interest in this is enormous and sometimes it's quite easy for people to be flippant about some of the evidence it's quite sordid on occasions. There were people laughing in court yesterday, not journalists, I would say, but we have a lot of media overflow courts at the trial.

There's only limited space in it. What laughing? Well, there was some, I won't go into details, but the members of the public can sit alongside journalists. And that's how it's set up. I'm not criticising that, but there were some references to some sex toys and other sort of practices which it was very odd and it's important evidence to hear it but I'm just telling you there's a main courtroom because of the media interest and interest from the public there are there are a number of media a number of public

number of overflow courts where we sit alongside each other with a direct feed of what's going on so it's uh it the point i'm making is there are four women who alleged they were horrifically abused and groomed and these are very very serious offenses and we can't lose sight of that now gillian maxwell's brother and sister kevin and Isabel, they also spoke outside court on Wednesday. So she's got the support of her whole family. What have they said so far? Well, her sister, Isabel, has been coming to court a lot, not just during this week at the start of the trial, but in pre-trial hearings. Her brother, Ghislaine Maxwell's brother, Kevin Maxwell, has flown in from London. He made a brief statement outside court earlier this week.

He didn't say anything controversial, as you'd expect, because proceedings are live. But he just said he was glad to see his sister after such a long time. I think he hadn't seen her for more than well over a year, 18 months or whatever. He was happy to see her. And he made reference to the family complaining on her behalf to United Nations about how she'd been treated in prison. She's been held on remand at a tough Brooklyn prison for the last 17 months since her arrest. So she's got the support of her family and I expect others to turn up as well in her support. Well Stephen we will be staying in touch with you I'm sure to get

the latest on this at some point next week. Stephen, thank you very much. That's Stephen Wright, the Associate Editor at the Daily Mail, talking to us from New York. And you've been getting in touch about how you find joy. And somebody has messaged in to say,

what brings me joy? Playing in a drum and bass, samba, reggae drumming band I joined six years ago. I'm now age 61 and I still love it. We love it too. Join me tomorrow for Weekend Woman's Hour. That's all for today's Woman's Hour.

Join us again things wrong. I would have twice as many billions if I just made a different decision. I mean, of course, one can always learn from other people's mistakes. It's ideal to do that. Each episode is a conversation with an expert on rationality and someone who deals with our corresponding

irrationality in real life. Rarely do we sort of walk around living out probabilities. Oh my God, wait, 90% prevalence. It's hard to sort of hold onto that in real life. Rarely do we sort of walk around living out probabilities. Oh my God, wait, 90% prevalence. It's hard to sort of hold on to that in real life. I hope you'll join us as we try to make sense of making sense and hopefully to make better decisions.

That's Think with Pinker from BBC Radio 4. Subscribe now on BBC Sounds. No. 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.