Woman's Hour - Rosie's Plaques, Anorexia and Sectioning, Hormones and Learning to Trapeze

Episode Date: August 25, 2022

As Listener Week continues...Nicky e-mailed us about a group in Norwich called Rosie’s Plaques, who put up blue plaques for the brilliant and daring things women have done over the years. Maggie Wheeler from the group joins Emma Barnett to talk about why they do it.Alice emailed in as she wants to address the issue of negative connotations around hormones. She feels that more conversations should happen between mothers and their children about hormones and we should be embracing our hormones and the way we behave because of them. Also joining the discussion will be Dr Farah Ahmed, women’s health specialist. A topic that we feature a lot on Woman’s Hour is eating disorders and the mental health of young people, something that has been particularly highlighted during the pandemic. When it comes to mental health services, we often speak about waiting lists and lack of resources, but one listener, Freya, got in touch because she wanted to share her experience of having anorexia and being sectioned, and coming out the other side. And Liz emailed to tell us about the unusual way she keeps fit: on a trapeze. It was a friend who persuaded to take it up in her late 40s. She'll be explaining how it changed her life and feels like joy therapy, along with Katy Kartwheel - an actress and circus performer, who also teaches aerial skills to people of all ages.

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 Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Day four of Listener Week. You hopefully know the drill by now. We give you the keys and you tell us what you would like covering. I should say good luck to all those receiving or related to those getting GCSE results today. I'm sure we'll get a few messages about that certainly later on. We had a few about the nerves. But up on today's programme then, let's find out what you have in store for us all. The guerrilla art movement putting up

blue plaques dedicated to women's achievements by night and dressed as Rosie the Riveter, no less. We're limbering up to hear from a listener who took up trapezing in her late 40s and the rebranding of hormones. Can it be done? All that to come and more. But what I want to ask you about today is a listener's experience which we aired earlier in the week on Tuesday, which has prompted many of you to get in touch since with your responses. And I have to say, very passionate responses indeed. Jane's relationship with the Ukrainian refugees she took in, a young female student, broke down and she asked her to leave her home.

She spoke to me openly about how the whole experience had gone wrong and how it had left her feeling. I feel a failure, but I feel it was partly my fault. Yes, some of it's cultural some of it is I don't think you realize what it's like to have someone maybe in your own home that isn't your immediate family but just really be careful I feel I was duped and I'm really angry with myself for that because I feel there's an awful lot more people out there that I could have helped. Some of you related to what she had to say directly. Some of you were appalled and others reflected on how difficult these sorts of relationships and attempts to help can be.

I'll read out a few of your messages shortly that we've had in since that interview aired. But as Boris Johnson, in his last few days of being Prime Minister, talks about Britain's paying higher energy bills in part because of Russia's war with Ukraine and Ukrainians paying in their blood, some are concerned about compassion fatigue as costs bite on the home front. And six months now, into this war, it is a real test, people are saying, for the West and whomever our new prime minister is. And of course, they will be in part driven by you and your views on this. So what are your views? Where are your compassion levels, support levels? How do you feel when you hear about the amounts of money that the UK and of course the West, the other countries in our coalition of how we work together as countries, are sending

to the Ukrainians in the bid to fight Russia? Text me here, 84844, that's the number. It's obvious you feel incredibly strongly about this, about the messages we've been getting throughout the week. You can email me through the Woman's Hour website, on social media we're at BBC Woman's Hour, or you can send a WhatsApp message or voice note on 03700 100 444. I should say data charges may apply so you may wish to use Wi-Fi. But yesterday Boris Johnson pledged a further £54 million on top of the £2.3 billion we have already spent towards what's going on between Ukraine and Russia, the war. At the same time, many UK households and businesses are struggling with the fastest rise in the cost of living for four decades, with people typically having to spend £110 to get what £100 bought them last year. Rising energy prices could push UK inflation currently at 10.1%,

as high as 18% next year, the highest rate in nearly 50 years. That's according to some analysis from those looking at this and trying to predict what may happen. As it is Listener Week, a lot of you have been getting in touch throughout the week. I'll read you some of those emails in a moment. It gives you an insight perhaps into the temperature on this topic. But shortly, we'll be hearing from the former Conservative MP Justine Greening, who was, of course, Secretary of State for International Development from 2012 to 2016. And Salah Salid, the chief executive of the Disasters Emergency Committee, is also on the line. But just in terms of your response so far, one listener on Instagram, having heard or started to listen to what Jane had said about her experience of living with a Ukrainian refugee, questioned whether Jane's, quote, saviour syndrome hadn't been rewarded. Another who

described themselves as a frustrated expert listening to the programme wrote this, my wife and I came from Ukraine. I am British, my wife Ukrainian. We have been with a host for six months and our host would like us to move on so he can restart his life. He's a fantastic host, probably a friend for life. I am working, but he asks, can I rent? That is a big no. I have no history. The local government will not find a new host. So we are now thinking of going back to Ukraine to live in hell on earth. We also have a small dog and the amount of people who can be so negative feels massive. Carol says your discussion on the pains and pleasures of helping Ukrainian refugees revealed

the difficulties that can be encountered. Nothing is ever as straightforward as we hope it will be. And when things go wrong, it's difficult to put them right. I can imagine the mixed feelings of guilt and remorse in these cases. But I feel that while we've been anxious to help Ukrainians, we've left many others in dire straits. Refugees from Afghanistan still live in poor conditions in hotels in this country. What does this say about us and which people we choose to help? And another message here, without a name on it,

and it is a longer message, but just this is in part of it to give you a flavour. We have had a similar terrible experience to Jane with hosting a refugee. Many in our community are also experiencing this, but we're frightened of being judged and battle on. I imagine your listeners who are indignant by her frankness are not hosts. Our guests were suddenly aggressive. Had I, I think I'd been told they, excuse me, if I'd been told they'd been kicked out or they'll get a council house as they didn't want to find a place after six months is up.

They drove us to despair and we eventually had to ask them to leave for the sake of my mental health and our family. They're not vulnerable. We would not have asked them to go if they were and if they didn't have considerable private means. I think we underestimate the cultural differences too. We are polite often and deferential as a nation and I'm finding Ukrainians are more upfront. I can elaborate, but please don't

mention my name for fear of repercussions. I want to add I'm a lifelong Guardian reader and I'm not right wing, but this makes me sound like I'm right of Priti Patel. I'm shocked by what's happened to us and I wouldn't do it again. Well, let's speak then to Salah Saeed, Chief Executive of the Disasters Emergency Committee, which represents the 15 leading UK humanitarian charities, and Justine Greening, former Cabinet Minister and founder of the Social Mobility Pledge.

Salah, welcome to the programme. Thank you, Emma. How generous are we at the moment and how has it changed over the six months when it comes to the war in Ukraine? Well, I can tell you that the response to the DEC Ukraine humanitarian campaign has been absolutely phenomenal. We've raised an incredible £380 million in the space of six months. And I think that's testimony to the generosity of the British public, but also how so many people across the United Kingdom have wanted and still want to stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine.

In fact, the DEC appeal broke Guinness World Records in the first week alone of the appeal, back in February when the appeal was launched. We raised an incredible £60 million just in the space of one week. And we're continuously still seeing people supporting, wanting to give. And those that are unable to give funds for whatever reasons are fundraising, are speaking to their friends at school or at work or elsewhere and doing what they can. And Britain has always been known to be leading

when it comes to generosity and humanitarian action. This has not just been about the Ukraine response. Just before Christmas last year, we launched an appeal for Afghanistan and that raised an incredible £50 million. And if I may, and I accept that point fully, and also another point I know that you've made before is often it's some of the poorest in society who continue to give what they can. So that's an important point to make. But have you seen a difference in recent

weeks as we are hearing more and more about the cost of living and that's actually starting to bite? There's no doubt that the cost of living and the fear around winter coming very, very soon and with all the costs around energy, that will bite and it will impact charities up and down the land. But what we also have seen and continuously see, not just on this response, but over many years, including, for example, in the 2008 financial crisis, that people in this country also recognize no matter how hard we have it here whether it's to do with the cost of living uh potential loss of employment and so forth we look across the globe look at other countries and see that people are suffering

and and much worse than we are here and of course you know we families are going without food without water in parts of the world. And people recognise that and still want to help. And that doesn't mean that we have to help in a way that impacts our own families here. We help what we can. And as I've said before, if we can't give funds, can't give support in that way, we can fundraise. We can support in any other ways. And we're delighted with the generosity. And we say a huge thank you to everybody that's contributed to this appeal and other appeals it's helping hundreds of thousands of people across the globe. So if I can I'll come back to you Justine Greening

good morning. Morning Emma how are you? Well we we are intrigued by what we've been hearing from our listeners on a range of subjects but on, I think people feel they can be honest, perhaps they don't always put their name. And we are seeing at some level, not perhaps in some of the donations per se, but through the experience of hosting refugees and some of the other situations of the political climate, that there could be and already might be compassion fatigue. You've had to look at this from a political point of view because you have to take the people with you. Where do you think we are up to at the moment with this? Well, I think being able to support people overseas and making sure that the most vulnerable people at home are supported. I actually think those things go hand in hand.

And I think it's when people see a big difference between the two, that this contract almost and this generosity that we've always had as a country, as Salah's rightly said, I think it's been amazing what people have done to respond to Ukraine and other crises. I think that's when it starts to be at risk of breaking down. And interestingly, when I was Development Secretary, we were responding to the Syria crisis. one of the things we did there was to really support host communities because most refugees weren't actually in the camps that you tended to see when you switched on BBC News. They were actually just renting rooms locally,

and that had a big impact on people who already lived in those places. So a lot of what we were doing were helping schools to develop, helping healthcare, literally things like water and sanitation, the local communities, to give them a sense that although that was needed for people who were increasing their population right now, these would be things that they could benefit from once that crisis had hopefully left and those refugees had gone home. So these things do have to be taken together. And I think it underlines the need for whoever comes into number 10 in early September, they absolutely will need to deal with both of the Ukraine crisis, but also this cost of living

crisis here at home, which will put pressure on people's, literally their ability to be generous and help other people in dire need. What would you say to those who are having that fatigue, though, who are seeing the direct link, which Boris Johnson very clearly put together yesterday, actually, in what he was saying, even though he was on that surprise visit to Ukraine, who will be thinking, well, it's six months now of this war and we're really struggling as a family to make ends meet. And in part, that is to do with that war on energy prices.

And that's why we have to. It's not either or in terms of responding to Ukraine and the crisis there or responding to cost of living pressures here. We have to do both. And first of all, President Putin no doubt anticipated that there would be these pressures from energy prices that then put people off, if you like, thinking we need to prioritise supporting Ukraine. That's, I'm sure, what he hopes will happen. We shouldn't allow that to stop us from supporting Ukraine, because the more we support Ukraine, the more we can deal with this crisis. It's letting the crisis get out of hand that helps refugee crises get fuelled even more. But secondly, yeah, there's a wider inflation challenge anyway. That's not just because of Ukraine.

That's also because of restart of supply chains from COVID. And I think government needs to understand that we will need to support not just people, but also businesses through these coming months if we're to make sure there isn't this long-term financial scarring for people here in this country. But we still haven't restored the amounts of money, for instance, you could argue this Conservative government, that we pledged to international development. We cut that. It was cut rather by the government during COVID. It hasn't come back. Yes, that's right right and certainly that's not something that I supported at the time Emma but I think there is still a significant aid budget that's already there to provide help to people who are in need. I think the other point I'd also make is as we've seen

there are challenges actually when refugees arrive in countries and some some of your women's hour listeners have experienced that. I think it's amazing that people have opened up their homes. But we do see the very practical challenges of almost not necessarily having a plan in place for that six months period and what happens at the end of it. I think clearly many people got no idea. They've got no idea what happened. Exactly. And I think what it underlines is that, you know, my sense from the word go on Ukraine was that Putin was in here for the long haul, that this was going to be just like the Syria playbook, and that it was going to go on for some time. I think we need to realise that that might well be

the situation we face in Ukraine, which is why we need a clear plan for how we're going to support that country. It's also why we need a clear plan for how we're going to support the impact of that Ukraine crisis on our own country. And fundamentally, this is broadly about energy security at a national level, and what we can do to improve that. Britain is far ahead of many other countries, particularly like Germany. But it's also about energy security for households and how we can help them make sure that their family financial pressures are dealt with over this coming period. And there's a levelling up issue here as well, Emma, which is the communities that will be most affected by cost of living pressures and that their local economies

will be most affected are the very ones that we want to help. Communities like the one I grew up in, Rotherham, will be the ones that see disposable income just sucked out by the inflationary pressures that we're all experiencing. That's why all of these things go hand in hand ultimately. We are getting a few messages along those lines. For instance, this one which says we should keep giving. Putin is a real threat to world peace.

If he gets away with this, he must he must be stopped we need to keep defending it i feel we have no alternative we have to keep giving we have to keep supporting other messages to the country as well which i'll come to if i can but justine a final word from you unlike most people i presume you are still a member of the conservative Party and you have a vote unlike most have you cast it? I've not cast it yet I'm one of those people I decided I'd really lift you get right to the end of this and then see what they both had to say and cast my vote for me there's a big question about how they deal with both these crises and fundamentally I want to see any government but particularly Conservative one drive an agenda on levelling up I want to see any government, but particularly a Conservative one, drive an agenda on levelling up.

I want to see much more concrete plans. We're nearly at the end. Come on. Come on. Where are you leaning? Team Sunak or Team Truss, if you had to say it now? Well, I probably won't make public who I vote for in the end, to be honest, Emma. But frankly, I want to see a Conservative government deliver on levelling up. I think that's what the whole public wants. And that's the agenda on which it was elected. I think it's your choice not to say it publicly, of course,

but I think it's telling that you are also waiting till the end like this. We're told many have voted, but many have not. I think that's the smart thing to do, see what happens. Justine Greening, thank you very much indeed to you. Of course, former Secretary of State for International Development and Salah Saeed, Chief Executive there of the Disasters Emergency Committee, giving us a picture of our donations at this time. Many messages come in on this. I will return if I can. But to something else completely, because during Listener Week, we hear from you about things which are incredibly

important or you're just simply enjoying doing. Our attention was captured by Liz Mitchell, who wrote to tell us about the more unusual way she keeps fit on a trapeze, of course. It was a friend who persuaded Liz at the age of 48 to take it up. In her email, she told us it's changed her life. It feels like joy therapy. Well, I'm delighted to say Liz joins me now, along with Katie Cartwheel, amazing name,

an actress and circus performer who also teaches aerial skills to people of all ages. Liz, good morning. I'll start with you. Hello. Hi. Tell us, what do you get from being on the trapeze? How does it feel? Oh, gosh. It is honestly the most exhilarating thing I have ever done. I have, really, it makes me feel, it makes me feel alive. That's what it makes me feel. It makes me feel fully and completely alive in my body and mind.

It's extraordinary. And you started this in your late 40s? Yes. Why? Yes. Okay. Well, first things first, I should say that as a child, I was absolutely hopeless at sports and PE. I hated it. I couldn't catch a ball, couldn't shin up a rope, couldn't

jump a box, none of that. Last to be picked for team sports. So PE lessons were like a ritual weekly humiliation. And so that's that's my narrative growing up not sporty not able to do that kind of thing please leave me alone um but roll forward to 2019 um and I'm 48 and probably the most I really do is walk the dog um and um I was in I was actually I was it was quite a bad time um my family was having all sorts of difficulties. My mum had just died, a menopausal, which is a joy. And yeah, life was pretty tough. My eldest son was at university.

My youngest son was in his GCSE year. And he was finding things tough as well. But he, unlike everybody else in his family, is incredibly physical and sporty and has energy to spare and bounces off the walls. And I was trying to find something for him that would use up some of his energy. House in Manchester, who are a not-for-profit organisation run by three circus performers. And they organise a wealth of courses and classes and sessions for all ages, all shapes and sizes. And they run this Saturday youth circus. So I bribed him to go to the youth circus, thinking, you know, this will catch, this will catch, this will be just up his street. And he went a few times and he quite enjoyed it, but it didn't really, really catch on. And I sat and watched and I watched all these kids, you know, little kids, big kids, teenagers, throwing themselves around, jumping on crash mats, learning to juggle. And I

thought it was amazing. I thought it was absolutely brilliant, but it didn't catch. And then I went to a performance. I went to a professional show at the Lowry in Salford by a group called Occam's Razor with my friend Giselle. And they had this performance and it was kind of an unusual thing. It was three generations of performers. There was a teenager, a couple in their forties and a 60-year-old woman. And they did this trapeze performance. And they also talked about their lives and how it felt to be the age they are and where they are in their lives. It's quite improvisational. And I was sitting there watching this 60-year-old woman on a trapeze. And I just had this absolute light bulb moment that I didn't want my son to do circus. I wanted do circus and I've been living vicariously through my 16 year old pushing him to do this thing that he didn't really want to do because I wanted to do

it but that didn't fit with my narrative about being rubbish at anything physical so slightly foolishly I I said this on as we came out of the theatre to my friend Giselle who's way more gung ho than me. And she said, well, the circus has to do adult classes. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Can't do that. But she booked it anyway. And off we went.

And off we went. Off we went. I had to go out and buy some leggings and wear them in public, which is not something I've ever done. But off we went. And it sounds, from your very first answer, that it's been a completely life-affirming event. It's been so life-affirming. I could not have believed it would be so life-affirming. Let me bring in Katie at this point. Katie, do you hear this from, especially those who perhaps come to trapeze later in life,

a bit later in life, that it changes a lot about them um well first of all i think you have to be very very daring and um really want to put yourself outside the box and outside of your comfort zone you know to make that decision um and i think it's wonderful um that she had this light bulb moment watching occam's razor and that just shows the beauty of performance sometimes, how it can really ignite something within us and set off a life path and really change a direction inside ourselves. Although she wasn't sporty as a child,

there must have been something about her that resonated when she watched that performance, something that ticked, something that clicked that made her want to do it and absolutely i mean she's now discovering that she she's very capable middle-aged to go upside down on a piece you know you can build up your upper body strength and your core strength and even if you're not particularly strong um or flexible there are moves that you can learn that you can build it slowly it's totally feasible that you can start circus at any age and you know dare i say it even become professional you don't have to start as a um a child you know being a top gymnast um to become a professional circus

performer it really is a very all-inclusive art form and i'm really glad that she found it. What was the first move you would teach somebody if someone's listening to this thinking I have that inside me I'd quite like to try it they'd like to visualize the first move? Yeah so I probably start them on the trapeze which is a bar attached to two ropes and because it's a bar there you once you're on it you're you're fairly stable as opposed to like a rope or or the fabric silks that hang down where there's no resting point so I'd start on the trapeze and we get you to hold on with your hands apart lift up your feet underneath the bar that's a challenge just that lifting up those feet and putting them underneath the bar and then just hooking your legs over and putting them underneath the bar and then just

hooking your legs over to the top so the backs of your knees are hooked over we call that a hox hang and letting go of your hands see the letting go bit I was with you until all of that trying to I was imagining myself and it's the letting go is that what people struggle with that it depends on the person some people well nearly everybody gets a bit disorientated when they're learning a new move upside down. That's totally normal to feel discombobulated about where you are in space in relation to the equipment. But if you've got a particular fear of going upside down or of heights,

I mean, you don't have to start this trick high up. Obviously, any trick you learn, you'd want to start learning lower down unless it was unsafe to do so. You take off hand reach down does that feel all right swap it for the other how does that feel okay do i feel i have the leg strength the glute strength to really squilt squeeze my heels to my bum um all right i'm gonna let go and then really arch you've got you've got you've got a beautiful voice if i may say say, and a way with you that I feel like I've done it. I've done it mentally. I've just not done it physically. Katie Cartwell, I love your name as well. It's great to talk to you. Thank you for giving us a window into that. Liz,

final word to you because you got in touch with this wonderful insight into your life. Has it impacted other parts of your life doing this, would you say? Definitely. I think it has changed the narrative because it's a thing I thought I could never your life. Has it impacted other parts of your life doing this, would you say? Definitely. I think it has changed the narrative because it's a thing I thought I could never do. It was part of who I was, was being poor in this area. Stationary. Yes. And it's made me realise that actually you can do things that you think you can't do. You just take it a little step at a time. And it's also made me think, actually, I don't care. I don't care if I'm not the top of the class. It doesn't matter.

It's not even relevant. It's just doing something that's taken me a little bit outside my comfort zone and is utterly exhilarating, the sense of personal achievement. It's really good for mental health and physical health. Well, congratulations to you. All power to you and your trapeze. And thank you so much, Liz, for writing in to us. To an email now from another listener who wanted to not just discuss hormones, but rebrand them. So we'll go from the physical, if I like, to the more emotional, how we're feeling. This is what Alice from Cornwall had to say in her original message or part of it. She says, as a society, we seem to deem having hormones as a bad thing, like the devil inside us that comes out, for instance, once a month or during pregnancy. She goes on to say, I want to teach

daughters to understand and give credit to hormones. Perhaps we should be thinking that hormones give us clarity, that in fact, once a month, we don't put up with the rubbish we abide the rest of the time. I wonder if we can change the dialogue to allow teenagers to see themselves as empowered rather than bewitched by hormones. Well, in a moment I'll talk to the GP, Dr Farah Ahmed, who's a specialist in women's health and also the author of a book called Coping with PMS. But a word from Alice first. Good morning. Hello.

Alice, why do you want to rebrand hormones? Well, I'm probably not quite rebrand, but perhaps just change the narrative that we people in society seem to use the word hormone in a kind of flippant way, like it's a negative thing. So they're hormonal, they're tweens, that sort of thing, where in actual fact, we should be listening to them and giving them also the tools to understand their own body so they can perhaps understand the cycle that they're going through the times of the month when they're the strongest when they can achieve the most the times of the month when they need to hunker down and understand you know what's going through their body but in a positive way so these things are with us all the time they allow us to be strong women they allow

us to achieve so much um and you know they're vital for life so for us to um teach our very young um children boys and girls um in year six whenever they start um that these are sort of negative things in their life. That's if they even get mentioned at all. I mean, that's the other side of it. So let me, Alice, may I just bring in then Dr. Farah Ahmed, who I'm sure has a lot to say on this. Good morning. Good morning, Emma. Thanks for having me on. When do hormones tend to kick in? When can we become aware of them? Typically from around the age of eight or nine in young girls, a little bit later in boys.

And in terms of what we should know about them and perhaps we don't, what would you say to that? Well, firstly, I wanted to thank Alice for emailing in. I think this is an incredibly important conversation to have. And it's just a shame that despite it being 2022, we're still so far behind when it comes to understanding periods and hormones and all of their impact. I'll just start off with a fact that 800 million people are menstruating around the world at any given population. So it's clear why the subject of menstruation is highly significant and we kind of think of hormones as essentially the chemical messengers released by glands in the blood carried to target organs and they serve a variety of important functions not just related to the reproductive cycle and menstruation but they help regulate your metabolism your appetite your sleep

cycle to ensuring your body temperature reproductive cycle and mood is all functioning optimally any imbalance where there is too much or too little can impact on any of these bodily processes and may result in a noticeable effect on your overall health and well-being so it's incredibly important to understand how they affect individuals we're in the cycle and i think as liz mentioned as well just kind of listening to our bodies, being able to plan for situations in hormones. Yes, because I mean, I think you'd have to know a lot more, though, wouldn't you, to plan? How could you get to know more about yourself, never mind teaching it to someone else? There are lots of apps that are available at the moment where women can track their cycles. To begin with, when young girls first start their periods, there can be some irregularity before they become nice and cyclical.

For some women, unfortunately, that may never be the case, but it just gives an idea of what to expect and when. And that can be incredibly liberating for women. And as Liz mentioned, it can help predict times when you want to just hunker down and be by yourself and other times when actually you can accept that invitation to run that sports event or attend that party or other times where you just want a bit of me time as well what about if i mean i've heard a lot of this over the years and i've heard a lot more about it recently and obviously there

can be huge positives and no one i don't think could argue with the idea of getting rid of insults like you hormonal cow and and using it in a pejorative sense. Hormones have a hugely important medical role, as you just outlined. But where some may feel uncomfortable is the idea, well, if you track your hormones and you felt like this maybe a few times on the run on this certain day, then perhaps don't accept that invitation, is the idea of self-limiting. You know, sometimes you don't have a choice. You have to still go out. You can't hunker down, as it were. It might be useful to know why, but this idea that living by your hormones is the way that we should go is not going to be feasible or even desirable to some women. And that's completely understandable. I think what it does do is help plan if there is any flexibility to plan ahead. And a lot of women do find that quite liberating. I think the UK as a country has quite a lot of work to do. We know in Spain quite recently,

they developed this concept of duvet days where women are entitled to take a couple of days off work when they're going through the menstruation. My husband works in the corporate industry and he, the women that he manages, he invited women to come along and openly talk about their menopause and their menstrual issues as well. So I think a key is also kind of educating ourselves and educating our colleagues and all those around us to really empower us to to kind of take control of our lives as much as possible is that empowering a duvet day i think it is sometimes in women that suffer horrendous periods and well no no i don't want to mix that you know as a somebody who talks very openly about endometriosis there's there's a there's a variety of what we're talking about there but just as a so excuse the pun as a blanket policy to have a duvet day you know again is that taking things too too far could you see

from some people's perspective farah no i think it's about choice and just women knowing that they have the ability that if they feel that they're not you know firing on all cylinders they they can take duvet days and just giving them the option to take them rather than being forced into participating in activities that they may not feel that they're able to function at their optimum. Of course, men have hormones too. I think you and I are going to need to talk again because you've opened up another debate possibly around that. But we have, of course, covered what some also call menstrual leave before, or at least the policy. I hope you'll come back and talk to us again. But the importance of hormones and what they do medically is certainly something that is on the up and more people have awareness of. But how we

talk about them perhaps isn't changing fast enough, certainly not for Alice. Alice, thank you for that original message. Now, one of our younger listeners contacted the programme to get involved with Listener Week, because while we have covered and will continue to talk about eating disorders and the struggle to get support, she wanted to share her experience of having anorexia, being sectioned and crucially coming out the other side. Freya Chandler was first diagnosed with an eating disorder aged 14. She's now 22.

I spoke to her earlier this week and I started our conversation by simply asking how she was that day. I'm very well, yeah. I'm just enjoying the longest summer ever, basically, after graduating from uni. But yeah, I'm very well, happy, healthy. I mean, I couldn't really ask for anything more. And that's a big statement, actually, for what you have been through. You wanted to come on to Women's Hour and talk about some of that. Why? I think having just graduated from university, I am in a weird part in life at the moment where I've come out of three years of what I almost saw as an end goal in my life. And when I was unwell during my teenage years, I'm sure talk about I saw university

as the end thing and then when that ended I was like gosh I actually have to think about what I what I do now it's been a bit of like a full circle moment where I've had to think about my life before in comparison to how it is now and that's sort of how it felt for a long time like a big series of befores and afters. Tell me about what if you don't mind when you were first diagnosed with an eating disorder because I know you want to share this story. Yeah I was diagnosed with anorexia when I was 14 but I began suffering from it when I was around 13. I guess it was over across the summer that I fell into this like trap that I now can see as me falling into the eating disorder but

at the time it just sort of felt like I wanted to go on a diet and like do more exercise and things like that which felt so innocent at first honestly and then yeah just very quickly it felt like my whole life was not in in my control or completely taken out of my hands. So yeah, it was across sort of a period from before summer and then by December I was diagnosed with anorexia and hospitalised for that as well. Receiving the diagnosis kind of changed everything for me because I was sort of taken out of school and as a 14-year-old, I was in year nine at the time,

that was like a really turbulent time for me. So although I was living a life, it wasn't, I wouldn't say a normal life and not by my friend's standards, I guess. Indeed, as part of your email, you say, I was living a life so far removed and different to others my age and not necessarily going through the stages of personality development, exploration, etc. that a lot of teenagers do. What do you feel you were missing out on? I mean now reflecting back I'm 22 now it just feels like I had gaps in my like development as a as a young person I wasn't doing the things that my friends were doing I remember like even coming home on leave from being in hospitals and seeing my friends had gone to parties and

done this and maybe having like early had gone to parties and done this and maybe having like early relationships and going traveling and doing things and I just wasn't there for most of them which has been like a really weird thing to come to terms with I think that's a big part of why I wanted to talk to you about this I guess because I felt for a long time as if I was sort of living this double life of how I was in an external way versus like how I felt inside and I felt as if yeah there were these like incongruent parts of me because I hadn't had these experiences that a lot of like my friends at uni had had and I felt really ashamed of that like I couldn't talk at all about my experiences of having been in hospitals and these kind of things because although that was my life,

I felt as if it shouldn't have been my life. Because you obviously get older and then you are sectioned. Yeah, that was a big turning point in my life that I look back on now as a big turning point in my life because obviously I had the first admission there. And there were times that I was a bit better and things were a bit better and I'd be in school and around my friends and things like that but still living in this really tiny little like postage stamp life where I you know I existed to go to an appointment and come home and do this like I wasn't socializing and living a good like vibrant life but it was okay

until I was about 16 and 17 and then I didn't really follow the same path as a lot of my friends I didn't go to the same like sick for me didn't stay on at school and I sort of just fell into this big gap I was going to like outpatient appointments and like then day patient appointments still kind of struggling with my eating disorder and other mental health problems too. But yet it was just a very, it was a strange year where I just didn't really feel like I belonged anywhere. And then it kind of set me off in this wrong fitting. But it was almost at that point I thought like my life felt written off because I wasn't in school. I wasn't learning anything. I wasn't doing anything so the only thing I could really like give all my time to was

my eating disorder you know and trying and trying to take the advice and get better yeah definitely um particularly when I when I got sectioned I wasn't expecting to at all and I'd been in one admission being discharged from from that and thought, you know, I just want to like, I don't know, stay sick. I was so caught up in the cycles that I was in really. You talk about that being a turning point being sectioned, but was there another point where you really started to come out of your disorder? Definitely, yeah.

I think that came a little bit later than when I was actually sectioned and in like the subsequent admission that I had following that was actually a really bad time for me and I think it almost worked the opposite way it made me think I don't want this life anymore like I I want to see like a bigger better thing for myself and almost it's like a cliche but once sometimes when you hit an absolute rock bottom I was like there must be more to life than just doing the same thing over and over and then from then onwards I went back into education I went back to college with this like driven goal of like I want to go to university I want to study psychology I want to do this and that wasn't the

thing that necessarily made me well but it helped me so much. I mean you talk about the gaps you feel you've had compared to your friends at university when you look back at your your childhood and being a teenager and I understand that you you were able to talk to your friends about having an eating disorder but not necessarily being sectioned. Why was the difference there do you think it just feels like such a taboo even now I think one of the main reasons why I wanted to even talk to you and talk to women's hour about this is because I never hear people talk about being sectioned I never hear people talk about what that experience is like and I think I have even to this day like

a great deal of like stigma my own stigma surrounding what that process was like what it even entails like people think of being sectioned as you have to be you know properly I say this in inverted commas but like crazy to end up actually detained in like a psychiatric hospital but I was just very sick and troubled and I couldn't see that for myself and that's what resulted in that happening I always find it quite funny looking back because I remember I was so incredulous about the fact that I got sectioned because I'd never been on any section before like and I just got straight put on this big six month long thing um which just seemed ridiculous to me at the time and yeah well I was also about it. Well, I was also going to say, and yet became a sanctuary

and a place where you were able to start to try and become well again. Yeah, definitely. I think even the word is quite frightening. I agree, absolutely. It's like section. It just doesn't sound, it sounds like you're being taken out of one area of society and sectioned off, which is what actually happens. But is the reality not like that is that what you want to try and say what do you want to say about the reality of being sectioned well i would say that there's a there's

a mixed not blessing in it but there's a very mixed view i have of it even now looking back because obviously there's been a lot of like recent changes to the mental health act which I think are very very positive but I look back and still it's shrouded in so much misunderstanding of that period of my life I remember when I got sectioned feeling really really like bleak about everything I thought I'm so trapped I have no prospects but the reality of it was it was no different to any of my other admissions before that. It really was just like, you actually have to be here now. You can't just talk your way around the system and get out. So I think I made more of a concerted effort to be like,

what do I actually want out of my own recovery, treatment, etc. So I think it really depends on the person as well. It's definitely not like a one size fits all thing. And you want to help others, don't you? In terms of what you've done with your training and your work? So I've just graduated from uni studying psychology, and I have a new job, which I'm about to start actually working in mental health with people just like me at that age when I got sectioned, who will be 17 and 18. And yeah, I couldn't I honestly couldn't have asked for like a more relevant job that I wanted to do. And even like one of the prerequisites of me getting that job, I think, is the fact that I had to have like lived experience of having been through that myself so I was like I know that this is the job for me and I really want to do this because I want to make

a difference in people's lives because you feel so hopeless when you're that age you're kind of just coming out of adolescence which is a troubling time anyways but it's particularly when you feel like as I did like I have no sense of who I am I have no hobbies that I can think of. I have no interest. Like, I didn't know anything about myself. And I'd had none of those, like, life experiences that make me like that. But, I mean, from that, I guess I've really found my path in life and what I want to go into. And the ingredients of your feeling a lot better

and feeling strong enough in a place to contact a radio programme and talk like this because I know it was important for you to to share with people I don't want to put words in your mouth that you you can get better you can feel better you can come to a different place on this was it individuals was it the the medical side was it the medicine was it also family friends faith what what were the ingredients in your particular scenario? Definitely a combination of things. The main, main thing which I will say is that it just has to come from you. Like you can have an army of people shouting from the sidelines, trying to

encourage you or give you support. And you can have the most amazingly supportive caring family or or not like you could have nothing but if you don't want it you will never fully you know get to a place that you want to be in like I I was actually told for years and years and years it wasn't possible to fully recover from like an eating disorder at all you'd always have something in the back of your head and what what do you think of that because that is what's said to a lot of people do you disagree with that yeah I fundamentally disagree honestly if I'd have heard a story like this even when I was in the grips but I would have probably thought okay but I'm sure you have some things like some hangouts but honestly I disagree and I think it's quite a damaging thing that is told so readily to people like you know you'll just have to learn to

manage it and like you'll just have to learn to live alongside it this is just a part of your life because I grew up literally from the age of 13 to sort of 1920 when I would say that I really started to recover thinking that and I think it kept me trapped to an extent. And now I would say that I don't have a single eating disorder related thought. Sometimes for, I don't know, ever. I just don't have it. It doesn't cross my mind. Is there anything else you wanted to add? Just that, yeah, I think it has to come from you.

And you can go through a hundred really difficult things in life. And they don't have to be the things that drag you down or that you think about in your darkest points. Like just have a little optimism. And even if you're feeling like you don't believe any of the things, like faking it till you make it can really help. And I think it really did help me. Maybe a final word I wanted to ask you, if I could, which was, what would you say to those who are supporting someone with an eating disorder? Those voices on the sidelines, as you say, shouting, cheerleading, doing anything so incredibly distressed about their loved one. Just never give up the hope that it will get better. I think my parents, my loved ones, my friends probably had periods of time where they

thought this is just going to be a forever lifelong thing and even if it feels like that just never give up the hope just renew it every morning if that's what it takes and do what you need to do to get through as well because it's so difficult for the people who are on the sidelines and it's not acknowledged enough. But yeah, so take care of you and never give up the hope. Freya Chandler telling her story. And for details for organisations which can offer advice and support, you can go to bbc.co.uk forward slash Actionline.

Let's talk blue plaques, shall we? Because they commemorate notable people in English history, connecting them usually to a specific location. But according to research, only 12% commemorate women. The rest are commemorating men. One of our listeners, Nikki Ansell, emailed in about a group who decided to take this situation into their own hands, guerrilla style at night, like you do, dressed as Rosie the Riveter.

So I was listening to your feature a few months ago about Mary Anning and the raising of a statue to her in Lyme Regis. And she, of course, was the fossil hunting pioneer whose work was not sufficiently recognised. And it got me thinking about other women through the ages who similarly have not been recognised for their work and their achievements and their offerings to the world. So I also got to thinking about locally what was happening and it made me think of Rosie's Plaques who are a theatre art group and who in 2019 started a guerrilla art project by putting up deliciously homemade blue plaques in and around the city of Norwich because the majority of them there were 300 at the time only 25 of those were

to women so they chose some people to research and put these blue plaques up some of them with names and some of them to groups of women but but with lovely quirky messages as well. And the one that caught my eye was on the Guildhall, our old Guildhall in Norwich, which dates back to, I think, the 1400s, about Mabel Clarkson, who was the first councillor in Norwich. And as that was the seat of administration, that was a fabulous place to put it. And I later learned that these had been anonymously placed on walls and gates and fences around the city by Rosie's Plaques art project. But I just thought it was a fabulous, fun way

of raising awareness about women in Norwich, unsung heroes. We will hear more detail from Maggie, because I'm very happy to say we've got her as well. But for you, how do they make you feel when you see them? You're the recipient. Well, I was totally uplifted. I couldn't stop staring at the one that I saw first and thinking, how did it get there? It made me want to go and learn more about Mabel Clarkson.

And when eventually everything came online and I could see the others that they had done and who they had honoured with these plaques. It just was so brilliant that women were being acknowledged for their contribution. It's lovely to have you on as a listener, which is what Listener Week is all about. Let's bring in Maggie, Maggie Wheeler, a co-founder of the group. Good morning. Welcome to the programme. Why were you moved to do this? What inspired you to do this? Well, as Nicky said said we're part of a community theater group called the common lot to make shows by with and about people of norfolk and we'd made

a show in 2018 about radical norfolk women and one of the things we discovered when we were researching that was that uh out of the 300 memorial plaques in norwich only 25 were for women and women's spaces we wrote a song about that that went in the show. And every time we sang it, there was this sort of intake of breath when we came up with the statistic for it from the audience. So I suppose inevitably sitting in the pub afterwards, we thought we ought to do something about that. And that's how Rose's Plaques was born. And by coincidence, an artist friend of ours said,

oh, I've just been on a course and learned how to make plaques. I can show you how to do it. So we sat down, we decided the women that we wanted to honour, we decided on our wording and we set out and made the plaques and put them up quietly one evening in Norwich. Talk to me, yeah, night time putting up of the plaques dressed as Rosie the Riveter. Yeah, well, we're a theatre group, so we had to be dressed up. And, you know, it's quite easy to get a boiler suit and a spotty scarf. So that's what we did. We went out.

It was a beautiful May evening. We think possibly because our arts festival was on at the time that people didn't notice us so much. But really, you can just walk around a city and put plaques up. And it is extraordinary how nobody says anything. I think I had one man stop to me and said, can I ask why you're carrying a step ladder? And I just said, oh, well, just in case I need one. He said, fair comment.

And off I went and up we put them. I should point out, you don't have permission to put these plaques up, but they are temporary. And you say with your group that you don't cause damage to the building as you put them up? Absolutely, yeah. We did quite a lot of research on that because inevitably, because the women that you can find information about

tends to be associated with what are now quite important historic buildings, we certainly didn't want to be accused of any sort of vandalism. So, yeah, we did a lot of research on ways of attaching plaques to buildings. They weren't always successful. Some of them fell off, but we have learned that the cable tie is your friend. One of them was taken down by the people in the building and they gave that back to us. One was stolen and we replaced it. But the others we took down.

We were very clear that they were temporary, that it is an art project. It's a guerrilla art project. Where do they go? Do they get retired? Do they go to people's homes? We have them in our homes. We take them when we go on tour to other people. We take them when we go and do talks. We've done talks in our local libraries, talked to local groups. And then there are some, there are others around the country

and in Norwich that are still up that we've made subsequently. And English Heritage been in touch to try and work together or be inspired by any of the ones that you picked? I think we were very clear that this was a feminist guerrilla art project. We were very keen that women should be brought to the fore, that some of these women and women's spaces, because it wasn't all about individual women, should be recognised. Yes, indeed. One of your plaque reads, dedicated to the profane and opinionated women who gathered here. Another says, Dorothy Juice and educated here. Top bird.

Yes. Which is succinct. It's not your usual language on a blue plaque. Well, I think most of them aren't. Maybe that might be where we would fall out with English heritage. But we wanted people to stop and look twice at them and say, you know, well, what's this about? And I remember at the time somebody saying, well,

have you got one for Edith Cavill, for example, who's a great local heroine in this part of the country. And actually she's got a statue. And what we were trying to emphasise was that there are lots of fantastic women who come from our city, who've done amazing things, who are not being recognised. Where our theatre company is based is on an estate in Norwich, where only one of the streets is named after a woman. All of the others are named after people, and they're all named after men. Once you start noticing that stuff, then it's everywhere.

Yes. I mean, of course, there will be those who say, well, you know, women just were not given the opportunities to perhaps have the achievements that some men were afforded because the stage was entirely theirs. But I suppose part of your work and many of the women that I've spoken to trying to redress this is to find those stories in the first place and find out what women were doing because we were alive. We were here. Absolutely. And I think one of the things that's been important is, and increasingly thinking about this and thinking about this with women from other parts of the

country, is pulling those women out from behind the shadows, the shadows of men, and recognising in that way. And you've also, with your blue plaque, pointed out safety issues. And in some ways, they've been memorials, haven't they? And I'm thinking in light of the killing and the abducting, the raping of Sarah Everard. Absolutely. We, along with every other woman in the country, were appalled last spring when that story was in the news. And then when we learned how many women were still being killed and when Sabine and Esther was killed later in the year,

we decided we needed to do something about it. And what we can do is make plaques. So we made a plaque that just reads, For our sisters who were just walking home. And we put that plaque up on railings in our city centre. That went up last November and that is still there. Is it? It is. It is still there.

And we use that plaque because one of the things we do, as they are usefully round, is to make badges from our plaques. And we made badges and T-shirts for our sister's badge, which we sold and we raised over £3,000 for a local charity that supports people who are victims of sexual violence. That's incredible. Well done you. I just got tingles at the thought of that plaque. I'd love to see it and the fact that it's still up.

Just listening to what you were hearing from one of our listeners, from Nikki, who's still with us here, the effect the plaques have on women and on people when they're walking around. How much does that mean to you as a theatre group, as a guerrilla art movement? It's been really important because they're visual, but not very big. And they're in places where people are, many of them are in places where people walk all the time. So the fact that somebody might just stop, they might just think again, they might become aware that women own the streets,

women own public spaces as much as men do. And it's just perhaps a small way of showing that. So if one woman like Nikki is moved by that, thinks about that, maybe feels I own this, this is my place, this is my city, this is the place I have a right to be, walk around without fear, then that makes us feel pretty good. Maggie Wheeler and to our listener, Nikki Ansell, huge thanks. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one.

I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this?

What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.