Woman's Hour - Saudi Arabia's imprisoned activists: One year on

Episode Date: May 17, 2019

This time last year prominent women’s rights campaigners in Saudi Arabia started to be arrested and imprisoned. In total there were 20 arrests, including some men who were their supporters. When the women appeared in court some of them said they’d been electrocuted, flogged and sexually harassed in prison, which the Saudi authorities deny. Recently, seven women including Aziza al-Yousef (pictured) have been released for trial. If they’re found guilty of charges related to their activism they’ll go back to prison. Rothna Begum joins us from Human Rights Watch.As part of a BBC season about mental health we’ll be hearing from 29 year old Hannah who has a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder. She tells Jo Morris about the intensive NHS-funded therapy which she thinks saved her life. And Hannah and her partner explain how BPD has affected their relationship.And Jane is joined by neuroscientist Professor Sophie Scott, podcaster Tolani Shoneye and associate editor of the New Statesman Helen Lewis, to discuss some of the news stories of the week.

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. Hi, this is Jane Garvey. This is the Woman's Hour podcast, the 17th of May, 2019. Today, we're going to be chewing over some of the events of the week, the cancellation of the Jeremy Kyle show. We'll look at the move to ban abortion in Alabama. How many ovens should you have if you'd, well, particularly if you fancy being prime minister?

And all this will be discussed by the journalist Helen Lewis, by the neuroscientist Sophie Scott, and by the podcaster Talani Shanai. So they're all our guests on the programme today. We also have the last in a series of features about mental health. Today, living with Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder, also known as Borderline personality disorder. Today, you'll hear from Hannah, a listener who contacted the programme. So Hannah's story, Hannah's experience, part of Women's Hour today. Now, in June of last year, the Saudi authorities

lifted the country's ban on women driving. And you won't have forgotten there was enormous international publicity about this, a real fanfare. But some of the most active campaigners for that change were not around to join in the celebrations. They'd been arrested the month before. When the women appeared in court, some of them said they'd been electrocuted, flogged and sexually harassed in prison, allegations which I should say the Saudi authorities deny. Recently, seven women have been released and are currently on trial. If they're found guilty of charges related to their alleged activism, then they are going to go back to prison. We have tried to contact the Saudi embassy in London this morning, but we didn't have any luck there, I'm sure. If they're listening, they'll

know that we'd very much welcome their contribution. If they want to contact us, they can do so anytime they like. But somebody who has made themselves available today, Rothna Begum from Human Rights Watch. Rothna, good to see you again. How are you? Thanks, Jane. Now, tell us exactly what went on, first of all, when the women were arrested, because this was the timing was really interesting, wasn't it? That's right. As you said, you know, we had the driving ban was about to be lifted on June 24th. So there was a lot of excitement that was happening. And then came May 15th, and there was this mass arrest, where women's rights activists, the most prominent in the country, were arrested from their homes in the middle of the night in a

completely coordinated fashion. So May 15th marked a whole year when this whole arrest campaign began. Now, this is something I really want to flag has not really happened before. When we saw women's rights activists being arrested, because they have been, it's usually when they would define the driving ban or they're protesting in some form. This is the first time that we actually saw them being arrested out of nowhere from the blue. And it didn't make any sense because it was like, why would you arrest them just as you're about to come through with a reform that the women had actually been demanding? Well, some people interpreted the decision to arrest them as a way of the crown prince, who is the de facto ruler of the country at the moment.

The ailing king isn't really up to it and is out of control, essentially. It was his way of saying, actually, change will happen when I say so and in my way. And I'm not going to let you take credit for anything. That's exactly what he was saying. So when that happened, one of the reasons for it was because international journalists were flying in. They didn't want any women's rights activist to be taking credit for the reform and they didn't also want any criticism of the other reforms that had not yet happened

because these women were not only calling for the driving ban to be lifted, it was a first step to try to get more reforms, most prominently the male guardianship system which leaves women as perpetual minors in the country. Now these women really suffered and we've had a whole year of persecution in which not only were they subject to this coordinated arrest campaign but then they were facing a smear campaign where like you know their face was a splash across newspapers, in local media outlets, branding them as traitors. We've not seen this happen before. And then they were subject to allegations of torture and other ill-treatment, including sexual harassment and assault.

This is, again, something we've not heard happen before with women's rights activists. And then the charges that have come through, that came through in March. Now, the Crown Prince last year had said things like there would be hard evidence against these women that they were doing terrible things. But when the charges came through, it was quite blatantly clear they were all to do with women's rights activism, calling for the end of the male guardianship system, for contacting foreign journalists who are accredited to Saudi Arabia, for contacting foreign diplomats who are allies to Saudi Arabia and international human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Now, if those are crimes, then the crime prince himself should be on trial for them. Carol?

And of course, what happened was that not only were they just charged with these things, but they also then end up in court without any scrutiny whatsoever. Foreign diplomats and international journalists were also barred from their trials. Right. Well, that's why I was going to ask, why haven't we heard about their trials? It's because nobody's got access to their trials. That's right. So the bits of information that's been coming out has been coming out through other sources where we're able to find out what's been going on, including the fact that women had talked about the torture in the courts.

Now, two of those sessions have been postponed in April. Some of the women have been temporarily released, but they're still on trial. Some women have been temporarily released, but they're still on trial. Some women have not been released. So Lujain al-Hathloul, who was nominated as Times 100 Most Influential Persons this year, still remains on trial. We have two other most prominent women's rights activists, including Samar Baddawi, who was given in 2012 the International Women Courage Award. Those two women are still on trial without charge. So there are some people, we don't even know why they're not being brought to trial. And then in the middle of all of this, you think things are

going up and down. We don't know whether or not they would be finally released or not. In April, just days after some of the women were released, Aziza al-Yusuf is one of those women who was released. Her son, among 14 others, were arrested in another crackdown. So things have been really taking a dive. We're seeing this up and down thing. What about the West then? Because we know certainly governments like our own have all sorts of contacts and business contracts with Saudi Arabian government bodies. Why aren't we saying anything about this, or indeed name the Western government that has bothered to speak up for these women? In all the years I've been working on Saudi Arabia, it's incredibly difficult to get Western

allies to say anything on Saudi Arabia. They're incredibly fearful and they just don't want to. When it came to the women's rights activists being arrested, there was kind of like, we'll say things in private, we raise these things in the meetings and so on. Canada did actually publicly call for the immediate and conditional release of women in August, and they were reprimanded by Saudi Arabia immediately. They pulled out the Saudi ambassador from Canada, they stopped relations and so on, to send a message to the international community that they also will not tolerate any criticism of Saudi Arabia by the international community. Now, we've seen a couple of actions take place. We've seen a joint effort by 36 member states, including the UK, on March 8th, where they actually called for the unconditional release of the women, which was important. But they're doing so now jointly. They won't do this publicly as individual states. They're too scared to do that. And that also sends a message to the Saudi authorities. They know that the international community is fearful of them. and so they can get away with what they want. Actually, very briefly, how will you know about the fate of the women on trial?

Are you hoping that somebody will get the information to you? We're expecting that the trial verdicts will come through in June. So that's when we might find out what will happen to the women. There was some belief that potentially it's Ramadan right now, the holy Muslim month of fasting, in which sometimes the authorities do pardon people. So potentially some rumors are that the women may be pardoned after the trial. holy muslim month um fasting in which sometimes the authorities do pardon people so potentially the the some rumors are that the women may be pardoned after the trial but to be honest everything has been so unprecedented so far so incredibly repressive that we have to assume the worst these women could end up going back to prison with about 20 years imprisonment thank you very

much uh the thoughts of rothner bagan the organisation Human Rights Watch. Rothna, thank you very much for coming on. Now, quite soon on the show, we're hoping to talk in some detail about female sexuality. Now, it was always thought, certainly research that was published suggested that men, generally speaking, have a much stronger sex drive than women, that men are more likely than women to struggle with monogamy. But is that actually true? Do you accept that? Has that been your experience? Now, whether your partner is female, male, or whether you have a partner or not, we're really interested in your point of view on this. Have you found you're less interested in sex than your sexual partner, or quite the opposite? So whatever your experience, whatever your sexuality, please do feel free to contact the programme. We certainly won't use your name on air if you'd rather we didn't, but you can

still get your experience to us via the website bbc.co.uk slash woman's hour. And next Tuesday on the show, I'm excited to tell you I'm going to be interviewing Deborah James, who is known on social media as Bowel Babe. She's a really impressive person who, I think it's fair to say, has done more to speak honestly and openly about bowel cancer and its impact than anybody else in British public life. So Deborah James will be talking about her bowel cancer on Woman's Hour next Tuesday. And we've got Shakespeare's sister on the show as well.

I think that's on Monday, and I think they're playing live, actually, on Monday morning, so really looking forward to that. Now Now all this week we've been talking about mental health and today 29 year old Hannah can tell us her story. She contacted us when we asked to talk to women with mental health diagnoses other than anxiety and depression. Her official diagnosis is called emotionally unstable personality disorder, also known sometimes as borderline personality disorder. Hannah is a second year fine arts student and six months ago she ended three years of NHS funded therapy, which she says has changed her life. Joe Morris met Hannah at her home and Hannah's partner Jordan was there as well. Here's Jo asking her

if she'd heard of borderline personality disorder before she got diagnosed with it. I hadn't and I can remember when I got diagnosed with it I thought that they just made it up and it wasn't until I went back to my eating disorder specialist and she asked me what have you got and I told her I've got borderline parasite disorder. And her head dropped and she just looked at the floor. And I was like, what? And I didn't really understand. I was like, what is it? I could tell by the look on her face that it was like this was not a good outcome.

And she sort of explained, you know, how it was sort of seen, I guess, in the general public. And also it was something that was really difficult to treat and it wasn't until I kind of came out of there that suddenly I was like oh I then did a bit of research on it it was something that was seen as being incurable and that was really terrifying because I couldn't the thought of sort of living that way forever in this really difficult state was was really terrifying because I already felt like I couldn't cope and I actually felt like I was only at 18 years of life or however old and then to kind of think that the entirety of my life could be like that was I think I spent two weeks in bed solid after that point borderline has this really horrible stigma attached to it even within the NHS there is

this common cliche that oh you don't want any borderline patients because they're really difficult to treat and that reason of them not sticking with the programme and them dropping out and coming back in and also their behaviour being so erratic and unpredictable. Do you think that depression and anxiety are talked about a lot while other mental health conditions are still taboo? Yes, they are, but that's because they're the most easily identifiable disorders and I think more people can relate. But I think other disorders are a lot more complex and because they're a lot more complex, it's very difficult for the people that actually suffer with them to talk about them because you don't have the vocabulary.

The fear of you being seen as something that's scary or difficult or manipulative or something that is destructive to other people in your relationships. But all of those behaviours are coming from an impact of something else that's happened. What's this you've got? This is a picture of me and my mother. We're at a garden party. We're dancing out on the lawn.

How old are you in this photo? I'm about 15, 16 in this photo. And you're dancing and holding hands. It was a really hot summer's day. Can you remember how you were feeling in that photo? Everything at this moment in time felt really extreme. I think even in this photo where we're dancing, it felt like an extreme inflated.

So what was going on at home when this was taken? For a long time, I told people that my parents broke up when I was 14, 15 and then I realised I was 11. So I still feel like at this moment in time the fact that my parents had broken up still felt quite raw, that it was still like it had only just happened. But I think that was because the sort because the ripple effects of that breakup were still rippling through the family and I think I was taking on more responsibility than the family home so in some ways it felt like it had got worse and I guess as I was getting older

my mental health was just getting increasingly more complicated. Do you think you were ill at this point then? Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely. At this moment, this is when it should have been caught. I was self-harming really badly at this point. If I'd have gone in to hospital, I would have been put into some sort of child services, but nobody saw it.

The themes that I talk about in my art now, currently, are all to do with the parent-child relationship and its transference into intimate adult relationships. The first thing I did was I did a portrait of me when I was 12, a self-portrait without a mouth, because I just felt like I didn't have a voice. I felt like I didn't have a voice to talk. Did you show anyone?

Yeah. But it's funny that, because my art has always been a route that I've been allowed to be as expressive as I am. My parents never seemed to... They always really embraced that and really sort of supported me doing my art, although they would never sort of take it on as as like, oh, this is a bit interesting. I mean, we know that more women are diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.

Why do you think that is? I have four friends that have a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, and one of them is male. And we all grew up in very similar sort of households and we all kind of fitted into the same sort of dynamic of being what your parents needed you to be for them and sort of squashing your own emotional needs and I think this is a generalization but I do think that women tend to take on that role, the one that looks after the house and it's sort of more common for women to sort of suppress their feelings for other people. I have always held on to the emotion of my partners so that they didn't have

to feel that emotion themselves. When I was a child, I really took it on me to try and make everybody happy within the family. I actually used to call it sidelining, so I would just put all of that to one side, even if I had a really horrible day at school or whatever I was going through, and make sure that I could just be whatever mum or dad needed me to be in that moment.

But I got very good at it when I was a child. But I almost think that I got too good at it because it becomes a problem when you then just keep pushing everything to the side. I don't know if you'll like these. They're a bit of a different sort of aesthetic. What's this you're pulling out? These are my aprons. This one is the dirty child. It was very much my job to sort of keep the house clean. I was to cook the dinner,

I was to just make sure that when my mother walked into the house that everything was in its place, that there was there was nothing that she could pick up on, that there was just nothing for her to have to deal with, so that everything was just ready for her. It started to get to the point that I didn't know when she would sort of walk in through the door, and for that whole hour before she came in, I wouldn't dare sit on the sofa

because I was worried about messing up the cushions. If I just sat on the floor, then I couldn't make a mess and I wouldn't have a cup of tea I wouldn't have a drink so that I knew that nothing would be out of its place when she walked in through the door and I really struggled so that even when I moved into this apartment I couldn't sit on any of my chairs because I was you're still living in like an old mindset you're still living in the past in some ways but you're even though nobody else lives here I live on my own if anybody was to walk in the house at any point it needed to look a certain way and if I was to sit on something or move something or have a glass of water, I would have disrupted the

status quo and that was a really slow process of breaking out of that. I was a bad naughty child, which never used to really make sense to me because I felt like I always tried so hard. I wasn't going out all the time, I didn't go to the park and get drunk, I didn't have any boyfriends. I concentrated really hard on my studies, I came home, I looked after my brother. I don't know, Ifriends. I concentrated really hard on my studies. I came home, I looked after my brother. I don't know, I was still a bad child. So how old were you, Hannah, when you were finally diagnosed? I was about 19, 20 when I got the diagnosis.

And how long, until you got treatment, how long were you waiting for? Until you got the therapy that you've had? About five and a half years. So that was a long time to wait. Yeah. Because why did it take so long? The first two years are definitely my fault. You know, if you pull yourself out of it, you're in a misappointment,

that's pretty much it, and you have to start all over again. But it's very difficult for people with borderline to sort of be consistent and stay at something and kind of go the whole course so I kept pulling myself in and out and then by the time I'd sort of started to get my head around that I really kind of had to stop doing that because nothing was moving forward in myself and I couldn't sustain something I then went on a waiting list and I was on that waiting list for three years. A long wait. Yeah three years is a long time. And how bad did things get during that period when you're waiting? Coming up to the last three months before I went into that therapy I didn't leave the house at all. I was sitting in the kitchen looking at a bare wall for sometimes seven hours a day,

having dissociative episodes, not able to eat, I wasn't showering, I wasn't getting dressed, I was sleeping and I was just having really sort of confused thinking. Just little things like washing the pots were things that I just couldn't do. They just felt so overwhelming. And what do you think would have happened if you hadn't had therapy? Then what do you think would have happened? I honestly believe that I wouldn't be here now. I really believe that I wouldn't be here now.

There's no way I could have willed myself out of that situation. I didn't have the money to sort of support myself to go into private therapy. This is part of, like, an installation that I'm making. It involves text, photography and film. So the video is a repeated motif of me lighting a match, creating energy, to sort of show a piece of text that describes I'm a woman becoming visible

and then me also being the one that's blowing out the match and making myself invisible again. I wouldn't say that any of it is about my borderline personality disorder, but I would say that all of it is about what I've been through and what I've experienced and the enlightenment that I've sort of had. The therapy that I was taking was only free in the whole country and I was with the principal psychotherapist taking transference-focused psychodynamic psychotherapy,

which is a bit of a mouthful, but... It worked for you? It was amazing. It focuses on the transferences so you kind of live through all of your issues through the therapist so you kind of go through the situation with the therapist but you go through it in a healthy way it's really transforming how did you feel when you finally found the right therapist how did you feel the program is very strict So you have to sign a contract that says that, you know, you will not engage in any damaging behaviours.

And you also have to say that you've got to go into work or back into education. And when you're at a point where you cannot get out of the house and there's a, know if you don't do it we're going to kick you out and you're very much like this is my last chance like it was really scary because they are really strict and I understand why they have to be really strict because there's only so many places available and you've got to be someone that they know are going to take on the work this is Jordan who's been my boyfriend of the last year and six months. I think a big thing for me was that it felt like he was always sort of conscious and sort of aware of like how I might be or how I might be feeling. I think there was like one moment

that always really stuck out to me. I like kind of came into uni and I was like wearing a woolly jumper and you sort of like I was you are you okay it was like you're wearing like snuggly clothes today are you feeling okay we talked about in therapy before about how if I'd sort of went into therapy and I was wearing my joggers I guess in a very sort of more toned down version of the self-harm that you're sort of letting other people know that you're in a certain mindset by the way that you look and the way that you present yourself and that would never be picked up on by anybody in my family it was like the first time someone had noticed something about me just by looking at me I know it sounds so small and so subliminal but it was like doesn't doesn't actually sound very significant. Because the only person that would have picked up on that,

apart from you, would have been my therapist. So you kind of were the first person in the real world that would have saw how I was doing emotionally. I seemed quite overwhelmed at the little things that I had done. For me, it was almost quite a shock, because it was almost like, well, this is just day-to-day normality, bearing other people in mind and having concern for people. There were a few times I think that that happened where you picked it up

and you seemed quite overwhelmed by the little things that I had done that almost produced a massive emotion for you. One of the things we know about borderline personality disorder is that it does have an impact on relationships. How has it impacted yours? At the start of the relationship, we used to talk about mini grenades sometimes. Yeah. If Hannah was happy, there would be times that she would throw a mini grenade,

which is basically an attempt to cause chaos. Or some sort of drama. Push me away. It would get really, really when hannah would do that you know trying to sabotage the situation yeah is that hard though not to take that personally yeah it is yeah it's very hard to take not take it personally at times you know you have to literally sometimes sideline your emotion to be like well wait a minute let's just put that aside and actually see from like a neutral perspective why hannah has done that and then you can still

be angry. I think there's been plenty of times where I've been like, I am really angry at you, but we're going to try and work through this because that's what we're both needing now. So you've got your art all over the house, all over the flat, is it? Yeah, it is a bit. I write a lot on post-it notes. I did an interesting series where I had lots of post-it notes because I wasn't very good at organising my thoughts. And so I would write everything down on a post-it notes, I did an interesting series where I had lots of photos of post-it notes because I wasn't very good at organising my thoughts.

And so I would write everything down on a post-it note and stick it down. And I started photographing them and then they started growing in the house. And it almost was a bit like sort of the chaos was in my mind, was becoming very visual with all these yellow post-it notes sort of growing in the house. This one is There's No Point Crying Over Spilt Milk, which is sort of a dramatic pose of me very much crying over spilt milk. On the kitchen floor by the washing machine. On the kitchen floor by the washing machine, yes.

It's black and white. Black and white. It's a beautiful photo. Thank you. This is also a part of another piece where I'm cleaning milk off of the floor. It's a 45-minute film of me cleaning milk, but there's a hole in the bucket. So as I'm cleaning up the milk, it's making more mess than somewhere else in the room. It's just this constant cycle of the mess reappearing and you're kind of cleaning it up. You can't ever really just clean it all up and it's all gone it's always going to be there doing as much cleaning as I possibly can I guess it's

almost like will I ever be free from my borderline personality disorder if I'd met you five years ago Hannah would you have spoken to me about this probably because I've always been very open about my mental health I wouldn't I think I would have talked about it completely wrong I would have had probably very strong opinions that I would have been very wrong what does the future hold for you I'd love to become a narcissist which is that is the dream and I feel like I have a life that I never had before so I want to go out and grab everything that I couldn't do, but it's also about, you know, ghost lately, it's like a puppy that wants to run out and just, you know,

bamby legs one step at a time. Hannah, talking to our reporter Jo Morris, and organisations offering information and support with mental health. Well, their details are available now at bbc.co.uk slash actionline, and that address is on the Woman's Hour website as well. And all three of this week's interviews about mental health are available on BBC Sounds, of course, your go-to audio app. Let's talk about the events of the week then with the associate editor of the New Statesman, Helen Lewis is here. Helen, good morning to you.

Good morning. We have the podcaster, Talani Shanai, back on the programme. Good to see you, Talani. Good morning. We have the podcaster, Talani Shanai, back on the programme. Good to see you, Talani. Good morning. And the neuroscientist, Professor Sophie Scott. Sophie, good morning to you. Good morning. Now, loads to talk about this week.

We are going to start with, well, Theresa May, just about Prime Minister. And talk of tears, actually, last night, Helen. Now, on the whole, headline writers, they do like to associate women leaders with the odd tear-jerking moment. Why do we always associate them with tears? Well, because we always think that women are incredibly emotional. You know, men are passionate, whereas women are weepy. And I think it's fascinating. Of all the politicians that I can think of in the last 10 years, John Boehner used to be the speaker in America.

He used to cry all the time. I mean, he was like me watching The Lion King. He was the waterworks, but not all the time. I mean, he was like, it was like me watching The Lion King. It was the waterworks, but not all the time. But interestingly enough, there were several political journalists tweeting last night saying, denying if someone else in that meeting said she didn't cry.

And this is the interesting thing. I think they were saying, yeah, Andrea Leadsom, who's currently leader of the House of Commons, spoke about that all the time, that one of the standard briefings you get if you're a woman and you've had a difficult week is that you were having a little blub.

Now, I am 100% pro-blubbing. Nothing wrong with it. Much better to let it out and just have a little moment to yourself and then carry on, rather than, as men do more often, I think bottling it up and then having a much more spectacular meltdown later.

Headline in the Telegraph. Tory men in grey suits tell tearful May her time is up. So they're in no doubt. She was tearful. End of. Are you a weeper talani what would you say on a massive cry oh yeah i like i used to be really funny about crying at work because like you said it does deem you as weaker and like not being able to handle stuff so i used to like go

to the toilet and have a little crying and come back like stronger but i feel like it has two effects it even makes you weak or it makes you like humanizes you a little bit because she's not having a great time. So... Well, she has in the past been accused of not being empathetic. Yeah, so maybe it's kind of like, hey, feelings, maybe that could be an angle. I mean, this is clearly not the angle they're trying to go for. It's trying to make her look weaker, but then there is two sides to it.

Humanises her and also kind of makes her look like she doesn't know what's... hasn't got grips on things at the moment. Over to our neuroscientist, Sophie, on crying. I go to great lengths to avoid crying because it makes me feel dreadful. I get a headache and feel bad for about a day and a half. And in fact, I just didn't believe, I thought everyone had that reaction. But scientifically, most people feel better when they've been crying. They feel better?

Yeah, 80% of people feel better when they've been crying. I was like, no way, but apparently that's way, that's science. But have you changed your thinking about crying on that basis? Personally, no. But it's interesting exactly what Helen was saying, that it's one of those behaviours, like many human emotional responses, which actually is very modulated by culture. So if you go back to politics before the First World War,

crying in a male politician was actually a sign of emotional sensitivity. There are accounts of the prime minister's weeping at the dispatch box because you were showing how refined and civilised you were with this emotional reaction. And that seems to have ended with the First World War and a kind of more stiff upper lip approach came in such that it then became something associated with women and became associated with something like a weakness and something that men don't do and women do. And it's just not true. Men and women cry. Men and women feel better when they've been crying. And what we've we kind of I think one of the things you're getting with Theresa May is it's like saying she looks tired.

It's it's an easy jibe to make that kind of carries valence stuff about women, even if she wasn't looking tired and even if she wasn't actually crying. If she didn't look tired, they might accuse her of not working hard enough so it's hard to know she had time yeah indeed um let's go through the female runners and riders then those uh women who are well we know some are definitely going to run and we suspect others might have a go so i have the names uh mcveigh mordant truss rudd, Rudd, Leadsom. Yeah, I think that's reasonable. I mean, who knows? It seems to be half of the Tory party has decided to kind of have a crack at it. There are some really interesting currents going on there.

For example, Penny Mordaunt is running as kind of socially liberal Brexiteer, for example. And Amber Rudd has got a really big problem, which is that she's got a majority of just around 400 in her parliamentary seat in Hastings. So it's really difficult to become. I mean, it's one of the kind of great biases of political life. It is really hard to become prime minister or leader of your party from a marginal seat because you have to just put much more work into your constituency. Gordon Brown in his time had the safest seat in Britain.

And then, yeah, as you say, Andrea Ledsom, considered last time not to have been ready for prime time because she walked into, if you remember, the terrible gaffe of saying, you know, as a mother, I have more investment in the future of the country, which when you're running against someone who doesn't have children, comes across as heartless. And that really, I mean, it wasn't so much just the words, but the idea that you would say that out loud. But she's now actually got more respect from people

who I wouldn't have expected to be on team Ledson because of her work just kind of plugging away at parliamentary business. She's done a pretty unglamorous job for a while now. And of the others, what about Liz Tross? Because she did that extraordinary, that's a very useful adjective, photo shoot. Eye-opening it was. Eye-opening in the Mail on Sunday mag, I think.

Yes, You magazine. I've got a lot of thoughts about this. Just describe the image. The one I can't get out of my head, certainly. Describe that one. She was sort of squatting with her legs really far apart with her hands on her thighs in what looked like a very sharp trouser suit,

which is great. And then this sort of extraordinary amount of helmet had been put into the hair. I haven't seen root lift like that since Maggie Thatcher, which I presume was the idea. But I think it's been really interesting the kind of way that that Tory leadership race has ended up feeling so old-fashionedly gendered.

So you've got the men in their kitchens to say, not just a politician but a man who knows his way around a cake. I can, well, I was going to say souffle, surely. Oh, that's very modern of you. But yeah, so you've ended up with the kind of idea, what you need to do is humanise the men we see their wives jeremy hunt and dominic rubb posed with their wives and then which again is feels really old old-fashioned i think you have a theory that

that might be because certain other leading tory candidates for prime minister can't wheel out their partner at the moment well yes there's the idea that if i'm a family man whereas boris johnson is a multiple family man i think it's probably the way that i would express that surely your generation how much of a stuff would you give about who somebody was married to or what their kitchen looked like um none like to be totally honest i just don't think it matters at the moment and it's just a weird way to try PR yourself like here's me in my kitchen what is that saying like what is the narrative here what are you trying to get across because ultimately we just want to know who's going to be good at the job like a photo shoot of you squatting in a power suit although the use of squatting now maybe that was the angle she was going for like I draw good knees I know I'd struggle to get into that position certainly to maintain it maybe that's

what it was but yeah um we i don't think any of us care like we just want to know who can do a good job and who and at the moment i don't think any of us have a trust in anyone so what if a politician said you know what um i'm i'm actually single i'm hopeless um i've never been able to maintain a relationship for terribly long because I'm so dedicated to my work, but I am passionate about my politics and I think I can make this country better. Do you think that approach would be better?

Oh, absolutely, because we're probably all in the exact same position. We can't find love either and we've had to concentrate on our work. So it means you've just had more time to put all your passions into work. I can't imagine anybody being bothered about a relationship status. You don't't need to bring your wife along getting to like we know election time here she is like who what she meant to be doing there i think it would be radical to hear a politician say particularly female politicians say i didn't have children because i didn't want them yeah which is still a barrier be refreshing if somebody did something to say obviously other people really enjoy children they get a lot out of them but But, you know, it wasn't for me.

And I think that is something that female politicians get hit with, still the idea that they would be selfish if they wanted to pick their career, which is a huge hurdle, right? You're putting an extra barrier on top of women. We say we want them to be mothers. Actually, disproportionately women at the top of politics, not mothers, right? And that probably is to do with the fact they've been able to work like men. Sophie?

Well, I can't agree. Sorry, I can only agree with you. It's exactly, it cuts both ways. So you're seen as some sort of derelict duty individual if you are prepared to leave the family home and go off and work. And then if you've somehow, some terrible harridan who is barren and never brought forth life, that somehow that also, you know, that's not,

that wouldn't be something that could ever have been a choice or something that was actually part of how you wanted to organize your life we we don't let women win on either front let's go to the united states alabama has become the latest state to move to restrict abortions by passing a bill to outlaw the procedure in almost all cases now it's important we need to emphasize it isn't actually this isn't the law it's likely to end up in the american supreme Court, isn't it, Helen? That could take some time. Yeah, so there's a couple of states have done this, I think seven now.

And it's all basically trying to build up this front of moving this issue right up to the Supreme Court. But the thing I wanted to say about this is I think people were really shocked. I saw people being really shocked about the fact that this bill, for example, would not have exemptions for women who got pregnant as a result of rape or women who have feces with fatal foetal abnormalities, women who are never going to bring a baby home from the hospital. But that is the situation that is currently in position today in Northern Ireland. So British abortion law is governed by the Offences Against the Person Act from 1861,

a time before we had the jet plane or television, which says that it is illegal to procure an abortion or have an abortion and the abortion act from 1968 made exemptions to that which is where the two doctors will come up but that was never enacted in northern ireland so actually the thing that's really gets me about this i didn't know until i started looking into it is because it is technically an assault conviction it can come up when you apply for a visa to work abroad to work with vulnerable adults or children. And actually, Stella Creasy makes this point all the time. If you get pregnant as a result of rape... She's the Labour MP.

Labour MP. Then actually, technically, if you have an abortion in Northern Ireland, you are liable for a longer jail sentence than your rapist is. It is an incredibly unfair law that is happening in Britain today. Talani, a lot of members of your generation and younger were really horrified by what was happening in Alabama. I think Helen makes a reasonable point. Some of those people who were horrified may not even have known about the situation in Northern Ireland. So I knew about Northern Ireland just because of research and hearing stuff like that. But I don't think we realise how close to home it is. It's like this is so far removed from us. Oh, my God, America is awful. But this is happening here.

And I think when we think about abortions, it feels like, oh, well, you've put yourself in a bad position and you're irresponsible and that's why this has happened to you. And it's like, no, there's so many other reasons why women choose this option.

And like, I can't fathom the idea of like men telling women what to do with their bodies. And like, and I also can't understand the idea of why you'd want to bring children into the world that are not wanted. Surely that is a big R. Well, yes, it is definitely part of the conversation. And of course, we need to bear in mind the very passionate minority of people who feel very, very strongly that abortion is wrong.

And of course, there are many of those people in Northern Ireland who feel that absolutely abortion shouldn't happen in any circumstance. That's in Northern Ireland. I think over half the people there would feel that way. Sophie, what do you think? Well, I mean, it is horrific when you really think about how we tolerated this situation. And, of course, the other problem is you never actually stop abortions from happening. You just stop legal abortions from happening.

I think the World Health Organisation says the figure actually stays exactly the same regardless of whether you can get a legal abortion. So all you're doing is causing more death, more injury, more unhappiness. It's not a happy thing to think about and it's not a decision I think anybody would ever take lightly. But really the safest position, if you want to think about humans, is to be on the side where no one's going to be forced to have an abortion

who doesn't want to have one. But it's an aspect of choice. Jeremy Kyle's show cancelled. This is an ITV daytime... Well, it was a highlight because it brought in the ad revenue. It got over a million viewers every day, Sophie, and I gather you saw it, you claimed earlier, you saw it only when you were on the running machine at the gym.

Well, that's because I have a job. So I take my son to school, and I used to go straight to the gym after taking him to school. That was how I would do my day before going into work. And so I'd be rocking up at the gym and kind of getting on the running machine around the time the programme came on. And I'm not going to lie, I wasn't going, shield my eyes from this horror.

Please, you must change all the television channels in the gym because I'm here. So I'm seeing it at the gym, and I'm admitting that I was watching it at the gym and I'm not you know I'm admitting I was watching it and I was watching it with absolute horror and the same sort of horror you would have if there was anything kind of appalling going on like you know you see a car crash you can't help but kind of glance your attention is drawn to this raw upsetting human you know unhappiness that's being like paraded in front of you. Talani can you give some of our

listeners will simply never have seen the Jeremy Kyle show can you give us an example of the sort of fodder that would be laid out? Sure I don't know how people have gone through their whole life without seeing Jeremy Kyle show I feel like I watched it while at uni not going to lectures but yeah that's clearly a personal problem so Jeremy Kyle is for example me and you were best friends and I just happened to steal your husband off you so we will come and Jeremy Carl and we will have our trauma live for the audience to watch and we would argue and Jeremy Carl will shout at us and right in your face right in our faces and he'll be like how dare you this is my show so that's the kind of content

like Jeremy Carl comes with basically um he was taking risks i think you would say sophie he was taking the sort of risks with guests mental health that you as a professional would never be allowed to do in your neuroscientific world absolutely so psychologists clinical psychologists psychiatrists when we want to do experiments with humans we quite correctly go through massive amounts of paperwork to assess risk that data is protected that no one's information could get out into the rest of the world and that what you do with those people does not make their situation worse so for example if i'm doing a study on depression and i give someone a questionnaire about depression there are things i have to do if they say they thought about killing themselves and it means involves immediately stopping and

seeking help for them so that kind of that's and that's all being, because you're taking people's good faith to help you in your scientific endeavours, you should treat them kindly and make sure no harm can come to them, particularly as a result of you doing these things with them. And then you look at what you can do on television and it's unbelievable. But briefly, is this really the responsibility of government, Helen? There's now going to be a government inquiry into this. It's a very tough one. Is this really the responsibility of government, Helen? There's now going to be a government inquiry into this. It's a very tough one.

I think you can say that, for example, the junk science of it is something that government can get involved with. The fact that they were giving people polygraph tests, which is a level of evidence that is not accepted in any UK court, and then presuming to rule on whether or not someone had been unfaithful or not, I think is just, not exactly falls under the Advertising Standards Authority, but you know what I mean? It actually falls under basic levels of evidence. I don't think the government can get involved with things on taste grounds,

but I think they can insist on, you know, things being scientifically valid or not presented as definitive if they're not. And in 20 seconds or less, Talani, Love Island, to continue or to be abandoned? To continue because people going on there are outright, it's not about trauma. They're looking for fame and apparently love. i feel like outside of that looking after yourself is something the show should offer but i think it should be continued yeah they're definitely looking for fame and then a bit of love yeah yeah not the other way so yeah oh absolutely it is like a couple of instagram well instagram likes instagram following and things like that and then

because no one's together from anybody that was together last year. So nobody found love. I was amazed to discover that Jack and Danny have called it a day. Thank you all very much. That's how the live show ended this morning. I'm just looking at some of the emails we've had today after our interview with Hannah about emotionally unstable personality disorder.

Talani, I'm going to throw this one to you because there is no doubt your generation have have you have been really behind the um the new awareness of mental health issues i think it's fair to say that we have talked i can't there just weren't conversations like this when i was your age and certainly not when i was a teenager what amongst your peer group do people acknowledge that we're now allowed to be more open than ever before about mental health absolutely we are so much more vocal about it now like um because it's to be honest when i feel like when i was a teenager when i was in school i don't think i'd ever heard of the term mental health in my entire life it did take it into adulthood and i have a conversations and

people would be like i remember once i was talking to someone and she was like oh i want to take a pill and i was like what if you got a headache and she was like, oh, I want to take a pill. And I was like, well, have you got a headache? And she was like, no, I'm antidepressant. And my reaction was like, and I was like, wait, no. Because she had a headache and she took Palsy. I wouldn't have that reaction. So it was kind of like, I feel like we're still unlearning, especially when it comes to culture and where you're from and what your background is.

But you go on Twitter and people my age are talking openly about their anxiety, talking openly about their depression. So I do think we are a lot more open about it but we're more open about certain type of mental health there are certain types that maybe seem less glamorous or more like extreme that people are not talking about and people steer far from because that feels a bit too oh that's a bit far left but when it's I know it sounds really awful to say this but when it's things like anxiety and depression which seem to be core mental health because it's like it feels like you can easily explain it compared to something that's different and you can get over it right yeah you can say i was a bit anxious and now i'm

okay whereas there are more serious conditions that you live with forever i think your bit is interesting to say what we don't often talk about actually is mental health right well we talk a lot about mental ill health and i don't think it's what's interesting is in the same way we've had this much better conversation in the last couple of years about physical health and the fact that you have to do things to kind of keep your body in a good state. Actually, I love, you know, I'm always wary of talking about this because it seems like the kind of thing that politicians do when they won't give any money to mental health services. But things like just exercising, getting out, seeing nature, all of those kind of things,

not working 90 hours a week or whatever it is, All those things that you can do in order to preserve your mental health, I think are really important. And possibly cheaper than pouring loads of taxpayers' money into improving mental health services. Well, that's why I'm always reluctant to kind of, when politicians kind of come out and say, let's all have a conversation about this, you think, okay, a conversation, yes, and then funding next. we do we ever get to that second step i think it stops that conversation consistently

and i think one of the i mean exactly on this point um if you look at uh say loneliness which is one of the single biggest health risks that you can go through um you're much more like you know but it's much worse for your health than say i think drinking or even obesity and we have been very very bad at engaging with what we could do about that because it would mean doing big things and it would mean spending money but actually putting people we've we've evolved to have conversations to have interactions with people we learn to talk in interactions we're raised in interactions you take people out of that you increase the risk of dementia you increase all sorts of other... And if you could actually even just shave off the number of years

before somebody started to have symptom-saved dementia, the cost savings would be huge. But we are not engaging with what we could do to actually make any kind of move forward on that. It's all getting put off on other local services or ideas that we should be... We will allow people to live in isolation without taking the big steps it would actually mean we could take to change that that's what i

mean is that idea of what is a good life not just when you like you're working in your highest maximum productivity but what is an enjoyable good rounded for life and i agree with you totally i think there's a huge hidden mental health crisis of older people who maybe get to see someone once a week someone comes in well actually this time next week i'm going to be recording an interview um with a chelsea pensioner which you'll find out about when it actually comes out on woman's hour but i spent the more a couple of hours there this week uh at the royal hospital chelsea that's what the official title is and one of the the men who was living there actually i said why do you like living here and he said well and actually it really took my breath away because he just said quite simply and very honestly,

I'm not cold, I'm not hungry and I'm not lonely. And that was it. And I thought, wow, you're absolutely right. I could tell that he was as happy as the proverbial pig in because all of those things he had there. And it is worth taking that. I mean, even like in our own lives, thinking about this seriously, my stepmother-in-law has moved into,

you know, one of these kinds of very active retirement homes. Yeah. Loves it. Doing stuff all day round, you know, lots of activities, lots of people to talk to. And I talk to, you know, other people,

other relatives about this sort of thing. They're like, no, no, I'm not going. That's full of old people. Do you know what? We're all on this journey. And that's if you're lucky yeah exactly exactly i should be so lucky so yeah uh let me just read some of the emails we've had about this actually emma says i just wanted to say a big thank you um for hannah's experience i've just been diagnosed with eupd and i've been feeling very frustrated by the lack of understanding of it. I was in crisis early this week and called a crisis

line to be told that they don't do it. This is an attitude that I've come across time and time again. Services available for those with anxiety and depression are closed off for people with EUPD. It feels like doors are being shut in front of you and that you are so damaged you are beyond help. I've been waiting two and a half years for specialist treatment and I think I'll be waiting a lot longer. It is rare to hear stories of recovery. Hearing Hannah's story has given me hope. Well I'm delighted about that Emma and I hope you continue to have a little bit of hope if that makes any sense. From Mark, I was really touched by Hannah's brave and candid explanation of the confusingly titled borderline personality disorder or BPD, now known sometimes as I've explained as EUPD.

The word borderline refers to the fact that it sits between neurosis and psychosis from a diagnostic perspective. But there's nothing borderline in its manifestation. You permanently harbour suicidal thoughts, sometimes you act upon them. Thoughtless comments which most would dismiss can flaw you and in some cases stay with you for years. It's like you have no protective layer which makes life and interpersonal relationships impossible. My own treatment has been appalling and I've given up any hope of getting help. Thank you. Well, Mark, thank you. Marion, outstanding interview with the super articulate and all-round lovely Hannah.

It's brilliant that you're focusing on mental illnesses which are rarely discussed. I just wanted to let Hannah and others, including our long-suffering family, friends and therapists, and you, Jane, know that after 15 punishing years with the illness, and thanks to tenacious therapy from the NHS, I am now living the dream. I've moved house, I've taken early retirement, I've got three dogs,

and to my astonishment, after 15 years in the dating wilderness, a wondrous life partner. Well, actually, that's brilliant. That's from Marion, and Marion is indeed having a fantastic time. So that's lovely to hear. Thank you very much, Marion. We're going to end with something a bit more positive. Well, I think, is it positive, the end of Game of Thrones?

This is Helen's territory. It's positive that it's ending. Yeah, the fact that it's ending. I'm with you, yeah. Fire away, Helen. I sort of assumed that everyone was watching Game of Thrones. No, they that it's ending. Yeah, the father is ending. I'm with you. Fire away, Helen. I sort of assumed that everyone was watching Game of Thrones. No, they're not, love. Well, yeah, no, it turns out what lonely frontiers I'm ploughing

all by myself. So I'm just going to explain the plot of Game of Thrones. Oh, no, no. I'm just going to settle down with a cup of tea, everyone. I'll be here for about three to four hours. But I've been led to understand there might be some kind of feminist moment at the end. Well, I think the thing right so this is my theory about feminist art right is that women doing stuff that men have done is not

necessarily feminist art what is truly feminist art is treating women's lives as as interesting and as important as men's that's all that i ask why i don't mind if you've you know if you've got female supervillains as long as they are as interesting and flawed and and developed as men and actually that game of of Thrones has done that. It has got a series of quite interesting female characters. So not only Daenerys Targaryen, who we saw in the last episode, spoilers for people, complete this journey she's had from being somebody

who once freed slaves to now she is a tyrant and now perpetrating war crimes with her dragon. With her dragon? With her dragon. She basically did a version of a kind of Dresden bombing, kind of just carpet bombing a city, basically, and not letting any of the civilians out. So that's a really kind of contentious arc that she's been on.

And you've got Arya Stark, who's described repeatedly in the books as being someone who's not very pretty or feminine. She goes off, she learns how to become an assassin, she comes back. She's the real hero because she killed the Night King Sorry Is this still series one? I've still strayed into Orc territory No, no, this was this series

but my pick for winner of Game of Thrones is who I'm sitting there The New Statesman nearly endorsed this person this week if only we'd had room Sansa Stark, current Lady of Winterfell I think she's the only one who seems to treat her subjects as actual people rather than pawns in this Game of Thrones. Thank you so much, Helen.

What a wonderful, neat end, although I don't think you've got Cutalani on side. Do you know what? I've never listened to someone talk and not understand a word of anything you were saying. But it's nice to hear. I love your passion, I love how much you enjoy it, but I didn't understand any of it.

The thing is, I don't actually per se enjoy it, is that the last series has been objectively bobbins. It's just gone into complete sort of... Up its own. Yes, definitely. But there's a lot in it to like in the early series and it's a kind of sunk cost thing where I, because I've spent, I've invested whatever it is,

100 hours in watching it, I'm going to stay to the end. Yeah, you're committed. Let's just ask, do you have a go-to series at the moment, Sophie? I've just got to the end of The Americans and that was a fantastic journey. Again, how many episodes in that? I think there were only six series

but it's about these undercover spies from the USSR in the end of the 70s, early 80s and of course we know what's coming in terms of that. They're not going to be a kind of glorious Soviet revolution. And it's fantastically good.

And it's also the only program I've ever seen that's expressly compares being as parents to being a spy. And it's really kind of like who knows what and kind of managing time information people and places and also where they clash so there's one point where there's an assassin coming and they're living as americans you know the children don't know they're spies they have jobs travel agents and uh they go i'll tell you what we're all going to go on holiday let's jump in the car the kids go we have to go to school no let's go to disneyland now and it's it's very it's one of the tensest things i've ever seen and it was also full of sexy spies with amazing wigs and the two main leads were fantastic so that was my, I'm sort of slightly

grieving that I got to the end of that. Yeah, well I'm sorry to hear about your sad loss and Talani. Fleabag, I yeah, I'm still thinking about it. I still haven't finished Fleabag. Haven't finished it yet? Go and finish it. Go and see it. It's not that, I think it's like seven episodes

I think it's only six. Yeah, it's not that i think it's like seven episodes and it's not yeah it's not and like she's amazing that doing that here i've given you this i'm done with it now i'm not going to carry this on for too long like game of thrones yeah well i wish i could stay but i can't because um and it was brought home to me in the earlier conversation about kitchens my oven is currently broken it was something i didn't share one of your four ovens no i have one oven it's not work i've got one oven it's not flaming well working so that's why i've got to go was something I didn't share. One of your four ovens is currently broken. No, I have one oven. It's not working. I've got one oven. It's not flaming well working.

So that's why I've got to go home. So I didn't bore the radio audience with that, but I have bored the podcast audience with it. But if you had four, you would have been all right. This is true. Less of all of us. Yeah. We've had a long week of chickpea casseroles on the hob, and I think it's time for a change.

Thank you all very much. I really enjoyed having you here. Sophie Scott, Talani Shonai and Helen Lewis and Woman's Hour is back Monday morning two minutes past ten and there's the highlights of this week of course on Weekend Woman's Hour tomorrow afternoon at four. Every week on Desert Island Discs

I have the delicious task of dispatching my guests to a mythical desert island with their choice of eight tracks, a book and a luxury. This week it's documentary filmmaker Louis Theroux. His music is fabulous, but if you listen, you'll also find out how he tried to impress Michael Moore, why a series of Enid Blyton's books changed his life

and how he de-stresses in the kitchen. There's even a bit of rapping thrown in for good measure. Don't miss it. Just subscribe to Desert Island Discs on BBC Sounds. 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.