Woman's Hour - Singer-songwriter Sarah Jane Morris, Daddy issues, GLP-1's impact

Episode Date: September 15, 2026

British singer-songwriter Sarah Jane Morris rose to international fame with The Communards iconic song Don’t Leave Me This Way in 1986. Over the last four decades she has built an eclectic solo career all over Europe and earlier this year released an album Sisterhood 2. It is the second in a series of albums in which songs are written in the style of other famous female singers to pay tribute to their influence on Morris. Tracy Chapman and Dolly Parton are just two of the artists who appear on the album. Morris and her band join Nuala McGovern in the studio to perform a song from the album - Longing To Be Free, a song dedicated to American folk singer songwriter, Peggy Seeger.We hear the final part of Daddy Issues, our series that has been exploring paternal absence in different forms.What happens when you lose your dad as a young woman on the cusp of adulthood? Woman’s Hour listener Donya contacted us on Instagram to tell us about her beloved dad Hussain, who died of cancer when Donya was only 18 and had just finished her A levels. She met reporter Jo Morris to discuss their close relationship - performing in amateur dramatics, cycling and hiking together, his absence, their Iranian culture, and how she’s navigating life without him.One in ten people in the UK are thought to be currently using GLP-1 weight-loss medication, and their rise is changing the way many people eat, shop, dress and even talk. We speak to two women exploring the impact the GLP-1 phenomenon is having on body image and the way we think about weight and diet culture. Journalist Rose Stokes hosts new podcast A Matter of Fat, while Dr Kat Schneider is a researcher on body image, weight bias and weight stigma, based at the Centre for Appearance Research at University of the West of England in Bristol. Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Kirsty Starkey

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Your sales order says one thing. Your inventory says another. Your spreadsheet says, good luck. Odo brings your business together on a single platform, from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing. Visit Odo.com to book a demo. It's ODbh.com. With a subscription to the BBC website and app, you can now get early access to your favorite BBC podcast. Listen to shows like, you're dead to me, in our time, good bad billionaire, and more. Plus, there's all the other great benefits you get with a BBC subscription,

from live streaming the BBC News Channel and acclaimed documentaries to in-depth analysis and features. Visit BBC.com forward slash subscribe to find out more. Hello, I'm Neula McGovern, and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Just to say that for rights reasons, the music in the original radio broadcast, has been removed for this podcast. Hello and welcome to the programme. Well, this morning, you may have seen some of the backlash to an ad featuring the Hollywood actor Sidney Sweeney. In that ad, Sweeney adopts a variety of poses, including sitting naked on top of a basketball hoop,

using footballs to push up her cleavage and wearing just shoulder pads with a football placed over her crotch area. Many prominent female athletes, including the European champion Amy Hunt, have accused her of sexualising women in sport. But Michael Deakin, writing in The Telegraph, said, how come the My Body, My Choice mantra doesn't apply if the woman looks like this? I'd like to know today how you are interpreting the ad and the backlash.

What is your reaction to it? To get in touch, you can text the program. The number is 84844 on social media. We're at BBC Woman's Hour. Or you can email us through our website for a WhatsApp message or avoid a voice. note, that number is 0-3700-100-144. And also on most smart speakers, you can say, Alexa, ask BBC Sounds to send a comment. I'm looking forward to yours coming in. And staying with bodies. It seems not a day goes by that the weight loss drugs known as GLP-1s are in the news. Today I read the effect they're having on the hospitality industry, for example, as eating and drinking habits change for those using them. Well, today we want to take a little time to discuss what these drugs going mainstream means for women's body image

and also the effect on how we view weight and weight loss culturally. That is coming up. Also, we'll have the final episode of our series Daddy Issues. It's about absent fathers. It's been such a good listen to the women who have contributed. Plus, some live music in our studio this morning. I am surrounded by instruments as I speak to you. The communards, Sarah Jane Morris is here.

She's going to perform and tell us about her labour of love, the sisterhood project, where she pays tribute to female artists that have inspired her. So I'm looking forward to speaking to her as well. But let me begin with that new advert featuring the American actress Sydney Sweeney and the backlash from some female athletes for sexualising women's sport as they seen it. The advert, it is for the sports betting company, Noviour. That is a company in which Sweeney has a financial stake, shows her in revealing poses with a series of sporting props. Now, the British sprinter, Amy Hunt, was among those to criticise it.

She said this on Sunday after competing in the 200 metre final at the ultimate championship in Budapest. No, that was incredible to be part of especially incredible race. Sydney, Sweeney, this is what we have in a sport look like. 214 muscles, hard work, sweat, blood, tears. this is a beautiful evening. Amy Hunt there. Well, Gracie Kramer, a former elite US gymnast, also posted a training montage saying this is what women in sport looked like. She said years of being objectified as a gymnast

made her want to stand up for female athletes who do not want to be sexualised and indeed there were so many other athletes that followed suit on social media. Well, on Sunday, Sweeney posted images of sports women themselves who had previously appeared in revealing poses, including Eserina Williams, Rhonda Roosie, Sue Bird, Megan Rapino, and Caroline was a naiki. So does her advert undermine the progress women's sport has made in moving away, as the athlete said, from the sexualisation of female athletes? Or is it that women should be free to present themselves in whatever way they choose? Let us bring in Harriet Walker, the fashion editor of the Times.

She's been writing about this. Harriet, good to have you with this. Your article came up as I was beginning. to delve into the various opinions around Sydney Sweeney and this ad. Give me a little of your take when you saw them. Oh, well, I just felt incredibly tired, and I'm not even a professional athlete. I think for those women who have worked so hard to be taken seriously

for what their bodies can do rather than how they look, I can see why the whole thing is completely infuriating. That said, I think we also have to say what we're supposed to say, which is, gosh, that's such an empowering choice for Sydney, Sweeney. to have made for herself and her body. But I think most of the women that I spoke to, friends who I messaged, because everyone saw this,

everyone was sending messages, they just thought, oh, really? It feels so regressive to have a naked woman selling something, especially a betting app. It just feels incredibly tawdry to me. I mean, I understand,

and many will say, that it feels old-fashioned to them. I wondered, is it because we're being confronted with something that perhaps we don't see so much in newspapers or in the ways that it has been put forward, for example, over the past couple of days, but that those images are in men's predominantly perhaps pockets, perhaps coming up on their algorithm in a way that it's not coming up on mine, for example.

Sure. I mean, yeah, the internet is full of unfettered access to porn and I think that's why there is a space of teenage boys choking their girlfriends instead of kissing them. I feel like when women's bodies are this accessible, the rest of us are taken less seriously as well. And I think that using that level of nudity and not just nudity, it's really provocative sexual poses. It's sort of turning the clock back to when you had naked women advertising cigarettes

or, you know, in bikinis on game shows, it's using women's bodies as a means to grab and maintain male attention. And it's the bodies that are doing the talking, not the women. I find that incredibly depressing. And of course when it comes to choking, we could do a whole item on that. And we have many times on Women's Hour and various people talking about how that has infiltrated the culture.

But to this specifically, Sweeney did, for example, post images. I mentioned some of the athletes there that were naked or somewhat naked in revealing poses. Why is this different? Well, I guess just the fact that someone's done it before doesn't make it okay again, perhaps. I think some of those magazine covers were quite old. I think culture and conversation around women's bodies, especially women in sport, has moved on so much. I think that's why this feels quite so jarring. I think there are a lot of adverts and a lot of magazines around in the early noughties that looked like this.

I remember boys at school bringing them in and waving them in our faces. It didn't feel great then. It feels even less right now because it feels like we've moved away from it. But then, like I say, just the sheer number of naked female bodies out there on the internet. And this one being presented on Instagram with no kind of age filter, no sense that it's anything other than completely normal for a woman to have no clothes on. There are a couple of things with this, though. Number one, as I mentioned at the top, she has a financial stake in this. She is profiting from it.

I mentioned Michael Deacon, for example, talking about why not my body? my choice and also to make money off at sex cells, etc. And if she wants to go that route, why is she receiving such backlash? Well, it has been interesting actually how many men on the right have stepped forward with the my body and my choice argument that they haven't particularly wanted to listen to

until the clothes came off. You're right, I suppose it could be viewed as sort of the act of a liberated woman making money for herself on her own terms. I'm really impressed with Sydney Sweeney. She's talked before about how she doesn't come from money. She's not a nepo baby in Hollywood. Her career span is potentially finite.

I can see why she would make these financial choices. I also feel like she's been, let me say also, it's not her job to be a role model for the rest of us, but she has been a really impressive person on the red carpet, her fashion choices, but previously, although controversial, have shown a female body in all its glory in clothes. And I just think how much more sexy is that than rolling around naked with a load of golf balls and tennis balls. She's made herself a cliché and I don't

think she was before. I think she was pretty interesting. I mean, she has faced controversy over the denim jeans advert featuring the slogan, Sidney Sweeney has great genes. Some critics argued carried echoes of eugenics. And she, of course, will be well aware that she can cause a firestorm wherever she goes if she does anything controversial. But coming to sports, women, for example, we know that she played Christy Martin, who I was just talking about last week after we were talking about Katie Taylor and her win and her farewell retirement boxing bout. But Christy Martin was a pioneering American professional boxer.

So it's the biopic. Sydney played Christy. So for something like that, she obviously would have been steeped very much in the issues that women in sports face. I'm just wondering how you see that dichotomy. Well, everything's a dichotomy, isn't it? A choice for an individual can be incredibly empowering, but for the collective, it can do real harm.

I think there's quite a lot of things to do around women's bodies, aging, that sort of thing, where an individual can make a choice that makes them feel great and everybody else feel pretty terrible about what's in front of the mirror for them. I'm not saying that taking your clues off, makes you a worse actress. I'm not condemning Sidney

for making the most of her time in the sun. I just wonder how this reverberates. Well, you know, I'm struck by something you say there, Harriet, because it makes other people feel bad. And I wonder if Sydney Sweeney was not the conventionally attractive woman that she is, a white, blonde, young woman, with, I suppose, what would have been considered,

you know, standard, I suppose, traditional standard beauty measurements. Would there have been the backlash against her? Let's just say she were a plus-sized woman or she was a woman of colour. I don't think she would have quite as many men on her side, no. I think there have been campaigns like that that have used differently sized or shaped or types of model. And I think they can be really successful.

I think the issue with the Sydney-Sweeney one is that it is just provocatively sexual. It's not really celebrating a woman's body in any form. It's celebrating how men can look at it and what they might want to do with it. The whole joke about the gambling app is that, you know, are you distracted enough to actually make your bet on any form of sport by witnessing this naked body frolicing with all this paraphernalia. I just don't think there's anything in that to celebrate.

I wondered, is it her body or is it her face that is causing the Ferreore? But I'll leave that to my listeners to answer. 8484.4. Some of you're getting in touch. Variety reports today that she's lost more than 200,000 Instagram followers since this advert came out. what do you make of that Harriet?

Oh, I think she'll bounce back. You know, I think she knows what she's doing publicity-wise. I think she's a very cany and savvy businesswoman. I think people will come flocking back the next time she wears something incredible. Really interesting. Harriet Walker's piece.

Also, you can take a look on Sydney Sweeney. Really interesting. She's the fashion editor at the Times. Thanks for joining us this morning. Sydney Sweeney has the right to pose naked, says one of our listeners. but it's not her prerogative to represent sports women. Another, remember the generation game,

the top prize of a car, complete with the glamorous assistant draped over it, fully clothed, I might add. I thought we'd progress beyond using women as mere objects. These ads are regressive. 84844, if you would like to get in touch. Right, bodies, as I mentioned, we're talking about them this morning.

Let's talk about the rise of GLP ones. And the impact the weight loss medication is having on our culture and our conversation. Figures earlier this year estimated 4.9 million adults in the UK had recently used a drug to support weight loss or were interested in using one in the near future.

So that's nearly one in 10. More recent studies put that figure even higher. Drugs like Manjaro and Wigovi work by mimicking a natural hormone, GLP1, which regulates hunger and can reduce our appetite. They also happen to be changing the way we eat, shop and even talk.

Hands up if you had ever heard of a Zempic face a few years ago. Well, this morning we're talking to two women that are exploring the impact GLP-1s are having on women's body image and the way we think about weight loss and diet culture as GLP-1s become a mainstream cultural and economic force. We have the journalist Rose Stokes, who has launched a new podcast on the topic, A Matter of Fat, which she is co-hosting with the leading obesity scientist at Dr. Giles Yo. Also with us in studio is Dr. Kat Schneider, a body image and weight stigma researcher based at the Centre for Appearance Research at the University of the West of England. How interesting.

Welcome to both of you. Thank you for having. Great to have both of you with us. I feel, you know, every day offers a new headline or a think piece about GLP ones. What do you want to add to the conversation that you feel is missing, that it's a thing. actually warrants a podcast. Well, I think I'm actually unfortunately responsible for a lot of those headlines this week, so I'm sorry in advance for that. But for me, I think the moment that I wanted to dig into as a journalist and a person who's lived on and off in an obese body for about 30 years

is this sort of moment of confusion. I think there was a lot of, you know, as we all know, it was just a few years ago we had like the full force. of everyone's marketing team worldwide, talking about loving yourself, loving your body, body acceptance, all of that stuff. Then we had the arrival of GLP1 medication or agonist medication on the mass market.

The tide turned very quickly. Nobody really knew what to make of it, and I think we're still grappling with that. But the thing that I am trying to tap into is what I call the WTF moment around, weight in bodies where almost everyone I know has no idea what they think anymore because as I say there's just so many different conflicting ideas like can you love yourself and also got on a gLP one can you like want to lose weight and also believe that fat bodies should be accepted

and respected like these sorts of like conflicts that go back and forth like for me another major reason why I wanted to start this podcast and with giles because um I wanted it to be you science forward, was that I was a bit sick of hearing and listening to people talk about these issues who had never struggled with the weight. Because for me, as someone who's been in and out of like different clothes sizes, different shapes, different, you know, for my whole life and all of the emotional, you know, experience of that, it felt to me like I was seeing a lot of thin people sit around and talk about fat people. I know you had the art. I know you had the article in the gargian and people

want to read it that went viral last year where you described the shrinking girl summer and you know we were talking about dichotomy just a moment ago with Harriet but I'm thinking about the you were a poster girl in a lot of ways for body positivity

you are on GLP ones at the moment I know you did try them before it didn't work out but how does that feel I mean do you feel like it's succumbing to something or more empowered. I feel really empowered about it, but that's because, you know, I've been asked quite a lot recently about whether you can love your body and also be wanting to change it. And I think in no

other context, do we expect people that we love not to change? And that should be the same with ourselves. Like, I don't say, you know, when I fall in love with someone, like, but you must stay the same for the next 30 years. Do you know what I mean? Like, that's not the deal that we make with people and it's not the deal that I've made with myself. Like, I was at the heaviest I've been. I was very uncomfortable, which is the key point. And I tried as much as I could to lose weight that was making my body hurt and was making me feel very uncomfortable. I tried it without JLP ones for 10 months and it was soul-destroying, to be honest.

I made an informed medical decision based on what I know, which is that my body has a predisposition to gaining weight and holding on to weight. and it has been the only thing that has moved the needle for me. But I also don't think that this drug is for everyone. I don't think everyone should take it. For me, it was a means to an end that was developed. Let's be honest, for bodies like mine, and for me, it really has made a huge difference.

It was it originally for diabetes, Cat, and now has gone more mainstream when it comes to weight loss. I think when you look at those numbers that, that are going up exponentially really of people trying to get it either on the NHS or privately, whatever it may be. You've been researching cat, weight stigma and body image for years. I mean, what is the standard that you think we should know

about the impact that the rise of GLP1s has had on our society? That's a big question. So the research on GLP1s and body image and weight stigma is still very new. We have more research sort of on the physical. side effects and on what they do with regards to weight loss and things like that. But we know, I think what's missing from the conversation for me, and I'm sitting here wearing my all bodies are good bodies, T-shirt, I think there's two key things that are missing from the conversation a little bit. So the first kind of going very back to basics is we have a profound misunderstanding

in society of the relationship between weight and health. We all assume, or many of us assume, and again because it comes from public health message and also something is not so rigorous science showing a relationship between higher weight and poorer health. When in reality, that relationship is not as clear cut as many people would like to believe and actually there's nothing inherently unhealthy about living in a larger body.

There's other mitigating factors which I could probably spend this whole hour speaking about. So I think it kind of goes back to that perception of wanting to be on a GLP1 for the sake of health when in reality I think we're conflict health and appearance a lot of the time. So there are ways to be healthy without actually losing weight

or changing your body in any way. And I think the other piece that's missing from the conversation is the people in larger bodies, myself included, do face stigma in society, disadvantage, you know, everything from appearance teasing and bullying, but also actual structural barriers to existing, such as not fitting into airplane seats or seatbelts or, you know, being welcome at a gym.

spaces or being able to find clothes that fit. So real tangible disadvantages to living in a larger body, which is also why I can completely understand why an individual would choose to go on a GLP1 medication because we would want to do anything we can to avoid those stigmatizing experiences. I mean, you know, Rose mentioned the article she wrote about the incredible shrinking summer.

And, you know, we will hear that from people. Perhaps we know somebody who has been on them or we've read stories about people who have lost a lot of weight on them. But what sort of an impact do you think that has, Kat, in society when you had a range of people that had weight, perhaps more than they wanted or were overweight or had a high BMI, and then when you have a significant portion of those people

being on GLP ones and changing the balance. Yeah, I think... And visibility, perhaps. Absolutely, absolutely. think they're so widespread now, as you've mentioned. A lot of people are on them. And we are seeing real, you know, in real time, we're seeing people shrink before our eyes. Again, it's very, it's very nuanced. So what we are seeing is mostly the positive stories. We do know that, you know, the drugs don't work the same for everybody. We also know, we also don't actually know much about

how well they work in the long term. But at the moment, you know, we are seeing a lot of people shrinking, you know, quite quickly. It is going to increase pressure. for people to lose weight, to come closer to that appearance ideal that we have in society. We talk a lot about the party positivity movement and how suddenly it's even less acceptable to be fat because now there's, you know, for a long time, we've accepted that diets don't really work and losing weight is hard, but now we have this miracle, quote unquote, miracle solution. So it's becoming even less acceptable to stay fat. So there's pressure to take them.

I do have a message that came in. people forget it's not just about body shape and fat. It is about health as well, says this listener. Since being on GLP ones, which they are, I have reversed my diabetes and come off some of my BP blood pressure medication. So I know there's so many variables on this. I think it is really important to mention as well when you say this, because I have felt that it was almost like when the drugs arrived

to that suddenly people were like, well, are you going to take them? Like they just felt like there was like a social pressure. and for me I think a lot of people forget that like 5% of people don't respond to these drugs and 15% of people these are Giles's stats that I'm quoting have such bad side effects that they can't continue on them so it's not a miracle for everyone and I think also we have to think about there's like direct and indirect consequences of the way that they are being marketed at the moment which I think is a big part of the problem specifically for the female population I don't know anyone who's not sick of being, you know, bombarded by these adverts, whether they're thin, whether they're fat, whether they're, you know, happy in their weight.

And I think there's this sort of nudging going on. And I think we also need to remember that it is actually illegal to market prescription-only medication in the UK. And so the fact that we are still getting so many ads all the time, like you start to think, well, what is your... own thought when you're being nudged that many times all the time by either people in your family, people around you, it's on the news, sorry about that because it's me. But you know what I mean?

How do you separate that? And you use the word nudge, I wonder, is shove. Yeah, a better word. Yeah. At times. And I know exactly we're talking about algorithms earlier as well, but it is interesting quite what we are fed. No pun intended.

But I've a couple more messages coming in. Here's one, GLP ones. I'm really worried about people not eating enough for brain function and emotional stability and maintaining muscle strength, of course, getting to some of the specifics of GLP ones. One thing I will say is I, and it's not for everyone. And I work with a personal trainer and I go on a body scanner once a month. And I have managed to lose weight. I'm not getting into how much and I don't want to talk to people.

My goal is not to be thin. My goal is to lose some excess weight that's causing me some trouble. But I have managed to lose all of the weight without losing muscle mass. It is possible as long as you're doing the right things. I think a big problem at the moment is that we have so many people out there that are just doing it blind. There's also, you know, there is a real nutrition like problem and nutrient gaps where people are just letting, and this is what I did first time round, just letting my appetite guide me when actually this time round I think what has made the massive difference is setting alarms on my phone, making sure that I'm eating things. like making sure that I hit protein, fibre, all of that stuff. Just before I let you go, Kat,

do you think we're just going to see the rise and rise of GLP ones? Yes. In the short term, yes, absolutely. We are seeing a rise already, and it's estimated to continue rising until 2030. I think JPMorgan predicted like a huge uptake, yeah. Well, we'll continue talking about it. Very interesting hospitality, as I saw today.

The industry, the way people eat and eat. drink has gone down. The fashion retailer M&S and John Lewis are stocking smaller amounts of the largest sizes, food and beauty products also changing. So as we begin to see it, lots of messages coming in as well. I will read them. Thanks so much. Thank you. Both of my guests, Rose Stokes, Dr. Katchanider. Episode one of Rose's new podcast, a matter of fat, is out today. I've listened to it. Really interesting. You can get it wherever you get your podcasts. And of course, if you want help or support and any of the issues we've been speaking to, the BBC's Action Line is the place to go.

Growing businesses deal with the same problem, too many tools, too much back and forth, and not enough time. Odu helps bring it all together. It's an all-in-one business management platform fully integrated from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, so your team can spend less time chasing information

and focus on growth. Whether you're in retail, manufacturing, or service, Odu gives you one place to manage your business. Visit Odu.com to book a demo. It's ODb-O.com. With a subscription to the BBC website and app, you can now get early access to your favorite BBC podcasts. Listen to shows like, You're Dead to Me, In Our Time,

good, bad billionaire, and more. Plus, there's all the other great benefits you get with a BBC subscription, from live streaming the BBC News Channel and acclaimed documentaries to in-depth analysis and features. Visit BBC.com forward slash subscribe to find out more. Now, for our final feature of Daddy Issues, our series that has been exploring the impact of paternal absence on our adult lives. Today we explore what happens when you lose your dad as a young woman on the cusp of adulthood.

Donya's beloved dad Hussein died of cancer when she was only 18 and had just finished her A-levels. She wrote, I'm still in the shadow of having lost my dad. Now 26, she wanted to talk about how she's navigated the past eight years without him. She grew up in a small town in Sussex. Our reporter Joe Morris met Donya at her flat in London. Donya and her dad, they were very close. They performed in many amateur dramatic shows together. They both loved opera and he loved to hear Donya sing.

This was like a week. Also after my dad passed away at our final school concert. my teacher, lifeline at school. I was so bad at singing at that point because my throat, I'd cried so much that my throat was absolutely messed up. I think I thought the worst thing that I thought could be the worst case scenario has happened

and now here comes the avalanche of it. So bad. Yeah, so I think the only thing I could do was to try and like be numb, be numb to it. I just thought my dad is so healthy, he's so fit, does so much stuff, doesn't smoke, doesn't drink, he's going to be here till he's 100, you know? Like it was a constant for me that my dad was going to be alive and as well as my mum. I was getting the melodies wrong, the rhythms wrong because I was just so like, I remember feeling so nervous and so like, am I doing the wrong thing? And also the first time in my life, my dad wasn't in the front row of my performance.

Everyone said, you don't have to do it, you don't have to do it. And I said, no, my dad would want me to do it, so I'm going to do it. I lost my dad when I just turned 18. So at the precipice of independence, of becoming an adult. And so over the years, my dad's absence has meant different things to me. As an 18-year-old, when I lost him, it meant losing someone who was home every day after work. It was someone who would drive me to school or would. take me home and it was the routine of life with this person that you've been raised by essentially.

And then when I moved to uni, the absence felt like, I don't know what I'm doing with my life, Dad. I don't know how to find my first flat. I don't know how to negotiate all of these things that I had to learn on my own or figure out with my mom. And the absence sometimes felt really sad and really helpless. And then other times the absence felt quite angry. I hate that this has happened to me. I hate that I have to deal with this. Have you got any photos of your dad? Yeah, I've got so many. Yeah, all on my phone, all around my mother's house, there's family photos everywhere. Tell me about your dad, what was his name? So my dad's name was Hossein, but to his friends in the UK, he was Hans. I don't know. There was this weird thing. He wanted to anglicise his name. He

wanted to kind of fit in with everyone and be loved by everyone. So he shortened his name to Hans. Yeah, my dad loved going hiking. This is in Iran. So this is on a mountain called Dadakir. Can you remember that day? I do remember that day. I think I was, this was in 2017. And as any teenager at that age, they kind of are like, oh, Dad, I don't want to do this. Mom, I don't want to do this. And I remember my dad asked me every day, Donya, are you coming hiking with me? Can we go hiking? And this one time my mom was like, Donya, come on now. Let's go hiking. So I, went with him and I think it was the only time I went with him that trip and it was the best day ever we went up the mountain we ate food at these little cafes yeah we were so close he was like

the adventure he had the best life advice as I got older we would go watch shows together we'd watch little operas together um he wanted to do everything I'd do as well which was really funny so he got involved in your shows he got involved in all my shows and we'd be done dancing and singing. He'd sometimes play my stage dad. So it was like being kids. Like it was like my dad was like a big kid. It was weird. I would speak the Farsi and my mom at home, but I would only ever speak in English to my dad. And I don't know why, but that kind of made our relationship kind of special in a way too. Like I related to my dad in another way. How much did you know about your dad's illness? I didn't know a lot. I just knew that he was ill again and they were doing everything they

can but I didn't know that this is final so when it happened I had no idea we never spoke about it properly and I think I was just in denial like when I look back on it now I'm like it was it was obvious before I had my final a level exam I think my dad wasn't feeling very well that morning and because he was so strong and wanted me to do well and be successful he said send don't on you to school early and and you know don't let her come in and see me in the morning I feel that my dad just really wanted to protect us from what he was going through. When you look back on your life growing up with your dad, Donya, what's your overriding feeling? He brought so much joy to it. He brought so much happiness to it. He made everything so special.

And I remember when we would go to Spain, you know, we would have dinner very late at home. My mum would cook. And then me and my dad would go cycling along the promenade. And welcome to the live stream footage of Donia cycling with her dad. And I remember the first week after my dad passed away, me and my mom said, this is too much, we can't handle this grief, let's just pretend he's on holiday. I couldn't believe it, you know? The funeral was so surreal. Like I couldn't believe that is a funeral for my dad.

I didn't cry at the funeral. We had all of our Iranian family. We had people who even traveled from Iran. We had all of the people that I used to do shows with with my dad. All of my school friends, my closest friends came. And at the funeral in Iranian cultures, it's like very, very typical to like wail and hit your chest. It's a release. It's you cry as much as you can and you want and it's no judgment free zone and it's completely fine.

In Iran, it's five days max or a few days after. So it was still when the grief was really, really raw. And I remember all my family wailing and crying and I just remember standing still and prim and proper. and oh my god please stop crying guys like please chill and really upset that my dad had passed away but feeling like I can't grieve because feeling caught between not being able to be myself fully and not being able to be part of it with my mom and all of that but also my friends and stuff were there and I felt the shame and embarrassment of a 17 year old girl I think I was really conscious of what outside people thought which is completely different to the type of person I am today but um

God, it was a lot. How soon did you go to university after he died? Two months after he died, I went to uni. One of the wishes of my dad was, no matter what happens, please don't take a gap here, go straight to uni. Packed up with my staff and went to halls and lived on my own for the first time ever. Yeah, when I think about it, I'm like, that's crazy. How did I do that?

I felt like a huge pit. And you know what? I still feel a pit. It left kind of a mark or a trauma on me of being left alone. Yeah, I wasn't abandoned in a traditional sense by my dad, but I lost him at a time when I still needed him. Were you angry? Yeah, I think I was angry because I felt like it was really unfair

that I lost my dad at 18 and I didn't have the guidance and support that I knew my dad had given to so many in our life. And he helped sort out everyone's life in that way. and I was there feeling like I'm fending and figuring it out almost on my own. Everyone gets the chance to be young. Everyone as a teenager might go through the phase where their parents are uncool or they don't want to hang out with their parents as much. But then a lot of people get to grow out of it and make up the time.

I didn't get to make up the time with my dad. I felt like that was so unfair. Like I lost him so young before I got to experience any of those things or before I got to even be grateful. What was it like when you went home? Oh, I tried to avoid going home for like the first year of uni And I would ask my mom to come and visit me rather than to go home And it's like the trauma was very alive in that room

The spirit of grief was its strongest at home Where the person who built that home literally and emotionally was gone His coat was just hanging on the door His shoes were by the doorstep as if like he just walked in And like for like a millisecond almost or half a second your heart is like, oh, no, he's not there. Everything was untouched. It was like a ghost house. It felt like a ghost house.

It felt like a ghost house. Yeah. It felt like, you know, slowly over time the plants in the garden that he tended to died. There was dust on his gardening shoes. The garage got overflown with spiders and things like that where he used to be the person to clear it up and keep it maintained and everything. My brain couldn't fathom that, so it was just really deeply uncomfortable and suffocating being there the first couple years. At a point I prefer to be locked up in my room in London where there's no memory, there's no familiarity, and I can just numb and pretend it's okay. I just think it was like, you can't escape it, you have to face it.

I didn't want to face it because it was too big. It was like too big of a pain. I have this video which I love. I listen to you all the time when I'm slightly sad. My dad used to always say Don your life's too short Don't let anyone bring you down You need to only be with people who uplift you

If you're having trouble with friends Friends or boy travels You know when you were young and silly silly little things like that So he would say never be around miserable people Looking back up like all he wanted was for me to be happy Okay what else should I say what should I say dad Look I'm very busy

And I've got a lot of friends I don't have a time for the people What do you think Donya has been the psychological impact of losing your dad as a young adult. The psychological impact is a fear of losing people like preemptively before I've even lost them. Like I'm grieving them before they're gone. And this is crazy because it might also be like a cultural thing. After my dad passed away, we took a trip to Iran where we had another funeral for him there,

for all our family there. And I remember leaving Iran and crying and crying so much. is this the last time I'm going to see some of my family? Are they going to pass away now when I'm gone? It was like this fear of something bad is going to happen and I won't know or I'm not ready for it or it would just be unexpected. And any time in the last few years, like I've had a boyfriend or two or whatever, like they've come and gone. But it's like when that relationship ends, I'm crying and for some reason it feels like someone's died and I'm missing my dad in the moment where my boyfriend's left. and I've had a breakup fairly recently, actually. And the first bit was, again, the repeat, the repeated trauma of feeling,

oh my God, I miss my dad so much. Why am I missing my dad right now of all times? But as I've got an older, I've managed to learn how to handle my feelings more healthily and to pour it into something positive or helpful to myself. So it's been a huge process. Donya, when you hear the term daddy issues, what does it mean to you? To me, daddy issues. it's like sometimes something that can be used quite in a belittling way or derogatory way or to

like undercut women who have access to their emotions or something or to try and categorize us. The girl's really clingy or she's obsessed with me and it's also used in like a really sexually charged manner or a submissive manner. This woman is submissive to anything I say or do or want and it's very used in a disempowering way. But for me, because I've had potashire, final absence. Daddy issues to me is to do with handling life after having a figure who gave you life and built the world for you as your oyster and suddenly having to navigate it without that and without those opportunities and without that worldly insight. Because what happened with my daddy issues is I almost feel like I need to step into the role that my father left behind. I need to

make sure that when my mum gets old, she's looked after. There's that cultural pressure. That's where that comes from in Iranian culture. When you get older, you look after your parents. No, it might be in the wash, but the check. This top is one of my dad's business tops. It's got his name on it. It's got like the business logo and his email on it. And it's an ex-X large because my dad was a bit of a tubby man.

So when I wear these, they're like a dress on me. The t-shirts, the coats of his that I'd wear. It was almost like I just wanted to be as similar to him as possible. I didn't want to lose him. So you just moved in Troom flat here. It's very nice. Thank you. Yeah, I just moved in, negotiated the rent myself. Negotiated the rent. I, yeah, packed and moved my stuff myself. And yeah, I live on my own, which is really, it's nice.

It feels nice. And I can't believe I'm saying that because when I lived in halls and there was eight other people in the halls, I never felt more lonely in my life. But for the first time, I'm alone, but I'm not lonely. How old are you now? 26. So your dad's been dead for eight years? Yeah, eight years, yeah. How are you now, Donia? How would you say you are now? I think I'm doing good for the first time in a really, really long time.

The reason I say that is because I've made peace with, I'm going to have to go about learning things in a way that I didn't want to. I'm sure when other milestones in my life come that, you know, the answer will ebb and flow and change, such as, you know, marriage or having a kid. but I'm just hoping I'll, yeah, be able to handle it, I guess. One thing that's really been big for me and important for me is that there has been a big pressure on my head romantically, almost auditioning to find the partner who I will fit into their family.

Now, for the first time in eight years, I'm completely single, I live on my own, and I'm happy with using that. time to discover more about myself. Instead of trying to secure a future that I don't know what's going to happen, I'm trying to actively not wait for the next disaster or not to plan for the next disaster, but just to live now in the present as I am. That was reporter Joe Morris speaking to our listener, Donya. And if you have been affected by any of the issues discussed, you can find links to advice and support on the BBC action line. And you can listen to all our other fantastic

interviews in the series. Daddy issues just go to BBC sounds. Thanks for all your messages coming in. Here's one in reaction to Sydney Sweeney, as we were talking about earlier on the programme. It says the advertising industry has always been shallow, manipulative, and dare I say it, fake. Often you see A-lister selling their soul for a few quid advertising a perfume or a whiskey that supposedly will make us more adventurous, attractive or successful. While I'm not keen on gratuitous images, Sydney Sweeney has the last laugh because every. is talking about her. She isn't representing women in sports.

I wonder if the whole thing has been taken too seriously. So says Steve, who got in touch on 84844. You can do the same. But let us move away from all that to... I'm sure you're singing along with that. We all recognise every word of it. Well, it is the communard's iconic song, Don't Leave Me This Way, released in 1986.

Yes, 40 years ago. With the renowned singer-songwriter, Sarah Jane or S.J. Morris as the co-lead vocalist with Jimmy Somerville. Well, S.J. has built an eclectic solo career all over Europe, music spanning soul, jazz, rock and blues. And her latest album, Sisterhood 2, came out earlier this year, but will be performed at the Union Chapel in Islington this coming Sunday. She's with me here in studio. You're so welcome, S.J. Thank you. 40 years, hey? Listen, I'll tell you my memories of that song in a moment, but also joining you, we've got a full. house. We have Tony Remy and Marcus Bonfanti in studio, Marcus on acoustic guitar. Also, Henry Thomas on electric bass guitar. We're going to have some vocals help as well as we talk about it all. Thank you for joining us. Let's talk first about Sisterhood One. That was March 2024 and Sisterhood 2 I mentioned earlier this year. Tell us a little bit about the concept behind this album. So I don't have a television, haven't had one for 18 years. So my husband and I read to it. each other. We read poetry and literature.

Very romantic. And in that second lockdown, I said to him, I wanted to do a research project because it couldn't go out. I wanted to find out about the women that had paved the way for me. So I made a list of 50 female singer-songwriters. The men are always in the history books, the women are not, which is why I took the women route, female route first. And once I'd started to, once we'd started to research their lives, we really really, we really, realised that they were utterly fascinating. You know, I mean, everyone, every woman had broken a path. Yeah.

Had been brave enough to put their head above the parapet. And so I tried to turn that into an album. Tony Remy, he's my main co-writer. He came down to stay at the end of the lockdown. And we both decided that we would write the music in the genre of the artist. And that made it so interesting to us because it called on everything that we had ever learned. but we just knew all the references. So as we put that first album together,

because you could only have 10 on an album, I then had to see it as the passing of the torch from a generation to a generation. So it started with the founding sister, Bessie Smith, and it finished with Kate Bush, who's one year older than me, and in my head she passed the torch to me. And that we launched at the Alexandra Palace Theatre

on International Women's Day. Tony and I could not stop writing, because there was a list of 50. So we've written another 11. So there are 21 that we've written about so far. And that's what we're celebrating on Sunday at the Union Chapel. Let me, many, we can talk about some of the artists that you have decided to include in this particular tribute.

I did notice you had Dolly Parton. So you interpret, you have a song kind of interpreting their life, I suppose. There's something in the style of. Tell me, of course, Dolly sadly died a couple of weeks ago. She didn't get to hear her song because so many of these people have been able to hear their song and react to it. And we'd loved her to have heard it because she was the most generous of the more. She did so much to help the area that she had grown up in because she grew up in absolute poverty. And we called, in the chorus of her song, we call her the hillbilly feminist with Jesus in her heart.

but the fact that she used all of the money that was from Whitney Houston covering her song she used all of that money to invest in she bought an entire buffalo path and regenerated it but it was in a black quarter so she felt that because Whitney being her black sister

had raised this money that was what she was going to do it's always a term it's interesting feminist we talked a little bit about when Dolly passed, that it wasn't a label she ever put on herself, but it's definitely one that Manny would associate with her. Let's talk about Peggy Seeger. Now, she's an American folk singer, a songwriter,

but she spent a lot of time in the UK. Some may be familiar with her, some may be less so. Tell me a little bit about her and why she inspires you. Well, fascinating story. She's now 91, and leading up to her 90th year, because I first met her at a print worker's benefit, at the Hackney Empire. And I knew she'd written the Greenham Common song.

I only did one weekend at Greenham Common. She spent a hell of a lot more time, and she wrote the Green and Common song. And she also wrote a very early feminist song called Gonna Be an Engineer. And all of that is referenced in her song. But I invited her to come and stay with me. I hired the local theatre through a filmmaker and songwriter

called Tim May. We located fantastic film footage. and I did, I presented an evening with Peggy Seeger. And because I'd been in a band with her two sons for years, I'd got to know her a bit and I did co-writing with Kirsty along the way. So the research we put into the evening with Peggy was, you know, intense. And I think she loved the song we'd written earlier about Ricky Lee Jones, so she liked the project.

So I said to her, can we include you in the system? I would like to write a song for your 90th birthday. How lovely. And she let us and we've written a feminist anthem for her. You will be performing Union Chapel this Sunday, the 20th of September. What can people expect? So we're performing with a 10-piece band and a 40-piece masterclass choir. How fantastic.

We, Tony and I did the master class on Sunday. And we wanted to, it's how I started to be able to afford to make the project because it was a passion project. it had really destroyed my career, which was mainly abroad, and then COVID, so I slipped through the net. And so one of the things I decided to do was run masterclasses where I would teach people, some people had never sung before, some people had been in choirs, teach them the backing vocals, three-part backing vocals of some of the songs so they could come and perform on stage. How lovely. I just want to go full circle. 40 years ago, as you mentioned, don't leave me this way by the communards with you on vocals. It was number one in the charts for four, weeks, that lovely voice that we're hearing there, of course, we'll remember it with Jimmy Somerville. In Dublin, in the 1980s, I remember going out to the local disco or club, and teenage pregnancy was rife at the time in Dublin. It was considered like one of the worst

things that could happen to you. You could be sent away if you were pregnant. And when your song used to come on, do you know we used to dance around moving our hands over imagined giant bellies as if we had a large pregnancy? bump like don't leave me this way and sing along to it. And then all about laughing. I know it actually became a gay anthem very much in the mainstream. How brilliant. But I'm wondering, you know, what that time was like for you.

For me, it's so etched in my memory. Yeah. It was, you know, I was in my mid-20s. I'd met Jimmy and Richard. Well, I knew Richard since he was 16 years old because he did the same drama course that I did. We did, it was the first theatre in education college in the country. It was in Stratford-Anaven. He was a few years younger than me and he became very good friends with my brother who's now a filmmaker. And

Richard brought Jimmy, because he joined the tail end of Bronsky Beat and he brought Jimmy along to a minor's benefit that I was doing. Because we in the happy end, it was a 25-piece big band, that's who I was with at the time that Jimmy was in the Bronsky Beat. We had collaborated with Kay Suckliff, who was a Kent Marnie's wife, who wrote Cole Not Dole the lyrics, and we recorded it and became the anthem of the strike. And Jimmy, at that point, his best friend was Mark, who was, he was basically the person that they've made pride the film about and now the National Theatre musical, because he,

Mark Ashton, he was part of our politicisation, but he set up pits for perverts and he also set up lesbians and gays for the minors. So Richard brought Jimmy along to one of my Miners Benefit concerts and that's how we met, which was an amazing thing to think that we met through the minor strike. It's incredible. What a time, just even looking back, really fascinating. Sisterhood 2 is out now.

S.J. will be performing songs from the album at the Union Chapel in Islington in London on Sunday. And Tony Remy, Marcus Bonifanti on acoustic guitar, Henry Thomas on electric bass. Thanks to all of you. A real joy to have you in studio and to share that very distinctive voice with us this morning on Women's Hour. Do come back to us again tomorrow. We need to talk about the film. Sense and Sensibility. That's tomorrow.

That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Parenting a young child today means navigating a whirlwind of advice, opinions and relentless information. Tell me about it, Katie. But the good news is CBB's parenting download is here to take the edge off. Join me, Katie Thistleton, Radio One presenter and new mum. And me, Governor B, Mobo Award-winning rapper and dad of two, as we discover and unpack what it really means to be a parent. From the art of negotiation to tips on dealing with parental anxiety. Each episode, we're joined by well-known parents and trusted professionals

to share their own experiences. People say you never know until you have your own, but no one ever really gets into what that means. And it's very true. Someone when I was on my first walk with him alone in the pram, someone went press green congratulations and cheers

and he went welcome to the truth club I went what do you mean you'll find that soon enough and to provide useful tools

and advice to tackle the daily challenges that come with parenting offering honest conversations and expert insight that can really help the biggest thing that I've noticed

since I became a negotiator is we don't listen we're really good at pretending we listen and we do this don't we so our young people in our life especially are talking away

you've asked them a question they're answering the question and you're like this because you're not really interested because you're already thinking about what's next. We've learnt so much already. So whether you're a first-time parent, you've got multiple kids, you're a carer or a grandparent,

this podcast is for you. Search for CBB's parenting download with me, Katie Thistleton. And me, Governor B. Listen now on BBC Sounds. Get more with BBC podcasts, wherever you listen. Be the first to listen to your favourite shows, like Evil Genius. Good, Bad Billionaire, and You're Dead to Me,

with a subscription to BBC Podcasts Premium on Apple Podcasts. You can also enjoy a range of our podcasts ad-free with an Amazon music subscription.