Woman's Hour - Sofie Hagen Happy Fat, Margaret Thatcher, Rosacea

Episode Date: May 4, 2019

The Danish comedian and podcaster Sofie Hagen talks about what she sees as endemic fatphobia in our society.We discuss Margaret Thatcher’s legacy for women in politics with the Conservative MP for Saffron Walden Kemi Badenoch and with Ayesha Hazarika, former special adviser to Harriet Harman. The author Esther Wojcicki gives us tips and advice on how to raise successful people.We discuss the debilitating skin condition Rosacea with Dr Emma Wedgeworth and the beauty blogger Lex Gillies.We hear from one of Ireland’s most famous singers Mary Black.In her latest novel, A Thousand Ships, Natalie Haynes tells the story of the Trojan War from an all-female perspective.And we discuss the film 8th Grade and its portrayal of a young teenager in the age of social media with the film critic Rhianna Dhillon and University student Steph Campbell.Presented by Jane Garvey Produced by Rabeka Nurmahomed Edited by Jane ThurlowInterviewed guest: Sofie Hagen Interviewed guest: Kemi Badenoch Interviewed guest: Ayesha Hazarika Interviewed guest: Esther Wojcicki Interviewed guest: Emma Wedgeworth Interviewed guest: Lex Gillies Interviewed guest: Mary Black Interviewed guest: Natalie Haynes Interviewed guest: Rhianna Dhillon Interviewed guest: Steph Campbell

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, good afternoon and welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour. This week it's 40 years to the day since the election of Britain's first female Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. It's fair to lose weight. I won't go to this party until I'm thin. I won't talk to this boy I like until I'm thin. I won't be happy till I'm thin. And you kind of lived in this imaginary world and you keep trying to tell people, oh, I'll just have a salad because I'm on a diet. So don't worry. I don't want to make you uncomfortable with my fatness. Really interesting talking to Sophie Hagen this week.

We've also got the author, Natalie Haynes, on the story of the Trojan War from an all-female perspective. We'll talk about the coming-of-age film for our time, Eighth Grade, came out this week in the UK. And we'll discuss the debilitating skin condition rosacea. My friends would sort of ask if I was drunk or if I was embarrassed or, you know, I've had experiences in the past where I've been at work and I was talking to my boss and it was a stressful situation so my skin started flaring up and one of my colleagues asked if I fancied my boss in front of my boss.

Rosacea, it can have a real impact, particularly perhaps on women. So that's why we thought it was worth discussing this week. Now, 40 years to the day, Margaret Thatcher made that famous speech outside Downing Street, quoting, of course, St. Francis of Assisi as she became Britain's first female prime minister. It's honestly still the case that she really does divide opinion. We've been discussing Margaret Thatcher and her legacy throughout the week on Woman's Hour, and some of the reaction has been entirely positive. There's also been real vitriol bordering, frankly, on outright loathing. On Friday morning, I talked to Kemi Badenoch, who's a current Tory MP for Saffron Walden

and a vice chair of the Conservative Party. And first of all, we heard from Ayesha Hazarika, a former special adviser to the Labour MP Harriet Harman. How does Ayesha think Labour women talk about Margaret Thatcher and her legacy? I think Margaret Thatcher radicalised and vitalised a huge movement of women on the left, lots of fledgling Labour MPs, but also women across the trade union movement because of her legacy. You can sort of split Margaret Thatcher into two stories. The first is of her personal ambition

and her desire and her ambition to get to the top of politics, which she did at a time when politics was so male-dominated and she was such a kind of counter-cultural figure in terms of what we expected of politics, which she did at a time when politics was so male dominated. And she was such a kind of countercultural figure in terms of what we expected of women, that women would be yielding and compromising and compassionate. She was really none of those things. The famous spitting image vegetable sketch kind of sums her up. But the second was her legacy and what she did with that power. And 40 years on, I think we all look back and think her legacy was quite sort of toxic. Certainly where I grew up in Scotland, I grew up through an area

which had been heavily de-industrialised. Steelworks like Ravenscraig were closing down, then we had the poll tax. So I think what she did for women on the left was she taught us a lesson. Getting into politics as a woman was not just about getting to the top for yourself it was what you did with that power to help other women um you talk about the women on the left some would say uh that women on the left have been marginalized to a degree by the men on the left uh labor still doesn't have any um well it has had no Labour leader and certainly no Labour female prime minister. I would absolutely agree with that. It is a real tragedy and I think kind of shameful that the Labour Party, which used to stand for being the party for women and equality,

doesn't have a female leader. But what I would say is when those 100 female Labour MPs came in in 1997, yes, even though they did not rise to the top themselves, although my boss Harriet Harman was acting leader twice, think about what they did for politics. They didn't just change the face of Parliament, they changed the agenda. They put things like childcare, domestic violence, services for women really on the political agenda in a way that they hadn't been done before. Is there still continued misogyny on the left? Yeah, I think there absolutely is. And I think what is quite tragic is in the last couple of years, we've seen a real rise in that. I think the Labour Party has got a blind spot when it comes to gender equality because we have historically since 1997 had a lot

of women in parliament more than all the parties added up and because our track record on women has been quite good it's almost been like haha box ticked we've done that we've done some radical things we introduced all women shortlist but the Labour Party does have to have a good hard look at itself. I really, really hope that we can, our next leader will be a woman. You know, there are parts of the Labour Party and the trade union movement which are still very, very masculine, very, very macho. And the Labour Party and the trade union movement and the whole progressive movement has got to sort of practice what it preaches. Right. Okay. Good place to end. Thank you very much. Aisha Hazarika, former special advisor to Labour's Harriet Harman. So high time we heard from a Conservative MP. Kemi Beidanoch is here, MP for Saffron Walden, and a vice chair of the Conservative Party. So Margaret Thatcher,

you're not old enough to remember her, are you? I am. I'm nearly 40. So she was prime minister before I was born. But I do remember her very, very well. I was born here, but I grew up in Nigeria. And one of the things that is often overlooked is the profound effects she had on women all over the world. I was a young girl in Africa. I was a child in Africa. And people knew who she was. She was the Iron Lady. And when you live in a system like that where the men control everything, it's not like here where we're arguing about percentages. The men control everything.

And boys would say, women can't do this, women can't run anything. And you just say two words to them, Margaret Thatcher, and they would shut up. To go back to Aisha's end point there, you can have all the power in the world, but then you have to wield it in the right way. Did she do the right thing by women in terms of promoting them and bringing them in? If you look at the statistics, no, she didn't. Oh, well, she did. I think people look at what she did in cabinet. But you also have to remember that she had to deal with the situation as she founded.

And I'm very sympathetic to that because my role as vice chair is actually for candidates. So it's looking for women. And she had to promote what she had available. So people like Gillian Shepard, she promoted as minister, Edwina Currie, they were ministers, fine, they didn't get into cabinet. No, only one woman made it as far as the cabinet, that was Baroness Young, and that wasn't for long. But given how few women were in the parliamentary party at the time, something that wasn't her fault, if she just scooped all of them and tossed them into cabinet, she would have been accused of crass tokenism. So you're out and about now looking for female candidates for the Conservatives. How many of them mention Margaret Thatcher? Almost all of them. It's interesting, Theresa May barely mentions her.

I think she did quite a lot in the early days. Now Theresa May is running the country. Yeah, but I mean, Theresa May, as far as I'm aware, hasn't said anything about the 40th anniversary this week. I think Mrs May has quite a lot on her plate at the moment. I've heard her mention Margaret Thatcher many times. I have to say, I haven't heard her mention Margaret Thatcher many times. Well, I have. I don't think you will find a single woman in the Conservative Parliamentary Party who will not say Margaret Thatcher was a role model.

And, you know, Ayesha talks about her not doing the right things with her power. It's a left wing complaint. For those of us on the right, what she did, the marketisation, the privatisation, for us, those are good things. If you disagree with those policies, you might feel that someone's doing something wrong. But when it comes to the men, they don't get these sorts of accusations. People don't look at men in the same way that they look at women. I think because she was a woman, she faced a lot more criticism. Ayesha talked about the de-industrialisation. Harold Wilson closed many more mines than Margaret Thatcher. Margaret Thatcher took the heat. Ed Heath, for instance, was the one who had the milk policy. Margaret Thatcher took the heat

for that. He was the prime minister. Yeah, I mean, there is no doubt just looking at some of the Twitter reaction we've had to this programme this week about our conversation surrounding Margaret Thatcher. She is treated very, very differently. And there is no doubt about that. And some people on the left apparently are not aware of the misogyny they display when they talk about her. So I think that's an entirely reasonable point. I'm conscious we talked about misogyny on the left. Some of the treatment meted out to your prime minister by men in her party would also hint at a certain level of misogyny within the Conservative Party too.

I think there have been some things said by men in our party which are quite frankly regrettable. And the fact is misogyny is still a fact of life. by men in our party, which are quite frankly regrettable. And the fact is, misogyny is still a fact of life. Wherever you are in life, if you are a woman, it's something that you face. It's not something that's just on the left or the right. It's society in general. That's the Tory MP, Kemi Badenoch, and you also heard from the former Labour special adviser, Ayesha Hazarika.

Molly wasn't impressed. She says the anti-conservative bias of today's show is unacceptable. Margaret Thatcher won three general elections. The people of this country must have thought she was doing a good job. Funny how the BBC always miss this out. From Jeanette, Margaret Thatcher was inspirational to me. I was a women's libber. I used to wear a badge. Put women on top for a change.

She showed us we could do it. A huge amount. She was incredible. She inspired us that we could become prime minister or do anything that men do. She released us from trade union control and the winter of discontent when the dead weren't buried. Some evocative memories there from Jeanette. On the other hand, here's, there always has to be another hand, from another listener. I'm a child of the 70s and 80s. I was at junior school in Margaret Thatcher's Finchley until 1976. Margaret Thatcher, of course, was the MP for Finchley in London. This listener says, I'm generally mild-mannered, but I couldn't help feeling relief when she died. I hated everything she stood for, her deeply divisive and, to be honest, vicious, heartless policies.

Her legacy, I believe, is toxic. Sophie Hagen was a guest on the programme this week. She's a Danish comedian and a podcaster as well. Sophie's really keen to challenge the fat phobia in our society, from shops to seats on aeroplanes to nightclub culture, culture in the streets, and to PE lessons at school. Her book is called Happy Fat. I've now learned to overcome all of the difficulties, and I'm now happy and fat,

which I know is quite rare for people to feel that way. In general, fat people are oppressed on so many different levels. You know, if I walk down the street, I will often get abuse shouted at me, abuse that I probably can't say this earlier on the BBC or ever on the BBC. But offensive, really offensive stuff. Yeah, stuff like the C word, stuff like I'll be spat on or cornered or shoved. Spat on? Yeah, absolutely. How often does that happen?

It tends to kind of make me not want to go outside that much. But on very active weeks, yeah, I don't know, once a month, twice a month maybe. I have the knowledge that fat people get hired less than thin people. We get paid less than thin people. We get paid less than thin people. I can't really turn on the television and watch anything without fat people being the ridicule and the punchline to any kind of joke. You know, you turn on the news and you see these headless fatties walking down the street with, like, obesity epidemic written everywhere.

So you kind of know you're a very, very hated group in society. There is a theory that the only good fat person is the fat person really desperate to lose weight and to be keen to be desperate to lose weight. Yeah, it's a term, the good fatty. It's if you kind of go, oh, don't worry, you know, I'm on my way to become thin. And I lived in that body

for over a decade. I lived with this belief that I was going to be thin. You know, we've all heard the, there's a thin woman inside of me wanting to get out. Turns out there isn't, there's a lot of cake and that's fine. But if you're fat, you tend to live in this kind of world of one day, you know, oh, I won't go to this party until I'm thin. I won't talk to this boy I like until I'm thin. I won't be happy till I'm thin. I won't wear the clothes I want to wear till I'm thin. And you kind of live in a world that doesn't exist in this imaginary world. And you keep trying to tell people, oh, I'll just have a salad because I'm on a diet. So don't worry. You know, I don't want to make you uncomfortable with my fatness. You don't deny, though, that being thin or thinner would make your life easier.

Oh, definitely. Of course it would. So, OK, what do you say to those people who say, right, Sophie, the answer would be then to eat less, move more? I've been trying to eat less, move more for over a decade of my life. The thing about diets is that they don't work. 98% of diets don't work. And that's harrowing statistics for a lot of people who are currently on diets. I've tried every single diet. I tried a diet called the think diet, where you just have to think differently and then you just wait. You don't change your diet at all, where you just have to think differently and then you lose weight. Wow, you don't change your diet at all, but you think. You think differently and then supposedly, it's a very strange thing.

I've tried every single diet that you can possibly imagine. And I'm fat, my body wants to be fat. Even if you were to be able to lose weight, if it was possible for everyone to lose weight, then how does that not make the bullies win? Why change the thing that people hate? Why not make people stop hating it? In your childhood, the dynamic is particularly interesting. You had a sister who needed to be actually overfed, didn't she? Because of medical. Yes, she was tiny. She was tiny. And then there was you and your mom, and then the grandparents who delighted

in feeding you. Tell me a bit about that. Food very, very quickly became everything but nutrition. You know, food became this thing that my sister needed to survive. It became this thing that my grandparents would give me to override my mother's authority because she would put me on a diet and they would go oh but we love you so we'll serve cake for you all the time and I remember my our fridge once broke that meant that all of our chocolate melted together into a big lump and my mother was tired she was like yeah just have it and then from then on once a week our fridge would mysteriously break in the middle of

the night and I would get all the chocolate until my mom realized that what you were up to what I was up to so you describe you're quite light touch about that relationship with your mom but I it can't have been it can't have been all that easy it wasn't but I was also that behavior around food was backed up by society you know the only reason I went on a diet from when I was eight years old was because the school nurse said to my mother that it was dangerous and I was dangerously obese. And when you look at the pictures, I was just a kid, you know, with regular, just like a regular chubby little child body, you know. So the alternative, the better alternative would have been to leave you alone? Yeah. So, you know, our body already has what it needs to tell us what we need to eat, you know, and then from we're very, very young, we learn to squash

all of our natural instincts and our hunger and our, you know, need for certain types of food. And we only eat what we think are good foods, and we don't eat what we think are bad foods. And, you know, there's all these words around food. That's like the guilty pleasure or, oh, I've been bad this week. You know, it's so intertwined with morality and your personality and who you are as a person. Instead of just listening to what your body actually wants. Sabina on Twitter says, I will never disrespect anyone for their size, but the fact remains there are health hazards in being very big. The cost to the NHS and so on. This is something everyone can do

something about. I mean, I'm of the belief that fat people also pay taxes. So I think the NHS thing is a weird thing because... People are always bound to mention it though. Oh, I definitely know that. And you know what? It is probably the most tiring argument I can ever have because fat activists since the when fat activism began in the 1960s they started to have this conversation about health and the first kind of health myth was debunked in the 80s but people keep bringing it up because what do you mean debunked so what I mean is health is only brought up when it comes to fat people. You know, the same people who bring up health all the time, they never, you know, when a thin person puts up a picture of them eating a burger, no one goes, but what about your health? You know,

if you watch football recently, when they're kicking each other's teeth out, no one ever goes, but are they not concerned about their health? People going bungee jumping, people drinking every night or people drinking when they're out or people smoking or doing drugs never get the same amount of vitriol and fake concern it's called concern trolling when you pretend to care about someone in order to make them feel ostracized and feel ashamed have you actually nailed down why it is that some people are so fearful of fat fat people we're taught from the moment we can talk and think where you know there are children down to the age of three who start to have a bad idea of how they look because we watch it everywhere even in like cute little disney films the villains are fat and evil and

every single advert and billboard teaches us that if you are fat, you are wrong, you're lazy, you're unintelligent, you should be ashamed, you should be thin. So of course, we learn to hate it and fear it and genuinely believe that there are these studies showing that people would rather be blind than fat, they would rather lose a limb than being fat, they would rather cut 10 years off of their life than being fat. It is believed to be one of the worst things you can be. And that's because people make money off of it. Sophie Hagen talking on Woman's Hour on Tuesday.

Here are some of your thoughts. Hazel says, I'm a little bit overweight, but what makes me angry is when I go to the doctor, whatever you go with, it can be flu, it can be a sore throat, sore hand. The treatment seems to be lose weight and take more exercise. This mantra seems to be all-pervading, says Hazel. Ruth, this obsession with size works the other way too. I was nearly always slim, partly naturally and also I really wasn't interested in food. If I was hungry, I ate.

If I wasn't, I didn't. I never thought about it, actually. However, when I started a job where colleagues brought in cakes and chocolates regularly, I was criticised to the point of bullying for not eating. I was also insulted for having the cheek not to be fat, although 50. Slim, apparently, is for young women. The thoughts of Ruth on Instagram. Angela makes the point that she believes we should applaud anyone who says they love their body.

Thin, fat or otherwise, our bodies belong only to us. So on Monday, this is Bank Holiday Monday, we've got a phone-in programme and we really, really want you to get involved. We'd love your emails now, by the way. You can get in touch with the programme via our website, bbc.co.uk slash womanshour. And that's because on Monday we're talking about healthy eating, how you develop a healthy eating culture in your home and how it's possible to send the right messages to children in particular about what they should be consuming and how. I'll be joined live in the studio on Monday by a nutritionist, Dr Laura Thomas, and we really want to get your thoughts. Now many of us with children like the occasional tiny bit boast about our offspring and what they've achieved, but few of us in all

honesty could attempt to get close to the boastability of the woman you're about to hear from next. This is Esther Wojcicki, who's got three daughters. Get a load of this. One is the chief executive of YouTube. Another is one of the founders of the genetic testing company, 23andMe. Her third is a Fulbright scholar and professor of paediatrics. Not surprisingly, Esther has written a book called How to Raise Successful People. What does she mean though by success? Success is feeling a sense of peace and happiness with what you're doing in the world. So you have good relationships, you have a place to live, food to eat, clothing that is necessary,

not necessarily designer clothing, but good clothing. But it's a sense of peace that you feel on a regular basis, at least 51% of the time. You developed a system for raising children which you've called TRICK. T-R-I-C-K. What is it? So TRICK stands for Trust, Respect, Independence, Collaboration and Kindness. And I say that it belongs in all families, in school, and in all business. Because when you trust your child, then they believe in themselves, they trust themselves.

And it starts early in life. In other words, you should definitely give your child opportunities to show that you trust them. Give them an opportunity, for example, to help you shop or help you plan the dinner, help you plan a vacation. Because what you're doing is you're helping them see themselves as being able to do these things. One of my statements and philosophy in the book that I talk about is the more you do for your child, the less empowered they are. So give them that opportunity. There was an incident in your childhood that seems to have influenced that philosophy. When your baby brother died, what happened and how did that influence you? He was about 16 months old and my mother was an

immigrant from Russia to the United States and she actually did not question authority. As an immigrant she came in she thought well everybody else knows better than I do you know such a wonderful smart country and so when my brother accidentally opened a bottle of aspirin on the floor of the kitchen and then ate it, she called the doctor because she thought, of course, the doctor would know how to deal with that. And unfortunately, the doctor was probably very busy or didn't listen. That's the only explanation I can think, because he told her to put him to bed and see how he was in two hours. And so that's not the thing you do with a child that's ingested a poison. But being unsure of herself, she followed the directions.

And in two hours, he was violently ill. We went to a county hospital where they pumped his stomach. But he really needed to be kept at a hospital and be treated. So we went from one hospital to another, but they wouldn't accept him because we didn't have proof of payment, which is really a tragedy in America. So anyway, by the fourth hospital,

they accepted him, but at that point he died. So it left a terrible impact on my family and my mother. And on me, I was just devastated. But I didn't realize the impact it had on me until later. And what the impact it did have was that I no longer trusted anybody in positions of authority, especially medicine or anybody with a long title, no matter what they said. If it didn't make sense to me, I was going to challenge it. You say that you didn't want to repeat the mistakes your parents made in raising you. Where would you say they did go wrong?

They never encouraged me to challenge authority. They were always saying that I should always follow the instructions. And that incident with my brother David, it taught me just the opposite. But how then, if they failed, did you grow up to be such a success? Well, I was 10 at the time. And I think I had this opportunity to think for myself. What I did, which was unusual, I went to school in the Los Angeles City Schools that were overcrowded at that time. They had two sessions. They had a session that started at 7 and ended at 11.30. Another session that started at 12.30 went until 4.

That was to accommodate all the students. And I think I was the only student in that high school that asked permission to go to both sessions. And they said yes. So I was lucky because I took everything in school. And my theory was the more that I knew, the more that I could educate myself, the less likely it was that I would ever fall into that same trap that my mother had fallen into. You know, there are lots of snappy titles for, I suppose there's a fashion now for advice on how to be a parent, how you raise your children as helicopter parents, tiger mums,

snowplow parents, and you're known as Panda Mum why Panda Mum? I had a debate with Amy Chua in Mexico The Tiger Mum and she said how much she hated being a mother and how difficult it was and she was challenged all the time

and then I basically came on stage and I said just the opposite, that I loved being a parent. For me it was an exciting time. My children represented hope and the future. And then somebody on that panel in that audience labeled me the panda mom. And so that title stuck.

You're also known as the godmother of the Silicon family. Silicon Valley. Oh. It's the whole valley. Oh, the whole valley, not just a little bit of it that your daughter's involved in. Okay, why? Well, I think that's because I've been a teacher at Palo Alto High School for 36 years. And a lot of my students have gone on to found companies and to do amazing things. And I've used this same methodology, this trick philosophy in my classes. So I trust my students. I get much more than most teachers ever do. I trust, respect them, give them a lot of independence.

I encourage collaboration and I always treat them with kindness. I guess the final thing is the most important, isn't it really? That's Esther Wojcicki, mum of those phenomenal, high-achieving daughters. Now, still to come on this edition of the programme, we're going to hear from Mary Black, hugely popular Irish singer-songwriter. And that gives me a chance to mention that on Tuesday we are live from the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin. Really looking forward to this. We'll have some really interesting guests talking essentially about the phenomenal changes, particularly in terms of women's lives in Ireland over the last couple of years. So much to discuss live from Dublin on Tuesday's edition of the show.

Now rosacea is a long-term skin condition that affects the face. You're about to hear from the social media manager and beauty blogger Lex Gillis, who has rosacea, and Dr Emma Wedgworth, who's a consultant dermatologist and spokesperson for the British Skin Foundation. Rosacea is a chronic inflammatory skin condition, which results in people having red skin. You can have spots and your skin can be very sensitive and flushing is also quite a key aspect of rosacea. And why does anybody get it? Our understanding so far is that rosacea is partly genetic and partly associated with lifestyle changes.

So often people will get rosacea a little bit later in life. UV light, so sunlight is something that's thought to drive it. There are certain things in our lifestyle, so food, alcohol, smoking. It's not the cause, but it can certainly trigger it off in somebody that's susceptible to it. Right. And the treatments, well, they do exist. It's not that this isn't untreatable, but I gather you can't be cured of it as such. Absolutely right. You can't be cured, but that's the case in so many skin conditions. And I think that really shouldn't detract from the fact that there are so many effective ways

that we can manage rosacea. And for the vast majority of people, there are lots of very positive influences that we can have. It doesn't always have to be pharmaceutical. So we can talk about lifestyle changes. We can use skincare that can be really helpful. And then obviously medical treatments of which there are many. Yeah, okay. Lex, when did you start to exhibit the symptoms of it? So I was diagnosed at 21. But looking back at photos, I think I probably had it before that. I'd always been very pink skinned. I'd flush very easily if I drank or did exercise anything like that and I think I just assumed that that's what my what my skin type was that that's always what my skin would do and it's only around the age of 21 that my skin just started to get worse and worse

so if I went out drinking the flush would appear but then it wouldn't go down for hours and hours and hours and it would become really dark purple. My face would be so warm, like I had sunburn. It would itch, it would throb, it was just swelling. It was just not a normal reaction to something like that. Was this something that other people commented on, or was it something you were just aware of because you knew it was happening? I would feel very aware of it, but I would try and convince myself that no one else would notice but people would always comment people always would make jokes my friends

would sort of ask if I was drunk or if I was embarrassed or you know I've had experiences in the past where I've been at work and I was talking to my boss and it was a stressful situation so my skin started flaring up and one of my colleagues asked if I fancied my boss in front of my boss so things like that where I think ignorance of the condition doesn't help because people do make jokes and they make unkind comments which is partly the reason why I try to raise awareness not only you know I want to help sufferers but I also want to raise awareness with other people so that we can escape those kind of comments through education. I have to say, obviously this is radio, it's not obvious to me that you have any kind of skin condition.

So do you mind me asking, are you wearing a lot of makeup or are you not having a flare-up at the moment? I am wearing makeup. A lot of trial and error went into getting my makeup to the point where I like to think that people wouldn't know that I have rosacea. Well I don't I don't know. Thank you that's very kind. I can feel through talking about rosacea and sitting in this situation I can feel my skin kind of pulsing underneath my makeup so I know that when I get home and take my makeup off I will be probably having a flare-up. You've really got to be careful though presumably in applying anything to already

stressed skin haven't you I mean I imagine some of the products that teenagers particularly will smear all over their faces could do real damage absolutely right and I think skincare choices particularly in the context of rosacea which is very sensitive skin is a huge part of the way that we treat it and is often something that as the medical profession we don't always offer advice on. But keeping skincare really simple, avoiding harsh products, harsh exfoliants, scrubs, toners, alcohol-based products is a huge element of actually treating rosacea. Can I just put some questions to you from listeners?

This is an interesting one. It's somebody who says that she's read that people with rosacea have a larger number of mites on their faces. Other research suggests that zinc can be helpful. There's also some evidence that anti-scabies cream helps because scabies are mites. You're nodding, so that's all right. I noticed too that the redness in my face was in line with the skin

which is above the surface of my pillow. And she's changed her pillows, basically, and bought new pillows. Is that sensible? So some synthetic fibres can be quite irritant to the skin so I'd always advise that you use natural cotton fibres so that may be perhaps a process by which it can irritate the skin. I think the mite one is very interesting so the reader's absolutely right.

There's a mite which sits on our skin called demodex which has been associated with rosacea but nobody knows is it just that the demodex sits there because it enjoys the different which has been associated with rosacea. But nobody knows, is it just that the demodex sits there because it enjoys the different skin that's associated with rosacea, or is it that the demodex causes rosacea? And it's been an ongoing controversy in dermatology. We don't, but we still have some treatments which have been quite effective against demodex mite,

so anti-mite treatments and anti-mite creams, which actually are a very promising treatment for rosacea. And this listener is 55, and actually she makes the point that she has rosacea, and it does affect her. And she says, but I feel vain and small-minded being bothered by it. I do try to keep it in perspective, but it's your window to the world, and it's hard not to feel judged by the people you meet. I bet you understand that, don't you, Lex?

Yeah, absolutely, and I hear that a lot from readers. It's they don't want to bother their doctors because they feel like it's not a severe enough thing to be going to their doctor about and they feel superficial to be so upset by something that's what some people would see as just skin. But like that person says, it is the one thing that you present to the world

and you are judged on it. We all do it without even knowing. You do judge people. And, you know, it's very difficult to go into a situation and feel so vulnerable with something that you don't feel comfortable with. And I've been in situations before where I was doing a talk at work and I was really prepared. I'd been preparing for weeks and I stood up and a man in the room said,

you look really flushed. If you're not ready, we can do this another time. And he assumed that because my face was red that I was not prepared and I was nervous. And so although we like to think that we are judged on our abilities, a lot of the time we are judged on our appearance. And I think that I would recommend if anyone is feeling that their skin affects their day-to-day life and affects how they feel about themselves, then they should talk to their doctors about it because it doesn't have to be like that no i'm very well glad you made that point but i just wonder emma whether every single gp is as sympathetic as they should be i think on the whole our gp's do an amazing job but

i think they're not specialists and there are many different treatments according to the type of rosacea you have and i think that's a really key point because not every treatment is going to work for every person. There are a number of different types of rosacea. Dr Emma Wedgworth and Lex Gillis talking about rosacea. So to Mary Black, one of Ireland's most famous singer-songwriters. She was born in the 50s and she's lived through many of Ireland's dramatic changes, of course, during the course of her life. The country becoming more secular, the Catholic Church's influence on the wane. Abortion has been legalised up to 12 weeks. There's a forthcoming referendum about making divorce easier. So it's all happening in Ireland.

And Mary Black has played quite a part in it, actually. Her album, A Woman's Heart, was made with other significant Irish women musicians, but it was made 25 years ago, we should say. Last year, though, a track from it, Only A Woman's Heart, became an anthem for those who wanted to change the law on abortion. Our reporter Siobhan Tai met Mary in Dublin. Sunny lives on a farm In a wide open space in Dublin. Sonny always remembers the words Mama said

So we're in a Dublin hotel sitting having tea and coffee. You might hear the forks and the knives in the background. As you've said, you know, you grew up not too far away from here. That's right. A very different time and I'm really interested in what was regarded as a woman's place back in the 1950s 1960s in Ireland well my mother was the person who held it all together and as far as I'm concerned she was the strongest of both my parents because she made sure that there was food on the table and my father worked and always worked but he would you know he'd go to the pub after work and

have his few pints now he wouldn't be a drunk or anything thankfully But he would, you know, he'd go to the pub after work and have his few pints. Now, he wouldn't be a drunk or anything, thankfully, like that. But, you know, he had his thing and he would, you know, have his leisure time. My poor mother never had time to do anything like that. And she'd be struggling to make sure that there was food on the table for us and we had our school uniforms and everything we needed. And she did all that. And that was her place, yeah.

And even growing up myself, I had two older brothers, Michael and Shay. And I still had to do the women's jobs if she wasn't there. For example, when I was about eight or nine, she had to earn extra money by cleaning offices at night. So I would take over the house and I was in charge of making the tea and giving my father his dinner when he came in. So there was very much that. Did you question no i thought it was great i felt very important uh obviously when i got a bit older i began to think well that's not going to happen to me ireland was changing a little bit in that regard thank god socially socially yeah and uh you know i think we all realized that you know rearingaring children was something that both parents got involved in

and that's exactly what Joe did and he would do all the changing of nappies and the things that women did and he was at the birth of my... Whereas my father, when my mother was having her babies he'd put her in a taxi, send her down to the hospital and he'd go to the pub we'd be minded by my granny or whatever

and he would be off celebrating while my mother was in the throes of labour and everyone thought he was a great man oh congratulations Kevin I hear your wife is having another baby let's move on to music because a year ago I was here reporting on the lead up to the referendum about abortion and I was speaking to a group of people not far from here actually in a pub called Whelan's they They were having a discussion. They were talking about the pros and cons of changing the law around abortion. And one young woman said how important

one of your songs, A Woman's Heart, was. It had become an anthem to the people who wanted to repeal the 8th. How did you feel about that becoming an anthem? Because in a way, it's becoming politicized i suppose it's definitely a woman's song and uh it was a cry. My heart is low, my heart is so low, as only a woman's heart can be. A woman's heart can blow Restless I

And I think A Woman's Heart, the lyrics of it, spoke to young people particularly and kind of gave solace in a way. And I don't know if it was an anthem for the Repeal the Eight, but it definitely, when we did a big, big concert in the Olympia Theatre here in Dublin, I was on the bill and I came straight out and started singing A Woman's Heart. And I was blown away.

I never heard anything like the singing, the excitement, the love, the joy. I dedicated it to the Indian lady who died giving in pregnancy because of the fact that they wouldn't take the child away, Savita Halapanavar. And you know, she was a doctor herself, she knew what was coming and it was just so sad I dedicated the Woman's Heart song to her and the whole the whole theatre just

went absolutely crazy and you know they sang with love, with passion, with pain with everything, they sang every word of that song with me and they're young people at this concert you know Only a woman with everything. They sang every word of that song with me. And they're young, young people. We're young people at this concert, you know.

It's only a woman. It's only a woman. What do you think has been so significant about the last 12 months for Irish women? I think women have found a voice and have been standing up for themselves for quite a long time. And I think it's, you know, it's an equal world. That's Mary Black.

And if you'd like to see her performing live, she is at the Shepherd's Bush Empire in West London on the 31st of May. And we should make clear that actually the important track, Only a Woman's Heart, was a collaboration between Mary Black and Eleanor McAvoy. And we are, of course, just to re-emphasise, live in Dublin for Tuesday Morning Show. So we'd love your thoughts on everything that we talk about on Tuesday Morning Show.

Natalie Haynes' A Thousand Ships tells the story of the mythical Trojan War from an all-female perspective. She told Jenny this week how she'd chosen which female characters to feature. Essentially, I started with sort of all of them because this is my epic, I guess. I've written Greek tragedy before and this was the time I wanted to try and write epic. So huge scale. I didn't want to focus on just one character or two or three characters. I wanted to do the lot. I wanted to do the women who caused the war.

They're mainly goddesses. And I wanted to tell their story in sort of backwards. So you could find out it's like, well, is this where it starts? No way. Is that where it starts? No way. Hang on. This is where it starts. And I wanted to tell the story of the Trojan women who are who lose their city, lose their husbands and brothers and fathers. And I wanted to tell the story of the Greek women waiting for their husbands and sons to come home. So I took a very broad sweep this time. And then there are some who I didn't expect to kind of survive the editing process because they felt quite tangential. And then someone loved them and I loved them and I didn't want to let them go. Who stayed in that you didn't think? I thought Penthesilea would have to go. I thought the warrior woman, the Amazon queen would have to

go because she's just a standalone story. And there are a few of those in the book. Laodamere, the wife of Pritesilaus, the first Greek to die at Troy, managed to stay in and Penthesilea did. And Laodamere's story is in Ovid, it's in his Heroides. And Penthesilea's story is only in fragments of Quintus Maneus, it's really obscure. And I thought, well, you know, my publisher's bound to say you've got to go hard in for... We only want Helen and Cassandra and all of this. And no, they were like, no, we love this one. You're great.

I've got away with it again. Warrior women, who doesn't want them? No, there are some comic elements. Penelope, in particular. Sad, patient Penelope waiting for Odysseus to come home yeah not in my version not in your book she's so snarky she's a very snarky letter writer I know I love her well um I stole the idea of of a woman waiting writing letters to her absent husband from Ovid who writes a whole book of them

and they are wonderful um and I thought she starts out as this kind of perfect archetype of patient wifeliness at home weaving. And he's gone for 20 years. And so she starts off, you know, her letters are my dearest Odysseus. And then by the time you get to the second, she's like, dear Odysseus. And then by about the fifth, she's like. Because, you know, every story that she gets of him, he spent a year hanging out with a beautiful nymph or he spent seven years trapped on an island with another beautiful nymph. And it's like, well, you know, you can see kind of where she might get across this in book 11. I think that's right. Of the Odyssey. He goes down to the underworld and he sees his mother who is dead. It's not obvious. She wouldn't have been in the underworld, would she? Well, I mean, he's not dead.

She might have been. Anyway, we all see the problem here. And he asks her a series of questions. This is how he finds out that she dies, in his absence. He asks her a series of questions about his, you know, he says, has my son, has my palace, has my kingdom. And, like, the ninth thing he remembers to ask about is Penelope. And that's in Hover.

Like, there's no way I'm not putting that in my book. It's just too good. And why would she be happy about that? It's like wifely patience. No, I don't think so. Now, Helen of Troy, who famously launched the Thousand Ships, so they say, she's generally blamed for the war. And she is not apologetic in your version. Why not? Because surely it's Paris who's to blame. I think it's Paris who's to blame. Yes, or maybe Tyndareus, who's the one who makes all those suitors swear the oath that if they want to be considered to marry Helen, then they have to agree that they'll defend whoever does get to marry Helen if anyone ever takes her away. And so it's

his stupid idea to have everybody pledged to start a war. It's like the one thing they didn't think about was that it would be a non-Greek who took her away. And that, of course, makes the whole it's his stupid idea to have everybody pledged to start a war. It's like the one thing they didn't think about was that it would be a non-Greek who took her away. And that, of course, makes the whole system fall apart. But yeah, I mean, Paris turns up and says, you know, Aphrodite awarded you to me in a beauty contest. Who's the witness for that, Paris? Just out of interest.

It's just you. Literally just you. Swans in high. But people have been issuing defensive of Helen since, well, the most famous maybe is in Euripides, in his Trojan Women. She issues her own defence. She's been sentenced to death by the Greeks in her absence. And she walks on stage and says, you know, you didn't give me a fair trial, so here it is. Boom. And her defence is astonishing. She blames everybody except herself. It's so brilliant.

And in his play Helen, she didn't go to Troy at all. She goes to Egypt and an image of her, Adalon is the word in Greek, goes in her stead. So her reputation is traduced for 10 years all across the Greek and Trojan armies. seems to me she was just the most, it is the most extraordinary curse, Cassandra's, that she is condemned to see the future and never to be believed. So the words sound like madness when she says them, or we just don't hear her when she says them. But she's never mad. She's just the most isolated person in the world because she can, everyone she ever meets, she can see will happen to them she'll see you know all the terrible things that are ahead of them and so the pain of that must be extraordinary and then she's on her own she has to suffer it on her own and there seemed to be something so resonant about being able to sort of predict the future even the really urgent future and just not ever be able to prevent it it's like an anxiety dream that you're constantly saying to people please don't do that because if you do that, then it will happen. And they never heard you say it. Oh, awful. What drew you to devote yourself to the classics? I started at 11. I started at 11 because I had a wonderful Latin teacher. I was just incredibly lucky. I was taught Latin by a man named Mr. Cooper, to whom I owe my entire life and career.

It's absolutely undeniable. I took up Greek at 14. I took triple classics A levels. My degree is in classics. I ran away and joined the circus for a bit, and then I ran back and joined the library. So, yeah, I've been here ever since. And as fewer and fewer children get to learn Greek or Latin now, why should they learn it? I would love all children to have the opportunity

to learn classics of some form. I don't mind if it's classics in translation rather than Latin or the Greek languages, although obviously I'd love them to have the opportunity to do all of those. But we should learn them because the writing's beautiful. I mean, people will give you all kinds of good utilitarian answers. It makes you better at English. It makes you, you know, you'll be much better at going to read English at university if you know about Homer or Ovid, and that's all true. And you'll be better at your own language if you can do the grammar of another language and that's all true but why would you deprive a generation of children any generation of children of the joy of

reading Ovid or Homer or Virgil it's made my life as good as it could possibly have been I would never rob another person of that and briefly is this still something you would read just as you're reading for pleasure or is it always for pleasure you You're hilarious. I can't remember when I last got to do that. I've been at work every day for three years. Yeah. One day when that happens. Reading for pleasure. It is possible. I don't know where, where would I be without being able to read for pleasure? Natalie Haynes talking to Jenny about a thousand ships. Now, you might be forgiven for thinking there is only one film at the cinema, The Avengers thing, but no.

Bo Burnham's film, Eighth Grade, has also just been released in the UK and it's one of the best coming-of-age films I think I've ever seen. It's about a young teenage girl grappling with the complexities of adolescence in the age of social media. It's directed by a man, Bo Burnham, but its central character is female. grappling with the complexities of adolescence in the age of social media.

It's directed by a man, Bo Burnham, but its central character is female. She's called Kayla. And, well, if you do see the film, and I urge you to seek it out, you will live every excruciating moment alongside Kayla in eighth grade. I talked to the film critic, Rhianna Dillon, and to a student, Steph Campbell, who writes for Warwick University's paper The Bore. The film has been billed as a comedy. Did Rhianna agree? It was like watching a horror film, the kind of the responses that it listed in me, because we all know what it's like to be that very, very awkward teenager. Whether you're a teenage girl or a boy, I feel like everybody has been through the experience that the girl in this, Kayla, goes through at some point.

We should say that Kayla is 13 in the course of the film. She's about to leave what is in America middle school and about to go to high school. She is somewhat geeky and there's nothing wrong with that because I imagine the three of us around the table would also say we'd been geeky as 13. Oh yes, still are. Yeah, and I still am. Still are. Yeah. And I still am. I am that person. She is not one of the cool kids, but she makes these YouTube videos where she gives Rihanna all kinds of fantastic advice about confidence, none of which she's able to follow herself.

Well, I don't know. I disagree, actually, because there are moments she talks about putting yourself out there and there is um a scene where you're watching her in like slow motion it's like car crash tv walk towards a room full of her peers doing karaoke and she takes the mic you know she's not really asked to but she takes it because she needs to have that moment she really kind of grasps that opportunity that scene i'm proper cringe because you don't hear her sing thank god well i was very concerned because i was like worried about that what if she's really bad is this going to be worse but to demystify this for the many people listening who won't have seen this film here's a very short clip this is kayla's

hapless but i think well-meaning dad mark Mark, with Kayla, played brilliantly by Elsie Fisher. They are in a car together. Can you not look like that, please? What? Like what? Just like the way you're looking. Looking at the road? You can look at the road, dad. I obviously didn't mean that. Just like, don't be weird and quiet while you do it. Sorry. Hey, how was the shadow thing? No, you were being quiet, which is fine. Just like, don't be weird and quiet. Cause like, I look over at you and I think you're about to drive us into a tree

or something and then I get really freaked out and then I can't text my friends. So just like, be quiet and drive. And don't look weird and sad. Please. Okay. Please. OK. That's worse. Who'd be a parent of a teenager? I think the dad's doing a half-decent job.

Well, more than that, actually. Bo Burnham, who's the director, is a man, and I've got a great quote from him here. He is slightly defending today's teenagers, and he said, they are forced by a culture they did not create to be conscious of themselves at every moment. That's true, isn't it? Today's teenagers are prisoners of social media, but it's not a world they actually invented, Rihanna. No, you're right. And it is that I think they make this point in the film that Kayla gets Snapchat when she's 10 or 9 or 10. Can you imagine, especially being the parent of a 9 or 10 year old

and having all those possible images, you see the pressure that she's under as well. They talk about sending nudes to each other at this age of 13. And to get the, you know, to get the attention of the boy that she likes, she kind of pretends that she has all these new pictures of herself. When did you get Snapchat? Oh, I was a bit older than the sort of conglomerate. I was 16, I think, when I got Snapchat. But I was saying earlier, I was a young leader at Guides. So I was very much older among all these younger girls. And I didn't have a smartphone until I was a lot older.

So I didn't have a smartphone until I was about 18, which I was mocked for by these 13-year-old girls. These 13-year-olds used to make fun of me. It was all joking. They weren't bullying me, but I used to go, like, oh, have you got no friends? I was like, oh, OK. I have to say, for me, this was the first time

I'd seen a genuine representation of phone addiction on screen. Because I don't want to pick on you particularly, Steph, but you have been on your phone ever since you walked into this studio this morning I've got all my notes on my phone but I mean you are that is not untypical of your generation yeah of course and I winced a lot but in recognition in this film that every time a teenager is on screen they are almost certainly looking at another screen it's I I would say very much like in defence of my generation and the younger generation, it's a broad scope now. You know, I used to work in cafes and it's parents who are addicted to their phones.

Like they've got a two year old in front of them who's, you know, no conversation. So I remember. Lack of eye contact. Exactly. I remember one time sitting, I was working and this dad had a young child. It was just the two of them and the dad was playing Farmville on his phone,

ignoring the child. A good point. A good point. Well made, tragically. Yeah. Yeah, really important. I'm glad you said that. It's a broad thing.

What do we make then of the fact that this man has made this film? A truly cringe-inducing film. I think a very realistic portrayal of being a dorky teenage girl. What do you think? I think it's an incredible feat

that a man has made this film. I'll be honest, I was really quite disappointed that it was a man that had to make this film because it should have been made by a woman. Can you imagine Fleabag being written by a man? No, it wouldn't work. Somehow this does.

So I think fantastic, well done to Bo Burden for this but it is kind of frustrating that it takes a man to write a female experience although understandably people are saying it's a universal experience not just a female one but I do think there is an element of you know when you see Elsie Fisher kind of taking on Kayla she hunches over her body you know she's so aware of her breasts she wants to hide them at all costs it's she covers up so much and i think that is much more female experience of course than a boys part of me when i was watching this film does have to wonder because i went in being like a moderate fan of burton and his work in particular

but um why didn't he do this from the male perspective so a lot of coming of age films are very much female centered so part of me did wonder why aren't we seeing a boy go through this awkward adolescent phase? The first couple of minutes, her impending arrival at the horrible girls' pool party, and then when she gets there and she just cringes in the bathroom changing.

It broke my heart. It broke mine too, I have to say. Joan on Twitter says, I recommend taking a teenager with you to eighth grade if you can. Watching the reactions of my 17-year-old to the film added much to my enjoyment it is a 15 and that's because of sexual references in the film and i should say as well

nothing sexual occurs although there is a worrying moment when you think rihanna that it might yes and it's really uncomfortable actually because you're seeing a very vulnerable girl alone with a boy a much older boy and it's really upsetting to think that older boys would be interested in this sort of pre-adolescent girl. You know, it's just really, it's awful to watch. But what's really quite empowering is her ability to say no. And it's a real struggle for her to get it out. But she does say no.

And I think that's so important to see that on screen. I hope that has inspired you to try to see 8th grade. That was Steph Campbell and Rhianna Dillon. So Bank Holiday Monday, we're live with a phone-in about healthy eating, healthy attitudes to food and eating, and how you can best equip your children to navigate the, well, I think,

the wonderful world of food. But how do we send out the right messages? I really welcome your experiences, your thoughts, your questions. I will have with me a nutritionist who really knows her business. That's Dr. Laura Thomas. And we're live just after 10 on Bank Holiday Monday. Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

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's 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.