Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman's Hour: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Arooj Aftab, Reclaiming sexist language

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Starting point is 00:00:42 BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour, the place you get the best bits from the week just gone. On today's programme, Lord Michael Hesseltine talks about the House of Lords conduct course he calls a patent waste of time and a language warning. We'll be discussing the reclaiming of and the changing meaning of the word bitch.

Starting point is 00:01:10 The composer Arooj Aftab talks about the influences behind her stunning new album, Motherhood, Why Aren't We Honest About the Realities of Being a Mother? And the author Chimamande Ngozi Adichie on the grieving for both her parents, who've died suddenly in the past year. One of the ways that I can articulate it is to say that since my mother died, and my mother died on my father's birthday, I feel as though I'm living in a novel whose plot I don't believe.

Starting point is 00:01:40 It's going to be quite an hour. But first, how possible is it to earn a living from sport? The latest BBC Elite British Sportswoman survey found that four out of five elite British sports women feel they're not paid enough compared to their male counterparts, and more than 60% of the UK's top female athletes make less than £10,000 a year. On the other hand, revenue generated by women's sports in the UK is set to grow to £1 billion a year by 2030, up from the £350 million a year currently, making it one of the fastest-growing sectors in the sports industry. The Women's Sports Trust says the key to unlocking this impressive growth

Starting point is 00:02:22 will be the increased visibility of female athletes and teams. So what needs to be done? And will this increased visibility benefit some sports more than others? Well, I spoke to Emily Defrond, a great Britain and England hockey player, Zahra El-Kudsi, a trustee at the Women's Sports Trust and the head of commercial partnership development at Formula One, and Dr Ali Bose, a senior lecturer in the sociology of sports Partnership Development at Formula One, and Dr Ali Bowes, a Senior Lecturer in the Sociology of Sports at Nottingham Trent University. First, I asked Emily if she thought she would make any money from playing hockey when she first started. Well, yeah, if I'm being blunt, of course not. I started playing the sport that I love through going to watch my mum play every Saturday. My two older brothers and my dad would be going to watch West Ham play at Upton Park

Starting point is 00:03:09 and I'd be going along to watch my mum play. And that was kind of the first time where I was introduced into the sport. And I guess looking back now, it was probably inevitable that I was going to follow in my mum's footsteps. We actually played in the same team together for a few seasons which you know still remain some of my most fondest memories on a hockey pitch but you know when I first started playing the sport it was through you know the love of you know being active but playing alongside my friends and giving me something to do and it's one of those where at that age I would never have considered that I would be able to call myself a full time athlete right now.

Starting point is 00:03:48 And, you know, I feel very fortunate that, you know, the women that have come before me in a GB hockey shirt have given myself and my teammates that platform to be able to be, you know, fully funded. We're part of a centralised programme here at Bisham Abbey where we train every day we get you know our APA funding from UK sport and you know I do feel very lucky to have that opportunity and be able to call it our our job I would love that hockey could be seen in the same sentences the salaries that men's football are getting like I would love that obviously like but there's no comparison I can't compare it because you know speaking personally and and for some of my teammates as well like we have to seek extra sponsorship to gain additional income or you know some of the girls uphold part-time jobs some of the girls are you know studying to

Starting point is 00:04:42 you know set themselves up in the future. And it's kind of still having that in the forefront of our minds that we are very, very lucky to be able to call it our job. But you still need to have that outlook that one, our careers don't last forever. And two, we probably don't get paid enough to sit back, relax, not do anything. It's interesting you talk about individual sponsorship as well. Have you pursued that, Emily? Yeah, so speaking as hockey players, it's usually common to have your own stick sponsor,

Starting point is 00:05:13 your footwear sponsor and that sort of aspect of things. Speaking as a team, you can probably see on my top, but Vitality are our lead sponsor. They came on board last year. And off the back of that, I think it is really important that you are getting the investment, whether it is in these sponsors that invest in the squad or as individuals, because as, you know, female athletes,

Starting point is 00:05:40 that's so important for us. Zara, we know that in most work spaces, women are not very good at putting themselves forward to ask for things like promotions and pay rises. Is it similar in sport? Interesting question. I mean, I don't know whether it's similar. I think it's just equipping people with the right information. And, you know, Emily was actually part of Women's sport trust last year that ran a sort

Starting point is 00:06:05 of mentory um program unlocked which was about pairing different people in the industry with different athletes at different points in their career where they just started out well established or close to retiring and what they all you know the support they were looking for and and emily can probably well should will be able to speak to it better than I because she was on the programme as an athlete. But we're very mindful of trying to add value and help each of the athletes to understand where their value sits and what they need. Because I think a lot of the time, and this is just in sport in general,

Starting point is 00:06:37 there's an assumption that everyone just knows what they're doing. That just because you're good at your sport, you'll know how to sell yourself. Or just because you're on Twitter, you know how to run a social media campaign like they're very different things and they're very different skills to have yes oh yeah just um something that's quite interesting i find quite interesting is there's like a narrative from elite sports women and emily correct me if i'm wrong here but that women feel like they're they're grateful for the opportunity

Starting point is 00:07:02 to be playing in professional sport we're all very aware of where sport was 5, 10, 15 years ago and that these are women that are kind of treading new territory especially in emerging professional sports so particularly in this country let's look at in some instances rugby at some levels of some teams and we're in this like transition period of women's sport becoming more professional women's super league really leading the way in that regard but the the research that's coming out of australia on women's aussie rules football and rugby league football is that there's a almost a reluctance to complain about work conditions or pay or lack of sponsors

Starting point is 00:07:41 or lack of visibility because they're in this new space where well actually we're really lucky because women before us haven't had this or we haven't had the access opportunity so we can't complain about because we might take it away so we're actually just going to keep keep going with it so I think that's been quite an interesting thing that's come out of some research in Australia that women are really grateful but does that then put them on the back foot potentially you're nodding Emily yeah I mean it is spot on Ali because you know I feel that I've just said five minutes ago that I would never have even dreamt that I'd be able to be in the position that I am and call myself a fully funded full-time athlete but actually you know if you're looking looking at my current

Starting point is 00:08:23 situation right now you know Zara touched upon the Women's Sports Trust Unlocked program now I was really lucky to be involved in the program it was 41 athletes partnered with 41 activators from a range of different industries within sport without outside of sport and it was kind of that that really ignited the flame within myself to really use my opportunity that I have right now I'm not taking it away I feel very lucky that I ignited the flame within myself to really use my opportunity that I have right now I'm not taking it away I feel very lucky that I am in the position that I am but you know I wanted to understand my purpose as an athlete and how I can have a bigger impact not just within my sport but across a range of different sports and for me one of those things was raising the inclusion and

Starting point is 00:09:04 diversity aspect within hockey. So I touched upon that hockey is predominantly played in, you know, public private schools by certain members of society. And I want to broaden that out and also building a brand as, you know, what I stand for, what I'm most passionate about. I'm really using my voice. And, you you know we've seen that so much recently you know Marcus Rashford is a fantastic example of that um you know Dina Asher-Smith she's currently writing some supplements within the Telegraph there's a range of different athletes that are out there at the moment really fighting for what they really believe in and trying to use their platform to good use and I think you know that the investment is one side of things but really building on the the platform that you have as an athlete and try and utilize that um for good is

Starting point is 00:09:56 is something that I feel really really passionate about. That was Emily de Frond speaking to Zahra El-Kudsi and Dr Ali Bose and that was taken from an hour special that we did all about women and sports. If you'd like to listen back to it you'll find it on BBC Sounds. Now language and the way we use it is forever changing and today we're going to be exploring how some words which have a sexist history are being reinvented. I should warn you that some of the language in the next discussion, some listeners may find offensive. And if you have young children around, it's best to maybe come back to us later. Now, the word bitch is something we hear in film, on TV and in music, from Cardi B to Britney Spears to RuPaul's Drag Race.

Starting point is 00:10:38 What makes someone a bitch? And can it ever truly be reclaimed to mean something positive? Shantae Joseph is a social media creative and writer. Jacqueline Springer is a black music and culture journalist. And Helen Taylor is an emeritus professor of English at the University of Exeter. I started by asking Shante how often she used the word and if she ever found it positive. I would say that I do use it quite often. And yes, it can be something that is positive. But also, yeah, often and yes it can be something that is positive

Starting point is 00:11:06 um but also yeah of course it can be something that's negative but I definitely feel like when I use the word like do you know me it depends on the moment because it's like you hear something shocking and you're like bitch or you know someone's rude to you and you're like that bitch do you know I mean like it very much depends on the context in which you are using that word and I think with most words sometimes things can come across as you're trying to insult someone you're trying to offend someone but then sometimes it's just the way you express yourself or the way you color your language that kind of gives it personality and tells the world who you are sort of thing but but for you not offensive you've reclaimed it and you use it yeah I don't know I don't know if I said reclaim the word I think I just use the

Starting point is 00:11:46 word differently well do you know what I mean like I don't want to give it that much power that I feel like it's something that I need to claim but it's just something that kind of I used to express myself um Jacqueline what what impact do you think music has had on the word because of course you know hip-hop culture the word is used a lot not often very positively though I have to say in a lot of hip-hop it's used quite negatively but um do you think that's been important in taking the power away from the word bitch I think the mainstream tend to have a very selective relationship with rap music and they tend they they utilize rap as the whipping boy for one of a different racialized context when they want to discuss the influence it has on their children. When Queen Latifah in the 1990s had a song called Unity and she's

Starting point is 00:12:33 one of the first words that comes out of her mouth, one of the first phrases, she goes, who are you calling a bitch? And she also talks about not only men using it, but women using it, women using it to ingratiate themselves within male favor, but also the use of the word within the kind of traditional way we've been socialized, which is to put women down, to compare them to female canines, to also utilize it as a backdoor insult, so it's prefixed by fat, black, ugly, this, you know, so the whole point about this word is that it's malleable, the whole point about language is it's malleable, and the very idea that rap only uses it in one context is simplistic and self-serving and you have men and women using it and when Beyonce uses it oh my god how dare she

Starting point is 00:13:16 does this my kids love her songs when Britney does it it's affirmative and it's empowering so we also have to within this within the use of this word within music, to think about who the mainstream, i.e. the white majority in this country and around the world, tend to, who they feel has the right to influence their children by the use of a word that is as malleable as any other. Helen, how does the way we use language change and why do you think it's important to document this? Well it's interesting that the Oxford English Dictionary has started to look at the ways in which

Starting point is 00:13:54 words that define woman are often negative whereas words defining man are positive and a bitch is quite an interesting example of this because it's a very old word it comes from old English and it did indeed denote a female dog and apparently the sort of when a dog is on heat suggested a way of talking about a woman so a woman could be so a bitch could be a lewd woman. And of course, we know lewdness in women is bad. And Shakespeare used it slightly negatively to suggest a lewd or lascivious woman, and Dr. Johnson did too. But I think that what our two other speakers have been saying is that language is, as one of you said, it's malleable. It changes all the time.

Starting point is 00:14:50 And bitch has been appropriated, obviously, in rap and in feminist discourse. So women call themselves bitches as a term of powerfulness. It's a way of kind of throwing back at patriarchy the fact that, yes, I will call myself a bitch. And that suggests that I am empowered. And the word bitch has also been used about homosexual men, actually. And it's being used very positively, too. So people talk about, well, people talk about life's, actually, and it's being used very positively, too. So people talk about, well, people talk about life's a bitch, which is sort of a, it's a kind of ambiguous way of talking about life. But people also talk about books are bitches, which is a way of saying books are great.

Starting point is 00:15:41 So I think that the way in which language changes over time is a sign of its of its liveliness and certainly feminists if I could just finish a point that feminists um have used language so creatively over years you know they've coined terms like sexism um they've coined terms like glass cliff, toxic masculinity, me too, coercive control, gaslighting. And the trans community uses the word woman with an X instead of an A. And I think that feminists have been actually in all sorts of ways more creative than any other group in finding ways of transforming the language. Alice Walker talked about womanism as a way of saying to white feminists, no, you know, I'm going to use a word that defines black feminism. Language is always being creatively used.

Starting point is 00:16:40 And I do think feminists have been fantastic in shaping. Helen, how much does it matter who's saying it? I think you're absolutely right that it's who is saying it, the context in which it's said. If I called you a bitch, it would be extremely offensive. If I call my best friend a bitch, that's a way of reclaiming a word for yourself. Jacqueline, how much does it matter who's saying it? All language, everything is derived, all meaning is derived upon context. But I also think that are we actually reclaiming it

Starting point is 00:17:11 or, as Helen said, appropriating it? Because did women invent this word? Were they in positions of disseminatory power about what words mean? And who, you know, Samuel Johnson, a man, was given, you know, had the task of creating a dictionary upon which meaning and language is utilized so are we actually reclaiming this word or is it a case of with those who choose to use it beyond the context of its defined meaning are actually

Starting point is 00:17:40 disrupting the very ways in which we think about it so So when we emasculate men, you know, we say, oh, don't be a bitch. Stop crying like a bitch. Man up. We gendered language so very much. So if women have been told, are told, you're a bitch, you're silly, you're this, you're that, and that they use that very word beyond the context of the accepted passage against you, against the gender, it starts to really make people very uncomfortable. You then add that to the discourse of music, where, oh, we shouldn't have a musical

Starting point is 00:18:12 form, i.e. rap, that is, that, you know, embraces profanity, and we certainly shouldn't have women calling themselves a bitch. But you also have, you had rappers in the 90s, like Lil' Kim, who adhered to, you know, respectability and politics to, you know, broadcast regulation. So she would call herself Queen B. You have music that is actually explicit or not. You can't control people's access to language. You can't control your children after a certain time, their access to language. What you've really got to think about here is what is offensive, how you can and how and why you've actually come to define that as offensive and who you think has the right to entertain your children and to what language they can use it. Because how is it empowering if Britney says it's Britney bitch, but if little Kim says I'm a queen bee. Why

Starting point is 00:19:00 is it 1997 Meredith Brooks was on top of the pop singing live and saying, I'm a bitch, I'm a this, but there was absolutely no way. Well, like you say, Jacqueline, it goes back to our previous conversation, doesn't it? Yeah, it's about who has the right, even when there is this disruption of the perception of spoken power, who then has the right to actually utilise it. That was Shantae Joseph talking to Jacqueline Springer and Helen Taylor about the term bitch. Now, a patent waste of time. That's how Lord Michael Heseltine, former Deputy Prime Minister, describes a House of Lords course he's been forced to complete that aims to explain what's right and wrong when it comes to conduct between colleagues, especially between men and women. The training is called Valuing Everyone. The House of Lords has been very firm

Starting point is 00:19:51 about the importance of this online course, saying all peers must attend. Lord Heseltine was sent a reminder that he must complete it. Michael Heseltine joined Emma, as did Vera Hobhouse, Liberal Democrat MP and the party's spokesperson for women and equalities. Emma asked Michael why he was so annoyed. I was annoyed because I got this letter telling me that I hadn't signed up to this course. Well, it's perfectly true, I hadn't, and at that time, I was in hospital having had a new knee. But it then went on to say that if I didn't sign this again was an offense. And I was appalled that someone should think that you can treat a member of the House of Lords to this sort of technique and keep it quiet and private.

Starting point is 00:20:57 So I rang a few friends in the Lords who had actually undergone the experience, to which they said, Michael, it's a complete waste of time. Don't make a fuss. Just get on that. Let it happen and forget it. Well, maybe I would have done that if I had actually known about it in the early stages. But my colleagues who took the view I've described had not had this letter. And it was the letter that triggered my indignation. I discovered, because it was revealed in the press,

Starting point is 00:21:37 that some 60 members of the House of Lords had also not signed up to this thing, including the very distinguished Betty Budva, the ex-speaker of the House of Commons, who was actually seriously ill with a heart condition. There's two issues. One is about being compelled to do this and what you've described. But I also know that when you did complete the course, as you put it, you don't think this would sort it out, the issue. If there was somebody who was going to behave inappropriately, and we know there have been people, there are several examples across both houses, not least one only last week. You know, the Conservative MP Rob Roberts was suspended for six weeks having been found to have sexually harassed a member of staff, repeated and unwanted sexual advances towards a former member of staff for which he has apologised and he's been suspended. But you don't actually think this course would actually would stop that behaviour, do you?

Starting point is 00:22:23 No, I don't. And indeed, look, you've said something important and I agree. First of all, the House of Commons, it is not compulsory to go through this particular procedure. It's a voluntary course. But look, let's come to the chase. We all know that this sort of abuse happens. It is deplorable. It should be reacted to with vigor, and let's not have any question about that. But the question is whether subjecting these sort of people to the anodyne platitudes which consist of this course would make any difference to them. And that was the question I asked towards the end of the course. The evil man in it was Lord Adams, an actor who was playing this part.

Starting point is 00:23:13 And I said to the invigilator, I said, do you actually think that Lord Adams would have made any difference to his behavioural pattern if he'd been subjected to this course? And, of course, the answer is no. And that's at the heart of it. I mean, we should say, in 2019, there was an inquiry into harassment in the House of Lords, carried out by Naomi Ellenbogen QC, and she explicitly highlighted that this course was necessary. And as you've pointed out, Lord Heseltine, it's not compulsory for MPs in the House of Commons, it's compulsory for employees of the estate, I believe.

Starting point is 00:23:44 Vera Hop House is on the line. That's the point here, Vera. It's cost a lot of money. And Lord Haseltine doesn't think it's going to have the desired effect. Well, first of all, it does cost money because ultimately a lot of people work on the Parliamentary estate. And therefore, I would say if it does actually stop behaviour that intimidates particularly our young staff, and for me it was very much a course for me as the employer, understanding that a lot of the time we employ very young people, very talented, very ambitious. And the course that I attended two years ago,

Starting point is 00:24:18 and I assume it's something very similar, was about seeing a young employee being completely demoralized, coming first in, very, very motivated, very fired up. And then a live example, it was, of course, acted of a young person being completely demoralized and suffering from mental health and ultimately not being able to work. Now, if a course like this makes us listen up and understand not just men, also women, I look at myself, I employ younger people than myself. I know that I don't have to do it. MPs don't have to do it. And the key word you're saying there is if. What is the evidence that this course, which I've not done, but Lord Heseltine describes as anodyne and wouldn't be the thing

Starting point is 00:25:02 to stop somebody from doing this in the first place. And as I say, we've only got an example just from last week about an MP being suspended. I don't know if he did the course or not, but he's apologised. How do we know that this would work? These things are long term and they're about culture change. I think we all need to learn and listen up. I think there might be a generational thing here as well, that people who are in position of power don't necessarily want to be told what to do and sometimes we do actually have to listen to our employees and those people that we employ or which are in not in the position of power of how how we come across and how it feels like being employed by them and if it improves relationships between staff and MPs and indeed between younger and older MPs on whatever it is, it can only be a good thing. And yes, sometimes we as MPs can be a little bit pompous and then nobody tells me what to do.

Starting point is 00:25:54 But actually, I think it's important to recognise that something has been going wrong and we need to do everything to improve past failings and make an effort to change. What do you make of that, Lord Heseltine? Well, look, some of us have quite a lot of experience of what needs to be done because we have a commercial relationship where these things are happening. And there's no doubt at all. And this was flavoured in the response of the peers when I took the course. The young lady concerned, I think she was called Jess, another actress, should have had the confidence to know how to react to Lord Adams' advances. And she should have had the confidence to know that there was an HR department to whom she could turn. And that should have been part of her induction into

Starting point is 00:26:46 employment in the House of Lords. And certainly, in my commercial understanding of this, companies have got very detailed machinery, which everybody knows about. And another anxiety I have about this course is that it could be seen as a substitute. The idea that these noxious people are going to change their habits if they go through this course can be paraded as a sort of, look, we've done our best. Just to say, and you did say this earlier, the people that you're naming are fictitious in this course and it's a point of being illustrative. But what you're saying there actually speaks to what we've read about in, for instance, I don't know if people remember this, but it's worth reminding our listeners. In 2017, a spreadsheet came to light about 40 Conservative MPs accused of such things.

Starting point is 00:27:37 And people, staffers who've spoken out, even one, another one who's come forward this week, who worked for that Conservative MP, Rob Roberts, has said that she feels that the system is failing her, that the system isn't set up around MPs and peers to make sure what you're saying, which should be the case in places of work, is in place. So in lieu of that, do you not think this could have some merit? None at all. It just merely acts as an excuse for not putting the proper system in place. Vera Hobhouse. So first of all, I appreciate Lord Hesselstein's view on this,

Starting point is 00:28:07 but junior staff often fear that speaking up will damage their careers. So we have to be aware of all of that and listening to the other side and spending two hours of being made aware of how it feels like for the other side, I think is not a waste of time or money.

Starting point is 00:28:24 And indeed, it shouldn't replace processes and robust processes in place, but it's additional to it. And I found it incredibly helpful. But it's still not necessarily going to solve the problem. What would you say, Lord Hazeltine, should be in place, perhaps in addition, or as you would say, in replacement of this course? There should be a proper HR machine with identifiable managers to whom the offended party knows they have an immediate right of access and they should use it. Do you think,

Starting point is 00:28:57 just to build on that case from last week, there have been calls for the Conservative MP to actually be made to resign. There is no mechanism for that at the moment. You can't expect me to comment on an individual case about which I have no knowledge. But my point being is you talk about systems. And at the moment, that's one of the systems, isn't it, Vera Hobhouse, that people are concerned about. That if you do raise your voice, that there isn't actually a mechanism to get rid of that person as well. Indeed, we need to have a process into which people have confidence.

Starting point is 00:29:28 And too often it looks like the people who are not in power don't have confidence in the process. So we have to ask those people of what would be the process that would give them confidence. And that, again, is about listening very carefully to the other side and not assuming things. That was Vera Hobhouse, Liberal Democrat MP and the party's spokesperson for women and equalities, talking to former Deputy Prime Minister Lord Michael Hesseltine. And the House of Lords have said, valuing everyone training is an important strand of the work within Parliament to ensure that everyone here is able to recognise bullying, harassment and sexual

Starting point is 00:30:05 misconduct and feels confident taking action to tackle and prevent it. And the House of Commons said valuing everyone training is mandatory for House of Commons staff, but not MPs, although the participation rate is high. The training was brought in in May 2019, following publication of the Dame Laura Cox report. Still to come on the programme, the author Chimamande Ngozi Adichie on the grieving for both her parents who've died suddenly in the past year and the composer Arooj Aftab talks about the influences behind her beautiful new album.

Starting point is 00:30:38 And remember that you can enjoy Woman's Hour any hour of the day if you can't join us live at 10am during the week. Just subscribe to The daily podcast for free. I'll repeat that, for free via the Woman's Hour website. We love a bargain on Woman's Hour. Now, why after decades of social progress is motherhood still so much harder than it needs to be? Why aren't we honest about the realities of being a mother?

Starting point is 00:31:03 It's not as if these questions haven't been asked before. There is a rich vein of literature from Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, through to Adrienne Rich's classic study of women born, Juliet Mitchell's A Woman's Estate, Jane Lazar's The Mother Knot, and many more. And many second wave feminists fought hard for the rights of mothers on both sides of the Atlantic. Eliane Glazer is the author of Motherhood, a manifesto. Pragya Agarwal is the author of Motherhood, on the choices of being a woman. And Marina Fogel is the host of As Good As It Gets podcast.

Starting point is 00:31:38 The first voice you'll hear is Atalanta, a listener who got in touch to tell Emma what motherhood has really been like for her. Really tough and relentless and boring sometimes. If you've worked and, well, even if you haven't worked and you're at home with small children, it's really, really boring and lonely. And we don't talk about that, but I would say that I got my solace from other women talking to other women, seeing other people who were struggling as well. And we would share it, you know, and end up laughing. But it's not easy. And we're not valued in society. You know, I've brought up two absolutely fabulous men by myself. And yet know there's no recognition well done you i i want to say that well done you if it means anything at all i feel like i should say it at that point

Starting point is 00:32:31 it does thank you but but you know we there's no recognition it's really tough and although you know um their father was financially supportive there's no emotional support, you know, and day in, day out, you've got to get up and do it. And particularly if one parent's abdicated, you know, you've got to do it. There's no choice. And people used to say, oh, I don't know how you do it. And I said, do you think I had a choice? And I wouldn't have given it up for the world, but it was really tough um and i'm really glad i've got you know nice men who take me out to lunch now because i'm in my 60s but it was a long path yeah i was going to say atalanta looking back on it now and and hearing what you've just heard our guests talk about from their experiences at the moment is there anything that you would like to see change and you want to see

Starting point is 00:33:23 change that hasn't changed yet in terms of society and how we recognise motherhood? Well, I personally would pay people who stay at home, I would pay them a wage, you know, because they're doing a job for the whole of society. I would make it a valuable choice, you know, that we value and pay. Eliane, you nodded at that. I could see you on the Zoom, the idea of salary here. What do you know, that we value and pay. Eliane, you nodded at that. I could see you on the Zoom, the idea of salary here. What do you make of that? Well, it's interesting that, you know,

Starting point is 00:33:51 feminist campaigners like Selma James, the Wages for Housework campaign, that these campaigns have been made in the past and it's strange that they've been almost forgotten, really, now. But actually, you you know there are interesting initiatives like the Marshall plan for mums in in the US um you know calling for mothers to be paid and for their child care and domestic labor as a way to um rebuild after the pandemic so um you

Starting point is 00:34:20 know I do think there are interesting ideas out there but but what I really want is to have a concerted campaign to kind of look back at some of those great ideas from the second wave, feminism, but also apply them to the modern world and say, well, everyone is rethinking work after the pandemic. Well, how about a shorter working week for both men and women? Pragya, to bring you back into this, when you're hearing ideas like that or about how to value motherhood in our society,

Starting point is 00:34:51 what does that prompt in you and the research that you've done? I think for me, first of all, we need to think about a societal change where we don't link the woman's identity to mothering or to giving birth or to having a child. And when that becomes not the norm, then we can allow women to choose whether they want to have children or not. First of all, we need to talk more honestly about mothering, about what it entails, so that people can make this choice with full autonomy and agency. But also, I think we need to have a free and

Starting point is 00:35:25 affordable childcare, which is really important, because unless that happens, women do not have the freedom to be themselves, whatever that might mean, to go out and work, to contribute in other ways, and to not feel that they have this pressure to leave the workforce and stay at home because there's no other option and alternative. And I think we need to move away from these kind of typical feminine and masculine stereotypes where mothering or childcare, it becomes only a woman's role as well. Because unless we have shared parental leave, unless we create a societal discussion around parenting, we cannot move away from that where mothers or women feel that it's their job and their job alone and when we do that we put all this pressure on

Starting point is 00:36:13 ourselves to be the best mothers to be the best perfect mothers we carry the mom guilt we carry all those kind of notions of um yeah pressures and guilt with us and so we need to have a wider societal discussion about what it means to have a wider societal discussion about what it means to parent a child, to bring up a child, what value does it have to society, and what does society have to do in return? Pragya, have you dealt with the guilt? Have you managed to get rid of it? I'm asking for a friend here, some top tips. Not always. I still have that guilt. I don't think we are ever free of guilt. And I don't know how to do that.

Starting point is 00:36:46 But it's a waste of energy, isn't it? It's an emotion devoid of any value a lot of the time. That's the problem with it. It is. And there is no productive outcome of it. But we still carry that. And I don't think children, as they grow older or as teenagers, it becomes any less. I used to think parenting becomes easier when children grow older, but I don't think it does because you never stop mothering. Marina Fogel is on the line. She's got a podcast called As Good As It Gets, and she's been talking exactly about that and the role of anger.

Starting point is 00:37:17 What role does anger play in your parenting? Listen, I think as parents, we're always told, don't get angry with your children. It makes you a bad mother. But ultimately, if we're passionate about something, we'll get angry about it. And so to tell parents that you shouldn't be angry is actually then, you know, setting them up to fail because all of us feel frustrated, frustrated. And, you know, if you care passionately about something, that's inevitable. I try not to get angry very much, but occasionally I find myself, I'm mother to a 10 and 11 year old. You know, I'm trying to increase their independence. I'm trying to give them that sort of sense of autonomy. And I'll tell them to do the same thing again and again and again nicely.

Starting point is 00:37:55 And they won't listen. And sometimes I do lose it. It's rare, but sometimes I do. And I do feel guilty about that. But actually, sometimes it's a really effective way of getting the message across. But I also feel back to, you know, the work of Donald Winnicott. It kind of plays back into that idea that we are modelling to our children how you should behave. But it's also really important to model to them how you shouldn't behave. And when I do lose it and sometimes I lose it too much and I'll say, guys, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. I shouldn't have sworn when I stubbed my toe. I shouldn't have, you know, hassled you to get into the car a little bit more quickly than you'd wanted to.

Starting point is 00:38:28 Because also then you're modeling how to behave when you have messed up and all of us are going to mess up in life. And that's arguably a really important thing to teach our children, you know, how, how not to behave. You know, if you're the perfect mother or if you're a perfect parent and you're always showing them that you're perfect the whole time, eventually they're going to go out into the world and realize that people aren't always nice on social media people are mean they say horrid things that maybe they don't mean but if they

Starting point is 00:38:52 haven't had any experience of dealing with that they're going to have a much tougher time than if they've had little insights into the imperfect person which ultimately we all are and so you're kind of letting them you're teaching them to be stronger and more resilient member of society. And when we're talking about that red mist, I mean, what sort of stuff are we talking about? I feel as parents, we sacrifice so much to them. You know, I'm their mother, but I'm also their PA and I, you know, pack their bags for school. And sometimes you feel really taken advantage of. And it's one thing doing that for your three-year-old, but actually once they get to 10 and 11, they need to do their own thing so I think it's showing them you know we're taken for granted as parents by our children and actually as they get older it's important for them to understand that they

Starting point is 00:39:31 can't take people for granted that you know things that they say and do can be really hurtful and so it's little things like you know getting them ready for school I ask them to get ready and they go upstairs and they're not getting ready. They're doing a little dance and playing with their Lego. And I say, you know, it's so important for me that we are ready. Very often, I mean, I'm going to go to work after I've dropped them at school and I say, it's really important that I'm not late. Please respect my feelings and my needs. You know, and occasionally it's too much. Sometimes it's really effective. Like yesterday, we actually went to swim with some friends in their swimming pool and there's some other children there. And my children were just not very friendly. And the other people left, the lady who hosted us

Starting point is 00:40:08 said, well, you know, I felt that you weren't at all inclusive. And when I got them home for dinner, I said, I was really disappointed by that behavior. I'm really ashamed to be your mother today. And it was quite punchy, but I felt very strongly that kindness is very important. And if you're in a bigger group, you can feel powerful. And in the end, actually, my son was quite tearful. He felt really terrible. But, you know, he then said, I'm going to write an email and apologize. And I said, listen, learn, use this as a teachable moment. Use this as an opportunity to learn how not to behave. But I think my emotion and how I articulated my disappointment, even though it was really punchy,

Starting point is 00:40:44 it drove it home. And for them, that's a very valuable lesson. It's something I felt very passionate about. Marina Fogel, thank you for your time. I mean, the striking thing there, still guilt. Eliane, you do talk about the Red Mist. There's some really good examples in the book where I actually laughed out loud at the thought of what you'd been driven to. But I was also very, you know, just snapping, you know, those moments where you just snap. But I also thought it was very striking that you talked about how much praise we're expected to put onto our children. But where are the ladlefuls of praise for mothers? You just get left with guilt, however you respond. Yeah. And I try to be really honest in this book about my own failings as a mother, just to try and

Starting point is 00:41:22 increase solidarity amongst mothers and and because I think that when we think it's just ourselves losing our rag then it actually makes us behave worse because we think oh god it's all ruined you know and aren't I awful um and I and I think it's self-reinforcing so um yeah I mean I find you know as a mother my buttons are pushed in a way that I haven't felt since my own childhood. And yet you're supposed as a mother to be the mature, responsible one at all times and stay calm. And, you know, I think that this just doesn't fit with the reality of, you know, midweek in the witching hour between five and seven. Your partner is out. The kids are fighting.

Starting point is 00:42:05 And yet, you know, times when I have lost my temper and I've gone online um in a kind of self-punishing way I didn't think it was a helpful strategy but you go online to those um forums and um parenting websites the forums are full of experiences like my own um so that was comforting in a way but you, I felt sad that actually all these mothers were turning to message boards to try and find advice and reassurance. And because the parenting advice doesn't provide that. So there was a resounding silence about what you do when firstly your own buttons are pushed, but also when your children are playing up, you know, I think in the past there was a language and a strategy for dealing with um problems of discipline and and and yet now even though those disciplining methods

Starting point is 00:42:50 were very harsh I think today you know there's a lot of language about um respecting um children's rights but actually nothing to to say to to parents or mothers in particular who are pushed to the limits and very unsupported and isolated. And I think that we really need to normalise that reality. Eliane Glazer speaking about the realities of motherhood. Motherhood, a manifesto, and Pragya Agrawal's motherhood on the choices of being a woman are both out now. Now a real treat for you. The composer Arooj Aftab was born in Saudi Arabia

Starting point is 00:43:26 and her family later moved back to her parents' hometown of Lahore in Pakistan. She describes her close relatives and their friends as fiendy music lovers and her musical influences range from Qawwali and Pakistani semi-classical music to Ella Fitzgerald, Jeff Buckley and Budgie. At 18, she recorded a jazzy version of Alleluia and then moved to the US to study music production and engineering. Her latest album, Vulture Prince, includes sounds such as the heavy metal harp and honours and reimagines centuries-old guzzles, a form of South Asian poetry and music that she grew up listening to with her family. She joined me at 5 a.m. from New York. And I started by asking Arooj why she went to America to study.

Starting point is 00:44:11 Well, yeah, I mean, I think that for me, when I decided that studying music was the way that I wanted to go, I realized that there wasn't really I didn't really have the resources that I needed to do that in Lahore. And in order to really study music in an organized way and earn a degree and study like audio engineering and jazz theory and stuff like that, I'd have to venture outwards. And so that's when I decided that I will inherit a massive student loan and go to Berkeley. Well, hopefully it will pay off. I think we should listen to some music. This is from your latest album, Vulture Prince, and the track is called Bahago Me.

Starting point is 00:44:50 Let's have a listen. । I mean, Arooj, the hairs on my unwaxed arms are standing on end. Simply stunning. Describe the sound for us and the themes here, because this album was, I've read a bit about it, it's shaped by grief, isn't it? Yes, partially, but most likely it did take over eventually in the end, in the way that the album kind of feels.

Starting point is 00:46:07 These sounds, you know, and the poetry chosen and the way in which I decided to produce the sounds, it kind of has a sense of like disdain for the ways of the world. I think that's kind of the overarching theme throughout the album and it carries itself in this very graceful, very light on its feet kind of way. You know, especially with the sort of the soft bounciness of the harp and like the very sort of laid back vocal style. You know, there's nothing flashy. There's nothing really like we're not really like showing our chops here. We're just really performing these, these, these musics in a way that's like, you know, I'm just kind of tired.

Starting point is 00:46:50 You know, the world just keeps turning. And so, you know, it's kind of like, yeah, the theme of it overall of the sound is meant to be kind of like, you know, we're coming out of this sort of feeling of grief and perhaps one can never really come out of a feeling of grief, but more so just trying to move forward and accept it so it's more of like an acceptance and hopefulness vibe at the end of the day and does it i mean i we're playing it on woman's hour and everybody who listens to it can i'm sure feel it you don't need to understand it but does it matter that people can't understand the language i know not all the songs are in Urdu, but does it matter?

Starting point is 00:47:26 I've heard that to a lot of people it doesn't matter because they are feeling the feelings. So for the most part, it seems like musically the message is coming across. I've got to ask you about one of your main musical influences because she's an absolute god in my eyes. And it's the great Abda Parveen one of the most revered musicians in South Asian history a great female Sufi voice

Starting point is 00:47:53 and you met her tell me about this well yeah I mean Abda Parveen is literally I think one of the most incredible musicians of our time right now in the world. And I did meet her. She was in New York at the time that I was in New York when I had just moved. And I literally stalked her to her hotel room to meet with her. Although, I mean, the story is much longer than that. But yeah, I mean, that was a really pivotal moment for me in my career and in my thought process,

Starting point is 00:48:27 especially at such a young point where I really didn't, I wasn't sure exactly what it was that I was going to really do with my sound and with my whole vibe. And so she really, that one encounter was really life-changing. I'm sure. And it says something about your bravery and confidence as well and ability to just knock on someone's door and uh you know we're crazy we're when you really have the bug you really

Starting point is 00:48:52 have the bug right absolutely so tell me I know Vulture Prince is out and if you uh you must discover it you're gonna you're gonna have the most divine weekend listening to it but your next album you're researching one we're called Chand Bibi tell me about her uh yeah so Chand Bibi uh was this um woman who existed in the Dakin empire uh in South Asia and she um basically was royalty she was a politician she was a warrior she was a feminist and then when the Dakin empire fell she was aesan, but she continued to be sort of, you know, a political advisor. Just this all around, just like this incredible woman at the time. And not a lot of people know about her or there isn't much written about her. She's also one of the first women, or I believe the first women of that, of in the South Asian subcontinent who wrote

Starting point is 00:49:46 an anthology of poems, and her poetry went viral. You know, and so, you know, some of a lot of that poetry is lost today, but we do have some of it. And I kind of got really interested in her work, because it was referred to me by my very good friend, Annie Ali Khan. That was the divine Arooj Aftab. And I think we definitely need a blast of some more music. This is Saas Lo Saas Lo Saas Lo Sarslo, Sarslo, Sarslo, Sarslo, Sarslaw and Arooj Afdaab's album Vulture Prince is out now. And finally, in a year when so many have lost so many, the award-winning and globally acclaimed author Chimamande Ngozi Adichie has turned her hand to writing a very powerful book about how grief

Starting point is 00:51:26 feels. This is because last June, her beloved father died suddenly in Nigeria. A self-confessed daddy's girl, her raw account is called simply Notes on Grief. She joined Emma. Thank you so much for joining us to talk about this. And it's different talking about this than writing on it. But you write so powerfully. But I understand since you wrote this book about your father, I understand that your mother died suddenly in March this year as well. And I'm so incredibly sorry if I may say that. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. I wanted to start by asking how you deal with double heartbreak like that. I don't know how. I think I'm still in the process of dealing with it.

Starting point is 00:52:06 I was thinking about it recently and I thought one of the ways that I can articulate it is to say that since my mother died, and my mother died on my father's birthday, I feel as though I'm living in a novel whose plot I don't believe because it just seems to me so unlikely. And I was very close to my parents and my parents were very close to each other. And, you know, there's a strange feeling of sort of being on mode, of no longer knowing sort of what direction to go, if that makes sense.

Starting point is 00:52:49 And just really just sort of just not knowing. I'm learning so much about grief and how little I knew about it and how much we assume about grief until we have actually experienced grief. You say, I came undone. I really did. I found that it was the one word to describe it. And I actually don't entirely remember sort of the physical manifestation of this becoming undone, except that my daughter, who at the time was four, told me about it the next day. She said, Mama, you scared me. And I said, well, what do you mean? And then she actually demonstrated. She got down on the floor and she started banging the floor. And then she started

Starting point is 00:53:38 sort of mimicking rolling on the floor. And all of these things apparently I did after I got the phone call. I do remember just feeling the sense of almost a weightlessness because what it meant at that moment was that the life that I had known, my entire life was now gone. I mean, because my father was such a central part of my life in shaping me. I was so close to him. I, you know, not only was I a daddy's girl, I considered my father my friend in a way. My argument partner, who, you know, who really in many ways propped me up. I often say that the reason I'm not afraid

Starting point is 00:54:18 of the disapproval of men is because of my father. That's very interesting because I also know one of the lines in there which will speak to many is that his you say his pride in me mattered more than anyone else's. Yes yes I am but of course now it's so strange now that I've lost my mother I kind of want to go back and edit that book and say well his pride and my mother's pride because I don't want to feel that I've somehow shortchanged my my wonderful mother you know of course not and and I think to come to how what you're describing about how grief actually feels yes I was surprised by how physical grief is and how physical it feels. And I also was stunned by how cliches really come alive.

Starting point is 00:55:14 I mean, in some ways, there is a reason that cliches are cliches because one's heart is, in fact, heavy. It really is heavy in a literal way. It is heavy. And it really does, in fact, feel as though one is in a dream that one is wanting to wake up from. And, you know, I cried quite a bit and I was surprised at how my sides hurt. And then my brother said to me, well, your sides hurt because you've been crying and we cry with our muscles. And I thought, really? I mean, I just hadn't really thought about all those things. But also, I think it's apart from the physicality, it's also how I found myself grasping for language and for words to try and give voice to what I'm at a loss. I feel that I still haven't quite been able to articulate what the emotions are. That, for example, there is something more hollow than sorrow.

Starting point is 00:56:12 But I don't know the name for it, but I can tell you that I felt it. Although I know a friend sent you a line from one of your novels about grief. You wrote, grief is a celebration of love. Those who could feel real grief were lucky to have been loved. It was quite painful for me reading that when my friend sent it to me shortly after my father died. But I do think it's true. I think when you're deep inside of grief, especially when it's sort of early, it's difficult to sit back and say well you know what I'm able to grieve

Starting point is 00:56:46 because I was fortunate to have loved it's difficult to do that because the only thing that you can see is your pain but it is in fact true and I do believe it that there is a sense in which we are fortunate to be able to grieve

Starting point is 00:57:00 because grief is about love That was Emma talking to Chimamande Ngozi Adichie. If you'd like to comment on anything you heard on the programme, then please do get in touch. You can email via our website or it's at BBC Woman's Hour on social media. Have a wonderful weekend. Do join Emma from Monday at 10. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this?

Starting point is 00:57:45 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.

Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman's Hour: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Arooj Aftab, Reclaiming sexist language

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