Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman’s Hour: Demi Moore, Sexual assault allegations at Harrods, Pregnancy loss language

Episode Date: September 28, 2024

Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated actor Demi Moore is a name recognised by many, from her standout role as Molly Jensen in the film Ghost, to Lieutenant Commander Joanne Galloway in A Few Good Men. But it’s her role as Elisabeth Sparkle in new movie, The Substance, which has got a lot of people talking. Many see it as a commentary on Hollywood’s beauty standards and fear of ageing. Demi joined Kylie Pentelow live to discuss it.The BBC recently broadcast Al Fayed: Predator at Harrods, a documentary and podcast which alleged that former Harrods chairman Mohamed Al Fayed sexually assaulted women who worked at the store. Kylie spoke to the woman who was the catalyst for the documentary - Sophia Stone and to her husband Keaton Stone. Sophia alleges that she was groomed and then sexually assaulted by Al Fayed. Keaton was determined to help her and approached other women who had worked at Harrods. The BBC has heard testimony from more than 20 female ex-employees who say Al Fayed, who died last year, sexually assaulted or raped them. The current owners say they are "utterly appalled" by the allegations and are seeking to settle claims "in the quickest way possible”.The language used by healthcare professionals to describe pregnancy loss exacerbates the grief and trauma experienced by some individuals. Words such as incompetent cervix, products of conception, and empty sac to name but a few. That’s according to a study published this month by University College London. We hear from Dr Beth Malory, Lecturer in English Linguistics at UCL who led the study.It's officially the start of cuffing season, apparently that time of the year where you want to stay home, under a blanket, with a takeaway and someone you love. But how are people looking for partners nowadays? Are we over dating apps and looking to return to meeting people in real life? Anita was joined by Olivia Petter, author or Millenial Love, and Oenone Fobart, co-host of the Everything is Content podcast.What would happen if a mysterious woman on a flight began predicting the deaths of her fellow passengers? This is the premise of Australian writer Liane Moriarty’s latest book, Here One Moment. Liane joined Krupa to discuss her novels, which include the Emmy and Golden Globe-winning Big Little Lies.Presenter: Krupa Padhy Producer: Annette Wells Editor: Deiniol Buxton

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2. And of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme. Peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Krupal Pati and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour with me, Krupal Pati. In the next hour, the Hollywood A-lister Demi Moore, who is the star of a new film, The Substance, which explores ageing in a very confronting way. And apparently it's cuffing season, the period when single people seek partners to spend time with now the weather has gotten colder.

But where do you meet your special person? In real life or on apps? I think essentially dating apps have turned the dating experience into a game because a lot of people use them quite mindlessly. You're sitting there kind of swiping through different people, making decisions based on very superficial things like someone's height, someone's star sign, what someone does for a living. And we don't take it very seriously. Also, the bestselling Australian author of Big Little Lies, also an Emmy and Golden Globe

winning series, Liane Moriarty on her latest novel, Here One Moment. And suffering pregnancy loss is a harrowing time for any woman. We'll be finding out how the language used by healthcare professionals can make their experiences so much worse. Lots to get through, so grab a cup of whatever takes your fancy and settle in for the hour. Emmy and Golden Globe nominated Demi Moore. Now, I'm sure just saying her name conjures up countless films you've seen her in, her standout role as Molly Jensen in Ghost or as Joanne Galloway in A Few Good Men. She's also starred in St Elmo's Fire, Indecent Proposal, or more recently,

portrays socialite Anne Woodward in the TV miniseries Feud, Capote vs. the Swans. But it's her role as Elizabeth Sparkle in the new movie The Substance which has got a lot of people talking. Demi stars alongside Margaret Qualley who plays the character of Sue in a film that's described as a satirical body horror. Many see it as a commentary on Hollywood's beauty standards and fear of ageing. Her character Elizabeth is an aerobics TV star and has just had her 50th birthday and her life seems to be changing. Demi joined Connie Pendelo this week and she began by asking her what drew her to this role. I really felt like it was such an interesting, out of the box, unique way of delving into this subject matter that really captivated me. And it's such a wild ride, but there was something so visceral in taking, you know, this really relatable human experience that was, it is set around women, but I really felt was very human.

That idea of kind of seeking perfection, chasing perfection, as it were. And the director of the film said that casting you in this role, she felt that you really understood what she was going to need from you and you were ready to take a risk. Did it seem like a risk starring in this I think emotionally it was I I knew that it the role was going to be very demanding emotionally like a level of vulnerability and rawness um as well as physically which is also you know anytime I think you look at something that pushes you out of your comfort zone, there's usually something that says, I'm a little afraid, but maybe it's the kind of fear I need to push me to the next level within myself and within my work. We were talking about comfort zones and being naked must have pushed you out of your

comfort zone. What was that like filming it and then watching it back? Two very different experiences. But I think, you know, in filming it, going into this, I knew just the nature of the story, how she was telling the story with there being this, you know, newer, better version of me, that part of being, you know, or I guess a way of describing it, I kind of represent the matrix in this. I am the original. And Margaret is the younger, better version that I knew I that that part of the level of honesty that this needed was that it was not going to be a glamorous shoot for me. This was not about being lit beautifully, having angles that were high. In fact, it was going to be the exact opposite. It was really going in and allowing for those most vulnerable places to be highlighted. Things that we generally don't necessarily want focus on with these low angle shots. And I have to say there was something quite liberating

about that, even though it was vulnerable. Now, as to seeing it, you know, it's the nudity is really less, it's not sexualized nudity. It's in, it's especially for Elizabeth, my character, it's because, you know, most of my scenes are with myself and there's not a lot of dialogue. And so, so much of it was really having a very vast and deep inner life that I could bring to this with very little expression, except through the subtleties. And I had no hesitation because I think I knew that this had also an important opportunity to really set a few more pavers down for the road of culture, for a cultural shift. Do you consider that? I mean, you know, thinking back to when you did the Vanity Fair shoot, when you were naked and pregnant, that at the time was absolutely groundbreaking. When you were doing

that photo shoot, were you thinking this is going to change things for women in the future? I think I was aware that it could be very dynamic and have an impact. But I think so much of the choices in my experience have really been in a way, first and foremost, for my own questions, my own, the challenges within myself. And in doing so, I think that in certain cases, they've, they have had an impact on a bigger level that has been relatable. But no, it's not like I'm going in with that being the intention. It's almost as if that can happen, then it's stumbled more onto what my true intention is, which is maybe being more of just a truth seeker. You have had to transform your body for some of your roles. I'm thinking G.I. Jane. Yes. How has that been for you? Because it must have been pretty punishing

on your body. I mean, I think, you know, my relationship with my body has been a big part of my own personal story. And I write about it in my memoir. What's interesting for me is I am not Elizabeth as, you know, we're very different. But I think in my younger years, in fact, I did experience a lot of moments of embarrassment, humiliation in relation to being told to lose weight. But again, like the film, what really struck me and was the most powerful part about reading the script and now in the film is it's not what's being done to her. It's not the fact that she's being fired from her own show for aging out, as it were. It's really the violence that she's holding against herself. And the idea that in the film, if we were to create a visual representation of how critical and harsh and violent we could be, what would that look like? opportunity for you know imparting that question of real like what is real deep acceptance self acceptance self-love i love what you put out for your for your listeners all also to come back with

i would love to see what they come back with how they celebrate their own bodies already we're getting lots of comments in this one here um says i, I am a curvaceous, soon to be 58-year-old woman. And only since turning 50 have I been relaxed about my body. So much so that I became a part-time life model for a couple of local drawing classes. And I love it. Oh, my God. That's fantastic. That's brilliant, isn't it?

Fantastic, yes. And I think that shows, you know, certainly from my personal experience, the older I get, the more comfortable I get with my body, even though my body might not look as good to other people's eyes, maybe, as it did when I was 20. Do you feel more comfortable in your own skin now? Yes. You know, the kind of the ease and grace that I feel within myself, not just my body, but within my myself, like it's it's that they're also I think, you know, for me, how we relate to the issue is the issue. It really. And so as we shift how we hold things, that then sets out what what our experience will be. My middle daughter Scout said to me one day, I want to quit wasting time focusing on all that's wrong with me and missing out on celebrating all that I am. Wow. It's incredible. And that is kind of the truth of it. And, you know, what's interesting is I think at each stage of our

lives, not just as we get older, I think at each stage we can fall into that compare and despair, fall into those places of, you know, micro-focusing on all that we find that's wrong as opposed to stepping back and seeing the whole picture of who we are, the beauty of our uniqueness. There's a really incredible scene in the film that builds and builds. And it's silent, I think, where your character is, she's looking at her appearance. She's kind of getting ready for a date.

She's looking at her appearance in the mirror. And she has so much rage that she almost takes that out on her face, on her appearance. Could you connect with that in any way oh I mean for me that is one of the most kind of heart-wrenching moments because she's so close to escaping this self-imposed prison that she's that she's in and I think on some level we've all had that moment of looking in the mirror, getting dressed, just wanting to change one little thing. And then we change that one thing. And then it's it just it and it snowballs into this thing that is, you know, in this case, it's absolute self loathing and self-destruction. But yet, I think it's probably one of the most relatable. And again, not for just women, but for men and women alike. Let's bring in another comment here. We've got so many. Linda says, it's difficult to come to terms with the shape that's changed very little, but now seems to be very loosely wrapped. She

says, I'm 76 years old and the same shape I was in my 20s. Now, sadly, the skin on my arms and across my midsection resembles a great bandage. I was fine until my late 60s. But in the last two or three years, the rate of creeping creepiness has accelerated alarmingly. Would it be easier to bear if I no longer have my youthful figure? She says, hey, ho, I know I'm not I know I'm fortunate. Just have to keep reminding myself. And it is that, isn't it? You know, we might you might absolutely feel like yourself still, but things are developed, you know, changing and you don't have any any choice that that's happening.

I totally relate. And, you know, I totally relate and really appreciate what she's what she's brought forward. Because, again, it's when we just hyper focus, if we actually can catch ourselves in the process of that dissection of what, what, you know, it's always like the idea of, I really look at life as everything is happening for you, not to you. And through that lens of perception and the same is true for what is occurring with the physical body. Like, yes, I don't have to like it. I can have a preference. I wish that the skin wasn't getting looser or a little crepey or so loosely wrapped. But is it really who I am? Is that what people really love or

don't love? Is that what makes me valuable? That's the question we have to ask. And it isn't. It's very interesting to me that you feel this way, because obviously you're an extremely beautiful woman. And you've done all these incredible things in your life people might expect that you would be uber confident about yourself no I think one of the biggest misperceptions you know even I've have done certain things you know using my body whether it's been in photographs you know or with things that have had nudity. And the perception was that I had this confidence that I was so comfortable that I, you know, and in fact, it was quite the opposite. This was kind of my way of helping me to have ownership over my body to feel more comfortable to not be in such

self judgment. And I think, you know, in a way this, this film too has offered me this opportunity on a personal level, um, to kind of embrace those things by not being as afraid of people seeing it, seeing my humanness, seeing the things that, you know, um, that I, you know, don't like, believe me, there's moments in the film, you know, that I, you know, don't like. Believe me, there's moments in the film, you know, there's a nice shot from behind that's kind of low. I know the one you mean. And kind of makes me look even bigger than I am.

And I'm like, but I'm okay, because I know that it's serving a greater purpose. Demi Moore, The Substance is in cinemas now. This week, Woman's Hour heard from the woman who was the catalyst for the BBC documentary that exposed allegations of sexual assault and rape against Mohamed Al-Fayed, the former owner of luxury department store Harrods. Sophia Stone was a young woman when she got a job at Harrods working for Al-Fayed. She alleges that she was groomed and then sexually assaulted by him.

Decades after she left Harrods, Sophia told her husband Keaton Stone about her experiences. Keaton was determined to help her and approached other women who had worked there. The BBC has heard testimony from more than 20 female ex-employees who say the billionaire, who died last year aged 94, sexually assaulted or raped them. Since the documentary aired, there has been extensive media coverage of the accusations and questions over whether more should have been done to protect them.

Harrods have said, We are utterly appalled by the allegations of abuse perpetrated by Mohamed Al-Fayed. These were the actions of an individual who was intent on abusing his power wherever he operated and we condemn them in the strongest terms. Carly Pentelow spoke to Safaya and Keaton earlier this week and I should mention that this interview covers sexual assault that some listeners may find upsetting. She started by asking Sophia how things have been since the documentary was broadcast. So intense, so full-on, overwhelming,

and it's just blown up, and how many more poor other women, you know, who have obviously now just, because of this documentary, felt strong enough to come forward. And, you know, sad it's happened to them, but I hope it's given them the courage to come forward. Sophia, if you're able to, can you tell me a bit about what happened to you?

You worked for Mohamed Al-Fayed at Harrods and you got the job when you were just 19. I just turned 20 when I started working for him. He saw me on the shop floor and originally came as his walking part. He walks past with a team of security, always has security in front and behind. And he saw me and he came over to me and started to chat. And then I got moved to a different department and he recognised me, came up to me. I don't know whether I should be now to say flattered that he recognised me as came up to me. I don't know whether I should be now to say flattered that he recognised me as the chairman.

I remember since what's happened, that makes me feel sick. But he came up to me and was like, hey, what are you doing here? And then he'd see me again on the shop floor. And at that point, he then sent his PA down to ask me to come and work for him. So that's how it all began. and can you tell us a bit about what happened he asked me to come and work for him he he said he was going to make all my dreams come true he said whatever you want to do whatever you want to be I can make this happen. I'm here for you. I will look after you and you must trust me.

But you mustn't talk to anyone else about me now that I come to work for you. And then just from then on, very quickly, it just turned into a sort of charade of abuse that just, obviously, in a nutshell, that was relentless. Absolutely relentless. Every day, practically, something would happen. And, you know, I felt like I couldn't get out of this hell because I wasn't allowed to talk to anyone. I wasn't told anyone about this I think all my friends and family thought I had this great job I was scared I'd seen him have people followed

I'd seen what he can do I'd seen him shout at people I you know I was just in this world of hell and I didn't know how to get out of it obviously I was a lot younger than I am now I was very naive I feel I can use the word I didn't at the time know what grooming was but now I completely I'm an older woman I'm you know when I'm 56 I can see what he was doing to me and he was sort of reeling me in at the beginning and saying trust me trust me come to papa you don't trust anyone else you'll be safe I wasn't saying my god I mean just horrible I think he just sort of uh broke me down I was just a gibbering wreck I became by the time I left I just had zero confidence was scared as hell just didn't know really I was a mess utter mess

you know and you said you were you were afraid afraid then to say what was happening to you. Yes, yes. I'd seen what he had done to other people. He told me I wasn't allowed to speak to anyone on the shop floor. I had an incident when someone had upset me. Someone in the shop floor came up to the chairman's office and upset me because they were being I don't know what happened anyway I got upset Mohammed saw that person was fired

I didn't want to have be in that situation where I was you know a catalyst to someone losing their job and career I had this supposedly brilliant job and And if I left, what do I say to people? How do I get some money? I need to pay the rent. I've got to live. I have to actually survive on my own. So I'm going to be cast out. And is he going to say to someone that I'm never going to be?

I mean, I don't know if I'm going to get another job, but I don't know. My confidence was destroyed. When did you decide to tell Keaton then what had happened? And had you kept it a secret all that time? get this push it deep down inside I don't want to talk about this ever again I never want anyone to ever make me feel like this again no man is ever going to make me feel as bad as that so I pushed it behind put it inside me and just thought but just get yourself strong and carry on with your life but it's obviously still in there wasn't it still when you told me you me, you didn't, Safiya didn't mean to tell me, want to tell me. I was just, you know, she'd been in this job for quite a while, front of house reception,

because, of course, when she left Fayed, then she was never, ever going to work close one-on-one with, you know, in close proximity to one man ever again. So, you know, she was having a little look around, see what else might be out there. And I said, oh, I'll give you a CV, a bit of a spruce. And it was, that's how it all came out because at the bottom of the CV, when there's other kind of entries, you know, even for kind of temporary jobs, et cetera, she had bullet points about the information about the job, about this particular, about, you know, there was just a little line Harrods and not much else. You know, I was kind of curious about that of course and could have long story short when i kind of asked

her about it um you know it's it slowly came out that she'd worked for the chairman there when i went away and judged that cv it occurred to me hold on the chairman at that time was you know fired i thought that was amazing i thought that was um wow that's that's that's brilliant wow let's let's make a thing of that so i kind of you know rewrote this cv and made big old singing you know all dancing affected that right at the top i was the personal assistant the former chairman of the world's most prestigious store mohammed al-fayed etc of course and then and now that's how this whole thing started from when i then took that to sophia thinking i've done this brilliant job and she's gonna be very thankful to me and it's gonna be great she burst into tears

seeing his name right across i just went what have you done i was just like paul keaton just thought i was being yeah crying you know i always remember the reaction. I mean, just the goosebumps, you're shaking. You should get it off, get it off, get it off. Why haven't you put him on there? Get him off. And then she was just absolutely hysterical, crying, ran upstairs. So you don't have to be the greatest detective of all time to work out there's something very, very wrong there. And there we go.

That's where the whole genesis was from. And that was in 2018, wasn't it? So that was a while between then and when you started to think about making a documentary about this. So how did that go from you finding out Keaton to then pursuing other people who may have been affected? Well, this was never about a documentary, obviously, in the first instance. This was a very personal, you know, self-motivated investigation.

You know, I have, you know, not ashamed to say I'm autistic and ADHD. And, of course, the blinkers were on as soon as I found out this. And I just dove down that rabbit hole. And this was my fiancée at the time time and her wife and I was absolutely furious and so I off I went and and um so you started investigating it Sophia gave me the first couple of names of people that she suspected may also have been sadly abused contacted them of course because Sophia's my wife they they trusted me and they because I realized obviously I'm a I'm just some random guy you know who's going to talk to a man about this kind of thing but because of Sophia being my wife or fiance at the time they felt reassured that

they could tell me they did then they would tell me about their friends who they were worried about and it just got you know snowballed and snowballed so that was going on from 2018 until 2023 and i just built up this um you know amassed this great wealth of evidence statements names screenshots documents photos everything i've got in my kind of archive on this and spoke to so many poor women all across the world it's just and it's just horrendous and unbelievable how far it does go around the globe. And yeah, so in 2023 is when I took it to the BBC. I wonder what you thought though, Sophia, because you'd been keeping this to yourself for such a long time.

And then suddenly it's beginning to be exposed and there are more and more women with allegations similar to yours. So what did that feel like, making it so public? It's been really hard. I can't lie. But it needed to be done and it had to be done and I had to be strong. And I'm still getting emotional, look at me. But, but you know this is something that was vital that we did and and I had we're having the support of Keaton and his love and his strength well he's given me his strength to be able to do this and that's how I've been able to get through because it has been intense and relentless but it is hopefully worth it you you did go to the police didn't you

absolutely yes I went to the police um 2020 um I had to give my statement I had to go and do a recorded statement a video statement during Covid um so that was really weird because obviously you had to go in on your own and do it and yeah so um gave my 31 page statement and my she had my long video call so and you approached harrods as well what's their uh response been and have you received any apology or compensation well we there was a so i was with a lawyer first of all before this new team who've come on and just been absolutely incredible. Yeah, they're amazing. But before that, there was another lawyer involved and he approached Harrods. So that was 2019 they were first approached.

And to be honest, for the first, for those few years, they were not interested. They batted it away. Batted it away. They didn't believe it. Disbelieving. They wrote quite a you know when i say them you know they have their reputational lawyers of course their reputation lawyers um wrote this uh on their behalf i guess this letter and i found it quite dismissive of sophia yeah i

was you know already compiling accounts and evidence and documents and everything then but with that one particular letter that was written just how it was and how dismissive and dismissive of Sophia's potential and her future and almost blaming her for not coming forward before because now they can't speak to Mohammed because he's ill they said that then set me off and here we are now so what would you both like to see happen now overall and long-term idealistically um with just as a woman i just want this people to be so aware that things like this do go on and if they see even a glimpse or think it might be happening. It's got to be outed. It's just not going to happen anymore. This has got to stop. Sophia and Keaton Stone speaking to Kylie this week.

The documentary is called Al-Fayed, Predator at Harrods, and you can watch it on BBC iPlayer. And if you've been affected by anything that you've heard in this interview, you can find help and resources on the Woman's Hour website. I can read a bit more from the Harrods statement now. They say, We are utterly appalled by the allegations of abuse perpetrated by Mohammed Al-Fayed. We acknowledge that during this time as a business we failed our employees who were his victims and for this we sincerely apologise.

The Harrods of today is a very different organisation to the one owned and controlled by Al-Fayed between 1985 and 2010. It is one that seeks to put the welfare of our employees at the heart of everything we do. They continue, This is why, since new information came to light in 2023 about historic allegations of sexual abuse by Al-Fayed, it has been our priority to settle claims in the quickest way possible, avoiding lengthy legal proceedings for the women involved. This process is still available for any current or former Harrods employees. Please go to the website response.harrods.com for further information.

Still to come on the programme, Liane Moriarty, the best-selling Australian author of Big Little Lies, on her latest novel, Hear One Moment. And remember, you can enjoy Woman's Hour any hour of the day if you don't join us live at 10am during the week. Just subscribe to the Daily Podcast for free via BBC Sounds. A new study has found that the language used by healthcare professionals to describe pregnancy loss exacerbates the grief and trauma experienced by some individuals. Words such as incompetent cervix, products of conception and empty sack to name but a few. Dr Beth Mallory, lecturer in English linguistics at University College London,

who led the study, joined Kylie this week. Now, just a warning that we are going to be talking about some of the worst language used, which some of you may find upsetting. Kylie began by asking Beth why she decided to research this. This work really came out of my own experiences. So I suffer from a condition called chronic histiocytic intervillositis, which is a kind of rare but really significant cause of recurrent pregnancy loss, often causing recurrent stillbirth. In my case, it didn't, my losses were in the first and second trimesters. But as a linguist, I really felt that the language that was being used in the pregnancy loss kind of space was really problematic. I mean, even miscarriage, we use it really, really frequently.

But to me, it felt really jarring. And I kind of wondered if that was because I'm a linguist and I think about language in a way that maybe other people don't. But what we found in this study is actually lots of people experience miscarriage in that way. One of our participants in the study said, you know, it's synonymous with failure. The only other time we hear it is miscarriage of justice when something has, you know, gone

seriously wrong in the judicial system. And why is this being used to describe how women's bodies work? And that was really my experience as well. And I think I also found it very difficult with my second trimester losses when I lost my daughters. Later on in the second trimester, I found it very difficult, the kind of dehumanising language that was used around them. I think in wanted pregnancies nowadays, we're encouraged from kind of the word go to conceptualise them as babies. You know, you have apps saying your baby is the size of a lemon, your baby is the size of an avocado. And then as soon as, and this was something that participants spoke to in the study as well, as soon as there's a question mark or as soon as there's an impending loss,

there's a shift in the clinical language that's used. So it goes from, you know, your midwife checks you and says, oh, baby's doing well, baby's heartbeat is strong. And then as soon as there's a loss or an impending loss, it's all foetus and products of conception. And that shift and the dehumanisation of something that was very much humanised and is in our culture very much humanised until that point is very jarring and is very difficult. And that's certainly something I felt myself. So I wanted to see, you know, how widespread that is and how it affects others. So who did you speak to for the research?

We spoke to 339 people in total. We had focus groups with 42 individuals. 32 of those were people with lived experience of pregnancy loss in the last three years, so since 2021, because we wanted to make sure that this was language that was contemporary, what's being used at the moment, and is also fresh in people's minds. And we also spoke to, in the focus groups, 10 healthcare professionals who have experience, who routinely in their day-to-day jobs support people either during pregnancy loss or with pregnancy loss after care. And we also invited written contributions. So that accounts for the remainder of the participants. And they were from both healthcare professionals and people with lived experience since 2021. So what were healthcare professionals saying about why this language will be used? Was there

defence of it? Yeah, I mean, I guess there was to some degree. It wasn't so much defence because it's not an accusation. We're not intending to attack, we're intending to kind of support and trying to support clinicians to support women as best they can. But there was a lot of kind of nuance around, you know, some of the some of the words that people in our lived experience cohort found the most difficult were things like feticide and products of conception and pregnancy tissue. And these are things which are often kind of legally required to be on consent forms, They have to be something that

these women and birthing people are exposed to in order to give their legal consent to a surgical process or a medical intervention. And what we heard from medical professionals was, well, we can't do anything about that. We can't stop that exposure. So one of the recommendations that come out of the study is, if you can't avoid that exposure, frame it in a way that is helpful. So we heard from a lot of our participants that having somebody there to mediate really difficult language, so say feticide on a consent form. Feticide is the process by which the baby's heart is injected to stop it during a termination for medical reasons. And we heard from from participants who said, you know, it was really hard seeing that word. But actually, you know, they talked me through it. And they said, we have to call it that. But what it actually means is, you know,

you're making a compassionate choice so that your baby doesn't suffer. And that framing really helped that particular participant, whereas others said, you know, I hated foeticide. Nobody kind of framed it for me it was very very difficult so what we're recommending is that if you have to expose patients to really difficult language try and frame it in that way and that was something that we heard happens a lot more commonly at later gestations so people having these really difficult language experiences in earlier pregnancy didn't have that framing. They didn't have that kind of attempt to mediate between the difficult language that has to be there and the way that they want to think about their experience. We've had a comment come in from a GP who says it's exhausting at times in consultations with patients with the upsurge of offence and trauma associated with words.

Not everything can or should have a positive spin. We're duty-bound to provide fact in a way a patient understands, and whilst doing this sensitively is crucial, sometimes this fact generates a negative emotion, and that is OK too. Yeah, I mean, I don't think this is about telling people how they should speak. It's about making sure that you don't undermine someone's conceptualization of what's happened so our recommendation arising from this report is to ask how somebody wants their pregnancy loss to be spoken about and and i don't think um

that needs to be exhausting if that's just a routine way of of speaking just to say oh i can see that you've had a previous pregnancy experience. How would you like me to speak about that? That avoids any kind of question marks over sensitivity. The thing is that there is no one size fits all with pregnancy loss. We had participants who lost babies in the first trimester who said, you know, that was my baby. I hated it when people said fetus and embryo and products of conception. But equally, we had people who'd experienced termination for medical reasons at 20 weeks and who had said, you know, that wasn't a baby. I hated it when I was delivering.

And the midwife said the baby is coming because there was no baby coming for me. I didn't get to take a baby home. And I think it's an integral part of patient care. I don't think you can say as a clinician that an aspect of your job, an aspect of providing care is something that you can forego. I think especially in this kind of very traumatic context and it shouldn't be exhausting. This should be a toolkit for making this easier if anything. We've had a response here from Dr Rani Thakkar, the president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

And in it, they say, using the right language when caring for women and families that experience a miscarriage is really important. Whilst we're not prescriptive about the exact language that must be used,

our clinical guidance on pregnancy loss do emphasise the need to be sensitive when counselling women and to take their lead on whether and when they wish to talk

about what has happened and options for next steps. We've also developed information for women and families to help explain the care they will receive if they experience an early miscarriage or recurrent miscarriages. Is this, Beth, more about tone? I don't think it's about tone as much as it is about just making sure that you, so there's a lot of talk in kind of social science around health communication now around reflective listening and making sure that you, not just in obstetrics and gynaecology, but across healthcare, make sure that you reflect what the patient is saying and you use the kinds of language that they are using themselves. And it is about that to some degree, but it's more about making sure that you don't undermine their conceptualization

of their pregnancy. And I think that's because there are, as I said, there is no one size fits all approach to this. And because there can be, you just can't tell until you ask somebody how they want to talk about their experience. And you know, some people might really strongly, we had one participant who really strongly rejected the word stillbirth, because she said it wasn't a birth. My older child, I had given birth to him, I had taken him home, we had a birth certificate. With her stillbirth, she didn't get a birth certificate, she just got a death certificate. So that wasn't she didn't get a birth certificate she just got a death certificate she said that wasn't birth and the word birth just triggered lots of trauma for

her so in that kind of context you you you can't tell without asking what somebody wants it's not about tone it's about the specific words but it's about making sure that you understand what somebody's conceptualization of their experience is so that you can use appropriate language and not create further trauma or exacerbate that trauma. I feel like sometimes I have thought that I would react in a certain way to a situation, a stressful situation, and I have reacted very differently. Isn't it part of the problem that many women just don't know how they'll feel until they're in that situation or until that word is used absolutely um and i think that's why our short-term recommendation is that clinicians ask and say you know do you know how you would like me to talk

about this with you um and you know give give women the space to say, I don't know, you know, this is all too much, I have no idea. But our long term aspiration is to create some kind of formal framework, which allows us to say to people, you know, what language do you want to use? And for that to be replicated across their notes or across their medical records. There are precedents for this kind of thing. So the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust has a document called Know Our Story in their pregnancy loss service. So they say to people, you know, we've got this medical record for your experience of who we want to hear in your own words what's happened. And for that to be something that is kept in our records too.

So we know how to talk about this with you. It's not an impossible task it's something that we just need to scale up and make sure that people have the ability to do that and that kind of document gives women birthing people their families time to process and to think okay so actually what language do i want to use because for some people as you say it's a knee jerk reaction it's a reflex it's that's my baby or that's not my baby. That's a foetus or, you know, I'm a parent or I'm not a parent. But for other people, it might need that time and that processing. And some participants actually told us that, you know, that would be that would be really helpful for them,

that time to process and that space to say, oh, actually, OK, the language that I use here is really important, but I need I need time to think about it and to talk about it with my partner. Dr Beth Mallory there, and you can find links of support on the Women's Hour website. We did have a response from the Royal College of Midwives. They told us the language that midwives and other healthcare professionals use when communicating with bereaved families matters, including ensuring that bereavement care is sensitive to and respectful of diversity, including cultures and beliefs. In 2022, the RCM worked with maternity service users, pregnancy charities and other healthcare professionals on the Rebirth Project to develop language that is more respectful, not just in bereavement care, but throughout pregnancy,

labour and birth. We continue to urge trusts and health boards with maternity services to take this guidance on board. Right, Strictly's back, the temperature has dropped and I've got my knitwear on. It's officially the start of cuffing season. That is the time of the year where you want to stay home, under a blanket with a takeaway and to film with someone you love. Coughing season is defined as that period of time where single people seek partners to spend time with now the weather has gotten colder. But how are people looking for partners nowadays? Where do you meet your special person? Is it in real life or are you on apps? Olivia Petter, author of Millennial Love and

Unoni Forbert, co-host of the Everything Is Content podcast, joined Anita in the studio and she began by asking Olivia, who's single, how the apps are going. Well, I've always said that dating apps can work for people. For me, I'm single. I've never met anyone that I've been in a relationship with on a dating app. The people I've been in relationships with I've met in real life. I think apps can work and do work. But if they do work, then you are one of the lucky ones because I think the system is kind of rigged against you. Wow.

And for lots of reasons, I think essentially dating apps have turned the dating experience into a game because a lot of people use them quite mindlessly. You're sitting there kind of swiping through different people, making decisions based on very superficial things like someone's height, someone's star sign, what someone does for a living, a few curated photos they've had. And we don't take it very seriously. And I think because of that, we don't take the people that we start talking to on them very seriously. And as a result, we kind of dehumanize the dating experience. And you know, we will talk to one person find them a bit boring stop replying to them start talking to someone else we'll meet someone not really be that interested find someone else we don't take it as seriously as we would if we met these people in

real life because there aren't really consequences because we often don't know these people just part of our throwaway culture it's a bit like fast fashion honestly i think that's how it's kind of become i thought these dating apps helped you meet someone more compatible and only. Sorry, that's the point. They kind of filter out based on the criteria. I think they can be amazing because the problem is no one's really going out and

doing stuff anymore and we are living in a cost of living crisis and there's still this hangover from COVID so I do think people are sort of like inside a lot more and you don't seem to see many single hot people out in the wild. So you do have to go online. But there is like a language to these dating apps as well that, like Livvy said, it kind of puts a barrier between you and this person because we have all these random things we're judging them on. And actually, if you met them in the pub, you might find them really attractive and you wouldn't have all this information.

So we're just basing things off really random things that being said I did have a really nice relationship which ended not that long ago from with a man that I met on hinge and maybe that was luck but I do think you can find love on them but it is also a bit like a full-time job are you cuffed at the minute no no not cuffed uncluffed okay so what's the plan how how do you go about this is that is there do you think there is a general sense of app fatigue then? Definitely. I think dating app burnout is something that people have been talking about for a couple of years now. Because I think there is just a sense that it's so arduous to go on these dates with people who might look totally different to how they look on their photos on their profile. You might have a real spark with someone in conversation online and then meet them in real life and realize that there's nothing

between you because i think everything i was talking about earlier like it informs this dating process which is just very kind of superficial and has a total lack of the verisimilitude that makes dating so fun and magical and you know you're not able to read someone's body language on an app you're not able to hear someone's body language on an app. You're not able to hear their voice, really, unless they have voice prompts, which I know that some dating apps have introduced. But that's not the same as talking to someone in real life. Is this a generational thing? I mean, you're both you're both you're both young. So, you know, you are kind of this is part of your world. I'm just thinking of older people who maybe have stepped out of a marriage.

You might, you know, whatever. And whatever, and it's not their world. It used to be that you'd just go to a bar or a restaurant or meet somebody based on the hobbies that you did. What are you all up to? Nothing. I think more and more people are wanting to meet people in real life. Like Livvy said, there's a real fatigue. We're in a weird generation where I remember it came out when we were at uni,

like Tinder kind of dating apps. Uni? You should all be out. Aren't you all out? We were out. At uni, I used to sit around a table. I lived with seven girls and we just swipe for fun or match the same guy and see if they sent us the same message and then just go out. We wouldn't actually. I was going to say rather than going out, just be in the pub or wherever. That was just because it was such a new thing and it was funny and it was interesting.

And then I had a really long relationship for almost like five years. So I had never gone on dating apps. And then when I had this breakup, for me, because I hadn't been doing it for years, I thought I was having the time of my life because I'd never really like dated and it was really fun. But something you do have to do with apps is I think you cannot speak. You have to basically match. Say, do you want to go on a date and meet immediately? I think if you speak really well, like over text, generally you're not going to find them attractive.

It's just something really weird about if they go on text, they've probably got terrible chat in real life. But more and more, we were just saying we might join a run club because I did a race last night. There were loads of great looking men there. So we were like, we've got to go out and be doing stuff in the real world. And active. And active.

Yes, this is good. Now earlier, this is a good one. I'm sure lots of people listening will have heard this because it came out earlier this month about supermarkets in spain where single people this is true basically there's an hour a day dedicated to uh single people coming to supermarkets in spain and if they are single and interested then you get put a pineapple upside down in your shopping trolley and that indicates that you're looking for love. What do you make of that initiative?

I'd be more interested in what else they've got in their trolley. I think it says a lot about someone, what they're buying in the supermarket, actually. You can make quite a lot of judgments based on someone's supermarket trolley, much more than you can based on someone's dating app profile, based on their height and based on what they do for a living. But do you not think then people are going to be curious?

There's a real thing, because of Jacob Elordi, of men carrying books with them that they think are going to be really feminist or like they'll have like dolly alderton's book or sally rooney's do you think there's going to be men on purpose putting like something vegan yeah and then you get to yet the house and in the fridge is just lard and links africa or any other uh fragrance as well Have you got any advice for our listeners who are desperately seeking real connection? I think ask your friends to set you up and ask your friends who are in relationships. Ask them if they are with someone who is the gender that you are attracted to. Ask their partner to set you up with their friends because that exposes you to other social circles beyond your own because you can vet people,

you have some mutual friends, they're not a total stranger. The stakes are a little bit higher if you end up not liking them. It can be a little awkward kind of relaying that to your friend. But I think generally it's a much nicer way to date than meeting up with some random person on a dating app that you like because their star sign is compatible with yours. Olivia Petter and Unoni Forbert.

What would happen if a mysterious woman on a flight began predicting the deaths of her fellow passengers? This is the premise of best-selling author Liane Moriarty's latest novel, Here One Moment. Liane is the author of 10 novels, which have sold more than 20 million copies worldwide. They include Big Little Lies, which is also an Emmy and Golden Globe winning HBO series produced by and starring Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon. Her novel Apples Never Fall

is also now a TV series. Lianne joined me this week. And before we talked about her work, here's a reading from Here One Moment. Later, not a single person will recall seeing the lady board the flight at Hobart Airport. The lady is small and petite, but not so small and petite as to require solicitousness. She does not attract benevolent smiles or offers of assistance. Looking at her does not make you think of how much you miss your grandmother. Looking at her does not make you think anything at all. You could not guess her profession, personality or star sign. You could not be bothered. You wouldn't say she was invisible as such, maybe semi-transparent. The lady is not strikingly beautiful or unfortunately ugly. She wears a pretty green and white patterned collared blouse tucked in at the waistband of slim fitting grey pants. Her shoes are flat and sensible. She is not unusually pierced or bejewelled or tattooed. silver studs in her ears and a silver brooch pinned to the collar of her shirt, which he often touches,

as if to check that it is still there. Which is all to say, the lady who will later become known as the Death Lady, on the delayed 3.20pm flight from Hobart to Sydney, is not worthy of a second glance, not by anyone, not a single crew member, not a single passenger, not until she does what she does. Even then it takes longer than you might expect for the first person to shout, for someone to begin filming, for call buttons to start lighting up and dinging all over the cabin like a pinball machine. Thank you. We are captured from the very opening. I hope so. An elderly lady walking down the aisle of a plane, telling each of her passengers when and how they will die. What's the idea behind this novel?

So I was actually on a flight myself out of Hobart, a delayed flight. And looking back, it was a time in my life when I was thinking about my own mortality because in the years leading up to that day a few things had happened. First of all my sister was diagnosed with breast cancer, then I lost my dad, then we had the pandemic and then I myself was diagnosed with breast cancer. So and also I think just being my 50s, it's a time in my life when I was thinking about mortality. And so when I was on that flight, I was looking around at the other passengers and the cheerful thought came into my head that every single passenger on this flight was going to one day die. And so I was looking at everybody around me and I was thinking, will you be the person who makes it to 100? And will you be the person whose life is unexpectedly

cut short? And then I was thinking about the fact that at some time in the future, somebody would be able to look back at all the names of everybody on that flight and list our age of death and our cause of death. So those are facts. They just weren't available yet. And that's when it occurred to me, what if somebody stood up and shared that information right now? Incredible how the seed of a story is planted. It really is.

Tell us about Cherry. So Cherry is the woman who stands up and shares that information. And we don't know at first anything at all about her. Most readers say they didn't like her much at the beginning. They're frightened. We don't know how she knows this information. She is the daughter of a very successful fortune teller. And then as the story evolves, most people love her by the end.

She's the main character, but there are many other sub characters around her. And usually in a novel, you'll have a handful of key characters. In this case, there are a multitude. Was that difficult to conjure up the personalities of all these different characters? Well, I tend to, I have a lot of characters in my novels. And I'm always thinking, okay, next time I'm going to write my next novel just from one character's point of view. And then I write Nine Perfect Strangers. Or then, as you say, I write a novel about a plane load of passengers. So it's just what I really enjoy doing, actually. So that's not, there are things that I found difficult where I needed to do research, such as one of the characters is a flight attendant. So I had to do a lot of research on that. But actually

developing their personalities, that's the part that I love. There is a line that stands out from the book, Fate Won't Be Fought, which raises the discussion about predictions, faith versus free will. I wonder what your thoughts are on that. Well, yes, since writing this novel, I've been talking to lots of people and some people are such firm believers in fate and they say everything happens for a reason. And obviously you can't argue with them because everything that's happened was meant to be. And I think I like the idea of fate myself when I'm thinking about, I had to go through all those bad boyfriends to get the right one.

I was always meant to be a novelist. But on the other hand, so I think fate only works for lovely things. I don't think that I can look at terrible things on the news and think that was that person's fate, that was that child's fate for their life to end that way. So no, I'm not a believer in fate. I'm a believer in free will. Many of your novels have been adapted for TV successfully. How do you feel when you see the words brought to life on the screen?

It's a surreal feeling. It's fun. A lot of it for me has just been fun to be on the sidelines and to visit the set of Big Little Lies when they were filming the school trivia night. So to see Nicole as Celeste dressed exactly as I described her, funnily enough, to see Rhys as Madeline dressed quite differently. But I actually thought the wardrobe person got that right. And that is how Madeline would have dressed and to see the little props to to sit walk by two stuntmen who were practicing the murder scene to talk to the caterer's mum it was all just a good fun and so I've just enjoyed I've enjoyed it from the sidelines. It's been hugely successful. And seeing as we're talking about Big Little Lies,

there are mutterings of a third series. Can you shed any light? All I can say is that I am definitely writing a sequel to the book. So when I wrote the first book, my children were little and they were just starting school. And now my children are teenagers, and so they're providing a wealth of teen material. So I'm writing a book set 10 years in the future.

Liane Moriarty, her book Here One Moment is out now. And next week on Woman's Hour, Nuala McGovern brings you a special programme from Ireland on the excavation at the site where horrifically up to 796 children are believed to have been buried in a disused sewage tank. Nuala speaks exclusively to the man tasked with providing answers to their families and to the women who uncovered this scandal. Do join her then. 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? 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.