Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman's Hour: Holly Smale, Paris Lees, #MeToo in the British Army, Hormones and vaccines

Episode Date: May 29, 2021

A former senior Army officer is calling for the military to have a “#MeToo moment” and is claiming that hundreds of female troops have been raped and sexually abused by colleagues. Lt Col Diane Allen, who served for 37 years, says the Armed Forces are being run by “a toxic group of privately-educated white senior officers” We talk to Diane Allen and also hear from the Defence Minister Baroness Goldie.Some women and trans men are reporting unusual symptoms after having their Covid vaccinations – ranging from menstrual irregularities to bleeding post menopause. We talk to the reproductive immunologist Dr Viki Male from Imperial College in London to find out what’s behind these symptoms.The best selling author of the Geek Girl series Holly Smale has been diagnosed with autism at age 39. She said she feels relief that she now has an explanation for why she’s felt she’s never “fitted in”.Prof Catherine Heymans, astrophysicist and world-leading expert in the so-called dark universe, is now the Astronomer Royal of Scotland. She's the first woman to hold this prestigious role, but the problem is she's still not entirely convinced she should have the job. She talks to us about impostor syndrome, challenging the status quo and dealing with aggressive criticism.Paris Lees is a journalist, anti-bullying campaigner, and a Contributing Editor at British Vogue. She was the first openly trans woman to present on BBC Radio 1, and also the first to appear on Question Time. She’s written a memoir called What it Feels like for a Girl, which covers the period aged 13 to 18 – a turbulent, heady time full of adventure and disaster.What generation do you define as? The term 'geriatric millennial' went viral last week, after writer Erica Dhwan used it to describe the micro-generation born between 1980 and 1985. Erica believes they make particularly good employees due to their experience of life before the digital world. Rosa Silverman, a senior features writer at the Telegraph, says she is proud to self-define as one of the around 5 million UK geriatric millennials in the UK.

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, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good afternoon and welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour, the finest selection of choice cuts from the week just gone. Coming up on today's programme, the first female Astronomer Royal of Scotland, Professor Catherine Haymans of the University of Edinburgh, tells us about challenging centuries of male astrophysical thinking. Holly Smale, author of the best-selling Geek Girl series,

tells us how it felt to finally receive her clinical diagnosis of autism at the age of 39. I've spent four decades essentially not knowing who I am or how to interact with the world. And, you know, looking at my child's version of me and just feeling incredibly sad for her, essentially. So it's a kind of celebration and a relief, but also a grief process. Now, do you define yourself as a geriatric millennial? Responsible for the viral term is American writer Erica Dewan, who joins senior features writer at The Telegraph, Rosa Silverman, to explain why 36 to 41-year-olds might be the ideal employees. And the journalist, anti-bullying campaigner and contributing editor at British Vogue,

Paris Lees, discusses the turbulent time of growing up and her memoir, What It Feels Like for a Girl. But first, a former senior army officer is calling for the military to have a Me Too moment and is claiming that hundreds of female troops have been raped and sexually abused by colleagues. Lieutenant Colonel Diane Allen, who served for 37 years, says the armed forces are being run by a toxic group of privately educated white senior officers who are in denial about the extent of the problem. Diane resigned from the military last February, citing its failure to tackle sexual assault, harassment and everyday

sexism. She set up her own website calling for testimony and both former and serving personnel got in touch. Diane was also the first person to give evidence to the current parliamentary committee on the issue. We spoke to Diane and Defence Minister Baroness Goldie. Diane told us about her own experience. I described when I called for the military Me Too last year stories of how effectively you would find men in your rooms on barracks, and also how if you left the bar and wouldn't engage with the men, they would follow you back to your rooms. So one story I gave was how I'd gone to a room and realised I felt threatened and had to go to another room. And I watched from that room in sort of at midnight as three men tried to kick down a door and find me but of course I wasn't in that

room I'd moved to manage my own safety. It would be tempting it would be hopeful to confine that sort of horror story to the history books but you have been collating testimony and if I was just to read a couple of of the examples here all anonymized of course that you have received on your website. I only served four years, humiliated sexually, photo shared, very sexist. I wouldn't have joined the forces if I'd known how bad it was. I left in 2019, reads another, due to sexism. I remain repulsed by the cowardice of senior officers who wouldn't deal with it.

Another one, I'm still serving. I experienced recent sexism on tour. It has changed my desire to serve. It needs to change. Since giving evidence, has anything changed? Not to my knowledge or not anything significant. I think there's been some twiddling at the edges, but my experience is it hasn't. What has changed, which I'm delighted about, is the current Women in Defence inquiry. We are effectively having a military Me Too moment, which was triggered by

my actions, but also by some of the charities who've also called for this. There's a women in defence inquiry being led by Sarah Atherton MP at the moment, which has done some excellent evidence gathering. Over 4000 women spoke up when the agging order was lifted by the MOD to allow them to speak up publicly. What I also wanted to understand with these horrific accounts and horrific stories, if it's about having the systems in place to report it, which will then make things change, or if it's actually about the culture. It is the classic of the behaviour you walk past is the behaviour that you accept. And too many, even the good people in the military, are feeling coerced not to speak up when they see poor behaviour.

And that's the bit that concerns me. There was a big report in 2019 led by now the head of the Air Force, Mike Wigston, called the Wigston Review, which also described this toxic behaviour. And it very much recommended that we needed to make some significant changes. And there was a very poor leadership. Senior leadership was, if not the cause of the problem, it was the driver that wasn't allowing the change to happen. Let's bring in Baroness Goldie at this point, the Defence

Minister. Good morning. Good morning. We've heard now there's a review coming out shortly in July, there was the Wigston review two years ago. It's not changing, is it? Well, yes, it is changing, Emma, although I don't for one moment diminish the horror of what Diane was describing. And it is sad to say that in the past there has been an appalling culture. And Diane and her colleagues experienced that. And I can only apologise for that. I think it was a dreadful personal encounter for Diane and her fellow soldiers. But change is happening, Emma, And I want to be very clear about that. And I also want to make reference to the House of Commons Select Committee inquiry

under Sarah Atherton. The Secretary of State took the brave, but in my opinion, absolutely correct decision to say to female serving officers, yes, you can appear before the committee. And that's because we were very clear that we needed to know what was happening. We needed people to feel they could speak frankly. And we felt that that would add an important dimension to improving our understanding. But just to reassure you that I'm not trying to give you a cosmetic gloss over improvements, Diane referred to the Wigston report. I would say the Wigston report was a pivotal change of direction for defence because it was a very forensic report. It didn't

pull its punches. And it was a wake up call. And MOD said, right, well, we've got to address this. And all Wigston's recommendations were accepted. Now, the important thing then to ask, Emma, is, yes, but what happened? Did it lie on a shelf? The answer is, I'm glad to say, absolutely not, because we had a review of Wigston. Again, the Secretary of State asked, and Jutta Gray. Now, Jutta is not an MOD employee. She's a powerhouse from the city, and she sits on our defence board, but she carried out this review. She was very positive. Very good progress was being made.

And I think what has happened, I have seen since I became a minister in July of 2019, an absolute, tangible, visible change of pace. Now, that's nothing to do with me because what we've got is a team effort. But Diane's absolutely correct. You don't change without leadership. And I'm pleased to say that I was able to engage with the Chief of Defence Staff, Nick Carter, with the former Permanent Secretary, Stephen Lovegrove, have an amazing conversation with them that we had to stand shoulder to shoulder driving this forward and I'm delighted to say that Stephen Lovegrove's successor David Williams we've already met

is absolutely 100% behind this. But they are going to say that aren't they? I mean I'm sorry to say this let's bring Diane back in. Was it a pivotal moment? Has all of this been implemented? No I think there were 37 recommendations. And Sarah Aston asked this question to the head of defence people at the recent evidence. And I think he admitted that only one of 37 recommendations had actually been carried out. And I think my other point would be that if this were an issue of the past, I wouldn't have resigned. Over 163 women came to me and over a third of those are currently serving. And the stories remain the same.

Baroness, I would just like to update the position. Much of Wigston has been implemented, not least. We've got now a stand up directorate within MOD for diversity and inclusion, led by a very talented woman, Sam Deforge, who was originally our defence gender champion. We've seen the creation of a 24-7 confidential and independent whole force bullying, harassment and discrimination helpline with trained advisors to support personnel. We've seen the production of a sexual harassment booklet for both civilian and military personnel. We've also got mandatory online course on inappropriate behaviours, and that's called active bystander training. So we've got a lot of those mandatory training sessions here at the BBC. You have them everywhere. It doesn't necessarily mean that there's actually any cultural change. For instance, if you read a

newspaper article about the Atherton Review, just go and look at the comment sections. I'll read you a couple, Baroness Goldie. Sad situation, but rather inevitable when you convert an armed forces from an entity to defend and win wars to a social service employment opportunity. Another one, yes, stamp out the laddish culture all ranks within the military should be sensitive little shrinking violets. The army could perhaps invite the Taliban into a discussion within a safe space. You've got to get people to take this seriously. And if you've got a culture like that, from which our army is drawn, you know, a booklet and a training course and a helpline, how's that going to sort it? Well, I would agree with your analysis if it were accurate, Emma, but it's not with all respect, because I can only go on the evidence we've got. And I can tell you that on our surveys since 2018,

incidents of people who've experienced discrimination at work has reduced from 50% to 11%. In 2020, the incidence of bullying and harassment reduced from 14% to 10%. But that's self-selecting. The point is we've got Diane with us here who's saying something completely different to you. And I'm trying to bring you together.

Diane, just come. No, it's not self-selecting, Emma. These are people within the armed forces who asked for their opinions. And nobody tells them what to say. No, no, no. I'm not saying that. Let me clarify. For instance, you know, people have alleged that they're encouraged not to put sexual discrimination and harassment down as a reason when they leave the military, because that would require a lengthy investigation, which could delay their departure date. Diane,

I'm sure you've got other examples of where if you're asked to fill in a survey, what will your response be? Yes, exactly. And the other one is that when an incident does occur, what is coming up as an incredibly common theme, both for Athens 4000 who came forward, but also the 160 that I read personally, is that effectively they're being coerced not to report it. So that if somebody has a sexual incident on camp, on a base, on a barracks, they're too often finding the chain of command is coercing them not to become a statistic. They're being asked not to report it and to effectively go back in their box.

Baroness Goldie, what do you say to that? I'm not saying you need to have the silver bullet here, but it's not as simple as you're making it seem, perhaps. I don't wish to make it seem simple, Emma. I'm merely pointing out that there's been a pace in the progress within the last 18 months, which I find everyone within defence has recognised. Diana's absolutely correct. The cultures which existed, and they were not just negative, repugnant,

they were corrosive. And that has had to be turned around. But I'm absolutely satisfied from the conversations that I'm having, both at the top of the organisation and with the others who actually work within the armed forces, that very tangible and welcome progress is being made. And that is actually being understood. And I'm pleased to say it's been reflected in recruitment.

We're seeing the proportions of women joining the armed forces go in the right direction. That's systemically increasing each year. There's a whole other conversation to be had, which we can't, we don't have time for now, about retention of those women and how they feel about it when they leave. And if we do even get the real reason sometimes why they do leave, not least not just to do with this, but also how it is to manage families while within the forces. Diane, final word to you. Do you share that enthusiasm? I'm very aware I'm

talking to you on the day it's front page news that the Royal Navy has appointed its first female Admiral, Commodore Judge Terry. Which was indeed, yes, great news. No, I think the Diversity and Inclusion Directorate is effectively still marking its own homework. So unless we get what Wigston recommended, which is a defence authority that is truly independent of the chain of command, I can't see there's going to be any change. That would be my big point. That was Lieutenant Colonel Diane Allen and Defence Minister Baroness Goldie speaking with

Emma there. Now, you may have seen in the news that some women and trans men are reporting unusual symptoms after having had their COVID vaccinations, ranging from menstrual irregularities to bleeding post-menopause. To find out more about what's been happening and what could be behind it, I spoke to the reproductive immunologist, Dr Vicky Male from Imperial College in London, who told us what changes to their periods people have been experiencing. People are reporting a variety of things and the most common things that people are reporting are heavy periods or late periods, but people are also reporting lighter periods or missed periods. And this is making it quite difficult for us as scientists to know if this is definitely linked

to the vaccine because there is such a variety of reports. And also it's on the background of the fact that a lot of people will occasionally have, you know, a slightly different period from normal, particularly if they're at the beginning or the end of their menstruating life. So this is definitely something that's being looked into. And what I would encourage your listeners to do is if after the vaccine they notice a change to their periods, please report it to the government's side effect tracking scheme which is called yellow card and this will give us a better idea if this is a real side effect, if it is how common it is and that will be very useful because we can then give people a bit of a

warning in the same way at the moment we say oh you might expect a sore arm, you might expect to feel feverish. But I would like to reassure people that those people who have reported this, it's a short term effect lasting for usually one cycle. A few people say it's lasting for two. But we're still encouraging people to, we're trying to gather data. So get in touch. Was it yellow card reporting you said? Yes. So if you Google yellow card COVID, the top hit should take you to the site where you can make a report. And actually you can report anything, not just to do with your periods. Anything that happens after the vaccine that you think that we should know about, use yellow card to tell us. And what about the reports of postmenopausal bleeding?

Well, these are a lot less common than the reports of changes to periods, and they're not necessarily going to be the same thing. And in fact, if anyone experiences postmenopausal bleeding, even if they think that it's to do with the vaccine, I would really encourage them to go to their GP and have a chat about that. Because postmenopausal bleeding can sometimes be a sign of something quite serious. And what we don't want is for people to think, oh, that's just a side effect of the vaccine. I won't bother getting it checked out. So please do, if you experience postmenopausal bleeding, go to your GP and get that checked out. What role are hormones playing in all of this? Yeah, so it's really very interesting. The immune system affects sex hormones and sex hormones affect the immune system in quite complicated ways and ways that aren't really fully understood yet.

So a good example of this is that certain drugs that inhibit the immune system can also stop people from ovulating. Another example that's maybe relevant here is that we sometimes see with the flu vaccination in the cycle that people receive the vaccine they have slightly decreased progesterone and it's the balance between oestrogen and progesterone that controls the lining of your uterus building up and then breaking down so if the vaccine is affecting the balance of these two hormones then that might explain why some people are seeing changes to the way that they're bleeding during their menstrual cycle. Perhaps a change to the timing or a change to how heavy their flow is. So people have been getting in touch, Vicky. So I'm going to put some of the tweets that we've got out to you just to see what you have to say about them.

KS has said, I'm eight months pregnant and avoiding the jab for now. I'm pro vaccine, but just feel nervous about potential unknown side effects on the baby. My biggest question is, how do they know if there are any long-term negative effects? That is a really good question and one that so many people are asking me. And it brings us on to actually a slightly different topic, which is to do with COVID vaccination in pregnancy. And we know that if you catch COVID in your late pregnancy, you are more likely to have your baby too soon. And it is more likely that you'll have a stillborn baby. And obviously, these are absolutely outcomes

that all of us want to avoid for ourselves, our loved ones, our patients, everyone, basically. And this is one of the reasons that from the 16th of April, the guidance was changed so that all pregnant people in the UK will be offered the COVID vaccine at the same time as they would have been if they weren't pregnant. So if you're 32 and you're pregnant, you'll be offered it with all the other 32 year olds. So we want to avoid COVID. We can avoid COVID by getting vaccinated. But people do ask this question, you know, like, is the vaccine safe? And we actually have really good data on that from the United States of America and from Israel, where they've been vaccinating people, pregnant people since December. And in the United States of America, they vaccinated 118,000 pregnant people and they have really good follow-up data on them and we've got two quite big academic studies that followed up well one of them followed up almost 4,000 pregnant people who

received the vaccination and they got in touch with them three months later and they said how have you got on and 712 of those people said I've had my baby and they said oh tell us a bit about how that went and there was no increased risk of any bad outcomes at birth in that study. And then there was another smaller study that looked at about 150 people who were vaccinated against COVID, saw the outcomes at birth and there were no bad outcomes at birth. So when we look at newborn babies or people who've been vaccinated, they just look like lovely, normal newborn babies that we all like to see. And that's a brilliant first step. Of course, what people will then say to me is, well, what would those babies be like

when they're two or three or four? And I can't tell you that yet, because we haven't had the vaccine for that long. But what I can tell you is because of the way that the immune system works, and the vaccines work, and we actually know that the vaccines don't cross the placenta, all the signs are that if we've got a whole load of happy, healthy newborns, they're going to turn into happy, healthy, within the bounds of how people grow up, toddlers, children, teenagers, and grownups. We've just had a message in from someone, an email saying, since my first AstraZeneca vaccine nine weeks ago, I've bled heavily twice a month since I've never been a regular in 30 years. This is the sort of information

you want people to get in touch with you. So via the yellow card. Please do file a report about that kind of thing. It's so helpful for us to understand how common this is. But obviously this is the sort of stuff that is making people feel very nervous, very concerned.

Somebody might have had their first vaccine as this person has, and then be reluctant to get their second vaccine because they don't know what the effect is. What would you say to them about that? Certainly, we do know that for full protection, you do need to get both vaccines. And that's even more important now than it used to be, because we have data about some of the new variants that are circulating that say that two vaccines are actually pretty good against the new variants, but one dose is really not as good as we would like, let's say. So I would still encourage people to get their second dose. But you know, some people who feel that they've suffered really unbearable side effects from their first dose, I would encourage them to have a talk to their

doctor. Because obviously, for every individual, we have to consider the risks and the benefits of everything and for most people the benefits definitely definitely outweigh the risks but we shouldn't rule out the possibility that some people who have very bad side effects should avoid their second dose so do have a chat with your doctor about that. And if you would like to report what you've been experiencing, you can find the yellow card on the NHS website. Now, the writer of the best-selling Geek Girl series always knew she felt different, ever since she was a child and found herself mirroring other people's facial expressions in the playground to try and fit in. But it's taken the author, Holly Smale, until the end of last year, at the age of 39,

to finally receive her clinical diagnosis of autism. The psychologist said congratulations to her upon the diagnosis which she says felt right as she embraces the condition describing autism as the answer to the question she's been asking herself all her life. Holly explained how it felt to get the diagnosis. To be honest it's been a kind of mixed bag. Immense relief. I kind of feel it's like a weight lifted, it's been a kind of mixed bag. Immense relief. I kind of feel it's like a weight lifted because it's been a lifetime of feeling broken, essentially, feeling like there's something wrong with me. But also an element of grief because, you know, I'm 39 and so I've spent four decades essentially not knowing who I am or how to interact with the world. And, you know, looking at my child's version of me

and just feeling incredibly sad for her, essentially. So it's a kind of celebration and a relief, but also a grief process, I think. Yes, because I also read that you're looking forward to almost going back out there as you now, you know, in all sorts of areas of your life. Yeah, I mean, I have no idea what it's going to be like. One of the elements of autism, especially amongst women and girls, is that we mask. So we learn very early how to cover up the traits that are immediately pointed out as different,

which means that essentially I've been masking for 40 years. I've been essentially acting for 40 years. So it's a really long and difficult process to learn how to drop that and how to actually be me. That masking is something girls and women socially do, but also can lead to things like this being missed. Yeah, and yeah, I just wasn't picked up on. I was seen as a very clever little girl, which, you know, much like Lisa Simpson, that meant that all the other traits that were very, very clear, you know, hiding in cupboards, and, you know, not being able to eat majority of foods

and being overwhelmed and having meltdowns and basically every other quality, it was just seen as me being a dramatic, clever little girl, essentially, which meant that, you know, my my masking had to kind of ramp up over the years just to try and let me survive, essentially. And, you know, people can be cruel to people that are different, whether or not you're diagnosed or not. And what did that mean when you could see people having a reaction to something and you were trying to learn how to have a reaction as well?

What were you wanting to do instead? To be honest, it's tricky to know because um it it feels to me this is only my experience of autism is that it always feels like i'm an alien and i'm speaking in a second language so i'm busy trying to take in everything around me um you know whether it's sound like conversation people facial expressions emotions and everything is kind of a jumble. And I don't really know how to separate them out. So a lot of the time, my reaction is nothing because I'm busy having this incredibly complicated and confusing interaction with the world, essentially. But I would kind of look around and check the faces of the kids around me like, okay, they think this is funny. So I will laugh you know this is a joke and I mean my grandma um realized quite young that I had no sense of humor at all um so she bought me a joke book

and I would carry it around with me at the age of six or seven and with a pen and I would go up to people and give them a joke and if they laughed I'd put a tick next to it because that was funny and then I would go home and try and work out what was funny about the joke so that I would understand what sense of humour was. It must have been incredibly tiring. Exhausting. And it's been exhausting for, you know, 40 years. And, you know, especially as an adult and what we find, especially with more I learned about autism and women and girls,

is that we internalise that exhaustion and it becomes depression and anxiety. And, you know know I was really really ill for a lot of my 20s and 30s with those kind of things because I was exhausted constantly I was always feeling like I was I was wrong I was broken there was something that was so different and wrong about me that I could never fix it um so yeah shattering it's been a strange process realizing I might actually be able to let go yes well you mentioned your grandmother there yeah were there others in the family who were trying to help you through this did anyone suspect anything no um and I actually discussed with my mum yesterday and she's okay with me talking about it um as a result of my diagnosis my mum

has realized that she is also autistic um oh my gosh yeah so um obviously she didn't realize because she just realized thought I was like her um so you know and if we think looking back that maybe teachers had an idea I became cupboard monitor um when I was nine um because the teacher said that the cupboard needed organizing every lunchtime so I would go sit in a dark cupboard and organize it every lunchtime but it never occurred to me that actually they were trying to be compassionate because lunchtime is too overwhelming I mean this must be such a strange time for you and your mum to be having these conversations it is it is um you know especially when you're um when you've had so much of your

life and it it's kind of I've kind of likened it to basically being told that you're a duck all your life and you're looking around. They're all cracking and swimming and you're like, I am the world's worst duck. I am a completely broken duck. And you do that for four decades. Then someone goes, you're a frog. And you're like, I'm a frog. I'm actually a decent frog. I just I'm not a duck, but I can jump and I can catch flies and breathe on water. So you suddenly realize that you're good at the things you're good at, but you're terrible at trying to be someone completely different. Tell us about what it's been like dating, not knowing you have autism.

It's been, I mean, difficult, an adventure. I date usually once every three years for about two months. And it's so exhausting and upsetting that I don't do it again for another sort of two years um I don't I don't understand a lot of context you know I think that perhaps um relationships often play out on a a non-verbal level that I don't really understand um and I can't process a lot of emotions so So when things happen, I tend to shut down or melt down or burn out or whatever it is that my reaction is. And so they find me quite not what they expected, essentially. They think I'm robotic. They think I have no emotions. They think I'm cold and they don't last.

The relationships don't last. Do you feel sort of optimistic now that that might change because of this? Because you could be a frog, as you put it put it yeah I just want to be a frog um I hope so because I think that the more I am aware of myself like for instance I've had periods in the past where a boyfriend has told me that he's been cheating on me which has you know I haven't actually worked out what he meant you know famously I've been seeing someone else and I went where around town um had no idea it took me at least 30 seconds to work out what he was referring to um because you're being you're being so literal almost about it and understanding what basically when I'm emotional um my brain all of the learning that I have taken on as an adult just just disintegrates and and the panic makes me incredibly literal again and I just see everything is exactly what

it said and you know my reaction was okay well thanks for letting me know um maybe we should talk about this later I'm going to go and teach some kids now and I put the phone down he was like you're the scariest robot in the world I can't react emotionally I can't process them um but I think that going forwards it's going to really help me to be able to say to someone I'm dating look this is how I am it doesn't mean I don't care it doesn't mean that I'm you know not feeling distress or grief or whatever it just means that I need a little bit of time to process to know how I feel to identify emotions essentially well I was going to say we have a message here for you from Val who says I wasn't clinically diagnosed with autism until I was 70 and she says I was actually pleased say, we have a message here for you from Val, who says, I wasn't clinically diagnosed with autism until I was 70.

She says, I was actually pleased because I've had a lifetime of upsetting people by saying or doing the wrong things and never understanding why. My diagnosis was a relief. Much of it has fallen into place. But I do feel that being a victim of others sort of passive aggression has been very cruel. I feel like if they had known, I might have been in a much happier life in many ways. So, I mean, you found out 30 years before her. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, you know, 30 years before my mum. But, you know, I agree completely. And, you know, because sometimes it can be, especially at school, it can be very active aggression. It can be being stabbed with pencils, which used to happen to me at school. But, you know, as an adult, you can have those kind of microaggressions of like that's a weird thing to say or why would you do that or what's going on with your face or that's the wrong expression or whatever it is you

get those microaggressions of just constantly feeling like you've done something wrong um which gives you a sense of vertigo all the time you're constantly on the edge going am I going to fall off this social interaction into an abyss I I don't understand. Do you think we need to have more characters and more representation of girls with autism to try with this, to try and help? Absolutely. I mean, I obviously, my character, a geek girl, Harriet, she wasn't diagnosed as autistic because I wasn't and I didn't know. So I spent 10 years writing a neurodiverse character and not realising she was neurodiverse. But, you know, had I known, I mean, Lisa Simpson is character and not realizing she was neurodiverse. But, you know, had I known, I mean, Lisa Simpson is a canonically undiagnosed autistic girl who the general public just sees as very clever and a bit annoying.

And had I known this when I was younger that Lisa Simpson is autistic, then it would have given me so much more knowledge about myself and it would have allowed me to navigate the world more easily. And I think that, you know, by coming out and saying that my character is autistic, I'm adding to the conversation that allows, you know, young girls especially to feel like they are being seen, to feel like they have things that they can see themselves reflected in. Holly Smale there talking about how it feels to get a diagnosis for autism at the age of 39. And a few of you got in touch to share your experiences including Rebecca who emailed in to say I'm 23 and I was diagnosed with autism last week. I went to three different primary schools and in my last one I spent two solid years being horribly bullied

by the entire class for being different which led me to isolating myself in secondary school and unable to make friends. I went to university and met someone else like me. She became my best friend and explained to me that I wasn't broken, I was just autistic. She saved my life and Jo got in touch to say my 11-year-old daughter has just been diagnosed with autism. Now we know family school life is much smoother and dare I say happier. If you'd like to get in touch with anything you hear in Woman's Hour we would love to hear your thoughts. In fact we actively encourage it. Please go to our website to email us, you can go to our social media it's at BBC Woman's Hour

or you can drop us a text making sure you put Woman's Hour it's 84844. Now are you one of the many women who sometimes doubts her abilities? Have you been promoted in your job only to find you're struck with imposter syndrome? And does it get better or worse the higher up you go? One woman who ostensibly shouldn't have any such doubts is Professor Catherine Haymans of the University of Edinburgh. An astrophysicist, world-leading expert on the dark universe, and as of this week, the first female Astronomer Royal of Scotland. Catherine explains how it feels to achieve this

position. It's extremely exciting. Yes, it's a polished batyara time, I think. And I'm really looking forward to being Astronomer Royal for Scotland and using this new title to really share my passion for astronomy with people of Scotland but also across the whole of the UK. What do you actually do in that job? So I'm a Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Edinburgh and my main research is trying to understand the mysterious dark matter and dark energy that appears to make up about 95% of our universe. But I'll be honest with you, Emma, we don't really understand what it is, which is really exciting because in science, when you don't understand something,

it means that there's a really big puzzle to solve and a big discovery to be made. So that's what we're working on. You're described as a world-leading expert on the dark universe what is out there what can you say about the dark universe for for people like me who know nothing about it um i'm sure you've seen those glorious um pictures from the hubble space telescope those glittering galaxies um they're lovely whirlpools they're glorious but all of that stuff that we can actually see only makes up about five percent of our universe and the rest of it we call dark I think partly because we're maybe Star Wars fans so we like the concept of dark matter and dark energy but

and it's all it's very mysterious are all of our everything we understand about um physics and and science can't really explain these dark entities in our universe. And so what I do is I use some of the biggest telescopes in the world in Chile and Hawaii. We take really deep images of the universe. So I was trying to toss up how many galaxies I've observed. And it's over about 100 million now. And the light from these galaxies has traveled through about 10 billion light years to get to our telescopes and we use that data to confront

lots of different theories about what could be going on in our universe and the most fun thing I get to do Emma is at the moment I'm trying to test out Einstein's theory of gravity itself so it's a it's a fun thing to run up the observatory hill each morning in Edinburgh to think, will I prove Einstein wrong today? Nothing yet. I haven't managed to do it yet, but it's a great, creative and fun job. And I'm really excited with this new title to both share my research but also share all of the other amazing things that are happening

in astronomy in Scotland. Please, when you get to that top of the hill, and if you do prove Einstein wrong, can you come and tell us about it first? It's really annoying. We keep taking more and more data, but everything just agrees with what he found. Well, let me just come to what you were talking about there, with you being part of that very first team to map dark matter to and as you've explained it to us. And I think I'm a bit clearer and I'm trying to get my head around this. You presented this and actually I know you've talked about this in a talk, in a TED talk. You were taken back in one session by the aggression of some of the criticism of this work, which perhaps will get to what, you know, people might not be able to relate necessarily to what you do, but they will be able to relate to trying to deal with criticism and also how that makes them feel about their own work and perhaps impacts their output and how they

work. Tell us about this particular scenario and what you felt. Back when I wasn't a professor, I was a young postdoctoral researcher, actually a brand new mum as well. And we were really excited to present the first large-scale map of dark matter, five years' work in the making. But our results didn't agree with the expectation at the time. Yeah, so I was giving this talk. It was a sort of a summer of conferences where we uh we get to go and give lots of talks conferences and the first question at the end of each talk Catherine can you tell us

what you've done wrong I don't think I've done anything wrong otherwise I wouldn't be sharing it with you but um it just that that question what have you done wrong because our work didn't agree with what other people had found they assumed that I'd done something wrong. So that was, gosh, a good 12 years ago now. And I moved back to Europe and started leading one of the big projects for the European Southern Observatory to take more data, to confront even more different theories about dark matter and dark energy. And I was determined that this time I wasn't going to be asked, what I done wrong and I thought that would be good if I got the same result as us at this time and I thought to myself hang on that's terrible science um if you're always trying to get the same result as people who've come before you then how are we going to discover new things

um so I started really sort of worrying about really questioning my work. Have we done anything wrong? This feeling in the community that we weren't doing the right thing. So I sat down with my very dear friend, Professor Sarah Bridle, who's another fantastic astronomer in the UK. And we thought this through. How could we make sure that our work was the right results, that we weren't somehow twisting our results to get the result that was expected so we didn't have to face't sort of somehow twisting our results to to get the result that was expected so we didn't have to face this sort of aggression in our talks and so we came up with this idea that we would blind our data which is a really fun thing to do so I'm sure we've got

lots of listeners who have who are working on different things you know how do you decide when to stop when to share your your conclusions with people it doesn't have to be science whatever you're working on and so so what we did was we we worked out a way that we wouldn't know what our answers were until the last minute so we couldn't have any sort of it's called confirmation bias i'm not sure if you cared about before you you wait until you get the result that you expect so that was really exciting uh our latest results came out last year. Same thing. We're still getting something that's unexpected. There's really mysterious things going on in our universe at the moment. The cosmology community is almost in turmoil about it. But now, possibly because I'm a professor, possibly because I'm Astronomer Royal for Scotland, I'm having less people telling

me, what have you done wrong? Which is a great step forward. In some ways, actually, I think it's made me a better scientist to have met that sort of aggression, because it's meant that I have had to make sure that my work and my team's work is absolutely bulletproof. And as a result, I think we're doing better science. But what I'm trying to communicate to my colleagues is that, you know, it's really important that we question each other. But there's a way and a language that we can do that that doesn't put people off. And one of the things that we're really conscious in the science is that there are fewer and fewer women as you go higher up in the profession. And part of that is because the aggressive language that's sometimes used when we when we question each other, it just puts people off.

And it doesn't have to be that way. You know, it's really important to question people, because that's how we move forward in science. It's how we move forward as people. You know, criticism is really important. But there's a way of making that criticism constructively and positively to encourage everyone from all different walks of life to stay in the field and to carry on because we need all these different voices in science. Absolutely we do. Congratulations, Catherine, and I fully approve of you polishing that tiara.

Now, Paris Lees is a journalist, anti-bullying campaigner and a contributing editor at British Vogue. She was the first openly trans woman to present on Radio 1 and also the first to appear on Question Time. She's written a memoir called What It Feels Like for a Girl, which covers the period aged 13 to 18, a turbulent, heady time full of adventure,

trauma and disaster. The story is told by Byron, who of course later takes the name Paris. I asked Paris what it was like to grow up in Hucknall. Well, I hated my hometown growing up and I was desperately, desperately unhappy and, you know, would have done anything to escape and did do anything to escape. I was, I was, I've realised that I was an escapologist. I would, I would literally contort my body, you know, to climb out of

windows, climb over the wall, up through the coal grate to escape into the night. And, you know, I just wanted to leave and did as soon as I was 16. You know, looking back on it now and looking at the town today, it's probably quite a nice place to raise kids and have a family, you know. But I think it was uniquely miserable for me at that time because there wasn't any understanding of what to do with a kid like me. And, you know, there are some real issues

with a town like that. I grew up feeling like, you know, that my voice didn't matter, that my life was going to be crap. Am I allowed to say that? Yeah. You know? And if anyone is offended, we apologise, but it's okay.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm trying to keep it Radio 4 for you. I, you know, I thought the best that I could do in my life is maybe, possibly one day get a council house and maybe work in a bar or something like that and obviously somebody in my position I didn't even think that those things would be available to me so I think the the analogy that I would describe is you sort of get those towns have been forgotten so you're sort of getting the scraps from the big table and then if if you don't conform you know in across some other sort of um system of oppression so for me it was being trans then you don't conform, you know, across some other sort of system of oppression. So for me, it was

being trans, then you don't even get a seat at the non-seat table, if that makes sense. So, you know, it was tough in lots of different ways. But, you know, I spend a lot of time, you know, thinking about the life that I could have had there now. And I feel hugely nostalgic. And I often think, wouldn't it be nice to live next door to somebody that you went to school with? Wouldn't it be nice to have children with somebody that you have been married to for 15 years, you know, and have my auntie come and babysit my children and just be ordinary? But that wasn't your experience. That wasn't your experience of growing up there. And one of the things that comes out in the book, Paris, is the violence. You get beaten up by bullies on your way home from school.

And then you're beaten up by your dad for standing up to the bullies. It was violent. It was a violent world in many ways. And it was violent for lots of different people in lots of different ways. You know, there was domestic abuse um my uh a friend of mine was was beaten up by the bmp when she was uh a school kid still you know this is a violent world that we're talking about here and um you know i've been kicked in the teeth you know i've been you know given clips around the ear hole for for talking like a pufter um and I I remember it

you know and I want to I want to talk about it and it's been so difficult for me and it's it's it's why I wanted to inject all of the the fun and the excitement into the story because how do you how do you talk about your experiences and the trauma that you've experienced without sort of becoming a professional victim which I feel many trans people have been forced to sort of be professional victims. So I really struggled with that. But that was my reality. And I think that we should we should have a conversation about this. You know, why?

Why did I have to grow up feeling like that? And I think I say at one point, I'm not hurting anybody. Why can't they just leave me alone? Why can't they leave me be? Why can't I just walk home in peace? And the fact is, I didn't feel safe around my hometown at all. Not just sometimes. My whole childhood, I felt in danger constantly.

And you were. You were in many ways because you talk about there are unflinching accounts of abuse that you suffered when you were very, very young. And you start having sex with adult men in public toilets and you talk about it. And I think it's really important that we talk about it now. But also how you coped with writing about that abuse well it was really difficult and I think it's fair to say that I've had a couple of mental health breakdowns over the past seven years another

reason why it's taken so long and um this is a really difficult thing to put out there I mean do you think that I want that out there do you you think I want, when I meet men, for them to Google me, for that to be on my Wikipedia page, for that to be part of my official sort of story now? But the fact is that did happen. I was vulnerable. We know that many children, particularly in towns like this, are vulnerable to abuse and being taken advantage of by predatory

older men. We know this, we see it happening again and again, you know, all different stratas of society. We also know that LGBT kids are particularly vulnerable. We know that they're at risk for suicide. And we also know that family rejection is a big factor in all of that. So, you know, I wish it could have been different, Anita. I really, really do wish that it could have been different, but it was what it was. And I want to face it now and I want to talk about it because you know that if it happened to me,

it's still happening to people today. And I read a story just this week of a 12-year-old boy who his family described him as a really sweet, sensitive, caring boy. And he was bullied violently. I think he was bullied homophobically. And he was frightened to go back to school and he took his life. So this is in the news this week. And I do sound like a bleeding heart liberal, but I can't sleep at night knowing that there are

children that are afraid to go back to school I don't want to live in that society I don't want that to be this country and we need to make sure that everybody feels safe whether it's girls that are being harassed we know that they're facing increasing sexual harassment at school, whether it's homophobic bullying, whether it's transphobic bullying. We need to protect kids and make sure that they are safe and that they're looked after and that we are doing right by the kids in our society. How do you view those men now who came looking for sex with someone underage? It's difficult isn't it because it's actually taken me you know I guess over a decade to realise that it was abuse and I'm quite unjudgmental in the book because it's written from the perspective of me at that time and I wanted to illustrate how somebody can be taken advantage of in that context

really and truly some of those men should probably be in prison you know but I also make the point that they're not these kind of bogeymen you know that sort of exist in our deepest darkest fears they are people's husbands they are people's brothers they are people's husbands, they are people's brothers, they are people's fathers, and they are in towns like that, you know, and it's a problem and it's an issue. And also as well, we keep hearing about how trans people are the problem in society, you know, and how we are a huge danger to everybody else

and I felt increasingly uncomfortable using public toilets over the past few years because I'm paranoid that my presence is not welcome and if somebody perceives me as trans or if they recognize me um that that's going to be an issue and and also I don't want them to feel uncomfortable and it's just so galling to me, because I have, I have been in danger in those spaces. And I've spoken about it publicly. And I just wonder, Anita, where is the public conversation about that? Who have you written this book for? Oh, I wasn't expecting that question, Anita. Well, I kind of wrote it for me genuinely,

because I got this book deal with Penguin. And I you know I did Question Time in 2013 which you know as a young working class journalist of course you say yes to something like that but and I'm very proud of it but what it meant is I sort of get invited to do all of this newsy stuff where I'm basically going to argue with with old men on on news night you know which is not really what I want my career to be. And so when I got this book deal with Penguin, I thought, oh, we could make it a bit more serious. We could make it more polemical. We could make it a more straight up autobiography. But I was really clear that I absolutely didn't want to write a transgender memoir for starters. So anybody who's expecting that's going to be disappointed, I think. It's not. it's for anybody

it's it's it's it's just it's just a great story and and and you know I I knew that I'd had these experiences and I thought well what do I want to read and I just love all of those voice-led um fictions such as uh Trainspotting, Paddy Clark, Ha Ha Ha, and The Colour Purple by Alice Walker had a huge effect on me. And so I just, I wanted to write something really vivid and colourful and vibrant. And you achieved it, Paris. That was Paris Lee speaking to me about her book,

What It Feels Like for a Girl. Do you define as a geriatric millennial? If you're one of the 5 million or so people in the UK born between 1980 to 1985, don't show off about it, then this new label might be for you. The term went viral last week after American writer Erica Dewan used the phrase whilst arguing that 36 to 41 year olds could be the ideal employee due to their experience of knowing life before and after the advent of the internet. Can you imagine? Emma spoke to Erika, a leadership expert and author of digital body language and fellow geriatric millennial and senior feature writer at The Telegraph, Rosa Silverman. Erica explains what she means by the term geriatric millennial.

Geriatric millennials are a unique micro-generation born in the early 1980s. This is a micro-generation that remembers landlines and dial-up connections, but is also quite savvy at Clubhouse and Twitter. Now, I just published a new book, Digital Body Language, and in my research, the differences in micro-generations were impossible to ignore. There is a unique quality of geriatric millennials. They straddle digital natives, those that don't know a world without technology, but they also straddle digital adapters who feel like immigrants to the world of remote work. And this cohort can be the bridge builders as we think about hybrid work here to

stay. And so that's a very important part of what you're trying to do with this, because I did say, for instance, Gail's got in touch to say the world seems obsessed about the difference and putting people into different groups, making them or others to our own. Although I could easily be classed as disabled and a boomer, I think that people have far more in common, which then makes us different. The world would be a much better place if we focused on humanity rather than difference.

And another one here, I have no truck with ridiculously recently minted marketing categories which refer to ages or tribes and the absence of punctuation. Slightly separate point here. Any form of written communication is both rude and lazy. Proper punctuation is not only courteous, but also effective communication. But isn't that the point? Are you not trying to have a marketing term here?

You're trying to help explain the differences. I think these comments hit at the heart of my argument, that it is wrong to see an entire generation that spans 20 years as being the same. We do have differences, and it's important to talk about those differences as well as the commonalities. I, for one, grew up as an Indian immigrant in the United States, and I never resonated with the millennial label. I wasn't an entitled kid. I remember if I got a B on a science test, I wouldn't be able to go on sleepovers for a year. And so this is an opportunity to actually shut off these labels

and think differently that we all have something to bring to the table. Rosa, you are a fellow geriatric millennial. I'll just add that word quickly. I'm very proud to be so, I believe. Yeah, I think it's nice. I know that people object to having labels put on them, and rightly so a lot of the time. But there's been something unifying about this one as well because I think as Erica touched on a lot of people in our age

bracket don't feel that that millennial label really applies to them you know for a long time we've been sort of wondering where we fit in when when we hear these labels like Gen X, millennial, Zuma but I think this geriatric millennial term whatever you think of you know the inclusion of the word geriatric it does encapsulate a unique experience that our micro generation had i was going to say how do you think it's made you perhaps different then to those just just below you well we remember a time when we didn't operate online we remember growing up without social media but then very quickly adapting to it as soon as it came in. So I think I got on Facebook when I was 22

and there weren't many people on it then. But it was very exciting and we felt like, wow, this is the beginning of something new. And lots of people who, you know, our generation, we started off finding partners in real life, how old fashioned. And then once people got into their 20s and online dating came in there was an immediate ability to just quickly switch and go okay yeah internet's here we were young enough to very quickly adapt but it's nice to

have those cultural memories of a time before because I think only by having those memories do you fully understand what has changed and it has been a profound change. And Rosa, now that you've got your label, I mean, we've both been labelled with it. And if you're going to do anything differently, do you feel you're going to swagger around with more confidence with some of your behavioural tactics of the way that you are? Oh, yeah, definitely. It's just nice to um it's nice to feel seen that's what that's what people were saying online there was a lot of positive um response to this that a lot of people were saying oh my god yes this is me i feel seen because like i say we languished in this kind of hinterland without a proper um demographic identity before and and now i feel like we don't need to

apologize for who we are my my younger colleagues like to laugh at me because I feel like we don't need to apologise for who we are. My younger colleagues like to laugh at me because I'm not, I don't know how to do TikTok and these kind of things. But I also do like to go, well, I remember a time before. And I like that. I want to own that. Well, yeah, I think the other thing just to say, though, around the positive side of this, which Erica, you really brought out is that actually this particular age group can also think about how lucky it has been in reference to slightly younger though, with the timing of the economic crash, also with what's happened with the pandemic where you were up to with your life. And how important do you think it is, Erica, to take stock of the luck

of your generation at times? I think that we are an extremely lucky generation. We were young enough to use these digital tools in their primitive stage and value the uniqueness of them. But we were also old enough that maybe we weren't in college, especially during this pandemic, we had spent at least 10 years in the workforce. And so timing is a unique opportunity here. It's also a bit similar to the fact that CEOs like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are within a few years apart of each other as well. And I think that this is a moment where geriatric millennials can lead the way and help others bridge these differences. Lots of you got in touch with your opinions on this. Rachel said, yet again, another way of

creating a gimmick to market to and separate people from each other. We live in an age-obsessed culture, she says. This is yet again more evidence of the unnecessary labelling, totally absurd. Tell us what you really think, Rachel. And Amy says, I don't care how my age is defined. I'm 40. Terms like those don't mean anything to me. I get wrinkles and grey hair. I don't care. They're a sign of being alive. And who can really complain about that? Amen to that, sister.

And that's it from me. Have a wonderful bank holiday, whatever you're doing on Monday, sunning yourselves, pottering around, maybe doing some gardening. Make sure you join me for a very special programme celebrating women's sporting successes with six formidable women, including Emily De Frond, who plays hockey for Great Britain, and Kelly Simmons, the Football Association's Director of the Women's Professional Game.

Have a lovely weekend. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Charlie, I have been so excited to speak to you. Hello, Myrna. Hello. How are you, Joe? I'm Joe Wicks, and I'm back for the second series of my podcast that's all about sharing ways to help you live a happier and healthier life.

Doing a bit of research, and apparently you're into something called inversion therapy, where you hang upside down. What's that, like a bat? Exactly. I do it every day. You know, it all just sort of... Clears your head a little bat. Exactly. I do it every day. You know, it all just sort of... Clears your head a little bit. Yeah. I get to speak to some heroes of mine, from the legend that is Sir Tom Jones, who I'm literally obsessed with,

to one of our most successful UK athletes, Sir Mo Farah. You have to be smart and control the race in the way that you want to. It just settles me. It organises my brain. Meditation, I think, is the cultivation of a space within you that if you don't turn to it, life will get in the way. Subscribe now on BBC Sound so you never miss an episode. And you can also check out every single episode

in video format on BBC iPlayer. The Joe Wicks Podcast for BBC Radio 4. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake.

No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.