Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman’s Hour: Julia Gillard, Ophelia Lovibond, Medusa

Episode Date: September 17, 2022

Julia Gillard, former Australian Prime Minister – and the only woman to have held that role – reflects on the death of Queen Elizabeth II and her status as a global female leader. What will it mean for Australia where King Charles automatically became Head of State last week?Ophelia Lovibond, best known for playing Izzy Gould in the BBC mockumentary series W1A, discusses her new TV series Minx and playing Carrie Johnson.In a bid to close stubborn gender pay gaps, several states in the USA have passed laws requiring salary ranges to be clearly stated on all job ads. To discuss the growing trend and whether it is workable in the UK, we hear from money blogger Iona Bain and Radha Vyas, co-founder of the group travel company Flash Pack.The Hungarian government has tightened abortion laws in the country, meaning women who want to get an abortion will have to listen to vital signs - such as the foetal heartbeat - before being allowed to proceed. Nick Thorpe, the BBC's East and Central Europe Correspondent explains.'Beehives, Bobs & Blowdries' is an exhibition celebrating the art and skills of hairdressing along with some of the most iconic looks of the past 70 years. Our reporter Tamsin Smith speaks to some of the women perusing the exhibits about some of the looks they've tried over the years.Since she was a girl the writer and broadcaster Natalie Haynes has been fascinated by Greek Myths. Her fourth novel ‘Stone Blind’ tells the story of Medusa and gets us way beyond snake hair and a deadly gaze to understand why she's become the monster in re-tellings of her story over the centuries.

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.

Welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour, where we look back at the week just gone. A unique week, one that won't happen again, and one we won't forget. A period of national mourning for Her Majesty the Queen, the longest-serving monarch in British history. In the past few days, many across the UK have already paid their respects as she lies in state at Westminster Hall, ahead of her funeral on Monday. Her passing will be felt in many ways in the coming days and weeks as we adjust to a world without her constant presence and step into a new era of King Charles III. On today's programme, Julia Gillard, the former Prime Minister of Australia, pays tribute to Her Majesty and reflects on her own

iconic speech on misogyny. We have classicist and comedian Natalie Haynes on the enduring myth of Medusa and the actor Ophelia Lovibond on her new TV series Minx and playing Carrie Johnson. But first, Julia Gillard was Australian Prime Minister from 2010 to 2013. She remains the only woman to have held that role and while in power she met with Queen Elizabeth II as Australia's head of state. Since leaving office Julia Gillard has gone on to explore and promote global female leadership having gone viral with that speech nearly 10 years ago about misogyny. It's likely that Australians will be offered a chance to decide whether they still want a British monarch as head of state. The current Labour government there is led by a Republican and has previously indicated it wants

to hold a referendum on the issue, though just last week said that now is not a time to talk about our system of government. Well, Emma spoke to Julia earlier this week and began by asking her for her reflections on the death of Her Majesty the Queen. This, of course, is very sad news, and I can understand why people are queuing and wanting to pay their respects. It's sad because it's a human story about the loss of a much-loved family member, and I think for many of us that reminds us of episodes in our own lives where we've lost mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers. There, of course, is the element of it, which is reflections about a life of service so well

lived. I think so many have looked at the example of the Queen and how she put duty and service above all else. And then there's the symbolic ending of an era and inevitably I think that leads people to reflections about what next when there is change in the air. I think it has implications for all of us. We think about our own lives. We think about our nations. We think about the future. And so I think all of those elements are coming together as the UK mourns and many millions

of people around the world join the UK in that mourning. What was she like when you met her? She was funny, a great sense of humour. She exhibited that sense of duty, which we all know she had. One way I saw her do that was on what was her last visit to Australia, where she came to visit every Australian state and to be there for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Perth. And inevitably, that involved long hours, lots of standing. And she did all of that and did it certainly, not only without complaint. I mean, she would never have complained about anything, I don't think, but with a clear sense of duty and engagement in it.

And I think all of the leaders there, including me, had the opportunity to talk to her and to experience some of that mischief that could be in her sense of humour. Yes, it's funny, a lot of people go there straight away when they talk about the Queen. They talk about that twinkle, that sense of humour, those elements of mischief that you refer to. And as you say, a time also to reflect back but look forward. And with now, I mean, the reign of King Charles immediately beginning, as it does, the crown passing invisibly between the two,

there's now conversation where countries are affected about heads of state. And even though that's not a conversation your prime minister has said is right for this very moment. What is the mood like, do you think? Should there be a referendum in Australia about the monarch's future role? I think the Prime Minister is right to say we will get to all of this in due course, but it's not the needed discussion right now. I think Australia over many long years now has thought about its future and the Republican debate has been alive and well. Sometimes it's been more at the forefront of politics. Sometimes it's been more at the background, depending on the other issues in the world. I've always thought

inevitably when the reign of Queen Elizabeth came to the end that people would reflect. But people will do that, I think, in a very measured and unhurried way. And I think the Prime Minister has captured that sentiment in the community. So what I think people should expect to see is an emerging discussion which will be measured in years before there is a Republican referendum or any constitutional move. So you don't see it as something that is any time soon, even though a government MP has been given the official task of making the case for Australia to become a republic with an Australian head of state? The Prime Minister has been very clear that this is not the work of his first period of government which he is in now he was elected in may this year and so that does inevitably put the discussion

off and i think that's right i think that's exactly what the australian community would want there are things to think through and discuss about potential Republican models. Last time, the nation considered becoming a republic. That did not succeed largely because there was disputation about the model. So there are things that need to be worked through and discussed, and that can be done in a very measured way over time. And I think that's what the Prime Minister is indicating. I would want to say that some of the dialogue around this, and I would have said that before the death of Queen Elizabeth II, some of the dialogue around this in the UK rolls out as if

it's a temperature check around the popularity of the monarchy. I don't think that. I think it is well and truly possible for Australians in their millions to feel a very deep respect for the service of the Queen, to feel very warmly towards the current royal family, but also to want, over time, to see their nation become a republic. So I just don't think we should put this in some frame around individual popularity. Is that how you square it as a Republican?

I've been a lifelong Republican. And for me, it's a question of, you know, a nation making decisions about its future. And in doing that, I think Australians will continue to show respect and interest in the royal family. Of course, the UK, our historic links here, none of that's going to change. No, I mean, also, you know, people may not know why this is the case. You know, Australia was originally a collection of British colonies. And when it became a nation in 1901, it chose a constitutional monarchy system of government. And the relationship has, as some have described and what you're describing, has changed.

And the people also have changed in that time. And that's why there has been the interest in certainly testing that. As you say, disputes last time in the referendum about how it would change were there. But for you, not any time soon that you see this changing. But of course, this discussion has been on the debate, the debate books, as it were, for some time. But a lot of people taking the time

to pay their respects to the individual. And in this case, of course, Queen Elizabeth II. When I mentioned we had you on the programme, Julia, straight away we got a message from someone called Julia. I will never forget her anti-misogyny speech, one of the great speeches of all time. This was while you were in office as prime minister. You were calling out sexist behaviour in your fellow politicians. And it was October 2012. Let's just hear a clip. I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. I will not. And the government will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. Not now, not ever. The Leader of the Opposition says that people who hold sexist views and who are misogynists are not appropriate for

high office. Well, I hope the Leader of the Opposition has got a piece of paper and he is writing out his resignation. Because if he wants to know what misogyny looks like in modern Australia, he doesn't need a motion in the House of Representatives. He needs a mirror. That's what he needs. Are you still friends with the leader of the opposition, Tony Abbott? We were political colleagues. Obviously, my life's moved on now. And I'm here in the UK doing a number of things, one of which has been building a global institute for women's leadership at King's College London, the mission of which is to ensure that no one ever needs to give a speech like that again, because whether it's women in politics or women in any

other walk of life, there is gender equality and it is equally likely that a woman can come through for leadership. Has it got better in Australia? Yes, it has got better in Australia. And I think around the world, we are seeing progress. We are seeing increasing numbers of women coming forward for leadership. But the World Economic Forum every year does a very sobering diagnostic for us about the rate of change. And their most recent diagnostic said that at current rates of change, it wouldn't be for more than 130 years that we would see global gender equality. And I think we can all say that's far too long to wait. So much to do. I think the conversations we're having this morning are in some ways joined. I

have a podcast, something called a podcast of one's own, because the Global Institute for Women's Leadership is based in the Virginia Woolf building at King's College. And we did do an episode around the Platinum Jubilee about what the long image of the Queen as a leader had meant for role modelling about women's leadership. And I think that kind of discussion about the Queen in this period, but about women's leadership and role models more generally is incredibly important because we're only going to see more women come forward if they've got the sense that these places, politics, corporate boardrooms, C-suites, judicial benches, the inner workings of technology companies, the news media, that these are places for them.

That was Julia Gillard, former Prime Minister of Australia. Now all this week we've been covering the death of Her Majesty the Queen and for some of you reading about and seeing the images of the royal family grieving may have brought back memories of your own. Many of you emailed in to share your final moments with your own mothers. Carrie said, when my darling mum Sonia was dying I lay by her side stroking her hair and my dad held her hand. When she took her last breath, I had the clearest sense of it being only her body which died, but her personality stayed with me. The love and care she gave me for 44 years remained in my heart and backbone and will

be there forever. Hours later, I made breakfast and wore an apron for the first time, as mum had always asked me to do. Maggie shared, I was fortunate to be at my mother's side when she passed. In her day, she was a great folk dancer. I thanked her for everything, told her how much I loved her, and then said, Dad is waiting to take you dancing. And another listener got in touch to say, my mother died at the age of 90. My sister and I were able to wash my mother after she died, rather than leaving it to the nurses.

We both felt that it was important for us to do it. After all, it was one of the first things she did for us, and therefore it was the last thing we could do for her. Our mother loved the Queen, and she would often recall the years during the Blitz when King George's family stayed in London, along with the princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. Thank you, as always, for sharing your stories with us.

And remember, you can get in touch with us any time via our website. Still to come, can you track your life through hairstyles? The ladies from Barnsley do as they look around an exhibition celebrating the art and history of hair and remember you can enjoy Woman's Hour any hour of the day if you can't join us live at 10am during the week all you need to do is subscribe to the daily podcast for free on BBC Sounds. Now Ophelia Lovey-Bond is perhaps best known for playing Izzy Gould in the BBC TV mockumentary series W1A well later this month you can see her take on the role of Carrie Johnson

alongside Kenneth Branagh as Prime Minister Boris Johnson in a new drama series, This England, set during the Covid crisis. But this week, you can watch her in the leading role in a new comedy drama series, Minx, on Paramount+. Set in 1970s Los Angeles, the series centres around Joyce, an earnest young feminist who dreams of producing a magazine by, for and about women. Here she is, struggling to pitch her feminist magazine.

Math is hard when back to school makes you feel like a fool. From date to mate, you too can snag a spouse. The Grapefruit Diet. Find your thin within. What do these articles have in common? They're cute and fun. But pictures are pretty, gals. It's the kind of stuff my old lady reads in the tub.

What they have in common is they're the exact opposite of the stories I'm going to have in my magazine. This country treats women like second-class citizens. We're overlooked, underpaid, and overwhelmed. We deserve a magazine that inspires us, that shows us how to fight. Gentlemen, this is your chance to be on the right side of history. The matriarchy awakens. Why is she so angry? Well, her ideas don't exactly go to plan.

She ends up joining forces with a low-rent publisher to create the first erotic magazine for women. Ophelia spoke to Emma earlier this week and explained why. Well, yes, she sort of compromises in order to get the magazine out there. I think she envisioned something like Spare Rib, something that people might be familiar with. But she has to compromise on that ideal in order to actually get people to read it. And that means involving some male erotica. It's a lesson in pragmatism, quite a lot of the journey that this character goes on.

I think that's what she keeps telling herself. She keeps feeling like she's compromised too much and she's kind of lost sight of what she originally wanted, but then ultimately realises, I need to be pragmatic and that involves agreeing to this request. It also, I mentioned this idea of a first erotic magazine for women. There is a scene where lots of men come and try out. They're naked in the shoot, man after man after man.

And, you know, her character is quite naive actually about sex and about that side of life but it's also a very striking moment because you see a female gaze in action absolutely she's very astute at kind of feminism in theory but in practice she's quite shy she's quite a prude she's can kind of get in her own way she can be a little bit condescending without realizing it because her social skills are kind of lacking but she's thrust in front of um progress as as her kind of publisher would put it and she's forced to kind of engage with the female gaze and acknowledge that she's actually not engaged or indulged in it before herself and realizing that there is value in this it's not she kind of dismisses male nudity.

It's silly. It's my magazine is not going to be taken seriously. But you see Joyce unwinding and kind of embracing sexuality and over the course of the show. And that's what you're hoping the viewer is doing at the same time. Did you unwind and relax during those particular scenes? I was already very relaxed. I had a great time. Because I also wondered why you were drawn to it this role christian asked and answered um i felt an immediate affinity with that part that she had

these sort of ideals and struggles to kind of get bring them to fruition um i also feel like there's i'd never seen anything like this on television before i felt like there was real space for this kind of show this sort of story to be told and it's funny and it's it obviously it does have a feminist message but it's done in a way that's i mean almost palatable it kind of takes away the people often feel that the word feminism is so loaded and so kind of weaponized and it's a way of just pointing out that it's really quite a lot more simple than people some people might have you believe do you feel it's still loaded i do i feel some people even say i'm not a feminist but i do think women

should get equal pay and you think um that is kind of what feminism is but it's for some reason still carries so much it has this power i don't i it's it's frustrating to see that it does but um I hope the show shows you that it's really a lot more straightforward yes well I mean also there are a lot of the same issues that are raised in this television program that we obviously cover here on Women's Hour but people still felt because those issues are not sorted yet that you still need whether it's magazines whether you need sorted yet that you still need whether it's magazines whether you need specific programs but you still need that so when you were making it did you did you become aware of what hasn't been achieved yes certainly in light of roe v wade

being revoked in the u.s it's it's alarming to think that we're the show is set in the 70s and generally speaking women in that period have more rights than women do now in some regards. That's quite a frightening prospect. And the fact that we're still having the same argument, the fact that we're still trying to get across the idea of fair and equal access and equal pay and so many issues that come up all of the time

and you kind of, sometimes you almost despair because you think, why are we still having this conversation? Why? I mean, there are women who got out the same placards from 1973 and they've kind of dusted them off and are reusing them. That really ought not to be happening. Why did you want to play Carrie Johnson? Because I think she is fascinating. I think the way that she's been depicted in the media

is in itself really interesting. The kind of the disparaging names for her. I've, even before I was involved in this project, I remember just thinking, they're so, they're quite aggressive, some of the nicknames that she's been given. Just to clarify, they're not nicknames by the media. They were names attributed to those who had been allegedly working around her.

Yes, yeah. But then obviously were then leaked to the press or whomever. But I just thought whoever it was, she has such a strong effect on people, whether or not you agree with that or not. She clearly has this effect and people are so fascinated to know what she's really like effect on people whether or not you agree with that or not it's she clearly has this effect and people are so fascinated to know like what she's really like and does she really does she really

behave in this certain way so when the opportunity came to play her I thought what I'd love to do as much that now I kind of have reason to do the research on her that I've been quite curious about anyway what have you discovered did you manage to talk to her? No, I didn't. I was curious to, but it felt like that might influence my depiction of her in some way, which would have felt irresponsible. So I thought it would be wiser as an actor to go with the dialogue as it was put in front of me, to use the scenes as they were written. Obviously to do as much research as possible in kind of her background, her career path, all the rest of it to inform my performance, but to not have my interpretation of her swayed. OK, because some would also say, is it quite soon?

You know, COVID and the impact on people's lives and politics as a drama. What do you make of that? I can completely understand why some people might feel like that but I do feel that with drama you have an opportunity to record a mass feeling a way of interpreting this this enormous experience that we've all had and shared that it's been so hard to fathom and drama is a form of being able to sort of digest that and and and understand how you feel I also think personally that we are so adaptable that you tend to sort of gloss over lots of things that occurred. The reason this being recorded and written so soon and as things were still unfurling, you're able to kind of record with greater

accuracy what happened. So even when I was watching some of the episodes back, I just thought, gosh, I'd forgotten about that. I'd actually forgotten that it was with that such rapidity that this all occurred. So I think I'm hopeful that people will find it cathartic rather than alarming. Ophelia Lovey Bond there. And you can watch Minx now on Paramount+. Now, what if I were to ask you how much you earn? Do you talk about your salary with your co-workers? So many of us tiptoe around this taboo topic, but more and more companies are beginning to implement salary transparency policies in order to fight stubborn gender pay gaps. Some are doing this by choice, but some are required to do it by law. In the US, several states, including Colorado, have passed

laws enforcing it. They insist that salary ranges must be clearly stated on all job ads. New York City is set to follow suit in November, meaning that any employer with four or more staff must post a minimum and maximum wage range on all job postings. And just a couple of weeks ago, a game-changing salary transparency bill was also passed in California, which is home to 19 million workers and some of the most influential companies in the world, as we know, Apple, Disney, Google and Meta. Well, yesterday, I was joined by money blogger Iona Bain to tell us about this growing trend and whether we're likely to see it come to the UK,

and Radha Vyas, co-founder of the group travel company Flashback. And I began by asking Iona how the policies have come about and why now? Yeah, so as you mentioned, there are now several states in the US where much more radical laws around paid transparency than we've seen previously have either already been introduced or on the way. So you mentioned some of them just then, Colorado, New York, Washington, and California. And this is part of a long running campaign in many states to try to remove much of the secrecy that surrounds pay within organizations, which is long thought to be a pretty big contributor to the gender and ethnic pay gap that remains stubborn right across the US. So the typical pay gap for women working full time in the US is roughly 17%.

And that's even higher for ethnic minority women. Now, this isn't to say that there isn't already legislation in many states in the US that requires employers to address the issue of salary ranges at some point during the hiring process. And also, importantly, ban employers from asking about a candidate's salary history, something which is still perfectly legal here in the UK. But what's changing is that certain states are now requiring employers to be completely upfront about salary bans when they are posting jobs. And that's a big departure from what's gone before.

Is it likely to happen here in the UK? There was a pilot scheme earlier this year, wasn't there? Yes, announced on International Women's Day. But it's voluntary. We don't know how many companies are taking part in that scheme. We don't know how it's going and we don't know what the next steps are. So I think we're in a bit of a holding pattern in this country at the moment where this policy is being actively considered, discussed and tried out in certain companies. But it's not really close to becoming a reality yet. Well, one company has not only tried it, they've run with it, is Rathers Company. Rathers, you

introduced this by choice. It's not mandatory here in the UK to disclose staff pay, but you was the founder, you hold the keys to this information. So why did you decide to implement it? Well, when we're rebuilding Flashback, we're a travel company. So we had a rough time during the pandemic and a lot of time to kind of reflect on how we had been building the company. And one of the things we thought hard about was how to make employees feel valued and heard post-pandemic. And we realised that we were falling behind on pay transparency. And this was inadvertently causing pay gaps, ethnicity pay gaps, gender pay gaps within our company, which I just could not tolerate at all. So as we started rebuilding,

we decided that was the one that was a top issue we wanted to tackle as we started employing new staff. And we, you know, we just felt that our team's pay should not be reflected by how good they are at negotiating. We only care about the job they're doing, the impact they are having, the responsibility they take on. And being open and transparent with our salaries is a great antidote to those pay gaps forming again. Before we find out how it's gone down and how your staff have reacted and how it's impacted the company positively and negatively let's talk about what was happening before then what did you find was happening with pay um inevitably as the company was scaling lee and i as the co-founders weren't close to every hiring decision and hiring managers were having to make pay decisions on the fly right it was kind of finger in the air. I think this is the

right salary. They were using woefully inadequate data sources because we hadn't put a framework in place. And that led to pay gaps because, not because women are worse at negotiating. They're not. In fact, some of my best negotiators in my company have been women, but society has conditioned us to put ourselves last, to not ask for too much, right? And inevitably we're starting from a lower base than maybe a male colleague. So you're negotiating from a lower base already. And so we were just perpetuating those pay gaps by giving an uplift on their previous salary. And that's what we wanted to get rid of. Exactly what you're just talking about, Iona, the, you know, the salary that you're,

if you're meant to disclose the salary you've just been on, then you're probably going to be negotiating from a lower rate than someone else. Yes, absolutely. And this pilot that's been tried out in the UK is looking at banning, asking prospective employees about their salary history. And I think the reason why this whole initiative is being considered now is because there is some compelling evidence that it does help to reduce pay gaps within companies. So for instance, in Canada, where there have been wage transparency laws, there was a study looking at the effect within universities and they found that the gender pay gap there was cut by between 20 and 40 percent, which is pretty impressive. But there is a bit of a concern that overall wages could actually be reduced. So there was a study done in California which found that whilst wage transparency did cut pay gaps, it did reduce

salary overall by about two to 3%. And the thinking behind that is that basically women might not get offered the same amount of promotions once their employers kind of know that salaries will be made public. And also employers might push back and say, well, look, if you start asking for a pay rise, everybody's going to ask for a pay rise. And therefore, we just can't fulfill everybody's requests. Radha, what's your experience been? How's it worked out? Yeah, well, exactly. So we started with advertising pay on all of our job adverts to show that we're being competitive. And alongside of that, we did a massive piece of work with a company called Justly to benchmark all of our salaries against 3000 startups in the UK. So travel, actually,

the travel industry in general does pay underpay staff. And so we benchmark all salaries against startups in London. And no matter where fully flexible and fully remote, and no matter where you we employ you, whether it's Liverpool, Wales, what have you, we benchmark your salary to London. So that's how we've circumvented the kind of issue of salaries going down, because we have to be competitive as a startup in London against all the other amazing companies that are out there to hire talent, right? But alongside that, in terms of ensuring that people get fair promotions, we've created a progression framework, which outlines at a high level, the knowledge you need, the communication skills you need, the impact you need to have within the company at your level, right? And there's a clear path to progression for everyone. And it's completely transparent. So we've rolled that out in tandem with the pay salaries. And yeah, we think it's

gone down very, very well. It's created a huge amount of trust with between the team and the leadership team, which creates a great amount of goodwill, right? People feel safe, they feel valued, they feel that the leadership team are transparent and it creates happy employees that are more loyal well i don't know this is the interesting bit because i mean we don't know you've done it so you can tell us how your employees feel but i think lots of people listening even though we all want to sort the gender pay gap out makes us feel slightly uncomfortable, doesn't it? Having to, your colleagues knowing how much you earn. So how are your employees taking to it? How are your team finding it? Yeah, I think there may have been

slight hesitancy when we first rolled it out. Like, look, it was a scary thing for the entire organisation because once you're in, you're in, there's no going back. So it was a huge piece of work mentally, as well as kind of the actual work that needed to be done to roll this out. But it's really important that we all overcome our collective uncomfortableness about talking about money, because there's a bigger issue here. And is that what this is about, Iona?

It's a culture of just feeling uncomfortable. And it's just something once this becomes the norm, we'll all look back and go, can you believe that we ever once felt weird about talking about our wages? Yes, I think money is always going to be a sensitive subject for people for very understandable reasons. It can be tied up in all sorts of past and present trauma. So I understand why it's not the kind of thing that you want to discuss with people you don't know that well or trust. And, you know, people are polite and nice, and we don't want to make others feel

uncomfortable. But unfortunately, that does mean that everybody stays quiet on certain key issues, like how much we get paid. And one person going over the top and saying, I get paid £50,000 a year, right, who's with me, who's going to join me in disclosing how much they get paid, it's not guaranteed that everybody else is going to follow them. So I wonder whether or not paid transparency is going to become more normalised. Certainly in the US, if you only have a few states introducing these laws, it does create the risk that employers might overlook those states when hiring people. So perhaps we are going to be moving towards paid transparency right across the board, a better understanding of how it works. You know, I've talked about some research that shows some of the downsides,

but there is research showing upsides as well, whereby it has helped boost productivity, staff morale and so on. And certainly what Radha's discussed there shows that it can work in practice. But I think the thing is, it's only going to work if the salary bands are sufficiently tight, right? You can't have a salary band of between 40k and 80k a year if it's in conjunction with a genuine commitment to reducing pay gaps within an organisation. And also, employers really need to think carefully about their calculations, explain the thinking behind those calculations too, because I think

employees do accept wage policy within a company, if they can understand the thinking behind it, and if they think it's genuine and fair. So what are the downsides? I think, as I mentioned before, the downsides are that it can reduce pay. And also, yeah, I mentioned research which shows that potentially those employees who are on lower wages relative to colleagues become demoralised, unproductive. They start looking for other jobs. But then again, experiments in countries like Germany have found that actually disclosing salaries does help to boost productivity. So I think there's a lot more research that needs to be done on what the benefits are,

but certainly it's an interesting experiment that we need to be giving a lot more thought to. That was Iona Bain and Radha Vyas. Now, Thursday marked a significant day for women in Hungary. The government has tightened abortion laws in the country, meaning that women who want to get an abortion will have to listen to vital signs, such as the fetal heartbeat, before being allowed to proceed. The Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, has long sought to boost Hungary's flagging birth rate,

and his right-wing government prides itself in standing for traditional family values. While Nick Thorpe is the BBC's East and Central Europe correspondent and Emma asked him how the law has changed. Basically, this is a change to the regulations governing abortion in Hungary, which has been legal, fully on demand since, I think, 1953. What the new regulation does is that it obliges doctors to give women seeking an abortion clearly identifiable indication of the vital signs of life of the fetus before they are granted an abortion. So basically in the privacy of the doctor's surgery, the doctor will now be legally obliged from today, Thursday, to require the woman to either look at images of the fetus moving inside her womb or to listen, for example, to the sounds of the heartbeat, the sounds of the liquids within her womb,

before she can confirm her intention to have an abortion. And has this been designed, have these laws and these changes been designed in an attempt to have women change their minds? I think there are several things going on here. One is that this is a right-wing government, a conservative government, which is very proud of its record in, for example, increasing the fertility rate in Hungary, increasing the number of women of childbearing age, having children that's increased from I think 1.21 to 1.59 over the last 12 years that this government's been in power there's also been an increase a doubling in the rate of marriages in Hungary and a considerable reduction in the abortion rate simply either because any way Hungarian couples want to have more children and have less abortions,

or because of the general climate in the country, which is very much pro-birth, pro-large family, and anti-abortion, anti-divorce, and so on. So that's part of the kind of whole package of measures introduced by the government to encourage couples to have more babies and have less, and encourage women to have, or rather discourage women from having abortions. What's the reaction been from doctors? The Hungarian Doctors Association say that this has been passed without any consultation at all and for that reason although it won't actually legally restrict the right to abortion women will still be able to require an abortion. Some doctors are saying that this will as the human rights groups are saying that this will further traumatize women

who are already in a difficult position after making a decision to terminate a pregnancy. But also they're saying, how can the state, doctors are saying, the Association of Hungarian Doctors are saying, how can the state actually see into the doctor's surgeries in what should be a private conversation between the doctor and the woman seeking an abortion, and that therefore it will be actually quite hard to enforce this rule, and doctors will still be left the freedom, if they choose to have that, of saying, well, under law, I am obliged to

tell you or ask you to look at this machinery, ask you to listen to this, but in fact I don't want to. So it's actually quite an interesting question of medical ethics here as well, which has of course not been discussed with the doctors in advance. So there's no way of knowing if this will be enforced or how it will play out in the privacy of doctors' surgeries. Do we have an insight into how the women of the country feel about this? I think more conservative-minded women, the woman from the far-right Our Homeland Party, Dora Doro, who introduced it, is very pleased about this.

This is actually a piece of legislation she had been pushing for similarly to some in the republican party in the united states for example for a long time so women who are either against abortion or feel abortion rights should be much more restricted are very happy about this but i think that's only a minority of Hungarian women on the whole I think there's a lot of indignation about this that what is this male-dominated government this male-dominated state why is it interfering into the rights of women into the private lives the private often very difficult decisions taken by women about whether to continue with a pregnancy or not so there's a lot of indignation about this in the country that said this is a very socially

conservative country and some people are saying including many women are saying that this is actually a non-issue that hungarians on the whole this is not such a conservative or certainly not such a catholic country as poland for example where there's also been restrictions on the whole, this is not such a conservative or certainly not such a Catholic country as Poland, for example, where there's also been restrictions on the right to abortion, that actually this is a red herring thrown out by the government to distract the Hungarian public from much more serious issues like the soaring rate of inflation or the problems over energy supply, the looming problems over energy supply in the coming winter, that this is a sort of typical example of this government actually trying to

distract people with a very emotional issue, which people will talk about for days or weeks or months, even though it won't actually affect a woman's right to choose. Nick Thorpe, BBC's East and Central Europe correspondent. Now, Beehives, Bobs and Blow-Drys is an exhibition celebrating the art and skills of hairdressing, along with some of the most iconic looks of the past 70 years. Curated by fashion research consultant and academic Donna Bevan, it opens in the beautiful Peace Hall in Halifax today. Well, our reporter Tamsin Smith saw the exhibition when it was in Barnsley and she spoke to some of the women perusing the exhibits

about some of the looks they've tried over the years and about where they got their style inspiration from. Morning. You all right? I'm fine, thank you. We all see each other in the hairdressers, don't we? We do, yes. You've just had a look round the gallery here and the exhibition.

Are there particular images and hairstyles Mae'n ddiddorol i'r ddwyloedd. Rydyn ni'n gwneud hynny. Rydych chi wedi cael edrych o gwmpas y galeri yma a'r arddangosfa. A yw yna ddau unigolion a chylion ymdrin sydd wedi bod yn rhywbeth o'r traws i lawr y coed? Ie, byddech chi. Ni fyddai fy nghymau yn parhau i ddod yn dda. Na, na, mae wedi ei wneud ei ffordd ei hun. Ond roeddech chi'n ceisio? O ie, yn sicr. Mae'n rhaid i you used to try? Oh, yeah, definitely. I got to be in fashion. I'm Glyn and I'm 70. It was more like a Bette Lynch style mine, actually.

Was it for a Saturday night? When did you have the beehive done? No, I had it all the time, every day. It suited me, I think, better than any other hairstyle I've had. Dorothy, you grew up round here as well. I'm 73. Even with short hair, with the back combing, it still had to be high. It was the height that you had to get.

We used to have the Carmen rollers. I'll go to sleep in rollers. Not very comfortable, no. We had to suffer to be beautiful. I'm Donna Bevan, curator for Beehives, Bobs and Blow-Drys at Barnsley Civic. The original Beehive was a very small, really like a little beehive hat on top of the head. But how we see that move forward, both in the UK and in America, is into this big exaggerated look which really comes from the celebrities of the time,wy Hollywood, ond yn sicr trwy'r cerddoriaeth hefyd.

Yn ymwneud â cherddoriaethau gwbl, gan y canlyniadau gwbl, a'r canlyniadau gwbl, a'r canlyniadau gwbl, a'r canlyniadau gwbl, a'r canlyniadau gwbl, rydyn ni'n gweld bod y beehive yn fwy fwy ac yn fwy gyffredinol. Un o'r pethau sy'n gysylltu â hynny hefyd yw'r datblygiadau mewn sbrais o'r haes. is we start to see that the beehive get bigger and bolder. And one of the things that really links with that as well is the developments in hairsprays. So with the technology to create a sort of hairspray that could hold the hair but without being a solid lacquer. Is it charm, is it poison? No, it's hairspray.

Oh my God, I remember my aunties like that. And the only way she could actually get the hairspray out of her hair that bad was by using, you know washing clothes soap powder that's the only way she could get the amount of lacquer that she'd got in her hair but if you spray it and like it you can take off in a racket and in outer space so to see these it's some of these are just like looking at me you know my aunties you know when they were ready for going out and everything. So it's absolutely beautiful. It's amazing. This is an old perming machine from what year?

So this one was still being used in the 50s. It wasn't until the late 50s, early 60s that people started to move out and have been wired up. I mean, it looks like an instrument of torture, doesn't it? I mean, there are all these wires coming out of it. I mean, give these a instrument of torture doesn't it? I mean there are all these wires coming out of it. I mean give these a shake. You can hear how many are coming out of this contraption and each wire would be attached to...

Yes, so they would have put a roller in and the chemical and then there's a clip that goes on and then that clip has a connector that goes to the machine and then they turn it up depending on the sort of you know the voltage to go through and it was through that heat transference that the perm took place. My name is Juliette Atkinson. And so you remember this perming machine? Yes I do yeah it just took me back to being 14. To being? 14 that's when I started hairdressing. You started hairdressing at 14? So this contraption you'd sit women attached to it, how long did they have to sit there with these leads going to their rollers?

Depending on the hair. If it was fine hair, not very long, quarter of an hour, 20 minutes. If it was thick hair that didn't curl a lot longer, sometimes they got burnt. It was a very dangerous contraption, really. We were very expensive. We charged five guineas for a perm, whereas everyone else was charging £2.19. I'm going back to old money now. So if you were a high class salon, I'd expect fewer perming disasters?

I'm not telling you anymore. I'm not telling you anymore. But this is something, Donna where the the technology has made a difference to women yes definitely yeah so with the introduction of the chemical perm that made obviously made it much easier for you know you could just stay in your seat you still had to have all the chemicals on your head obviously and yes definitely it was no longer needed electricity, which is always a good thing, isn't it? It does things for you. If you don't have your hair done, if you don't experiment, you know, it's just, you do the same thing all the time.

What particular hairstyles stood out most for you or made you feel most different when you had them? When he was all spiked, you know, very short at the sides and then spiked so that he stood up like that. Oh, so you had punk hair? Yes. 1970s punk rebellion hairstyles. Yes, yes. But do you remember wanting to make people look at you or perhaps shock them a bit? Was that something you wanted to do? I wasn't quiet.

So I suppose it's the attention I like. Originally, you have that kind of moral panic and worry about what punks are about and what they're doing. But then it soon quite quickly moves through to mainstream. But really, it's the time when you see women exploring their hair in a whole new way. Nid yw hyn yn ymwneud â hae sy'n canu i'w gael ei llesu mewn ystod y clasig. Mae gennym ni'r argyfwng o'r beehive, ac nawr mae gennym ni rhywbeth sy'n ymchwilio i'r ysgol trinol y mae'r grwpiau pwc wedi ei wneud, ac i fod yn rhan o'r trin honno a bod yn rhan o'r triwfn hwnnw a mynd i mewn i'r cerdd a'r lyreiddiau.

Roedd pwysigrwydd yn golygu i ddynion gwbl, ei fod yn galluogi i ddynion gael y ffordd fwy o bwysig mewn ffordd gwahanol drwy'r ffordd y gwnaethant edrych. Rwyf wedi cael popeth. Roedd yn gwbl, yn blon, yn golau, yn blon, yn gwbl, yn gwbl. Roedd gen i tipiau rydw i wedi eu tynnu, tipiau gwl, rydw i wedi cael llinellau sy'n cael eu llynu. Nid oedd yna ddwylliant o ddim yn ei gadael. Roedd colori yn un o'r arweinyddion mwyaf

a gymerodd ei d hyd i'r newyddion newydd. Felly, dyna'r datblygiad o ran colori yma, a'r gallu i ddewis colori mwy o amrywiol. Ychydig fel y gallai'r Wittorion eistedd gyda'u cwmni ac yn syth gyda prosi a ddwylau arall. Yn ôl y byd, mae'r colori yn ymwneud â rhai ffyniadau ddiddorol. Ond mewn gwirionedd, mae'n dechrau dod yn rhywbeth mwy o amrywiol ac yn cael ei chwarae. spray on colours. But really in punk it starts to become something that is more exaggerated and played with as a way of trying to challenge particular looks. And then through, think like Debbie Harry with her dark roots and the darker tips and blonde on top. So either dyeing it dark or light or kind of adding fun colours, those sort of day glow colours

that were very popular in the early 80s. Looking at these, I'm thinking, oh, my God. So what's your name? It's Julie, Julie Lee. So we're standing in front of a really long gallery of photos and you are picking out all the hairstyles that you've already had. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've had all of this.

Well, this is a wedge cut, isn't it? Yeah, I, hwn. Wel, dyma cut wedi'i ddynu, ydy'n dda? Ie, oh, rwyf wedi cael hynny. Rwyf wedi cael'n cofio'n fwy am fy eiriau. Felly, rydych chi'n ddyn o'r 80au? Ie, yn sicr. Yn sicr, byddwn i hefyd. Pa cerdd oedd yn cael ei wrando arno yn y 80au? Yn sicr, George. Roedd yn hoffi ei gwyneb. Roedd yn angen ei gwyneb. Come a, come a, come a, come a, come a chameleon. Absolutely lovely. Honestly, just seeing them, I'm like thinking,

I've had that and I've had that and I've had that. Yeah, these bring back lovely memories. Lovely, lovely memories. And I bet it did the same for you as well. That brought a smile to my face. That was our reporter, Tamsin Smith. And staying on the topic of hair, since she was a girl, the writer and broadcaster Natalie Haynes has been fascinated by Greek myths.

You may have heard her brilliant Radio 4 programme, Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics, which is also available on BBC Sounds, if you haven't. Her fourth novel, Stone Blind, tells the story of Medusa. Many of us will know her for the snakes in her hair and unfortunate ability to turn people to stone just by looking at them. The only mortal in a family of gods. At 16, Medusa has the misfortune to catch the eye of Poseidon

and her fate is set. Well, Natalie spoke to Krupa earlier this week and began by giving a reading from her book. So this is chapter one, it's very short just so you know. Gorgoneion, I see you, I see all those who men call monsters and I see the men who call them that, call themselves heroes of course. I only see them for an instant. Then they're gone. But it's enough. Enough to know that the hero isn't the one who's kind or brave or loyal. Sometimes, not always, but sometimes he is monstrous. And the monster, who is she? She is what happens when someone cannot be saved.

This particular monster is assaulted, abused and vilified. And yet, as the story is always told, she is the one you should fear. She is the monster. We'll see about that. Thank you. I like to sell my stall on the first page. No, no, it's powerful reading. Thanks.

Beyond the snakes, beyond those deadly eyes. Yes. Refresh our memories about Medusa and the story behind it. So Medusa is one of three sisters, and this I think is often forgotten for the very good reason, a very strong reason, which I don't dispute, that in 1981, the Ray Harryhausen movie Clash of the Titans was released. And so people of my generation all saw that on every bank holiday through our childhoods with Harry Hamlin as Perseus decapitating this terrifying monster that lives in a cave on her own. And she's a predator. She's got a bow and arrow. She's trying to pick them off. They have to kill her by looking at a reflection

so her lethal eyes can't turn them to stone. Even her blood, once she's been killed, is corrosive and destroys metal. And that's the version of her that we know. But here's the thing. Gorgons in ancient Greece have a sort of dual identity. They're scary, yes. You would put one on your shield.

Agamemnon has one on his shield in the Iliad. And that should tell you that it's two things. It scares your enemy, but it protects you. Gorgons are apotropaic. They protect us from the things that we're scared of. And so the Gorgon heads that you can see all over Greek buildings, you can see them on temples and doorways and places like that on shields again. They're obviously designed to reflect and fight the fears of the societies which created them. And Gorgon heads can be traced all the way back to Humbaba in Gilgamesh, the Mesopotamian myth. So this idea of the head, which is sort of part human, maybe part monster, part animal, the snakes for hair, but the hair also looks a bit

like a lion's mane. Gorgons often have tusks like wild boar. Sometimes they have beards like wild pigs. So they are obviously meant to reflect the natural world. A line that has struck me that you have shared openly is that you have over time learned to see Medusa not as a monster, but a monstered woman. That's going to stay with me. Good. Explain that to me. Well, because we think of her as the archetypal monster, I think, partly because she's so iconic in its more literal sense, not in its Generation Z sense, where it's an iconic image and you see it all the time.

But she is turned into a monster. She's not born one. As a young woman, she is described by Pindar, for example, as a uparu. She has beautiful cheeks. Ovid says she's incredibly beautiful. And the most beautiful thing about her is her hair. And then she's sexually assaulted by Poseidon, raped in a temple. In one version of her story, they have a consensual encounter. But in almost every version, he rapes her. And the punishment for that is that she is a note that the punishment is meted out to the victim and not the rapist, of course, is that she is given the

snakeish hair. And so she's turned into a monster. So she's literally the first monstered rape survivor. And once I looked at her in that light, I knew I owed her a novel. I wrote a chapter about her in a nonfiction book called Pandora's Jar a few years ago. And I was still so angry for her when I'd finished it and hurt for her that all these, you know, that she gets turned into a monster. She gets assaulted, turned into a monster. And then we only think of her as a monster. I was like, I owe this person a book. I want to kind of put Medusa now into the modern age and how she's been depicted in popular culture, arts, movies, and how that has changed over the years. Yeah, I mean, it is really interesting that she starts out essentially in ancient art, she's monstrous, or at least

grotesque, as I say, there's a protective element. But then in the fifth century BCE, there's this process of beautification, where monsters that had been very scary start to look like very beautiful women oddly enough and then as Christian art essentially takes over what you get is she becomes scarier again so if you were to look at I don't know Caravavaggio as a painting or Canova, I guess, or Cellini as sculptures. You get a much scarier version of her. But then we have this little glitch with the Ray Harryhausen version, which is properly monstrous, the stop-motion animation version. And there's a little homage to that version in the Lego movie.

Lego Medusa has a lovely snaky tail, just like that version. But generally, she is sexualized. Surprise! You're welcome. So she tends to be Uma Thurman plays her in one movie, for example, in the Percy Jackson film. Don't toss me the end of the title because it's too long. And I can only remember Homer at that length, as you know. But also Rihanna was styled by Damien Hirst on the cover of GQ magazine as an extremely sexy Medusa with kind of snake contact lenses and everything. It's like, oh, OK, so this idea that... It's really interesting because if you try to find a gender-switched version of the story, like Judith and Holofernes, where Judith beheads Holofernes, there is no sense of sexuality in it at all. Nobody is sexy in that version of it.

Look at the Artemisia Gentileschi painting of it. Not sexy. But then when you look at a story where a man decapitates a woman, there is for sure a sense of sexual subtext in this scary, sexy monster lady. There are times in your writing when I feel like I can almost hear you talking to me as if we're sat around a table having a cup of tea. Oh, that's because I've moved into your house, did I not say? And there is one line, the idea that Perseus is a hero is one I have taken exception to since I can't even tell you how long it is, as long as I've known his name. He's arrogant and he's spoiled.

It sounds like you have Medusa's back throughout. I do have her back. Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of a, I'm hopelessly lovelorn when I write. So I love everybody. I even love Perseus when I'm writing him him because I think if I don't you won't you know I have to in that moment even when someone's doing something terrible I have to be inside their mind and on their side because I don't think many people go through life thinking how can I be awful yeah I think what's the best thing but experiencing what your protagonists

feel is important it is even in your writing you had long COVID at the time yeah I was pretty ill actually yeah no I was pretty ill for quite a long time had really really crippling migraines all the pain in this book is mine it's so melodramatic but yeah i mean i wanted to write the scene where uh zeus famously gives birth to that sounds weird but you know what i mean produces athene fully formed from his head and it's like well I've had a really bad migraine for 26 days now so I think I can write this, come on. So yeah no the physical pain I'm afraid is all me although I was really cold with long Covid and obviously everybody in my book is somewhere really warm. Oh she's good at making us smile isn't she? That was Natalie Haynes. That's all from me today, thank you for listening. And don't forget to join Emma next Tuesday at 10.

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's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth.

How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.