Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman's Hour: Loan Sharks, Menopause and ADHD, Bra fitting

Episode Date: May 16, 2026

Women are being forced to turn to loan sharks due to a "hidden" but devastating form of economic abuse, according to new research. Scottish Women's Aid has published a study on the problem of coerced debt – where an abusive current or ex-partner builds up debt in their victim's name, either without consent or knowledge or through force, threat or coercion. Anita Rani is joined by Dr Jenn Glinski, author of the report and the national policy lead for economic abuse at Scottish Women's Aid, to talk about the report findings.Menopause can be challenging for many women, but for those with ADHD, the experience can often feel like life is completely unravelling. For some women in their 40s, 50s and 60s it can also be the first time they realise they may have ADHD, as fluctuating hormones amplify their challenges with sleep, mood, attention and overwhelm. GP and Menopause expert Dr Helen Wall joined Anita to talk about her new book Menopause and ADHD, which aims to debunk some of the myths and support women navigating the combination.A new medical device to assist at birth is now in use in eight NHS trusts in the UK and 40 hospitals in the whole of Europe. The OdonAssist can replace forceps in many situations and is a much gentler way to deliver a baby which is stuck in the birth canal. NHS Specialist registrar Dr Emily Hotton has worked on the UK clinical trials. She describes how the device works and why it can give a much better outcome for both mothers and babies.M&S has announced that following a successful trial they are ditching the measuring tape for bra fittings. Other underwear retailers have done this for years, but how does it work fitting a bra by eye? Joanna Wakefield-Scurr, Professor of Biomechanics at Portsmouth University, and virtual bra fitter Katie Weir join Nuala McGovern to discuss. Canwen Xu was born in China and moved to the US when she was two years old. She grew up in predominately white areas – North and South Dakota and Idaho. When she was 18 she gave a TEDx talk, titled, I Am Not Your Asian Stereotype, which has been watched more than 3.7 million times. Canwen joins Anita to discuss her debut novel - Boring Asian Female – and its themes of identity, ambition, failure, and obsession.Love it or dread it, flat-pack furniture tests us all. But for Hayley McAuley from Wigan, it’s a sport - she’s just defended her title as Flatpack World Champion and tells Anita about the win.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Dianne McGregor

Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Hello and welcome to the programme. Coming up, we hear about an innovation in childbirth delivery that's come from an Argentinian car mechanic looking at a loose cork in an empty wine bottle. We'll hear how it works. Navigating menopause can be tough. Add ADHD into the mix and it can feel like a complete unraveling, especially if you don't yet know your neurodivergent.

Dr Helen Wall, a GP and menopause expert, has written a book to support women through this. We'll hear more from her. Boring, Asian, female. Of course I'm not talking about me. It's the title of Canwen's shoe's debut novel. We'll hear what's behind it. Now, are you wearing the right bra?

Stay tuned. You'll be finding out how to tell if your bra really fits. And for anyone who's ever lost a screw and their temper trying to assemble flat-packed furniture, we bring you flat-pack world champion Haley Macaulay. But first, women are being forced to turn to loan sharks due to a hidden but devastating form of economic abuse according to new research.

Scottish Women's Aid has published a study on the problem of coerced debt where an abusive current or ex-partner builds up debt in their victim's name, either without consent or knowledge or through force, threat or coercion. Dr Jen Glensky, author of the report and the National Policy Lead for Economic Abuse at Scottish Women's Aid, told me about the findings. What we found is that there is a truly quite significant hidden crisis of coerced debt among survivors of domestic abuse, in particular coerced debt trapping women and children in abusive relationships, but also meaning that they need to return to an abusive partner after physically separating because of the level of debt. In addition to that, we found that systems simply are not.

not set up right now to support survivors through this and that are actually exacerbating the issue when women do reach out to look for support with the coerced debt. Before we find out and get into an integrity of exactly what coerced debt is, I mean, your report is believed to be the first focused insight into the problem in Scotland. It's revealed a small but significant number of women. So why are you so concerned when the numbers don't seem to be that large? Well, I think the small but significant number was in regards to the, illegal money lending. I believe that's what you're referring to. So the illegal money lending,

we did have a small amount of women say that they turned to illegal money lenders and others who also said that their abusive partner left them with coerced debt from illegal money lenders. The scale of women experiencing economic abuse and coerced out with that is actually quite significant. So our research didn't do a scale-wide research. What we do have is reports from places such as surviving economic abuse that have found that $4.2 million. women in the UK have experienced economic abuse in the last year. In addition to that, we also have other pieces of research, which point to the fact that 1.6 million UK adults have experienced coerced debt. Now, this is all, you know, survey data that people obviously present to in order to

answer those questions. But as with any form of domestic abuse, the numbers are usually much higher than what we have on record because people are reluctant to disclose, especially around things such as debt, which still carries a lot of stigma and shame as well as illegal money lending as well. Yeah, your report describes this as a hidden form of economic abuse. So why has it been so difficult to identify it? So there's multiple reasons for that. Oftentimes women who are survivors simply don't consider what's happening with their finances or with the debt as a form of domestic abuse. And that's not uncommon. We find that with other forms of domestic abuse as well, sometimes survivors do not identify it as a form of abuse. Usually that's when

they reach out to professionals when they're looking to perhaps separate or look for support with the abuse that they're experiencing where the professionals kind of give them that language and the support that they're looking for and that's when it becomes more apparent that what they're experiencing is a form of domestic abuse. The pitfall with economic abuse and coarse debt in particular and the report shows this very strongly is that with these particular forms of domestic abuse professionals are also not recognizing it. So professionals will look for issues around safeguarding, around physical violence, sexual violence, safeguarding children, but rarely do questions about money and economic resources get asked of survivors,

which means that the professionals that they're often seeking support from also do not see this as a form of abuse. So can you explain for our listeners in more detail what we mean by coerced debt? Absolutely. So coerced debt involves an abusive partner or an abusive ex-partner, building up debt in your name, either without consent or without your knowledge, or through things such as force, threat, or coercion. So what we hear is a lot of women who do not know that debt has been built up in their name by their partner, or even, as I say, by their ex-partner, they usually find out at the point of separation

that there's things like credit cards debts, loans that have been taken out in their names. And one of the things that the report has shown quite clearly is around public debts, in particular council tax arrears. And why are women in particular being pushed towards loan sharks in this form of abuse? The report suggests two forms of being pushed towards it. One, when women do reach out for support around finances, very little is available to them. As I've said, professionals don't always recognize this as a form of abuse. There are emergency grants, but those are limited to who can apply to them as well.

So what the women in the report have said is the fact that they are pushed towards loan sharks when there are simply no other financial options left. Things like economic abuse and coercive that leave your credit rating and your credit file damaged, it means you have no access to further borrowing. Oftentimes through coercive control, women are isolated from family and friends. So that route to perhaps borrowing money

or having your parents help you out, for example, is also no longer available. So when you are faced with, I don't have a tin of beans in the cupboard and you cannot feed your children because you've left that relationship, you have no access to finances, and you have coerced debts that you're paying. That's when usually we see illegal money lending come in. The second option that the report shows is that women are actually being left with

coerced debt from loan sharks through the abusive partner. So this is where the abusive partner has made use of illegal money lenders and then has left the relationship or cannot be located by that illegal lender. And it means they come after the women for repayment. And that's an additional layer of fear, threat and, well, physical violence as well. Well, yeah, and which leads me on to, you know, what can be the long-term consequences of survivors who are left dealing with debt that wasn't their choice? Absolutely. So we're seeing a lot of consequences. As I've already mentioned, credit files being damaged, which means there's no further lending available to women who are often looking to rebuild their lives and rebuild their children's lives but have no access to

finances to do so. What we're seeing in terms of the long term, and this is reflected by many of the survivors I spoke to is long-term persistent poverty and financial insecurity. And that also means child poverty. This is women who are not able to provide for their children because of a lack of access to money, coerced debt that is not theirs, and future payments that they need to make. So, you know, Scottish government is very set on tackling child poverty, but perhaps not looking at this. We're also seeing an increased risk of homelessness and of destitution.

And then we're also looking at health implications such, chronic stress, anxiety, mental health. Those are sort of the ones that people speak to the most often. However, we know that there's other consequences as well. In a statement to the media, the Scottish government said it was committed to tackling violence against women and girls in all its form and has invested £21.6 million this year through its delivering a quality safe fund. And a spokesperson said in December 2025, we announced funding for the launch of a new

national helpline, the Purple Phone, run by financially included to help women experiencing economic or financial abuse by their partner. And the Scottish government has committed to support this work until March 2028. This is alongside support for women and their children to leave an abusive partner through the Fund to Leave initiative. Two million pounds has been allocated to it. And in 26 to 27, which could help up to 2,400 women in Scotland. What needs to change to protect victims and to prevent this from happening? Yeah, we absolutely welcome all the efforts that the Scottish government has made.

We run a very successful fund to leave as well, which provides emergency funding to survivors and their children. However, what we're seeing is that we need prevention and we need early identification, and that's with all forms of domestic abuse. When it comes to economic abuse in particular, what we need is a sustained national awareness campaign of what economic abuse is and what coerced it is. As I said, survivors are not identifying it as it occurs. and we're seeing professionals as well across the board who are not identifying it.

What we're then also running into is the fact that when it is identified, there are very, very few places where you can go to resolve this. So we very much welcome places like financially included and the Purple Phone, who is the first helpline in Scotland, that can support victim survivors with the coerced debt. However, they seem, and other places seem to be hitting a wall when they look to support. And oftentimes there's nothing we can do about this debt. And that needs to change. We also need practical, legal and financial support to address coerced debt.

And that simply isn't in place right now. And in places where it is, it's incredibly inconsistent or people simply don't know about it. Dr. Jen Nikglinsky there. And if you have been affected by anything you've heard in this interview, then you can go to the BBC Action Line website where you'll find links to support. Now, for decades, the tools used to assist women in labour have barely changed. Foreps have been around in one form of. or another for hundreds of years.

You might also be familiar with the Vontuse. That's a sort of vacuum cap that can be used to help deliver babies, what they call operative vaginal deliveries. But there's a new medical device that's being introduced and is in use in eight NHS trusts. It's called the Odon Assist and is designed to cause less trauma to babies and women giving birth. While Nula spoke to Charlie Fuller, vice president of the company behind the device,

Newborn Health Innovations and Dr Emily Houghton, an NHS obstetrician based in South Wales, who's been involved in the clinical trials of the device. She explained how it worked. It's a completely new way of delivering babies, and it works through a soft air cuff that we sit the whole way around the baby's head. And that air cuff is designed to be more gentle for babies to cause less trauma to the baby, unlike the devices that we use already. And then that air cuff is what the operators use to help guide the baby's,

through the birth canal because it's attached to some handles that we use to help control the delivery. But the device is made to be kind of used by birth attendants around the world and for women to help be active in their birth and support it with pushing. It's so interesting and we'll get a little bit more into it and why it's so important. But Charlie, I want to come to you for a moment because many women who are listening who have gone through a birth that was assisted in this way with the vontuz, a vacuum, or the foreseps, which is very common, of course. You got involved after experiencing a four-seps birth

with your daughter, Edie, who's now nine, and it really left an impression on you. Yes, absolutely. So my daughter, Edie, she was delivered after a failed four-seps attempt, actually, and it went to an emergency C-section. When she was born, she had significant bruising to her face. The foreps were actually misplaced, so they went over her face. face as opposed to the side. And as a result of that, she really struggled to feed, which was quite

heartbreaking for me at the time. I desperately wanted to breastfeed. And because her mouth was so incredibly bruised and sore, she really struggled. She also developed jaundice. So the bruising caused a spike in bilirubin in her blood. So we ended up staying in hospital for longer. Well, I mean, there's a lot there. And you're talking about your daughter. and she's well now and she has recovered completely, which is lovely to hear. But it can also, Emily, be an issue for women that they can be harmed by foreseps. Yeah, the problem with the devices we have is they are lifesaving, but they all come with risks. So when we are offering assistance at the end of labour through a vaginal birth,

it is because we feel that is the safest thing for mum and baby, but we appreciate that the devices and the tools we have available to us come with some risks to women. And it is mad if you think how medicine has changed. Yes. It's in 1950s. This is the first innovation in childbirth since the 1950s. And you think about the kind of lack of representation of women's health and research and innovation. It's mad that we haven't looked at this before.

And it's a hard thing to do. But if we can make something that is safer for mum, safer for babies, that women want an alternative. And we know and we've researched that. And we know that women are happy and really willing to kind of support investment. into a new device, that we need to do it as the clinicians and the multi-professional team supporting birth is our duty to do this. We need to describe it a little bit more, I think.

Let me see. As the novice, how would I describe it? Almost like a giant tampon applicator, but with a plastic bag on the end of it. Yes. That inflates. Yeah. So essentially there's a kind of, I guess, an insertor that goes into the vagina. And then the aim is to then that apply, I kind of, I guess, we call it.

an air cuff, but I guess a rubber ring. A soft plastic ring that sits around the baby's head. And we apply that into the right position. And that enables us to then guide the baby and support the kind of natural way that a baby will come through the birth canal. And we can support that naturally with the device. And the device enables us to do that. There's a part of this story that I was fascinated by. You've been working on this for 10 years now, Emily. And you wanted women to test this. Tell me about how that came about. Because many people, I would have imagined would have says, no, I'm not going to be the first to use it. Yeah.

The backstory is quite amazing. The concept came up from an Argentine in car mechanic. And the WHO, the World Health Organisation, came involved to develop the device. And it came to a point that we were ready to trial it and test it in women. Because we have to prove it. You know, it is all in good having simulation work. And Southmead Hospital in Bristol were approached and asked if they could support the simulation development. and when we kind of produce that suite of work,

then Southmead Hospital was asked, can you do the first trial? And we spent a lot of time listening to women. So listening to the women, listening to the public about this is our idea for a trial, this is what we want to do, what do you think, what is important to you, what is important that we look at. And using an amazing team of researchers, engineers, midwives, obstetricians, everyone, we approached our women and said, if you need an instrumental birth or a sister vaginal birth at the end of your labour,

and we don't know who you are, but if it is you, would you be happy to use this device that's never been trialled before in women who need assistance? And because we had very good education and very good information for women, and they'd been designing it along the way with us, we had a 78% consent rate. Quite something.

It was more than we hope for. Women want to be heard and they want to be involved in improvement and innovation. I think that was an overwhelming feeling that we got. Women changed booking from different hospitals. to come and book at our hospital just in case they need an assistive vaginal birth to be able to be in the trial.

And that is testament to the women of Bristol being brave, us including women the whole way through and making it a collaborative project. Charlie, how widely has it been used at the moment? So the device has been rolled out into five countries so far. There's five countries actively using. In the UK we have eight active sites using a device and a long pipeline of hospitals

who are waiting for the training program to be delivered. What about the cost, Charlie? Yeah, so the device is available on the NHS supply chain. It's £250 per device. I think the questions about cost is really interesting. Maternity is always trying to find cost savings and when we're trying to bring in improvements, a clinician astoundingly really said to me,

you know, I've got colleagues that are bringing in new joint replacements, you know, £3,000 versus £3,200. pounds and no one is questioning that. And yet we're here talking about childbirth and questioning a device that may have, you know, significantly reduced injury to mums and babies. And actually healthy mum, healthy baby going out into the world as a kind of healthy family unit, you know, where does our value lie in that? Yes.

And of course we talk about maturity issues so often on this program as well. Emily, you consented to take part of the trials. Can I hear that right? Yes. Yeah. So the second trial, so the larger trial that we did, assist two, I was pregnant and consented.

I went into labour. I kind of unfortunately needed an emergency cesarean section, so I wasn't eligible to be part of the trial. You can't run a trial and not believe in it. And we've had multiple midwives who were working in the unit who were consented to be in the trials as well. I also read that there's a trial going on in Ethiopia. Yeah.

Who'd like to tell me about that? So the device has always been intended to have global reach and global use. and a small pivotal study in Ethiopia has had midwives using the device in their birth settings so very, very different to the NHS and had phenomenal success rate very, very similar to that of the obstetricians.

It's not published yet, it will come out soon, but it just shows that everything we've been striving for from 10 years ago, from the development at South Medan onwards, has been that this device is to be able to use around the world for all women by all birth attendants, so people who are used to supporting birth. So is that potentially with everything, obstetricians present?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, in Ethiopia, they have an obstetrician that comes for half a day a week to supply maternity. But they do not have the obstetricians

for the population that is there. And in the UK, what do you expect to see, Charlie, if I was speaking to you a couple of years from now? We really hope to see this widely rolled out into clinical practice.

Absolutely, we would love to see midwives using it, the device, and there's a real eagerness to do that. I think the most important thing for us. We're not coming in saying this is the only option available which should replace everything. Actually, what matters to us most is that women have a choice. They have an option

and an option for a gentle alternative to assisted birth. Charlie Fuller and Dr Emily Houghton talking to Nula there. Now, American writer Kamwen Shue was only 18 when she gave a TEDx talk called I'm Not Your Asian Stereotype, which has been watched more than 3.7 million times. Now she's written her debut novel called Boring Asian Female. It's a cracking suspense thriller with themes of ambition, failure, identity and obsession.

Canwin was born in China and moved to the US when she was only two years old. She grew up in predominantly white areas of North and South Dakota and Idaho, and I started by asking her about the main protagonist in her novel, Elizabeth Zhang. Elizabeth is someone who has worked hard her entire life, kind of has a chip on her shoulder, her because she always felt like she was under-recognized or ignored growing up in these places where everyone was different from her. And then when she gets into Columbia, she has this one dream, which is to go to Harvard Law School. And she works so hard to get in. And then she finds out that she didn't get in. And actually someone else in her year, who she sees as vastly inferior to

herself, does get in. And she starts spiraling and becoming obsessed with this rival of her own making Laura and she just kind of does some really unhinged stuff after that. And it's brilliantly written and a real page turner and it will have you gripped. Why is she so obsessed with getting into Harvard Law School? Where does that determination come from? I think it comes from the fact that this is someone who hasn't done a lot of work on themselves and that she has always tied her own identity to external validation and she sees this as the holy grail of finally feeling like she matters in the world and that people will appreciate her and see her for how brilliant she is. So it becomes really a proxy for her self-esteem and self-worth.

She, as you mentioned, goes to Colombia. You also attended Columbia. Yes, I did. There's so many little things that I want to pick up on. One of them is how she observes the other students there who are from more privileged backgrounds. How much does that fuel her ambition, her obsession. For sure. I mean, I think that she feels like she traded in one type of inferiority for another. So there's one line, I think, in the book that's like, when I was in high school, I wasn't cool because I wasn't white. But then when I was in college, I wasn't cool because I wasn't rich. Yeah. So I think that, you know, when I went to Columbia, I also was someone who, you know, I hadn't traveled a lot. Like, I just hadn't been around.

people who were from these extravagantly privileged backgrounds. And they had a certain way of moving in the world that I just wasn't used to, this kind of blind confidence almost. And I think that's also why I set the novel at Columbia. Obviously, it being my debut novel, I wanted to write about something that I felt familiar with. But also, I wanted to really observe all of these different dynamics at play and all of these different people who go to a school like this. She talks about percentiles a lot in terms of how smart and hot people are. For example, she's in the 70th percentile for attractiveness.

But even then, that's within the context of being Asian, not within the context of women generally. And the 99th percentile academically. Explain more. Yeah, well, I always thought percentiles was really interesting because, you know, when you're growing up, you're always being judged by some kind of percentile, whether, implicitly or explicitly. When you try to go to college in the United States, you have to take the SAT. And the first thing that you see next to your score is what percentile you're in. And then when you're applying to college, you have acceptance rates. And that in itself is also

a percentile. Are you in the top five or ten percentile of the applicants that year? So, you know, I wanted to really write a character who took the percentiles extremely to heart in that I don't think she really believes that these type of external markers are a true reflection of how good someone is intrinsically or morally. It's more that she has observed that the world treats people in a different way, places people on a hierarchy in this particular way. And she wants to essentially game the system. And the first step to gaming that system is just understanding where she currently stands and what metrics she's being judged on. Yeah, it's very good. And she's grown up with hardworking ethics instilled in her from her immigrant parents,

armed with impeccable grades. She scores very high academically. And again, percentile. She's in the 99th percentile. So how much pressure is she under? And let's talk about expectations. Yeah. I mean, I think that anyone who maybe comes from an immigrant household knows that there is an expectation to create a

life for yourself than your parents did to basically do better. And that's another one of these expectations that she really took to heart. And it, I think, mirrors some of my own experience where, you know, I felt a lot of pressure to do materially better than my parents. But one area of growth that I felt for myself is sometimes doing better doesn't just mean materially better. Sometimes it means living the life that you want for yourself because ultimately money is a means to happiness, right? So why not just skip directly to the happiness rather than changing the means to the end? And have you tried to explain that to Asian parents? Has anyone had that? No, you know, it's funny because my dad always really wanted me to study computer science when I went to college.

He was like, listen, he was like just at least minor in it. You know, you don't have to major in at least minor in it. So I concentrated in it. Did you even want to study it, though? I mean, like, I think it was like he told me that this was the thing that you need to study, right, to have a stable career and a stable life. So I did concentrate in it. It was very difficult. It was not my thing.

And after I got my book deal two years ago, I called him and I was like, see, Dad, like, you wanted me to study computer science. So my parents are really, really proud of me and they have been so supportive and actually the book is dedicated to them. Yeah, beautiful. I mean, the title is very provocative. Yes, it is. How long did it take? Did you begin with the title? No, you know, I didn't begin with the title, but I remember after writing this passage, I was like, that's the crux of the book, right?

Because it's like boring Asian female. That is how other people perceive Elizabeth. And by making that the title, you're subverting that. in a way that I think is really interesting. Yes, definitely. And you're making people think and bristle or not, depending on your own experience, I suppose. And that paragraph just shows how you can sum up the experience

because it's just not enough for her to be academically exceptional. It's like, and what? You can't get away with it. I mean, there's so many strong themes in the book about identity. And Elizabeth, like you, grew up in North and South Dakota and Idaho. And you gave a TEDx talk. I'm not your Asian stereotype. More than 3.7 million views.

You were only 18 when you did it. How did it come about? I came in actually with a completely different idea that I don't even remember. And when I pitched it to one of the event organizers, she was like, you know, like this isn't really a great topic for you to talk about because you're not really an expert in this. You know, you're 18 year in high school.

What is a topic that you are qualified to talk about And she kind of just threw this out. She was like, you could talk about, you know, being Asian American in like Idaho, which is, you know, there's just not a lot of discourse on that. And this is so strange. But at that moment, I just started crying. And I hate crying in front of people. Like, I absolutely despise it. And it was like all of these memories from my childhood, all of this discomfort that I guess I had been repressing up until that point just really came out.

And then when I went home, I channeled that into my application. and I channeled that into the speech and I think the reason it became popular was that I was telling the truth. And I wasn't trying to say this is how everyone feels, but I was saying this is how I feel. And a lot of people found it relatable. It's really relatable.

You talk about your experience, as you say, as an Asian woman growing up in predominantly white area and the stereotypes that are put on you. There's so many things that I want to pick out, actually. You talk about the model minority. Explain what you meant by that. Yeah, well, the model minority myth really comes from this perception that Asians are the quote unquote good immigrants where they're the hardworking ones and they're the ones who are going to take instructions and do the job well. But then it seems like it's positive, right?

But then you go a layer further and it's like it's actually really dehumanizing because it goes back to this idea of boring Asian female where you're, respected for your work ethic, but you're not respected as a human with your own interests and passions, the things that make you not boring. Yeah, you're just going to get on with it quietly, not rock the boat. Then you talk about being obsessed with the Sims, which is a computer game at a time. Explain what happens with the Sims. Well, again, when I was growing up, I didn't think that hard about my identity. And obviously, I always felt that I was different from the people who were around me because I looked different. And then one thing that I realized when I was writing the speech, now it's more than 10 years ago, is that even when I was creating these fake characters,

you know, in the Sims game, I was making them all white. And I didn't even think about it, right? It just felt like the default that they wouldn't look like me. And now when I was writing this book, I want to write a character who is my identity and she's not, you know, she doesn't have all these similarities with me. I haven't stalked anyone before, but, you know, it is, it is something that I've been working on of changing my default. Yes, I really love that big. So I thought, here I am watching a young woman make a speech at TEDx 10 years ago. And I'm about to talk to her about her book that she's made. Because you've changed it. You've put an Asian woman at the center of, I actually think, I wonder what the reaction would be if you made that speech now.

Oh, gosh. Well, I think now the speech wouldn't resonate the same way because people are are having these conversations. I think something that has happened in the past 10 years is that there have been a lot more conversations about Asian representation and just representation of diverse identities. And throughout those years, you know, I noticed that it's like all of these characters that were coming out.

They were all very likable Asian characters. And that, you know, I'm not saying that this is the be all end all for ending in equity, but it meant a lot to me emotionally just to see people on. screen who looked like me. But then I guess when I was writing this book, I wanted to take that a step further by creating an unlikable Asian character. I mean, it's like, I don't think the first Asian character who enters the zeitguise should be unlikable, but I was like, I think there's enough of them now where I can create someone who is a bit unhinged. People aren't really going to

root for her that much. But she's really interesting and she's definitely not boring. The rather brilliant Kenwin-Shu there talking to me on Thursday's program. Still to come, world flat-pack champion Haley McCauley. And remember that you can enjoy Women's Hour any hour of the day. If you can't join us live at 10 a.m. during the week, just subscribe to the daily podcast. It's free via BBC sounds. Now, navigating menopause can be a challenge for many women,

but for those with ADHD, the experience can often feel like life is completely unraveling. For some women in their 40s, 50s and 60s, it can also be the first time they even realize they may have ADHD, as fluctuating hormones turn up the volume on issues with sleep, mood, attention and overwhelm. Well, GP and menopause expert, Dr. Helen Wall, who runs a menopause clinic, is exploring this in her new book, Menopause and ADHD, how to navigate hormone flux and neurodivergence. I started by asking her what women have been telling her and what she's noticed when menopause and ADHD.

collide. Well, many, many women that I see are not diagnosed with ADHD and this is not about trying to get every woman diagnosed with ADHD. It's about looking at the women who are completely and utterly burnt out and unravelling at this point in life. Many of them come and they, it's more than just perimenopause or menopause. We know that women in perimenopause and menopause can have brain fog, can struggle with memory, can struggle with functioning like they did before with their self-esteem and their emotional regulation. But some of the women I was seeing had had this repeatedly throughout their lives. This was not a perimenopause menopause issue.

This was an unmasking almost of issues that had just gone under the radar slightly for periods of their life before. How can you tell which is which? Because as you said, there's an overlap, isn't there, a symptoms? Yeah, there's a huge overlap and it makes it really difficult. And I get asked this question a lot. For me it's about listening to the woman about what's gone before perimenopause. So most of the women I see who are in this space, they say things like,

I've always felt like things have been more difficult for me. I've just never really known why. I've always had to work really hard just to stand still. My emotional regulation has always been tricky or difficult. It's impacted relationships. It's impacted work. It's impacted jobs, you know. And if you really listen to the women,

this is not just something that happens in perimenopause, but it has often been very much hidden because women are great at masking and we're great at getting on with things. Can we talk about how it presents differently in men and women, if at all it does? So how, and obviously, in women in particular. So I think we have to be really clear that these are generalisations.

You know, this can happen in any way, shape or form to boys or girls, men or women. But the classic ADHD perspective is someone who's quite disruptive, a child who might be disrupted in the classroom, having meltdowns, struggling to get on in society. And I think that's still carried in quite a lot of my colleagues in medicine, that ADHD is a boy problem, it's a hyperactive problem. We know that in girls, this is not always the case. In fact, girls much more likely to present with hidden symptoms, if you like, they're more likely to have inattention, so struggling to focus, to task orientate, to move between one task

to another, to get started on a task. They're also often very likely to have some form of emotional regulation difficulty or difference, as I prefer to call it, to those who have a neurotypical brain. And we know that there are key things in the brain, key structural differences in the brain, key differences in how chemical messengers move and process information in the brain, that makes that happen. So this is not just a trend. We've got actual scientific evidence for this. The other issue with girls is that they become very good at fitting into society from a young age. So it's almost like societally accepted that boys will perhaps climb on things and be more disruptive. But girls are very often told to sit down, be quiet, read a book.

You know, people please. So a lot of the women I've seen have grown up being people pleasers, perfectionists, overcompensating, wanting to do the best, flying high. Many of them have had great careers. They've been very successful in every way, shape or form. So that's another myth, I think, that is quite florid amongst the medical community. That to have ADHD, you have to have had a disruptive life. Some of the most successful women I've met have run really successful businesses, had great jobs, had, you know, juggled many, many things.

So what happens then during menopause and you use the word masking, which we have talked about on women. sour before but I think just to remind people like this what happens with this unraveling as I described it so because women's symptoms are often internalised they're you know they're running a script in their head they're trying to overcompensate just to stand still often it's not seen so we call that masking and it's what I like to refer to as the scaffolding that women put in they put in coping strategies because that's what women are good at doing and they go through

life with this and things might feel more difficult but they manage and then what happens is we get to a period of their life where they have hormonal flux. So the hormones start to change. And I think we're really, really bad in medicine at talking about the effect of women's sex hormones on our female brain. It's something I'm very, very passionate about. We talk about sex hormones in terms of periods, reproduction, fertility. How often do we talk about the fact that our sex hormones hugely impact our brain? And I'll tell you why they impact the brain. They impact the chemical messengers in our brain. So we have, chemical messengers, we've got dopamine, we've got serotonin,

adrenaline, gabber, glutamate, you know, there's all sorts of messengers there. And in somebody with ADHD, we already know that the dopamine signaling pathways are different. And we used to say people with ADHD don't have enough dopamine. I think that's quite outdated now. What we know now is they do have dopamine, but the receptors might not receive the dopamine in the brain or they might not fire it out at the right times, etc. So effectively it looks like a lack of dopamine. And they

have a difficulty in signaling of all the other chemical messengers as well, a difference in that. So in perimenopause, when our hormones become very erratic, and that's what happens in perimenopause, your estrogen and progester levels, they rise and fall. It's very unpredictable. The brain doesn't know from one minute to the next often what's going to happen. Estrogen is needed to stabilise those chemical messengers and help boost, in the simplest terms, the chemical messengers. So when that starts to go peatong in menopause, and it doesn't just happen in menopause or perimenopause, it can happen after you've had a baby, it can happen in pregnancy, it can happen in puberty. You know, at any time of hormonal flux, my book talks about the science

behind what happens to the brain. Yeah. And that's what happens. Those chemical pathways go AWOL. What role can HRT play? So HRT can play, you know, a great role in stabilising our hormones. And it's the number one option for menopause in any of the guidelines, whether you're looking at the American guidelines or British guidelines. And of course, some women choose not to take it. But absolutely, I was just going to say some women can't have HRT. Some women choose not to have HRT, absolutely fine. It can stabilise those fluctuations that you're having.

So if you're somebody who's had ADHD or your life, as you will have had, but you hit perimenopause and then everything just becomes so much harder, HRT can help to almost reverse that back a little bit. But it's worth saying that women with neurodivergence often have difficulties differences again in how they process hormones so it can be even more challenging. If you remember to take them in the first place. If you remember to take them.

Like just describe like when you've got menopause happening, your hormones are everywhere, you're possibly realizing, or how do you realize, you know, whether it's burnout or just your hormones fluctuating or ADHD? Or ADHD. And how can women feel in those moments? The women with ADHD.

Yeah. many of the women, and I get contacted a lot on my social media from women who are really, really struggling with this, as well as the women I see in practice. And they just feel totally burnt out. You know, it's just complete and utter overwhelm. And we know that ADHD brains are very, very capable of becoming overwhelmed because of the differences in the chemical messengers and the structural differences in the brain. They just completely burn out. And that means they struggle to work.

They struggle to maintain relationships. And it's really, really sad to see. We've got a couple of messages coming in. I'm keen to kind of read them out. One of them is actually a question for you. I was recently diagnosed with ADHD at 53 after a complete exec function breakdown. My brain effectively blue screened. My career trajectory has suffered. Can you suggest strategies to rebuild confidence to enable me to move forward? I fear future crashes. And also we've talked about HRT. I guess I'm keen to understand what else you can do in your life that can help you cope, if you, particularly if you don't want to take HRT or you don't. Absolutely, and I think it's a really great question, and my book focuses a lot on other things you can do. It's not all about medication. As we've already said, some women can't or don't want to take HRT.

Women might go for stimulant medication with ADHD, but that is incredibly hard to access in the NHS currently. If you can get a diagnosis in the first place, there's several layers to this. So there's one about just making sure that you are making yourself the best version of yourself, which is really hard to do with ADHD, perimenopause but you know eating well my book talks about making sure you get

omega 3 they're sort of fatty acids which are really good at protecting the brain and the nervous system reducing inflammation vitamin D calcium you know there's all sorts of strategies in there for how you can eat well I think the gut microbiome can also play a part you gut health basically and we know that there's

something called the estroboloom now which it helps cycle your estrogen so if your gut health's poor and we're giving you HRT it may not work as well. So there's all sorts of layers to that as well. And then my book talks about loads of different practical strategies you can use to get the best from your ADHD brain. You mentioned yourself, you know, this is quite controversial, even with amongst your peers, to be talking about this. And for women, you know, they could be dismissed by their health professionals, sometimes by friends and family. So how can you navigate this space?

That's a huge part of the reason why I wrote the book, because the women I've seen, the women I've heard from are being dismissed on a daily basis and many women are fearful to go and broach this with their GP because they're worried they're going to be told it's nothing and to get on with it and that's something that I'm get very irritated about

the tips from me are to do your research there's a screening questionnaire that you can access freely it's available on the ADHD UK website it's a very crude measure it doesn't mean you have or you haven't got ADHD the ADHD assessment is a three hour long process but writing

it down because I know when you get into your GP, you're going to just forget everything and you're going to probably be a bit panicked. Take someone with you that knows you and think about going back to childhood because if you go in and just say, you know, I've hit perimenopause and my brain doesn't work, then we're going to assume it's hormones. Take it back to childhood. Think about the cost to you of all the masking that you've done because people will think you've been fine, but there's always a cost to pay, you know, the relationships you've lost, the jobs that you haven't got on with the things that have happened, the things that you now are starting to realise from the research that you've done weren't just you being a failure.

GP and Menopause expert Dr Helen Wall there and the author of Menopause and ADHD. Now, Marks and Spencer has announced that following a successful trial, they are ditching the measuring tape for bra fittings. Other underwear retailers have been doing this for years, but how does it work fitting a bra by eye? Well, here to explain the science and practice are very very very very. virtual bra fitter Katie Weir, but first Joanna Wakefield-Skir, professor of biomechanics at Portsmouth University,

who's also a trained bra fitter. What are the benefits of looking as opposed to measuring with a tape measure? For me, it's all about empowering women to understand their bra size, to understand whether a bra fits them appropriately. And so doing that by eye, visibly being able to check key pointers on the bra, empowers women to be able to do that themselves in their own home. So they can look at bras that they've had in their drawer for three years and decide whether it still fits them or not.

Okay. Well, Katie, what are you looking for? What are some of the pointers you're looking for? We're all going to be doing this now when we go home. Absolutely. So the backband of a bra, the underband of a bra, is one of the biggest identifiers as to whether that bra fits you well enough. A lot of women can pull that backband very far away from their body. Now that is a huge sign that your bra is ill-fitting

because what we're looking for is actually a much firmer band. 80% of your bra support comes from that band to lift up your boobs. So we're looking for a firm band. We like to call it a two-finger tension in the bra world. So it should only be able to pull away with two fingers underneath the band less than an inch from your body. And we're also wanting our cups to encapsulate our breast tissue.

So if you're wearing an underwired... The whole breast tissue? Well, yes. We don't want any spillage from the side or the top. Even if it's in fashion. So there's a difference between fabulous cleavage that can still be encapsulated within a cup without it kind of spilling over, popping out. So we want that underband and also that cup to encapsulate the breast.

And that means our underwire actually reaching much further back than a lot of us believe. And a lot of us are finding that our underwires are digging into breast tissue, which is causing that discomfort and that dislike towards underwires. but actually it's because their cup size is far too small. Now another thing that we can all do is pop our fingers underneath our bra strap on our shoulder and see just how high we can pull that. And I bet a lot of you listening will be able to pull it up to her about your ear. And really what we want is, again, that two finger tension.

So just to be able to pull that strap two fingers away from that shoulder. And all of these points are then having that bra anchored to your body. And anchorage is such a huge part of a perfectly fitting bra because it means it's lifting up the bust from the band without having a lot of your weight coming down on your shoulders. A lot of my clients have backache, neckache, poor posture and just very, a lot of discomfort. And they also find that in clothing, their clothes don't fit as well.

And then they find a great fitting bra, which is supporting from the band. And all of a sudden, their backache is kind of disappearing. Right. Lots of messages as I made. I went to M&S for some bras to go on holiday with. I hadn't bought any bras for, quite a while. Picking up what I thought was my size, 34A, I try them on, no success. A fitter asked if I'd like her to help. I'd never had a bra fitting before. She just looked to me and

returned with some bras that fitted beautifully. They were 36B. How on earth I've been squashing the girls into a 34A bra. I've no idea at all. Big shout out to all the bra fitters. They are amazing. So says Jules. But Joanna, let me come to you because I was reading out a ream of sizes that I found on my bras looking, everything from 34B to 304B to 30. D, I think it was. And I was like, how is this possible? Like, there's cross-grading and sister-sizing. What is that?

Why does it matter? Yeah, and I can understand for the consumer why it is quite challenging because the bra industry adopt what we call the cross-grading system. So essentially this means that all the bras that sit on one cross-grade have the same size cup or the same volume of breast tissue. So if I give you an example, if you took a 34D bra into the changing room and the underband was too big, but the cups fitted well, then you would think a 34D, you would think, well, the cups fit well, so I must be a D.

But the band's too tight, so you would think I just need to go down a band. But actually, if you go down a band, the cup volume also goes down a cup size. And so this is what we call cister sizing or the cross-grading. So if you're in that scenario, you've tried on a 34D, for example, and the underband is too big, but the cup fits well. You need to go down a band size, but up a cup size. So you would then, hopefully a 32 double D would be the right size for you. So it is confusing.

And this is the cisterizing process. So it's the sizes either side of what you think might be your size. Those are the ones that you should take into the changing room and try on. Here's another. I'm endlessly frustrated by my 34-FF, 36G size. The expenses, the backache, the lifetime avoidance of impact sports. I'm now breastfeeding my seven-month-old baby, finding nursing bras, a whole new inadequate market.

Can somebody design a supportive nursing sports bra, please? I just want to take my children to park run and show them that mums, can run too. Well, what about that, Joanna? Because my understanding is you fitted sports bras for lionesses, bras for serving soldiers. And I think this woman is going into battle. She might need some help as well. What would you say to her? Yeah. And I'm really pleased that that question has been asked because it's so important that we're providing appropriate support to the breast, particularly for larger breasted women and particularly for women who are nursing. There are actually some nursing sports bras that exist. Whether they work for you, this is the challenge that we have with bras,

that it's all very individual. What works for you might not work for me. It depends on the activity that you're undertaking, depends on your shape, your size. But I just really encourage women to have a look at the market. There's a huge variety of solutions available. But it does take a bit of an effort. You have to really sort of commit the time to having a look at what is out there, but it's really important that you are protecting that breast tissue. So it is, because a lot of people, I think, through the bras during the pandemic and many of them didn't put them back on. Katie, when you're doing fittings by eye, do you ask women to wear a bra or a top or be naked? Or, you know, people might be wondering, because you do virtual bra fittings as well.

Just not everybody wants to be on camera. Absolutely. And the reason for virtual bra fittings is because because there can be a lot of blocks to women making it into a store. Sure. So time poor, also having families, young children, and also the confidence to actually go into a shop. So my virtual bath is you don't even have to leave your sofa or your bedroom. You can do it at home. Now, you keep your bra on.

There is never any need for me to see your actual boobs without a bra. I always want to see how the current bra is fitting you. So what I will be asking you is what size that bra is. How long have you had that bra? We will also do the jiggle, scoop and swoop, which is a way that you put on your bra to ensure that your breast tissue is getting into the cups correctly. And actually quite often you can be given the correct size,

but if you aren't putting your bra on correctly, it will never feel as comfortable as it can. 15 seconds. How do we put our bras off correctly? Okay, so we lean forward, we hold the underwire or the bottom of the bra and we jiggle our boobs in and push that band right up underneath the crease of our breast. We then hold the side of the bra away and reach all the way to the back of our armpit

and we're going to bring that breast tissue into the cup and lift up towards your face and do the same on the other side. The final part is the windscreen wiper where we just touch the top of the breast tissue and go up and out towards our armpit to ensure the breast tissue is clinging onto that top cup. I've been doing it wrong for 40-something years.

It's okay. So many of us have, but now you've found us. Katie Weir and Joanna Wakefield Skir talking to Noola there. Now, what's your approach when it comes to flat pack furniture? Do you love it or absolutely dread it? Are you a go-it-alone type? Or do you rope in your partner or a mate to brace for the inevitable rouse over missing screws and confusing instructions? Or I wouldn't do it like that? Haley McCauley from Wiggin has turned it into an art form.

She's got her own flat-pack business and has just defended her title as Flatpack world champion. I started by asking her what she had to build for the win. The first round, it was building a Billy Buckcase and there were two groups of four in the semi-final. And then in the final it was a two-draw side unit, which last year I built in nine minute 33. Yeah. This year I smashed my record and did it in 820. Have you been practicing in between? Actually no, because since doing that last year, I've only built one side unit the exact same. So no. Amazing. Let's take it back. When did your love of flat packs begin? When did you realise

you had a talent? I've been doing like bits on and off since I was like young. But it was 2023 when I bought a Frida wardrobe and a dressing table would add lots to it. And I put it on my socials when I built it. And then I had a few people say, oh my God, I could do with you. Come at my, man. I've got a set of drawers there I've had in my kitchen for two years. So I thought, well, there could be something here. So I started my business in 2024. And then it's just going from strength to strength at the minute. Brilliant.

Now, flat-packed furniture, assembling. You know, it does have a reputation, can cause arguments. Do you think it's justified? Or do you know what? I can't build with my partner. It goes mad because I won't use the instructions. So come on then, you don't use the instructions. Whilst we've got you, because I, I'm.

I think we should all be able to do a bit of building work if we need to, right? We should all be able to do it. And it's kind of modern living now. And it does stress people out. So give us some tips. Where do we begin? Do you just start? Or is there a technique?

With me, because I've been doing it quite a while now, I just empty the box and get on with it. But if it was someone who was just building, you know, say, obviously, weekends coming and people are doing home improvements, I would suggest just get everything out, make sure all your panels and everything's there. and separate all your screws and just read your instructions carefully and don't do anything until you're 100% certain that that's where it goes

because it could cost you to ask. Yes, so do it all. Read the instructions fully. What if you just cannot read the instructions? Is there a simple, I mean, can we just watch you do it and copy you? Well, I'm in the process of setting up my own YouTube channels. There you go. At the minute, I've not got it yet, but I am going to be doing it

and then I'm going to share it about. Some people are just not really into the flat pack, and it is hard, you know, for some people. So I'm looking at doing it where I simplify the instructions and obviously not 100 miles an hour. Haley, you'd be doing a national service. That would be very, very useful. Do you think women are encouraged to get stuck into DIY?

Well, I want to do this for women. I want to empower more women to do what I do. Very good. What did you win for retaining your title? What do you get, apart from the glory and getting to chat to Woman's Hour? Well, I've got a collection going out. I've got two Golden Allen keys.

Where'd you keep them? Well, I display them on my mirror in my living room, but I'm going for a third of next year. Has there ever been an item where even you've been, no, enough? Or actually two questions. And is it just me or can they come with the wrong screws and not enough? Yeah. They can come with broken panels.

I actually did a shed a couple of weeks ago and the instructions was wrong for the roof. So I was like, I'm looking and I'm thinking, that's not right that. That's definitely not right. Anyway, I went with my gut at the end and I managed to do it, but six hours later and it was finished. Six hours.

Come on, that must have even tested you. Yeah, well, I was on the verge of crying. but I didn't let it beat me. That's it. You persisted and you did it. Even if it did take the world champion six hours. And I bet it's beautiful. A Hayley...

Go on. Sorry, it was over a thousand screws because it was like a metal shed. So yeah. I think I spent an hour, picking them all up. I'm very impressed. Flatpack world champion, Haley, enjoy those golden Alan Keys.

That's it from me. On Monday's program, Nula will be talking to folk musician and singer-songwriter Olivia Cheney. Her song, Dark-Eyed Sailor, featured on the recent box office hit film Wuthering Heights, and she'll be playing that live in the studio for us, along with music from her latest album. And we'll hear about the cultural history of female singing voices and how women have used their voices to defy convention, genre, capitalism, racism and sexism. It could only be Woman's Hour. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hello, it is Danny Robbins here for years now on Uncanny. We have explored real people's potentially paranormal experiences. But one thing that listeners have often asked me is why don't we look at supernatural cases from the past? What you asked and we listened, our new series, Uncanny Cold Cases, takes a deep dive into some of these stories from the most haunted house in England

to the original UFO abduction case. Can we make a deep dive? make sense of these strange stories that have haunted history. Uncanny cold cases. Listen on BBC Sounds.